by John Wyndham
‘Under one thousand,’ said the radar man’s voice.
‘They’re lucky - dead lucky. Quite a bit of firm ground round here,’ came Arthur’s voice.
Troon did his best to look all ways at once. The flare behind was still the closest. He edged a little further away from it, and then kept his eyes on the one ahead; that, he calculated, must be that of the key-ship. All three men clung fast to their holds as the platform rocked.
It became barely possible to look at the brilliance. Hanging on with one hand, he raised the other in front of his helmet and peered through slits between his gloved fingers. At two hundred feet the flames were stabbing into the ground, and the steam was rising in thickening clouds, to blot everything. A moment later, there was nothing to be seen but a dazzling white nimbus, with its centre slowly growing more intense. Troon looked quickly round again; all about them was whitely shining steam. Then, suddenly, the noise stopped; the platform ceased to tremble; the vivid white spots in the steam died. In the abrupt silence of his helmet Troon asked:
‘Arthur, have you marked the key-ship?’
‘I reckon so, George.’
‘You, Ted?’
‘Pretty sure of her, George. I’ll make certain when this steam lets up. She’ll have ports. The others won’t.’
’Well, both of you stay where you are until you can be sure. Then find her airlock side, and close in to fifty yards.’
He edged his own platform forward. The air was clearing, but it was not possible to see the ship yet. She was still hidden somewhere in the cloud of steam vaporizing from the sodden ground, but it seemed fairly certain that her landing, at any rate, had been successful, whatever might have happened to the shuttles.
Visibility gradually improved. Before long, he could see the outline of her top. Soon he could make out the upper part clearly enough to see the ports and be sure that she was the Santa Maria, and no unmanned shuttle. She was leaning a little, but not dangerously at present. He drove the platform forward towards the steam that still shrouded her base.
Gradually that thinned too. He was able to see that she had indeed been lucky in her landing-place, and the tripod foot on the tilt side showed no sign of sinking further. He took the platform down to a few feet above the ground, and a little closer. The ends of the ship’s main driving tubes were still glowing, and the rain was vanishing into little steam puffs before it could actually touch them; the area directly beneath her was seared clear of vegetation, and muddy water was seeping back into it, steaming gently.
Troon brought his platform down to within inches of the ground, and steered it in between two of the tripod legs.
‘Let it go!’ he said.
His two companions unclipped the straps of a rectangular bale sealed into a waterproof cover, and tumbled it over the side to fall in the mud with a squelch. Skilfully Troon checked the upward bounce of the platform as it lost the weight; then he backed off, and sped away.
‘Arthur? Ted? Have you located the airlock yet?’
‘Arthur here. Yes, George. It’s facing due south.’
‘Good. Keep it covered. I’ll be round there with you.’
He handed control of the platform over to one of his companions, and turned a knob on his helmet, putting his headset on to one of the Brazilian Space Force’s intercom wavelengths. In Portuguese, he called:
‘Troon calling! Troon calling! Troon calling Capitão Camarello.’
There was a short pause during which his platform approached Arthur’s, and drew up beside it, then a voice replied:
‘This is the Santa Maria, Spaceship of the Estados Unidos do Brazil, Capitão João Camarello.’
‘Bonos dias, Capitão,’ said Troon. ‘And my felicitations, Senhor, upon your excellent landing.’
‘Muito obrigado, Senhor Troon. And my congratulations to you upon your survival of the rigours of this singularly unattractive-looking planet. It is, however, my regrettable duty to inform you that, by order of the Congress of the United States of Brazil, you and your companions are under arrest, charged with violating the sovereignty of Brazilian territory. One hopes that you will recognize the situation and accept it.’
