Asteroid of Fear
Page 6
done."
John Endlich's vast sigh of relief was slightly tainted by the idea thatto call on a policing power for protection was a little bit on the timidside.
"Oh," he grunted. "Thanks. I never thought of doing that."
"Johnny."
"Yeah?"
"I kind of got the notion, though--from between the lines of what Mr.Mahoney said--that there was heavy trouble brewing at the camp. Aboutconditions, and home-leaves, and increased profit-sharing. Maybe there'sdanger of riots and what-not, Johnny. Anyhow, Mr. Mahoney said that weshould 'keep on exercising all reasonable caution.'"
"Hmm-m--Mr. Mahoney is _very_ nice, ain't he?" Endlich growled.
"You stop that, Johnny," Rose ordered.
But her husband had already passed beyond thoughts of jealousy. He wasthinking of the time when Neely would have worked out his sentence, andwould be free to roam around again--no doubt with increased annoyance atthe Endlich clan for causing his restraint. If a riot or somethingdidn't spring him, beforehand. John Endlich itched to try to tear hishead off. But, of course, the same consequences as before stillapplied....
* * * * *
As it turned out, the Endlichs had a reprieve of two months and fourteendays, almost to the hour and figured on a strictly Earth-time scale.
For what it was worth, they accomplished a great deal. In their greatplastic greenhouse, supported like a colossal bubble by the humid,artificially-warmed air inside it, long troughs were filled with pebblesand hydroponic solution. And therein tomatoes were planted, and lettuce,radishes, corn, onions, melons--just about everything in the vegetableline.
There remained plenty of ground left over from the five acres, so JohnEndlich tinkered with that fifty-million-year-old tractor, figured outits atomic-power-to-steam principle, and used it to help harrow up theancient soil of a smashed planet. He added commercial fertilizers andnitrates to it--the nitrates were, of course, distinct from the gaseousnitrogen that had been held, spongelike, by the subsoil, and had helpedsupply the greenhouse with atmosphere. Then he harrowed the groundagain. The tractor worked fine, except that the feeble gravity made thelugs of its wheels slip a lot. He repeated his planting, in theold-fashioned manner.
Under ideal conditions, the inside of the great bubble was soon a massof growing things. Rose had planted flowers--to be admired, and to helpout the hive of bees, which were essential to some of the other plants,as well. Nor was the flora limited to the Earthly. Some seeds or sporeshad survived, here, from the mother world of the asteroids. They cameout of their eons of suspended animation, to become root and tough,spiky stalk, and to mix themselves sparsely with vegetation that hadimmigrated from Earth, now that livable conditions had been restoredover this little piece of ground. But whether they were fruit or weed,it was difficult to say.
Sometimes John Endlich was misled. Sometimes, listening to familiarsounds, and smelling familiar odors, toward the latter part of hisreprieve, he almost imagined that he'd accomplished his basic desireshere on Vesta--when he had always failed on Earth.
There was the smell of warm soil, flowers, greenery. He heard irrigationwater trickling. The sweetcorn rustled in the wind of fans he'd set upto circulate the air. Bees buzzed. Chickens, approaching adolescence,peeped contentedly as they dusted themselves and stretched luxuriouslyin the shadows of the cornfield.
For John Endlich it was all like the echo of a somnolent summer of hisboyhood. There was peace in it: it was like a yearning fulfilled. An endof wanderlust for him, here on Vesta. In contrast to the airlessdesolation outside, the interior of this five-acre greenhouse was theone most desirable place to be. So, except for the vaguest of stirringssometimes in his mind, there was not much incentive to seek funelsewhere. If he ever had time.
And there was a lot of the legendary, too, in what his family and he hadaccomplished. It was like returning a little of the blue sky and thesounds of life to this land of ruins and roadways and the ghosts of deadbeauty. Maybe there'd be a lot more of all that, soon, when the rumoredmajor influx of homesteaders reached Vesta.
"Yes, Johnny," Rose said once. "'Legendary' is a lot nicer word than'ghostly'. And the ghosts are changing their name to legends."
Rose had to teach the kids their regular lessons. That children would betaught was part of the agreement you had to sign at the A. H. O. beforeyou could be shipped out with them. But the kids had time for whimsy,too. In make-believe, they took their excursions far back to formerages. They played that they were "Old People."
