Birth Of Fire

by Jerry Pournelle

  "Fine. "

  "Garrett, I still don't trust him," Sarge said.

  "Got a better plan?" “No.”

  It turned out to be no trouble at all. The night kitchen staff were used to Hardesty's midnight raids. He'd been running a black market operation in Hellastown, selling food stolen from the school kitchens and splitting with the cooks.

  When we got back we dressed Farr in all my spare clothes and put him in the sack with an oxygen bottle. Then we locked the office door and went through the passageway back to the astronomy section. When we got there, Sarge went through into the dome, and came back a minute later with two prisoners.

  "What is the meaning of this?" She was a gray-haired woman. I'd seen her pictures in the papers, a Nobel Prize winner. Lady Elizabeth Murray. I couldn't remember what she got the prize for, something about the shape of the universe.

  "We need some outside travel gear," Sarge said. He turned to the other astronomer, a young man in his twenties. "You like that telescope out there?" Sarge demanded.

  "Why, yes, of course." He didn't seem very nervous about the situation.

  "What do you think a grenade would do to the mirror?"

  "Good God, you can't be seriousl" the man said.

  "I can be. You go find us some outside gear for these two." He indicated Hardesty and me. "Garrett, you go with him. I'll keep the lady here with us. And if you're not back in five minutes, mister, that eye is going out."

  "I would rather you threatened me," Lady Elizabeth said.

  "Yeah, I thought so," Sarge told her. "Well?"

  "Do as he says, Dereck," Lady Elizabeth said. "I believe he means it."

  "There's a locker room just here," Dereck told me. He led me down the corridor and through a door. "I say, what is this all about?"

  "I'm not sure myself," I told him. "You're in no danger. We just want to get the hell out of here."

  "You're welcome to go. You've cost us a prime night of observation, you know. We're looking for a new planet. Lady Elizabeth knows where it must be, and tonight will be perfect for finding it."

  He opened the door to the locker room. There was a lot of gear hanging on the wall. I grabbed stuff I thought would fit me, then more for Hardesty. "Let's go," I said.

  It took more time to get the cold-weather gear on. We were just getting dressed when we heard alarm bells.

  ELEVEN

  "Into the lock. Quick!" Sarge barked.

  "What about them?" I pointed to our scientist prisoners.

  "Leave 'em. You two want your eye to keep lookin', you better pray we're out before the guards get here. Move!"

  We carried Farr into the air lock. While it was cycling, Sarge reached into the sack and set the regulator to four pounds. That should be enough pure oxygen, if the bottle didn't freeze. It had no heater system like the ones in our suits. We had it inside Farr's jacket to help keep it warm. He was breathing, but we didn't think he could manage for himself.

  The outer door opened and we bolted for the ladder. Technicians looked up from their consoles. We couldn't see expressions through their faceplates, but they must have wondered what the hell we were doing.

  Sarge swarmed up the ladder, then threw down a line. I knotted a cradle around Farr and Sarge hoisted. I waved Hardesty up next. He pushed from below while Sarge pulled. Then I started up after them.

  When we reached the balcony, I thought we were safe. Sarge and Hardesty carried Mr. Farr around to the big gap the telescope looked through, and went on to the outside balcony.

  Then the air-lock door opened and marines swarmed through. They had p-suits and coveralls, but no coldweather gear; they wouldn't be out here long. Without all my extra gear I was feeling the cold myself, despite the exertion of climbing.

  They raised their rifles and orange flashes spurted silently. I drew my pistol and fired back, also in silence. No hits for either side. Then I was through to the outside balcony. By then Sarge had lowered Mr. Farr over the side, and he and Hardesty were busy paying out line. I stopped at the slit where I could cover the ladder.

  Unlike me, the marines had very little target to shoot at. I saved my ammunition until one of them reached the ladder then took very careful aim and shot him off it. Two of his buddies ran over and picked him up. They were brave men. I held my fire; they were no threat to us, and the more tied down taking care of the wounded, the better for me.

  "Okay, kid!" Sarge called. The voice was loud in my helmet radio.