‘Your message is not unexpected, Senhor,’ Troon told him. ‘But in return I must inform you that since the Brazilian claim to this territory rests neither on its discovery by Brazil, nor upon Brazil’s prime establishment here, it cannot be considered to have any validity. I am therefore entitled on the grounds of your unauthorized landing to require that you and your crew should put yourselves under my orders. Until I have your assurance that this will be done, I cannot grant you permission to leave your ship,’
The ‘Mr Troon, you have been informed, I do not doubt, of the strength of our expedition, so may I remind you that there are two of us to one of you - if, indeed, your party has survived intact the tribulations of such a detestable climate as this appears to be.
‘That is quite true, Capitão Camarello, but we are not caught in a metal trap. Furthermore I ought, I think, to tell you that we have your airlock covered. And I must also warn you against an attempt to take off again, should it occur to you to look for a more hospitable landing area. There is, beneath you at this moment, a considerable bale of T.N.T. You cannot fire your drive without igniting it before you lift, whereupon it may do your ship considerable damage, and will certainly overturn her, thus making takeoff impossible for you. Your situation, therefore, is awkward, Capitão.’
After a pause, the voice replied:
‘Ingenious, Mr Troon. I will take your word for it. But at least we do not have to sit out in the rain in order to maintain our side of the impasse.’
‘But neither do we, Senhor. Unless I receive your capitulation very shortly, we shall simply fix a wire cable round your ship in such a position as to prevent the outer door of your airlock from opening. We shall then be able to wait indefinitely, and in somewhat more comfort than yourselves, for your decision.’
Troon caught sight of Arthur Dogget signalling him from the next platform. He switched over to their usual wavelength. Arthur said:
‘If he does agree - and I can’t see that he’s got any choice - what do we do with them, George? Keep ‘em handcuffed all the time? After all, they’re two to one, as he said. Why should he keep any agreement to surrender?’
‘All right,’ Troon told him. ‘Just you wait a bit, and see. We’ll set down now to save power - but keep an eye on that door. Give it a bullet if it so much as moves.’
The three platforms descended carefully, seeking spots where the matting of growth was thick enough to keep them out of the mud, and waited. Troon switched back to the other wavelength, but a full hour passed before any sound could be heard on it; and then it was another voice that spoke:
‘Hallo,’ it said, ‘George Troon?’ Troon acknowledged.
‘Jorge Trunho here,’ said the voice.
‘I was hoping to hear from you, Cousin Jorge,’ said Troon. ‘What’s the reply?’
‘A change of authority,’ Jorge Trunho told him. ‘I have now taken command of this ship. With the exception of Capitão Camarello and four other men whom we have put under arrest, we are now willing to carry out your orders.’
‘I am glad you appreciate that there was no sense in prolonging the situation,’ said Troon, and issued his instructions. As he switched over, Arthur Dogget said:
‘What goes on, George? I don’t like this at all. It’s a whole lot too easy.’
‘You don’t need to worry,’ Troon told him. ‘The Brazilian Space Force is riddled with young men who’ve been frustrated for years and know they’re likely to stay that way as long as Brazil has the monopoly of space. They’re over-ripe for a change. All that was needed was the opportunity, and someone to organize.’
Arthur considered.
‘You mean - this was all fixed? You put ‘em in a spot to give Trunho the chance to take over? You knew he would?’
‘That was the plan, Arthur. The awkward spot made it easie
r for him to sway the undecided ones.’
’I see. All nicely arranged in advance - and by Cousin Jayme, I suppose?’
Troon nodded.
‘Under his auspices, at any rate. I told you Cousin Jayme knows what he’s doing.’
The slow twist on the Santa Maria was about to bring the sun into view, but before it could come searing through the port Arthur Dogget pushed the cover across and fixed it. He looked round the bare, tank-like compartment in which they were confined, then he pushed himself across to his acceleration-couch, fastened the straps to give some illusion of weight, and lay there frowning. At length, he said:
‘What makes me kick myself - what really burns me up, is that I knew at the time it was all too damned easy - I even said so. God what a mug! ‘
Troon shook his head.
