Pallas

by L. Neil Smith

  Over the next few years, again drawing on Earth-based resources, Altman had tried to launch a series of businesses to compete with and destroy the inventor-entrepreneur. Altman, however, had never understood the workings of free enterprise, and none of his fledgling companies had even made it past the feasibility-study stage. Ironically, Emerson would have welcomed competition, feeling that it would have been just what he needed to keep his managers on their toes.

  In any other legal venue, Altman’s unceasing campaign would have rendered Emerson’s company operations impossible, exactly the way that nuclear fission had been rendered all but impossible in the old United States back in the twentieth century. The Covenant had stopped him short every time, and saddled him with all the costs. Emerson wondered—but only a little—where the man was getting money for lawyers. Maybe he wasn’t any more. Maybe that accounted for this swing to outright violence.

  Perhaps it was cheaper.

  This time, Emerson and Rosalie had entrusted their four youngest children, Mirella, Brody, Teal, and baby Cherry, to the ancient Mrs. Singh. Two of the kids, Henrietta and Gretchen, were in school on Earth, an extremely unpleasant necessity Emerson hoped to do something about someday. Drake was managing company interests in Curringer. And the eldest was somewhere the other side of the line shed, only yards away. They’d stood guard at the pipeline head six days and nights now, almost without sleep. Considering that Altman’s hired guns hadn’t expected opposition, the bastards had taken long enough to work up their courage.

  He heard the whine of the camp’s little caterpillar tractor coming up to speed, as well as painful clanking and grinding sounds of men unfamiliar with machinery trying to get its earth-moving bucket into a position they desired. Once it started forward, the vehicle inevitably tripped one of his wires and betrayed itself in a resulting flash, bobbing over uneven ground, crawling slowly toward him.

  Casually, Emerson satisfied his curiosity, firing at the tractor, hearing the softpoint clank and splatter harmlessly off the tough metal bucket the way the same kind of bullet, fired for recreation, had on the metallic silhouettes he’d played with as a kid.

  In one way, it all seemed so long ago, and in another way it didn’t seem so long ago at all. He could still recall the night when his oldest son was born, the very same night he’d crash-landed in the snow, fought a desperate battle with the hungry wolves, staggered covered with their frozen blood into the White Rose Tattoo, and he and Digger had saved the Covenant—with empty guns.

  He’d awakened at Doc Sheahan’s, knowing instantly where he was and why. She’d warned him on several occasions about the general condition his heart was in, with pointed reference to his habit of working long nights and especially to the cigars he was so fond of. Told that he had to give up every bad habit he loved, he’d retorted, “One quality of life I’ve pursued with absolute consistency is the liberty to do whatever the hell I want. I was always willing to die for that liberty and now you’re saying that’s what I’ve got to do? Well, I was prepared for it all along—now gimme back my goddamned cigar!”

  He hadn’t really lied to himself about those chest pains earlier this evening; he’d just put off thinking about them because there were things tonight that had to be done.

  His first conscious thought was that, if they’d done nothing else right on Pallas, they’d finally combined medical and veterinary practice under the same roof. His second thought was of Rosalie. He’d left her at the Ngu Departure plant almost alone. He tried to sit up. Strong, slender hands pushed him back into the bed.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Emerson Ngu. Better relax and try to sleep. You’ve finally had the attack I warned you about, and you’re damned lucky it wasn’t a bad one.”

  His one eye was wide open now, and he remembered everything. “Let me up, Heidi—I’ve got to talk to my wife!” He’d told her before he left the Pocks that he was going back to Curringer to deal with Altman, and he didn’t want her worrying.

  Doc Sheahan smiled down at him. For some reason, there seemed to be a lot of noise in the hall outside his room, as if a dozen people were gathered there, all arguing with one another. It was funny how he hadn’t noticed until now that her hair had gradually turned as white as the snow piling up outside. She’d been one of those Scandinavian blonds whose hair was very nearly white already.

  Maybe that was it.

