"Cesar Montero was a great leader," he began. "It is due to his leadership that this colony survived the crash and the plague.
"But Cesar is gone, and we must find a way to survive without him. It is the responsibility of this council to provide the leadership necessary to accomplish that." His expression turned angry. "And we are failing that responsibility.
"These natives, if that is what they are, are the greatest threat to the colony since the plague. Yet, we learned of them over a month ago, and have done nothing but wrangle over it since. The committee we appointed to select volunteers for our Explorer training program has not even met to review the applications. Messer Wen, would you care to explain that?"
Wen suddenly looked trapped. "Why, we…"
Ken waved dismissively. "Never mind, I'm sure you'll have an excuse. You have elected me to lead this Council, and that is exactly what I intend to do. You're all familiar with the old adage that one should lead, follow, or get out of the way. Well, those are the choices every Councilor now faces." He paused. "No. That's wrong. Right now, too many of you are standing in the way, dithering endlessly or actively obstructing the Council. The choices you have now are to lead or follow. If you can do neither, we will move you out of the way. The Council expelled Douglas Ryles, and it has the power, and the responsibility, to remove the dead wood and the incompetent."
"Who do you think you are?" shouted a voice from the other end of the table. "Montero's people got you the chairmanship by trickery, but they didn't make you God. Everyone on this Council is here because they were elected by the colony…"
"Who elected you to lead." Ken interrupted, shaking his head. "Messer Perez, you are one of the people I am counting on to help this colony survive. But can you honestly tell me that you and your committee have aggressively reviewed the applications for pilot training, and are ready to make your recommendations?"
Perez's face reddened. "Well, we…" He paused, and his angry features relaxed into an embarrassed smile. "No, sire, I can't. And I'm sure I could come up with an excuse. But I'll have a list by our next meeting."
Ken nodded, smiling. "I knew we could depend on you. No, I don't think I was elected God, but, like every other Councilor, I was elected to lead, and now I have been elected to lead this Council. I hope you will all help me get the Colony back on the track Cesar Montero started for us." His face relaxed, and his tone softened. "I don't want to threaten you, and I certainly don't want to become some sort of dictator, or to initiate any drastic action. What I want is to keep this colony alive, to do whatever is necessary to ensure its survival. I want this Council to become a team, dedicated to the development of the colony."
Rancorous debate raged for several hours before the meeting could be adjourned. Vlad watched as the Councilors left the room. Three hurried out, red-faced, talking and gesticulating angrily. Two more left more slowly, frowning and talking quietly. The five Councilors known as 'Cesar's team' crowded around Ken, congratulating him and themselves and bubbling over with plans and ideas.
Vlad nudged Ken as Rafael Perez approached the group, and Ken turned to greet him with a smile.
Perez stood stiffly, hands on hips. "Okay," he began, "I guess I needed that boot in the pants. I guess we all did," His body relaxed slightly. "I'll help, Messer Terhoe. But don't expect me to vote a party line. If I think you're wrong, I'll tell you so, and I'll vote that way."
Ken's professional smile turned to a genuine grin. "Ken, please. And I'm glad to hear it. I don't want sycophants and yes-men. I want the support of people with the colony's welfare in mind. People with ideas and drive. I'll welcome your support, Messer Perez."
He stuck out a hand, and Perez shook it with a nod and a smile. "Rafael," he said, "Or Rafe."
By the next meeting, six colonists had been selected for Explorer/contact team training, and four recommended for pilot training. Ken got the Council to authorize the building of a hangar and the unpacking of the aircraft, some twenty-three years after Cesar had first proposed it.
By two months later, all four pilots had been qualified in all three of the aircraft types the ship carried: helicopters, ducted fan flitters, and airships. The pilots had orders not to get out of sight of the colony, so only the area for some thirty klicks around the colony had been surveyed from the air. No 'native' presence had been detected.