‘It should have been easy - it was intended to be. That part of it would have gone just the way it did even if Jorge hadn’t been double-crossing. The whole thing went quite according to plan, until he pulled that fast one when we got back to the Dome. It’s no good blaming ourselves for trusting Jorge. We had to. Ten of us couldn’t have kept twenty of them under restraint indefinitely. It was a calculated risk. Jayme was gambling on Cousin Jorge’s Troon blood - that his spaceward urge would be greater than his loyalty to the Brazilian Space Force. Well, that was a bad bet - or was it? I’m still not quite sure. It may not have been loyalty. It could easily be that he was reckoning the chances differently. He could be calculating that after this shake-up the Brazzies’ll really get down to doing something in space - and that he’s likely to be in the forefront of whatever they do do.’
‘And getting a medal for turning us in for piracy won’t do him any official harm, either,’ added one of the others, bitterly.
‘No,’ Troon agreed, ‘but if the thought of the charge is worrying you, I shouldn’t let it. They’ll have to put us on trial, of course, but luckily there’s been no bloodshed, so the odds are they’ll pardon us, or just give us a token penalty. After all, we did get there; and we were the first to make it. Now that we are no longer a danger, sentiment will swing round. They’d lose a devil of a lot of public favour if they tried to keep us in jail for it.’
‘Well, that’s something - and I reckon you’re right,’ Arthur admitted. ‘Most of the worrying is going to come the way of that organizing genius, your Cousin Jayme - and whoever else put up the money. I never did think they’d get much for all they spent to exploit that lousy planet, anyway, but whatever there is there, the Brazzies are going to get it now. Just a bit too clever for one another, your relatives.’
‘Maybe,’ admitted Troon, ‘but I’d not be sure yet. After all, we did ship Jayme one shuttle-load of specimens, remember. His people working on them will have about two years’ start of any Brazzy researchers - and that’s quite a lot, with old man Gonveia’s botanical organization behind it.’
‘All right. Your Cousin Jayme may be a marvel, commercially,’ Arthur conceded, ‘but your Cousin Jorge has certainly taken him and all of us for a ride, strategically. And thanks to him, damn it, the Brazzies have now got the lot - our ship, our Dome and supplies, all our research work, and us. As profitable a bit of double-crossing as ever there was - with laurels and promotion for Jorge Trunho.’
‘Look here,’ put in one of the others, ‘the Troon family, as everyone knows, has a deserved reputation for gambling with space in a big way. Some of their gambles have come off, and some of them haven’t. The first half of this one did, and the second half hasn’t. Now I suggest that we agree to drop the subject. We’ve a long journey ahead, and chawing the subject over and over isn’t going to sweeten it, or get us anywhere. Agreed?’
The journey was tedious indeed. Nothing broke it but the regular arrival of meals - covered cans floated into the compartment by one member of the Brazilian Space Force, while another guarded the door. The captives received no bearings, no progress reports, they simply waited timelessly for it to end.
At last it did. For the first time during the trip a concealed speaker broke silence with a click and a scratch.
‘Secure all loose objects,’ it instructed twice in Portuguese.
The crew of the Aphrodite stared at one another, scarcely able to believe that the imprisonment was coming to an end at last. Half an hour later the voice spoke again:
‘All loose objects should have been made fast by now. Everyone to couches, and make ready. All to couches; fasten all straps. Deceleration will begin in ten minutes from now.’
Troon opened a port-cover. The slow turn gave him a view of a huge Earth crescent sliding smoothly up the black sky. He secured the cover again, and got on to his couch.
‘Not an Earth landing,’ he said. ‘Must be putting in at Primeira. ‘
‘Four minutes,’ announced the loudspeaker.
Primeira, thought Troon, the old threshold of space. I wonder what its builders would have to say if they could see the first successful Venus expedition coming in as prisoners...?
The speaker was counting now. He composed himself to wait for the thrust and the onset of weight.
