Pallas

by L. Neil Smith

  She turned and smiled at him as the view shifted back to Polleck at His Master’s Voice.

  “Well, while we’re at it, I’d like to ask Mr. Ngu what’s so bad, really, about a UN scientific body supervising the handling and disposition of Drake-Tealy Objects? Isn’t that the best way to make sure that they’re preserved and studied? Why do Pallatians object to it, to the point that they seem willing to go to war over what amounts to a mere handful of archaeological artifacts?”

  Now it was Emerson’s turn to be nervous, and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether he could force his voice to work. He felt Rosalie’s hand give his a squeeze.

  “Mr. Polleck, I understand that if you weren’t visiting Pallas, you’d leave this broadcast as you do any other night to go home to a farm you own near Fairfax.”

  Polleck grinned, and this time it seemed genuine. “Remind me to borrow your research staff sometime.”

  Emerson grinned back. “If scientific or historical objects were found on that farm—say, remains of a long-lost Indian tribe—under the legislation Altman’s pushing, it’d mean a squad of UN goons would move in on you, take up residence at your expense, watch your every move, search your safe and dresser drawers at regular intervals, and interfere every time you planted or picked a flower in your garden. If they wanted to dig that garden up to find more objects, you’d have no recourse in the matter, and as each object was found, it’d be removed from your property without compensation. If you attempted to interfere, you’d be jailed, possibly killed in the process. I don’t know if you’d be willing to go to war to prevent that. I’ve lived under the thumb of the UN, and I would.”

  Somehow, he’d maintained an even tone throughout, and he even managed a cheerful smile at the end. Right now he wanted one of his cigars more than life itself.

  Polleck shrugged. “But under United States law, not to mention the archaeological statutes of the state of Virginia, isn’t that essentially what happens right now?”

  “It probably is,” Emerson replied. “Which is why we’re living here on Pallas, where a person’s life, liberty, and property—not to mention privacy—belong exclusively to him- or herself, not some gaggle of self-impressed, self-appointed keepers of the public weal.”

  “But what about the scientific and historical—”

  “Excepting Rosalie, I’ve yet to meet an archaeologist or paleontologist who didn’t want a free ride on someone else’s back or gave a damn who he had to have shot to get it. To be fair, I suppose that’s true of scientists and academics in general. The difference here is that they’re not going to get it. If they try, we’ll shoot back.”

  Polleck raised his eyebrows, another famous expression. “Strong words, Mr. Ngu. Your response, Senator?”

  “Thank you, Ned.” Altman shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger, and gazed thoughtfully at the camera. “I’m glad you’ve had a chance to witness for yourself the typical violent and aggressive behavior one has to deal with every day on this backward—”

  Emerson interrupted. “Wait a goddamned minute, Senator. Since when does self-defense constitute aggression?” He hadn’t been able to help himself, and Rosalie had refrained from interfering. It was one of about a million reasons he loved her.

  Polleck took a deep, almost weary-sounding breath, but Emerson was sure the man was getting what he’d wanted all along, a noisy argument. “I suppose Mr. Ngu has asked a fair question, Senator Altman. Do you have an answer for him?”

  “When it selfishly denies the common heritage which is the property right of all humanity as a whole.”

  His adversary had assumed such a self-righteous expression that Emerson wanted to smash in the screen of the TV. “With someone like you acting as the executor of the estate,” he demanded, “keeping the books, holding the whip? Better hope you do a better job than you did with the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project!”

  “Now see here, Emerson Ngu!” Abruptly, Altman seemed to lose control of himself, as well. This made Emerson feel better, and he managed to calm down a little. “I didn’t agree to this interview to be insulted and badgered by conspirators bent on discrediting the Altman Plan and the Antiquities Protection Act!”

  Emerson grinned. “Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean you don’t have enemies, right, Senator?”

  The newsman raised both hands, palms outward to the camera. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, this isn’t Fire/Counterfire on LiteLink, and I don’t think our viewers are interested in a shouting match. Let’s break for a commercial, then we’ll change the subject. I’m Ned Polleck, and this is DarkTalk, a feature of the East American Television Service, coming to you tonight from Pallas.”