  "Right." I waited a little longer, on the theory that the marines might have been listening. They had been. Three of them rushed the ladder. I shot the leading one and he fell, carrying the two below back to the floor. Something tugged at my right sleeve, and I looked down. There was a big rip in the coveralls and insulation, but the slug had missed me by a good two inches; that foam was thick.

  I fired once more, not caring if I hit anything, and ran around the balcony. They'd be coming up the ladder any moment. It was eighty feet to the ground below. Sarge and Hardesty were running across the badlands, carrying Farr, their helmet lights dancing across the ground.

  No time to go down the rope, I told myself. Eighty feet. Mars gravity is about 40 percent Earth. But it's not the same, there's a squared factor in there. No time to work it out, and the marines couldn't be far behind me.

  I swung over the edge and dropped toward the ground below.

  I worked it out later: I fell for almost three seconds, which seems like forever, and I hit with the same force as if I'd jumped off an eighteen-foot ladder back on Earth.

  It hurt like hell. I hit and went on down, all the way, rolling, letting the thick foam padding absorb most of the force, but I still felt as if my ankles had been rammed up to my knees.

  I could get up, though. It hurt, but I could run. I ran like hell toward the tractor.

  We threw Mr. Farr into the bunk and Sarge climbed in with him. I put Hardesty between Chris Martin and myself in the front seat. Chris had the tractor bouncing across the rocks before we got pressure up in the cab.

  "Nearest tractor air-lock is a good five kilometers from here," Sarge said.

  "The marines didn't have cold-weather gear," I told him. "They've probably gone in by now." I could still feel the cold, despite everything I'd worn. "How is Mr. Farr?"

  "He's alive," Sarge growled. "Chris, get us out into the Basin. They'll never find us out there. Then head cross country for Ice Hill."

  "Right. How'd it go?"

  "Piece of cake." Sarge said.

  They had five prisoners and one repairable tractor at Ice Hill. The other Federation tractor had been dynamited.

  "Nothing to it," Sam Hendrix told us. "Their first warning that we would resist came when the leading tractor ran over ten sticks of 60 percent nitro. We had very little trouble with the second."

  We got Mr. Farr inside. Erica was waiting for me. "Are you all right?"

  "Piece of cake. " It felt good to be able to kiss her. "And you?"

  "Johnny and Ezra stopped at Windhome on the way. We picked up the two marines they left behind. Just as well for them, there was no one to get them and they would have run out of air." She took my hand. "There's a meeting in a few minutes. We're supposed to go. But we have a little time first.. "

  Commander Farr was propped up on a portable cot. Ruth Hendrix didn't want him to talk, but he insisted on having us all meet in the main hall. His voice was weak and his words tended to come out slurred, but he was all business.

  "It's started," he said. "There's no turning back for any of us. Sam, did you get the word out?"

  "Yes. The Rim is boiling mad. Ellsworth sent out three tanks today, but they did not go past Iron Gap. Instead they escorted the police van back, and Ellsworth has been sending messages to Marsport demanding help."

  "Will he get it?"

  Sam shook his head. "I do not think so. Not immediately. Some of our people in the north have begun sabotage raids. The monorail south has been cut in four places. Katrinkadorp is in revolt. T
hey will need their marines up there for a while, I think."

  "Then there's been a general revolt?" Farr demanded.

  "No. Except in Katrinkadorp there is no uprising. Just our people, and sabotage."

  Farr nodded to himself. "Independence. They want a meeting of the leaders. Committees and debates. Is this the proper time?" He sighed deeply. "Well, we've got no choice. We've got to do something to stir up the others."

  There was a long silence. Erica took my hand. We stood, waiting for someone to say something, but no one did.

  "It's too early," Farr muttered. "Everything only half planned. So we make do with what we have. The Rim is ours?"

  "Yes," Sam said. "Solidly, I think. Ellsworth has done our work for us, here. We had doubters, even after the destruction of Windhome, but Mr. Ellsworth has told the Hellas Region Council that he intends to close all the stations and eliminate this rebellion once and for all. One of our people had a bug in the Council Chamber, and we have been broadcasting his speech all day. Yes, we certainly hold the Rim."