  “Any louder,” she stage-whispered, “and you’ll be doing it through the wall, but I’d advise against it. She’s busy now, and I need you to behave so I can get back to her.”

  Emerson gasped, unbelieving. “What the hell are you talking about? She—Rosalie came all the way here, two hundred miles, in that...that mess outside?”

  “She didn’t consult me about it.” Doc Sheahan shook her head. “You’ve been a bad influence on her, Emerson. At least she didn’t try to fly it, like you did. She came in one of those three-wheeled contraptions, in labor—telling me the road was clear because it had been blown clean by hurricane-force winds.”

  “In labor? But it’s only—”

  The doctor smiled tolerantly. “These things happen in their own time, especially on Pallas. Now, will you please settle down and let me get back to her?”

  The racket outside the door had swelled to an angry babble he almost had to shout over. Vaguely, he wondered what was going on. “Can I see her? Can I help?”

  “You can help by not having another heart attack, tonight anyway. And you can see her soon. Like you, I’m afraid she’s in amazingly good shape considering what she’s been through. Personally, I don’t understand these hardy pioneer types. But if she gets a breather, she’d probably like to see you, and believe it or not, current wisdom says that once you’re stabilized it’s better to have you on your feet. For now, I want you to rest until your readings settle down.”

  The noise outside had died abruptly.

  “Okay.” Emerson finally lay back against the pillows, noticing for the first time the plastic tubes sticking out of his arms, connected to a pump because transfusions wouldn’t flow by gravity alone on Pallas. On a table against the wall, some electronic device was counting his heartbeats. “Tell me when—”

  “I will, don’t worry.” She straightened, walked to the door, and left. By reflex, he patted his chest, looking for a cigar, then wondered what they’d done with his clothes.

  The door swung, and Digger stuck his snowy head inside. “You look like secondhand hell, old son. I’m going back to Mrs. Singh’s house to pick up the womenfolk, who insist that babies can’t get born without them. Anything I can bring you?”

  “Yeah—a Senator’s head on a pike.”

  Drake-Tealy laughed. “Funny you should ask. How would the raw materials do, with some disassembly required?” He reached out into the hall, dragged a figure into the room, and pushed it roughly toward a chair. “Now be good, dearie, understand? Or old Digger’ll come back and stuff both your legs up your arse!”

  The figure slumped compliantly into the chair. At the center of several layers of improvised cold-weather clothing, Emerson recognized his old enemy, Gibson Altman.

  Emerson remained silent; it was up to the Senator to say something. Finally: “The clinic’s crowded from wall to wall—it’s the storm, I think—and there wasn’t anyplace else to wait.” He was sullen, apprehensive, as if he expected Emerson to rise from his bed and throttle him. Emerson thought about it, but decided he wasn’t strong enough. Yet. Besides, Rosalie might need a husband tonight.

  “To wait for what?”

  Altman peeled off the first layer, an oversize sportcoat he was wearing over another almost exactly like it. “Maybe she’s your wife, but she’s my granddaughter. Like it or not, that’s my great-grandchild being born in there.”

  “I’ll try hard not to hold it against him—or her.”

  “How very generous of you, Emerson. You can afford it. You won tonight—by brute force.”

  “Let’s not quibble, Gibson.” Emerson tried no
t to get angry. “You were more than willing to try a military coup yourself, backed by a nuclear-armed UN spacefleet, to throw out the Covenant, return to majoritarianism, and force any number of unwelcome changes on Pallatians. Anyway, no one’s ever been able to show me any difference between democracy and brute force. It’s just a majority ganging up on a minority with the minority giving in to avoid getting massacred.”

  He tried to think of something else to talk about, but what could there be between him and this man, except a difference of principle which had driven their enmity for half a century? Apparently Altman had the same problem, because he didn’t argue with Emerson’s analysis.

  Perhaps he secretly agreed with it.

  Perhaps all politicians did.

  It was an odd moment of uneasy peace, the only one they’d had in fifty years. It was probably the only one they’d ever have. Emerson couldn’t see them burying the hatchet and becoming one big happy family. The idea made him sick to his stomach.