What had been detected were signs of metal ores in the low hills five klicks north of the settlement. A team of mixed Scouts and half-trained Explorers was escorting several computer-trained geologists to the area to analyze the possible resources. Ken hoped it might be possible to stop cannibalizing the ship for desperately-needed metals.
After more than twenty-three years, even the colony's small population had nearly exhausted the supplies contained aboard the ship. Only two years ago, the colony's population finally reached the five thousand that had been the ship's original complement. Early on, with only slightly more than a thousand survivors of the crash and plague, the Council had been unwilling to risk any lives by exploring, and had insisted that the colony concentrate on producing food. Over time, this caution had hardened into 'policy', and one of Cesar's major frustrations had been the Council's unwillingness to explore and learn more about their new home.
Ken was making good use of the explorers' discovery of the 'natives' to press for aggressive exploration and development.
They had complete machine shops and limited manufacturing capability stored aboard the ship, and Cesar had succeeded in getting them unpacked and set up. But the Council had flatly refused to send survey parties to explore for raw materials, so the only sources of metals and plas had been the supplies and debris from the ship.
The debris was nearly exhausted now. The colony was actually sending divers into Gouge Lake to recover precious metals long ago submerged. The ship itself had been stripped as far as they dared; they could not afford to endanger the computer or the remaining stores.
Ron Creding wiped sweat from his eyes and looked up enviously as the airship floated serenely by above him. It was the smallest one, of course. Nothing larger was needed to patrol this close to the colony.
Still, he envied its pilot. To have the freedom of the skies!
He started at the stinging slap to his butt. "Stop it!" Elaine Renko laughed. "You can't have all the good jobs in the colony! Besides, if that's Carlos up there, he's sitting up there wishing he were down here! How many times have you heard him wish he could be an Explorer?"
Ron grinned. "Well, maybe he wouldn't envy us so much if he was the one hiking in this heat to escort some rock jocks to a mountain!"
Elaine raised her hand again threateningly, just as a voice said, "Hey! Lovebirds! Save it 'til you get back to the colony. You're supposed to be covering our right flank."
Ron started guiltily and Elaine's face glowed red as she snapped her head to the right.
"Sorry, Chun," Ron replied. Chun Wen commanded the Scouts. He seemed unimpressed by the half-trained Explorers escorting the survey team to what they hoped was a vein of metal a pilot had seen from the airship.
"And that's 'geologist', to you tourists, not 'rock jock'," put in a grinning Francisco Wong.
He was answered by an equally wide grin from Elaine. "And that's 'Explorer' to you tourists," she retorted. "After all this effort, you'd better find something good."
Frank shrugged. "Then explore and find me something good to find."
"Enough!" Chun said. "How about finding that plains rat mound to our left?"
"Old news, sire," Tran Vanh replied. "I didn't report it because we'll miss it by a good thirty meters."
Chun shook his head. "We've found tunnels almost fifty meters from a mound. We'll swing wide."
"Yes, sire," replied a chastened Tran. Ron and Elaine began moving farther to the right, scouting for threats to the main body as they moved farther from the mound.
Chun cursed. He had hoped to make it to the foothills before making camp for the night. But this was the third detour they'd h
ad to make so far, and the mule-powered wagon slowed them to a snail's pace. He really didn't want to have to camp on the plain; there were too many of them, they'd make too much noise, and the high grasses would offer concealment to any predator. Besides, that damned mule was an invitation to a predator. Every wolf lizard within half a mile would be creeping up on them. Not to mention who-knew-what other nasties. For the millionth time he cursed the Council's lack of foresight. By now, they should know every kind of threat within a thousand kilometers. For that matter, they should have known about the natives, or whatever they were, twenty years ago.
Before old Jerson retired, he told Chun that his biggest problem wouldn't be protecting the colony from Wolf lizards or plains rats. "You can plan for known threats, you learn how to handle them," he'd said. "No, the big problem is the one you don't know about yet. Keep pushing the Council to let you explore."