  "Then we must defend it, and that means denying Ellsworth knowledge of our movements. Sarge, did you make the observations of the weather satellite?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Where are they?" Farr asked.

  "On a tape back at Windhome, sir."

  "Send for them immediately. We need the ephemeris."

  "Sir." Sarge went off to talk to John Appleby.

  "Who is your best man with explosives?" Farr asked.

  "Campbell, I think," Sam Hendrix said.

  "Put him to work. We need something to knock down the weather satellite. Something to loft rocks into its path. It needn't be fancy."

  "Yes, I think Campbell will have no trouble with that."

  I thought they'd lost their minds. Knock down a satellite? With a homemade interceptor? Michael Hendrix explained it to me later. It wasn't really very difficult at all. We knew exactly where the satellite would be at any moment, and in Mars' low gravity it didn't take a very big sounding rocket to loft a bunch of rocks up the ninety kilometers where the satellite would be. The spy-eye was moving at better than three kilometers a second, and when it ran into a cloud of rock…

  They knocked it out the next day. It didn't fall, of course, but the electronics were knocked to smash. It wouldn't be sending down any pictures of tractors moving around the Rim. And since we held the high ground above the Basin, we could see them coming any time, while they had no idea of what we were doing.

  If the Federation could have got a big force together in the first week of the Revolution, that would have been the end of it; but they couldn't. There aren't any airplanes on Mars. Everything has to move by rail or by tractors, and although we didn't have any large force around Marsport, we had enough to knock out a rail line running unprotected for two thousand kilometers. We had only to deal with the two battalions of Federation troops in Hellas Region, and we had more men than they did. For the moment they could count on company cops to control the town; but the miners were seething, waiting for a spark to set them off, and Ellsworth knew it, so he wanted to keep his troops close to home.

  We intercepted plenty of his messages. He was worried: there'd been no word from Major Bielenson's expedition beyond the return of the two cops who'd had Sarge. If we could swallow a dozen men, maybe we could beat a couple of hundred, too; he wasn't going to risk it until he had reinforcements from Marsport, and Marsport wasn't sending any until they were sure the capital was secure…

  We got through the first week because Ellsworth was no more ready for war than we had been. During the second week he sent a force out, and we had a sharp battle west of Iron Gap: dynamite bombs against tanks and guns. We didn't try to hold ground west of the Gap; instead we made them fight for every meter.

  The contest wasn't as unequal as it sounds. The ground was rugged, with almost no visibility. We had a few captured rifles, and after the first week we had crossbows powered by steel tractor springs. The steel quarrels would penetrate anything except plate armor and had a range almost as good as a rifle: no air, and low gravity.

  We lost four men and two women. They took Chris Martin's station, but they paid for it with eight tanks and crews; and we stopped them at the Gap.

  That night we made harassing raids. It was a nightmare time, with us on foot in the Martian night; but we could live outside, day or night, if we had to. We knew how. They didn't. When they lost more men in our night raid than they had in the battle, they decided they'd had enough for a while, and withdrew back to Chris Martin's place.

  We were holding the Rim, but we knew we couldn't hold it forever; we needed the spark that would set all of Mars afire. And we had to find it before they sent Ellsworth enough troops to roll over us.

  TWELVE

  I didn't see much of Erica after the first week of the rebellion. I was assigned to Sarge's militia company and stationed at Windhome. We were the reserve unit in case Ellsworth tried to force the Gap; the advance group was holding Zeke Terman's station.

  Erica had other duties, and they kept her at Ice Hill despite her protests. She was, they said, too valuable to use as a foot soldier; she knew more about power plant operations than almost anyone else, and when she didn't have power plant duties, they could use her skills as an agronomist. Food production had to be kept up. The mine camps and refineries needed all we could grow.