  As far as Emerson could tell, nothing changed except that Polleck relaxed slightly and some flunky came to his table to rearrange his hair a trifle. He didn’t speak to the flunky or his guests. After a minute or two had gone by, he straightened in his chair, reintroduced the show, spoke of the unusual circumstances under which it was being produced, and mentioned his three interviewees by name, profession, and the part they were playing in the Drake-Tealy controversy.

  “I interviewed an astrophysicist last week,” he began, “who claims that, due to a change in solar activity, there’s going to be an unusually harsh winter in the northern hemisphere of Earth this year, a brief, cool summer, and then a really terrible winter. You’re considerably further away from the sun on Pallas. How do you think this solar activity will affect you, and what plans have you made?”

  The Senator preempted Emerson and Rosalie. “Clearly, Ned, what’s needed is a comprehensive, worldwide plan which only an organization with broad powers can—”

  Emerson shocked himself by interrupting. “This is the first that anyone around here—and that includes Senator Altman, by the way—has heard of this, and it’ll have to be confirmed before anyone can act intelligently. We’re pretty resourceful on Pallas. If you’ll give me the name of this astrophysicist—”

  “I will, right after the broadcast, Mr. Ngu,” He appeared to turn to Rosalie—some kind of actor’s trick, Emerson realized—although he was still looking at the same camera. “Mrs. Ngu, or should I day, Dr. Frazier, what do you think Pallatians should do to prepare for possibly the worst winter in the asteroid colony’s history?”

  She shrugged, hesitated, and then a grin stole across her face. “Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of it, too. I’ll probably take up knitting, since I’d planned to, anyway.”

  Polleck looked genuinely puzzled. “Knitting?”

  “Sure,” Rosalie responded cheerfully. Emerson wondered what the hell she was up to. “Isn’t that the traditional response of a pioneer woman to the news that she’s going to have a baby?”

  “What?” This from Emerson, who peered closely at his wife, then remembered that five billion people could see him making a complete idiot of himself. His heart was thudding in his chest like that of a schoolboy on his first date.

  Rosalie turned to him. “That’s right. I agreed to this interview as a surprise, to let my dear husband know in a unique way that he and I will be parents in about seven months. This is the first he’s heard of that, too. And I have something else to say, Mr. Polleck, which should finally clear up any charges the Senator has been making about a conflict of interests on my part. The shouting match you referred to was much more than that—it was a family squabble.”

  Polleck had given up. He lifted his hands and rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe I follow you, Dr. Frazier.”

  “Mrs. Ngu,” Rosalie corrected him. “You see, when Emerson becomes a father, the Senator will become a great-grandfather. Neither of them knows—or has until now—that Frazier is the name of my adoptive parents, that of the Senator’s former wife and a new husband her family didn’t approve of and never met, and that I was born right here on Pallas.

  “I’m Gwendolyn Rosalie Altman—Gwen-Rose to those who remember—the orphaned daughter of the Senator’s son Gibson Altman Junior and of Gretchen Singh Alt
man!”

  Solar Winter

  “Winter is icumen in, lhude sing God damn!”

  —Ezra Pound

  “Hey!”

  A bone-numbing wind shrieked, tearing at the flap of canvas where someone had nailed a board to the tent-post and burned words into it with a laser: The Brass Monkey.

  “Shut the door!” three or four voices hollered in unison, barely audible over the wind, and the one who’d just entered obeyed, not before a scattering of snowflakes had entered the tent, a few hissing on the platinum screen of the catalytic stove.

  “Sorry,” Emerson muttered as he pulled his gloves off to hold his hands over the heat. He’d dragged his folded flying yoke in with him, which was why he’d had trouble with the flap, not wanting the batteries to freeze. Someone handed him a coffee mug. Blinded by condensation, he pulled his eyeglasses off and peered into the grinning face of Ned Polleck, almost unrecognizable bundled in makeshift winter clothing and with a week’s growth of sparse, untidy beard.