So here they were, creeping across the plain, lasers at the ready, on edge, watching for 'boojums'. "Boojum" was the term Jerson had coined that meant 'unknown threat.' Every Scout had grown heartily sick of being constantly warned to 'watch out for the boojums'. But every Scout had known the old man was right.
Chun sighed. That was no help now. The land they were crossing was covered with Earth-descended grasses that had crowded out the native stuff. For all they knew, that plains rat colony was abandoned; after all, the plains rats couldn't eat the Earth-descended stuff.
Still, they couldn't take the chance. Not when every chance they took was life-or-death. At least the alien vegetation wouldn't appeal to the wolf-lizards, either. Apparently, it gave off a scent or something that the local wildlife didn't much like.
But Chun wasn't willing to bet his life on it. Or anyone else's. So, they crept along, watching for boojums. He eyed the ambling mule with disgust. If they had a tractor, they'd be there by now. He rolled his eyes as he recalled the Council's oft-repeated refrain. "We can't afford to wear out the equipment," the almost-scripted argument went. "Horses and carabao can make more horses and carabao, but tractors can't make more tractors." He sighed.
That hackneyed argument carried a lot of sense, but still…The ship's computer had the specs for every part of every machine they had, and the programs for machining them. And that wagon carried mostly food for the humans and the mule; there was really only one piece of equipment aboard it. The vein of ore, if that was what it was, was past the point covered by Earth-descended vegetation; the only food available would be what was on the wagon. Chun had argued for over an hour, but the Council wouldn't concede that they were past the break-even point, where a tractor would use less 'fuel' than a mule, and enable them to move faster and complete their mission sooner.
He cursed again. If they camped on the plain, they'd have to burn off a camp site. The spray would have no effect on the Earth-descended grasses. That meant stopping early. Live Earth-descended grasses didn't burn as easily as the dead native stuff.
"Chun," Ron asked. "Think we'll make the foothills?" His tone was nervous.
Chun shrugged, suppressing a nod of approval. The kid was learning. "Not if we have to keep making detours."
"Should we speed up our pace?" Ron persisted.
Chun thought. Maybe they could speed up a little. But Chun would have to be on guard to make certain they didn't try to go faster than they could scan ahead. He nodded, and then speeded up his own pace, hurrying to catch up with Denis Chu, walking point.
He caught up with Denis, and began setting a new, slightly faster pace. With both of them on point, Chun felt better about speeding their pace. He really didn't want to camp on the plain!
By the time they reached the hills, the sun was uncomfortably low in the sky. The Earth-descended grasses thinned and slowly disappeared, replaced by rocky slopes punctuated by straggling growths, both Earth- and Crashlanding-descended. They searched frantically for a flat spot for their campsite, and finally had to call in the airship, with its powerful floodlight.
While the airship hovered above them, they hurried to get their camp established. The light was certain to draw every predator within sight of it.
Finally, they had sprayed a nine-meter circle, and placed alarms every two meters around its edge. With a sigh of relief, Chun signaled the airship to shut off its light and resume its patrol. Once their eyes had again adjusted to the darkness, they used night vision goggles to prepare for the night. Ron and Elaine were disappointed when Chun didn't dig a firepit, but he was in command, and even refused to allow them to use flashlights. In the center of the circle, where Ron and Elaine had hoped for a firepit, the mule was staked out, close to the wagon.
"I still don't understand why they didn't just fly us up here and drop us off," Frank complained as he scanned the ground for rocks or Crashlanding plants. "We shouldn't have had to carry all this gear up here."
Chun grinned. "Because you four delicate flowers were only half the mission," he replied. "The other half was to give our six intrepid Explorers a little practical experience. Besides, you needed the exercise."
Frank was shipborn, one of the few children born during the voyage, and one of only nine to survive the crash and the plague. He was also very smart. Growing up, he'd seen the back-breaking work required of the adults to develop a food source independent of the ship's supplies.