  Bielenson hadn't had time for systematic destruction of Windhome. He'd blown out the air locks and cracked all the domes, so that everything in the station was dead, but the electronic gear was mostly untouched. I spent my time getting the solar-cell production system back into operation. We needed all the solar cells we could get. We also built fortifications, planted mines in all the approaches, and put out patrols to watch for Feddies. It didn't leave much time for anything else.

  The Skipper sent for me in the third week. He was still at Ice Hill, slowly recovering from the beating he'd got. Ellsworth had supervised that himself. They gave me a few hours with Erica, and even found someone to cover for her duties during that afternoon. Then I was ushered into Sam's study. The comfortable room was now general headquarters for Free Mars-what little there was of it. There were maps on all the walls, and extra communications gear had been moved in. The Skipper was able to sit in a chair, although Ruth Hendrix wouldn't let him stay up for more than a few hours a day.

  Erica insisted on coming in with me. When one of the guards objected, she pushed him aside. "This is still my home, Brent Callahan, and if you think you can keep me out of my father's study, you just try it!"

  "Let her come," Farr called from inside. "Good afternoon, Erica. Garrett. Please sit down. Drink?"

  Erica looked at him suspiciously. "You want something."

  Farr sighed. "Yes, of course I do. Does that mean I can't be civil?"

  "No…"

  "Very well. Please sit down and have a drink with me. Garrett, how do you think the war is going?"

  "Sir? You'd know better than me. We seem to be holding on."

  "Precisely," Farr said. "We seem to be holding on. But only holding on, and that is fatal. Part of Mars can never be independent. We must liberate the entire planet, towns and all, or we must give up.

  I didn't say anything. He was right. Station holders, Rimrats around Hellas, the Afrikaners at Katrinkadorp, and all the other Marsmen like to say we can get along without the towns, but the truth is we need the heavy industry. Mars is just too hostile a place to live without some concentration of industry and power. For that matter, we still need imports from Earth, although not very many, and we could survive without them. Barely.

  "I'd think the miners would join us," I said.

  "They would, if they thought they could win," Commander Farr said. "We have only to give the word and there will be widespread rioting in most of the cities. In the confusion we might seize control. There are very few Federation Marines on Mars, and the company police cannot fight a mass insurrection. Assume we have done that. Then what? W
hat will the Federation Council on Earth do?"

  I shrugged. "Send troops?"

  Farr nodded. "Probably. And worse. Send ships with nuclear weapons. Bomb one of our cities and invite the others to surrender."

  "So why haven't they done that already?" Erica demanded.

  Farr laughed. "It would cost too much, and for what? So far, Free Mars consists of the Rim and Katrinkadorp. The governor in Marsport is hardly likely to exaggerate how serious the situation is. It would be a confession of failure. And as long as we do not cause widespread rebellion, he won't ask for help."

  "Then it's hopeless," I said. "We can't fight what they've got here unless we take the cities, and if we take the cities they'll send something we can't fight at all -"

  "Your appreciation is correct, but the situation is not hopeless. The problem is hardly new. We planned to deal with it, we had to, before we could even contemplate independence. Unfortunately, events caught up with us. We cannot use the original plan. But there is a way."

  "I don't like this," Erica said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You heard me, Mr. Farr. I don't like this. There's no reason why you should be discussin' high policy with Garrett."

  Farr merely nodded. "As you suppose, I need him."

  "For something damned dangerous," Erica said. "Why Garrett?"

  "Ricky!" I said.

  "Don't Ricky me! You've done enough. Mr. Farr, there must be lots of people you can send."

  "Unfortunately, there are not. Garrett has special qualifications for this job -"

  "Crap!" I'd never seen Erica so angry. "What's so damned special about Garrett? Me, I happen to love the guy, but how's he special to you?"

  "I cant tell you. No hint of this must ever get out. Only those going on the mission will know."

  "You can find somebody else! We're going to be married, and Garrett has done enough."

  I had been just about to say the same thing. I really had. Why should I volunteer? But I wasn't going to have my red-headed, blue-eyed sweetheart make a coward out of me in front of the commanding offcer! Even then, I might still have told him to find another boy, but she started talking at the same time I did, and I heard myself say, "I'll do it, Commander. What do you need?"