One after another Troon’s crew jetted themselves across from the Santa Maria to Primeira. Once through the airlock there, they took off their space-suits and waited, with a guard in charge of them. During the considerable delay they sat watching other men entering the airlock to go outside. There seemed to be a great many of them. More than an hour passed before the Capitão Camarello and his second- in-command, Jorge Trunho, arrived, and removed their space-suits to reveal themselves dressed in immaculate uniforms for the occasion. It was evident that the handing over of their prisoners to the Commander of the Satellite was to be a formal affair. Troon was not much impressed; he smiled, and tried to catch his cousin’s eye; Jorge caught it stonily once, and thereafter avoided it.
Two more armed guards appeared. The party was marched to the Satellite Commander’s cabin, and lined up in two ranks. After that, there appeared to be a hitch. For five minutes they waited in silence, then Camarello spoke to Trunho who went back to the door to inquire. They waited another five minutes, then the inner door of the room opened, and a voice said, in English:
‘My apologies for keeping you waiting, gentlemen.’
And into the cabin, dressed in an ordinary suit, stepped Jayme Gonveia.
He nodded to Troon.
‘Glad to see you, George. I trust you didn’t have too uncomfortable a trip.’
‘But how did you do it?’ Troon wanted to know, later on, when they were alone together.
‘Less difficult than you might think,’ Jayme told him. ‘We put parties aboard the two mothballed Satellites six months ago, and prepared them for action which we hoped would not be necessary. We infiltrated undercover groups both here and on the Moon Station. The rest was mostly a matter of suitable timing.
‘I made a mistake over Jorge, though. Perhaps I did not tell him enough. If he had had a better idea of the scale he’d very likely have played straight with us. However, its only effect was to delay the next phase of the operation; we did not want an alarm raised for fear the Santa Maria should be diverted, and we need her intact.
‘The radio operators were the key men in the takeover. A week ago, the one here, on Primeira, put over the internal speaker system a message announcing that the Moon Garrison had mutinied, imprisoned its officers, and called upon the Primeira crew to do the same. The moon operator put over a similar message, transposing the places. Both of them put their radios temporarily out of action, for safety, but continued to announce previously concocted messages over the internal system. During this stage, small shuttle-type rockets that we have been holding at the other Satellites appeared close to Primeira, and one landed close to the Moon Station.
‘Well, as you know, the Space Force was shot through with disaffection. Our undercover groups had worked on the men, and not found it very difficult. They were organized and ready, and were able to take over with very little trouble. Those who
wouldn’t join us have been transported to one of the mothball Satellites pro tem. The only thing that had gone wrong was at your end. The Santa Maria was on the way back here. If we made an announcement she would be diverted; in which case we should lose not only your valuable selves, but a very valuable ship. So we made no announcement. We reopened radio communications with excuses about electrical interference, and resumed routine messages as though nothing had happened. We have been bluffing for a week while we waited for you and the Santa Maria - and during that time we have acquired a couple of shuttles of provisions as well.
‘But in an hour or so now, the news will be broadcast. Camarello and our cousin Jorge have gone over to join the rest of the unpersuadables on the minor Satellite where they will remain until their government sends a ship to fetch them. The exact date and time for that will depend on how long it takes to sink into the official Rio minds that Space is no longer a Province of Brazil.’
Troon thought the position over silently for some moments, then he said:
‘I had no idea you were brewing anything on such a scale as this, Jayme.’
‘Perhaps I should apologize to you for that, George, but it seemed wise to keep the compartments of the plan separate, as far as possible. And I think it was - it spared you the necessity of acting, and the need to watch yourself for slips.’
‘But now the operation is complete, and you are all set to spring it on them that space has become a State of Australia - ‘
‘A State of Australia!’ exclaimed Jayme. ‘Good God, man, do you think I want to start a war between Brazil and Australia? Certainly not! Space will declare itself an independent territory - if the use of the word “territory” is valid in the circumstances.’
Troon stared at him.
‘Independent! For heaven’s sake, Jayme, space is - well, I mean, out here, in nothing, like this. I never - why, it’s utterly impossible, Jayme! ‘