  In the end, the two old enemies waited together in silence, broken only by the rhythmic beep of Emerson’s heart monitor, for news of Rosalie’s struggle to bring new life into a world that didn’t seem terribly happy to receive it. Emerson was surprised to find himself dozing off from time to time. He didn’t know what Altman was doing. He didn’t care. Outside, the wind howled and shrieked, sculpting the snow into dunes and, for all he knew, piling more on top of them.

  After what seemed like days, Doc Sheahan came back into the room, examined the monitor, then Emerson, and grinned down at him. She’d ignored the Senator.

  “I’m beginning to think you’re going to live. If you feel like climbing into this four-wheeled contraption, I’ll take you to see Rosalie—and somebody else.”

  Emerson sat up straight. “Let’s go! What about all this?” He waggled a tube-laden arm at her.

  “We’ll get that fastened onto the chair before we move you,” she replied. She glanced over at Altman. “You’re invited, too, although if it were up to me—”

  Altman rose without a word and waited while Emerson was transferred from the bed to the chair. He didn’t offer to help, so Emerson didn’t have to turn him down rudely. Doc Sheahan pushed him through the door, with Altman following, down the hall a few feet to the next room. As the door swung aside, he saw Rosalie.

  An inexpressible joy filled him. He hadn’t known it was possible to be so happy, and he was suddenly afraid—for the first time, really—about damaging his heart. He hardly noticed that Mrs. Singh, Digger, and Miri were crowded into the room, as well.

  “Congratulations, Papa!” Rosalie’s voice was more than a little shaky. She’d had time to wash her face and comb her hair, and she never wore makeup. “It’s a boy!”

  “It’s our baby!” Emerson exclaimed, taking the tiny bundle from her. “Our baby!” His mind had left him somewhere out in the hall and he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “What’s his name?” he asked, feeling stupid as soon as the words were out. He discovered that huge tears were rolling slowly down his face.

  “Funny,” Rosalie told him, pressing a palm to his cheek, “I was going to ask you the same thing!”

  The Stainless Steel Oracle

  The thought of suicide is a great consolation; with its help you can get through many a bad night.

  —Friedrich Nietzsche

  A voice whispered, “Nice try, Dad!”

  William Wilde Ngu—known to friends and family as Billy—flopped down across the sandbags between his father and mother, every bit as curious as they were about the enemy’s latest tactic. The elderly caterpillar tractor, of course, had not fallen over like a metallic silhouette when Emerson had fired.

  Now Emerson unleashed his second major surprise of the evening, grateful he’d thought to bring along the great weapon. It was the only one of its kind on all of Pallas. He’d inherited it regretfully from his old friend and mentor, Digger.

  He remembered the way Pallatians everywhere had been saddened to hear of the death of Raymond Louis Drake-Tealy. It had been followed, almost at once, by that of Mirelle Stein. Only he and Rosalie had ever known the whole truth, and they weren’t talking. Aloysius Brody had died in the asteroid’s first three-wheeled contraption accident and been buried in space, as he had wished, at a solar-escape velocity that would take him to the stars in a few million years. They were all gone now, or going, all the founders, all the pioneers.

  Having practiced with the mighty .416, Emerson didn’t look forward to using it, but was more than confident it would do the job. He also wondered a bit absently whether his insurance would cover the damage he was about to do to his own tractor.

  Or his collarbone.

  As calmly as he could, by feel alone, Emerson lifted the enormous rifle to his shoulder, worked the glassy-smooth bolt upward and backward, forward and down to chamber one of the banana-sized cartridges, and waited quietly for the little earth-moving machine to trip another flare. When it did, he aligned the post-shaped front sight, its square top centered in the ghostly ring of the rear, on that portion of the upraised bucket which he calculated was shielding the driver.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  The big converted Enfield slammed into his shoulder with the force of a heavyweight boxer’s punch. The blast from the front end of the African game rifle momentarily became the only thing he was aware of, the only thing he was capable of being aware of. When his head cleared and he heard the tractor-motor still running, it took considerable courage and determination to reshoulder the weapon—he wasn’t consciously aware of having lowered it—operate the bolt to eject the spent hull and chamber a second round, and fire another shot in the same direction, this time guided only by his memory of the first shot.