At first, he'd worked hard at studying so he could avoid the hard physical labor in the fields, but eventually he'd developed a love of learning that was almost obsessive. Now, he had three computer-awarded 'PhD's', and was becoming recognized as the person most likely to succeed Susan Renko as the colony's foremost scientist.
That wasn't as impressive as it sounded, of course. A colony of even 5,000 could support few 'pure' scientists, if, indeed, there were such a thing. With such a shortage of skills, the lines between 'scientist', 'engineer', 'technician', and even 'craftsman' were becoming blurred.
Angel Koh, for instance, wanted to be an astronomer. He was irritated at having to stop trying to learn how to make and polish lenses to make a telescope, since those aboard the ship had been mounted on the hull, and had been destroyed by the crash. Wen Ho Jackson was equally irritated. He'd been helping Angel with his glass experiments. Wen hoped to create his own lasers to replace the aging tools from the ship, none of which were exactly what he needed to facilitate his study of light.
Michiko Montoya was more content, if rather nervous. The only other woman besides Elaine on the expedition, she'd helped Frank convert a mining laser into a 'core extractor'. They'd mounted the laser on a rotating disk at the bottom of the machine. When the machine was started, the laser's projector head rotated, allowing it to cut a fifteen-cem-diameter cylinder. At least they hoped it would. It had worked fairly well in their tests, but they'd had to rush the extractor to completion for this expedition. They still weren't sure how deep the laser would cut, or even how they would 'break off' their core sample. They'd only finished building it the night before the expedition left. They hadn't had time to test the assembled unit.
Unlike med techs, who could find work in their specialties as soon as the computer certified their 'doctorate', most science in the colony consisted of short periods of research crammed between a seemingly endless stream of computer classes on the design and construction of the equipment that research required, followed by long days in shops making the needed equipment.
Strangely enough, education was a somewhat controversial subject in the colony. The Council had ordered that every child be required to complete at least a secondary-school level education. At that point, the student was considered an adult regardless of his chronological age. With the help of the computer and a battery of aptitude tests, the new graduate decided whether to continue his formal education, or learn a trade, or become a farmer. Frank had been the youngest ever to become an 'adult', completing the curriculum at age 12.
The problem was that there was a period, a 'hole', in the normal breeding pattern. Due to the fact that every woman's shipboard allotment con
tained contraceptives, and uncertainty about the future, there were few children born during the voyage. For some two years after the crash and the plague, the drastically reduced population of women of reproductive age had further depressed the birth rate. It was only after the crèche was established that the birth rate regained, and slightly surpassed, the normal number for a population their size.
Since the vast majority of the survivors were 'drones', this meant that they had dominated colony policy for years beyond the time a new generation should have arisen. It was only Cesar Montero's strength, and his support on the Council, that had forced through the present policy.
Despite the fact that they had been forced by circumstance to learn modern, scientific farming methods, most of the experienced farmers had been peasant farmers on Earth. To them, education was an unimportant luxury for the wealthy. They wanted their children in the fields, learning to farm, not seated comfortably in a classroom. They clung desperately to the 'old ways', despite mounting evidence that the old ways did not fit the current circumstances.
The first of the Planetborns were beginning to make their influence felt, but still, many of the children completing their secondary school curriculum faced heavy pressure from their aging parents to forget this white man's nonsense of 'education', and join them on the farm.
Since the symbiont seemed to be extending the normal lifespan, these attitudes threatened to persist for some time. Meanwhile, the Council, desperate for the development of artisans, technicians and various experts, pulled the new graduates in the opposite direction, urging them to continue their education, to pursue advanced degrees or apprenticehips. As the population and the average educational level grew, the Council was slowly, but perceptibly, winning the battle.
Still, the four scientists on the expedition comprised a large majority of the colony's scientific talent, a fact which contributed greatly to Chun's nervousness. So, his reaction was immediate when he heard the shout, followed by a scream of agony.
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