  “If it gets any worse out there,” Emerson told him, “I’m going to see if Port Amundsen has any spare spacesuits!” Even in the heated, insulated tent, his breath formed a visible cloud before his face. He wanted to light one of his cigars, but in this confined, already-smelly space, it probably wouldn’t have been appreciated.

  “Too late!” Nails Osborn was smug. “I just got off the horn with Fritz Marshall. He’s sending a dozen in the morning. It’s too cold to fly in what most of us are wearing!” The change had caught them unprepared. Pallas had chilly moments in the quiet, moist hours before dawn, but it had never been a place where much warm clothing was necessary. “I don’t think it’s going to get any better for a while!”

  “The last mini-ice age in history,” Polleck observed in his made-for-TV voice, “lasted four generations and killed off an industrial revolution prematurely.”

  Appreciatively sipping hot, black coffee as he shrugged out of a homemade parka, Emerson grinned back at the former newsman—former full-time newsman, anyway—who was now so far away from everything he’d ever known on Earth. For reasons he’d never made clear, Polleck had remained on Pallas following his interview with Altman and the infamous Mr. and Mrs. Ngu. He’d shown up at the Nimrod to publicly sign the Covenant the morning afterward, officially becoming a Pallatian, and had simultaneously resigned as East American Television Service’s star anchorman.

  As the arctic gale outside shook the entire tent, threatening to pick it up and carry it away, Emerson thought backward in time, fondly remembering quite another variety of storm that Polleck’s “defection” had stirred up on two worlds.

  Pallatians in general had accepted him as one of their own, especially after he’d strapped on a pistol, a sort of flourish to the signing, provided by his once and future competition, the bartender-announcer at KCUF. Altman had been livid, declaring it to be the same sort of prearranged stunt he claimed had been perpetrated by Stein and Frazier. Although Polleck’s former employers on Earth had played the story down as much as possible, it had been too good for other networks to pass up.

  The tent flap opened and closed, dropping the inside temperature another twenty degrees, as Tyr May entered and shook snow from his clothing. Emerson had known him to be a quiet, thoughtful man, but he was even more subdued at the moment. Bitter cold, Emerson had observed over the past weeks, affected some people that way.

  Emerson had consulted Polleck’s astrophysicist, and events had proven him correct. Before the year was out, Pallas had found itself in the grip of unprecedentedly miserable weather. For the first time in what seemed a long while, he thought about Cherry. With her usual good luck, she’d picked exactly the right time to leave Pallas. He’d gotten a postcard from her a month ago, from sunny Mexico, where she was directing a movie for the production company she now owned.

  Within the same few months, partly as a result of Polleck’s having sold the Alexandria farm Emerson had asked him about, the Voice of Pallas had competition for the first time in the asteroid’s history. WRCS (Polleck had picked the call letters) was temporarily headquartered at Baldy’s Tonsorial Parlor, on the shore side of Seyfried Road across from the Nimrod. Polleck had begun constructing his own production facilities, with a beautiful view of Lake Selous, on the unused lot between the barbershop and the White Rose Tattoo as fast as weather would permit. By then, people were skating on the lake. Aloysius had wryly suggested they should build the new TV station in a dome shape, out of ice blocks.

  Polleck had done his first broadcast from an old-fashioned leather-and-chrome chair while having his hair trimmed by the grateful proprietor. He was recruiting the rest of his staff by letting anyone try out, on the air, who wanted to. Mrs. Singh had given it a whirl, although she’d complained that the studio lighting hurt her eyes.

  For the most part, perhaps not surprisingly, it was girls from Galena’s and similar establishments—initially during off-duty hours, although a few were said to be thinking about retiring in favor of a media career—who were proving the most competent and popular news readers, talk-show hosts, and weather reporters, a task of increasing importance as the harsh winter set in. Upon learning of this, Aloysius had mumbled something about Frank Sinatra being ahead of his time, but Emerson had never been able to get him to explain the remark.