  It wasn’t the best or safest technique, he knew, but it worked. This time he heard reverberation as the bullet, almost an ounce of thick copper and alloy-hardened lead, struck the bucket at twice the speed of sound. It was followed by a hideous shredding noise as the tractor’s electric motor, damaged and still running at high speed, began to destroy itself. Above that came the screaming of a man hit by bullet fragments or tractor parts, begging to be rescued by his cohorts.

  Rescue never came. In a few moments, the wounded man fell silent. “Out of the corner of his ear,” as Mrs. Singh would say, Emerson heard Rosalie swapping pistol magazines.

  She’d been shooting more than he’d realized.

  “I think,” she whispered, “that there’s only one more of the sons of bitches out there!”

  Could it be? She’d been shooting a lot more than he’d realized, and apparently so had Billy, which was why the young man had joined them on this side of the sandbag fortress.

  “All right,” Emerson yelled into the darkness, “that’s enough! Throw down your weapons now and give up, or we’ll come and get you like we did your friends!”

  The only answer was the sound of a flying yoke dwindling in the distance. Cautious, Emerson waited a long time before he stood up. Colors had begun to gather on the horizon, signaling the approach of dawn, and it was by the light of this fantastic multicolored display that they searched the camp and found that they were alone.

  “Dad,” Billy told him at last, “I just got off the phone with Mirella, checking on the kids back home. We weren’t the only ones who got hit tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” Rosalie slid close and laid a hand on her son’s arm. Emerson held his breath.

  “Another bunch of thugs attacked Mrs. Singh’s house. They were driven off—you taught us how—but Grandma...”

  “What is it, Will?” demanded Emerson. “Grandma” was Mrs. Singh.

  “She had a stroke or something. They got her to the clinic, but she didn’t make it.”

  “Then neither,” his father declared, “will the Senator!”

  Among the consequences of what he always thought of as the Night of the Wolves, Emerson had finally produced a flying yoke independent of batteries. The tiny fusion reactor at his back
would have taken him through the canopy if he’d soared upward. As it was, it whisked him at high altitude at three hundred miles per hour from the Pocks to the ramshackle slum that was all that remained of the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project. A lifetime of hatred burning inside him made it a shorter flight than it might otherwise have seemed.

  Miles behind him, Billy and Rosalie followed. He knew she was using her own cellular phone to call for help, probably to restrain him, but he didn’t care. He’d lived a long, full life. All he wanted now was blood on his hands.

  There was no one to greet him. His mother had died long ago, and there was only one light burning, in what had been the Senator’s study. Stooping on the house like the bird of prey he’d become, Emerson kicked his feet out and burst through in a shower of glass. Altman jumped up, face ashen with shock and outrage. Emerson could see the old-fashioned communicator on his desk, its screen showing the same man he’d bribed himself, reporting failure of their mission.

  “You one-eyed, slant-eyed bastard!”

  Altman raised his cane and swung it down as hard as he could on Emerson’s head. His feet actually left the ground for an instant with the force of the effort.

  The comparatively younger man was too fast. He dived under the swing, the automatic pistol he carried completely forgotten, his fingers crooked into claws directed straight at his ancient adversary’s throat. He was on the Senator, choking the life out of him, before the cane came down where he’d been.

  Instinctively, Altman dropped the cane and forced his wrists between Emerson’s forearms, breaking the hold. As his enemy’s hands left his throat, however, his own arms sprang wide, leaving him open for the fist, rocketing in, that caught him on the nose and upper lip. Both of them heard the distinct pop! of Emerson’s little finger breaking. Before Altman could quite finish marveling that he was really seeing tiny purple stars, Emerson hit him again.