Endlich, having repaired his atomic battery, didn't draw power anymorefrom the unit that had supplied the ancient buildings. But the relicsremained. From a device like a phonograph, there was even a bell-likevoice that chanted when a lever was pressed.
And it was the kids who found the first "tay-tay bug," a dayafter its trills were heard from among the new foliage."Ta-a-a-ay-y-y--ta-a-a-a-ay-y-yy-y--" The sound was like that of alittle wheel, humming with the speed of rotation, and then slowing to ascratchy stop.
A one-legged hopper, with a thin but rigid gliding wing of horn.Opalescent in its colors. It had evidently hatched from a tiny egg,preserved by the cold for ages.
Wise enough not to clutch it with his bare hands, Bubs came running withit held in a leaf.
It proved harmless. It was ugly and beautiful. Its great charm was thatit was a vocal echo from the far past.
* * * * *
Sure. Life got to be fairly okay, in spite of hard work. The Endlichshad conquered the awful stillness with life-sounds. Growing plants keptthe air in their greenhouse fresh and breathable by photosynthesis. JohnEndlich did a lot of grinning and whistling. His temper never flaredonce. Deep down in him there was only a brooding certainty that the calmcouldn't last. For, from all reports, trouble seethed at the miningcamp. At any time there might be a blowup, a reign of terror that wouldroll over all of Vesta. A thing to release pent-up forces in men who hadseen too many hard stars, and had heard too much stillness. They werelike the stuff inside a complaining volcano.
The Endlichs had sought to time their various crops, so that they wouldall be ready for market on as nearly as possible the same day. It wasintended as a trick of advertising--a dramatically sudden appearance ofmuch fresh produce.
So, one morning, in a jet-equipped space-suit, Endlich arced out for themining camp. Inside the suit he carried samples from his garden. Sixtomatoes. Beauties.
"Have luck with them, Johnny! But watch out!" Rose flung after him byhelmet phone. With a warm laugh. Just for a moment he felt maybe alittle silly. Tomatoes! But they were what he was banking on, and hadforced toward maturity, most. The way he figured, they were the kind offruit that the guys in the camp--gagged by a diet of canned anddehydrated stuff, because they were too busy chasing mineral wealth tokeep a decent hydroponic garden going--would be hungriest for.
Well--he was rather too right, in some ways, to be fortunate. Yeah--theystill call what happened the Tomato War.
Poor Johnny Endlich. He was headed for the commissary dome to displayhis wares. But vague urges sidetracked him, and he went into therecreation dome of the camp, instead.
And into the bar.
The petty sin of two drinks hardly merits the punishing trouble whichcame his way as, at least partially, a result. With his face-windowopen, he stood at the bar with men whom he had never seen before. And hebegan to have minor delusions of grandeur. He became a little too proudof his accomplishments. His wariness slipped into abeyance. He had aqueer idea that, as a farmer with concrete evidence of his skills toshow, he would win respect that had been denied him. Dread ofconsequences of some things that he might do, became blurred. His hottemper began to smolder, under the spark of memory and the fury ofinsult and malicious tricks, that, considering the safety of his lovedones, he had had no way to fight back against. Frustration is adangerous force. Released a little, it excited him more. And the tensemood of the camp--a thing in the very air of the domes--stirred him upmore. The
camp--ready to explode into sudden, open barbarism fordays--was now at a point where nothing so dramatic as fresh tomatoes andfarmers in a bar was needed to set the fireworks off.
John Endlich had his two drinks. Then, with calm and foolhardydetachment, he set the six tomatoes out in a row before him on thesynthetic mahogany.
* * * * *
He didn't have to wait at all for results. Bloodshot eyes, some of thembelonging to men who had been as gentle as lambs in their ordinary liveson Earth, turned swiftly alert. Bristly faces showed swift changes ofexpression: surprise, interest, greed for possession--but most of all,aggressive and Satanic humor.
"_Jeez--tamadas!_" somebody growled, amazed.
Under the circumstances, to be aware of opportunity was to act. Bigpaws, some bare and calloused, some in the gloves of space suits,reached out, grabbed. Teeth bit. Juice squirted,