  However, Nails’s remark about Fritz Marshall and the spacesuits registered at last. “Good work,” Emerson replied to the machinist. “Tell him he can take back an equal number of frozen deer, elk, and antelope carcasses. With all the strikes and boycotts going on Earthside, they’re probably running as low on supplies at both poleports as we are here. Damn, I’m tired of having to euthanize animals because they’re too weak to eat! I came out here to keep them alive!”

  “So we can go back to slaughtering them when it’s over?” Polleck shook his head. “I don’t get it. Isn’t this supposed to be a hunting economy we Pallatians have? And don’t winter kills contribute to our increasingly short rations?”

  “Whenever you can find them before they’ve rotted in the sun like road pizzas,” Nails told him, snorting with disgust. “It still seems to get warm enough for that, thanks to Murphy’s Law. We’re used to managing our game better than that, thank you, and what we have to do out there right now is not hunting.”

  Polleck looked at Emerson, but the latter was too tired to explain things further than Nails had. The struggle for survival on Pallas was a phenomenon its residents hadn’t faced since the bad old days only a handful of elderly people like Brody and Mrs. Singh remembered. It had returned, however, and in earnest, with a series of massive solar fluctuations which, coming at the moment Pallas was furthest from the sun, had dropped the mean temperature of the asteroid several degrees, damaging field and forest, freezing lakes and ponds, and causing heavy snow to fall in Curringer for the first time since Pallas had been terraformed.

  At the moment there were four feet of the unwanted stuff piled up in the town, which was nevertheless much better off, being fusion-powered and located on the shore of a large, weather-ameliorating lake, than most of the rest of the little world. Emerson, Nails, Polleck, and many other Pallatians were airlifting forage to game animals out in the Pocks and weyers, and attempting to rescue human victims of the cold, but their resources had been limited at the outset.

  And wouldn’t last much longer.

  “I killed a man today,” May announced quietly. He ran a cold-reddened hand through his graying hair and shook his head. “Maybe ten or fifteen miles northwest of here, where I was dropping hay to a small herd of mulies. I’d set down to get some of it up under a clump of trees and out of the weather. The sonofabitch was on me before I knew it, with one of those autorifles the goons used to carry at the Project. The poor jerk was probably hungry, maybe a little bit crazy. Hell, I would have fed him, but he never even gave me a chance!”

  Taking a breath, he tapped the holstered Ngu Departure 10 millimeter he carried on his belt. “Thanks, Emerson.” He’d meant i
t without irony, and Emerson knew it.

  Polleck could be heard, muttering to himself in his TV voice, “Frontier justice is swift and final.”

  Emerson shrugged. It was already starting to be an old story: criminals thought to be leftover inmates—and security guards—from the old Project, singly or in small bands, had begun by attempting to loot some of the less-settled, isolated areas of the asteroid almost as soon as the cold weather had set in. So far, for the most part, they’d been disastrously unsuccessful, and many a Pallatian had good reason to be grateful all over again to a young inventor who had, many years earlier, made reliable personal weapons cheap and easily accessible.

  But now, as the weather grew even more unrelenting, these new barbarians were moving toward the centers of population. Mrs. Singh had driven off half a dozen of them herself only the day before yesterday, Emerson had heard, at her home in Curringer, and he’d reluctantly ordered a squad of guards posted at the Ngu Departure plant. Under more ordinary circumstances, he wouldn’t have bothered—these things had a way of taking care of themselves on Pallas—but Rosalie, while not exactly helpless, was nevertheless eight months into a pregnancy which had already proven disturbingly difficult, and a full three-quarters of his factory personnel were out here in the field, trying to help starving refugees of one species or another, because everybody’s future depended on it.

  “If that’s meant for your next broadcast, Ned,” Emerson advised the newsman, too weary to assume a diplomatic tone, “I hope you’ll place it in context for your—”

  “Dozens of faithful viewers?” Polleck finished. “Don’t worry, Emerson, frontier justice, administered at the scene and moment of the crime by the hands of the intended victim, is a selling point to me—I lived in Washington too long for it not to be—and it’s no news to anybody else on this asteroid! “However, there’s something else we’d better talk about, before it goes too far.”