Alan E. Nourse (13 page)

"Perfectly."
Torm
spat the
word, as though it were something disgraceful.

"Then
if you don't mind, I'll leave you to your squabbling." The Colonel turned
away contemptuously, "I'd like a half-track placed at my disposal immediately."

He strode through the crowd like a man apart,
catching Tuck's eye as he passed, nodded grimly toward the stairs. Tuck
followed him silently, his heart sinking. "Where are we going?"

"Back
to the ship.
It
isn't safe to remain here now."

"But Dad, this is all
wrong—"

"And
I'll thank you to keep your nose out of it, if you please!" His
fathers
voice was furious. Without
another word he strode up the stairs.

Tuck
hesitated just a moment, trying to catch David's eye. But when he saw the utter
despair on the boy's face, he turned quickly and followed his father.

Minutes
later they were walking swiftly toward the colony air lock.

_{Chapter
J2
a
Desperate
Chance}

or
a
long
time
they rode in silence. The half-track had been waiting for them when they
gathered their belongings from the
Torms
'
cabin,
Tuck packing in despair, his father in white-faced
anger. They had climbed in, with the Colonel at the steering bar, and the
vehicle started out across the valley floor in the direction of the Rocket
Landing.

Tuck
had no idea what time it was, but he knew it was very late. Saturn had set now;
the sky was pitch black, matching perfectly the black rocks of the tundra.
There seemed to be no hurry; the Colonel eased the half-track along, searching
out the path with the emergency lamp, frequently slowing to a stop to study
the treacherous ground. Tuck sat huddled on the seat, his mind whirling with
the sudden turn of events. For the first time in his life he felt himself
utterly at a loss-there seemed to be no possible answer. He stared miserably
out the front panel, saying over and over to himself that this was all wrong,
that there
had
to be an answer—but he
realized that his father still didn't know about the Big Secret—whatever it
was. And as

he
watched the Colonel, sitting stiffly, face
still angry, Tuck knew he couldn't tell him now. Several times he started to
speak; each time it suddenly seemed ridiculous. There was nothing to say, as
minute by minute they moved farther away from the colony.

Finally
Tuck said, "There must be
some
way
to stop them."

"A
trial for treason will stop them," the Colonel snapped. "Of all the
pigheaded, rebellious trash I ever saw in my life—"

"You haven't given
them a chance—"

The
Colonel snorted, turning angry eyes to his son. "Yes, they seem to have
you right along with them. I thought you had more sense than to swallow their
nonsense."

Tuck's eyes widened.
"What did I do?"

"You
really gave me a helping
hand,
you did, getting
yourself all chummy with that ninny of a son of his. That was fine. While
I
was doing everything
I
could
to keep things on a negotiable basis, you had to pour fuel on
Cortell's
little fire, to make the people think that a
shady deal was going on. I wonder what kind of friends you picked back at
school."

Tuck's
ears turned red at the sarcasm. "I'm sorry, Dad. But you aren't even
trying to see their viewpoint at all-"

"They
have no viewpoint that makes any difference!" The Colonel burst out
angrily. "You'd think they'd feel some sort of loyalty to the land that
feeds them, and supports them and depends on them. Viewpoint, bah!

First they try to blackmail me, and then they
take my own son out and feed him a wild story that he doesn't have brain enough
to see through—"

"That isn't fair, and
you know it!"

The
Colonel looked at Tuck, and his face softened suddenly. The anger disappeared,
and left behind it lines of weariness and defeat. "Oh, I suppose it isn't.
You didn't know any better, and probably David didn't realize what he was
doing, either. I—I'm just tired, that's all." He sighed audibly.
"This thing beats me, Tuck. It doesn't make sense. I came up here to try to
make a peaceable settlement, and I haven't gotten to first base. Everything's
gone wrong right from the first, and now it looks like it's going to be the
end. We'll be back to the penal colony stage, after all these years, and that's
a real defeat." He shook his head wearily. "I don't know. Maybe I'm
getting old."

Tuck
sat in silence, his heart sinking. Then his father really
didn't
realize what the true picture was. He still
thought the whole business was a huge scheme to bluff him—with
Torm
and
Cortell
and David all
working together. A flicker of doubt passed through his mind. Could it be
possible that he
had
been fooled? That David
had
been used to foment violence against
Torm
and
his father? Could it be that the Big Secret was actually ready, and that
Torm
himself was trying to breed an "incident"
that would make it necessary to use it? Tuck shook his head. He just couldn't
believe that. Because there was no retreat for the colonists, no matter what
plan they had. They could only go underground, into some vast subterranean
vault, to lock themselves in, if they rebelled against Earth. Earth was too
powerful, it spread too far. And once the die was cast, no Titan colonist
would ever again be able to go anywhere in the Solar System. Their names would
be the names of traitors against humanity, and they would have to stay in their
hole and rot. So perhaps they would survive for twenty years, or fifty years,
or a hundred years —what good was survival that way?

No,
David was right, and the Colonel was wrong. He could see that—his father
couldn't. The Colonel had brought a little more distrust, a little deeper
prejudice, and a
more bitter
fund of experience with
him. These were the things that blocked his father and blinded him. He couldn't
see what had been happening to the Titan colonists, he couldn't realize what it
meant to live in a tight, crowded, frozen colony for generation after
generation, seeing their slender grip on freedom and their rights as men being
torn from them bit by bit. He couldn't understand how they could be as desperate
as they really were. And if Tuck were to tell him about the Big Secret—the
Colonel would probably laugh. Because unless he could see the colonists' viewpoint,
the Big Secret would be just another deceit, just another lie to use to
blackmail him—

The
half-track jounced through the gorge where the ambush had been laid. Tuck and
his father peered out, but could see very little of the rubble that had fallen.
Minutes passed—how long had they been gone?
An hour?
Two?
Tuck knew he should be tired, but sleep was far from
his mind. Slowly they rolled along, moving in a strange slow motion, a little
black bug feeling its way across the wastes of an impossible planetoid to the
last haven of humanity that still remained—the ship from Earth. Yet once they
reached it, there would be no retreat. The colony would be lost.
Because
Torm
would never be able to hold
the colonists to his side after this last failure to settle peaceably with
Earth.

And the Big Secret?
There was the question mark, the key to the
whole problem. It kept thrusting itself upon Tuck's mind, insistently, and he
reviewed what David had said about it. It seemed incredible that a plan could
have been prepared in absolute secrecy for over a hundred years—and what could possibly
take so long? What kind of plan could possibly offer the colony any sort of
hope whatsoever?

Slowly, as they bounced along, things began
to line themselves up in Tuck's mind, like the outlines he had made in school.
When you have a problem, write down everything you know about it—all the facts
in one column, all the unknowns in another column, all possible solutions in
another. Then eliminate.

All
right.
Problem:

The
Big Secret—

A
plan, a last-ditch plan, an escape,
a
way out that the
colonists could use if they were driven against the wall. Check.

A plan that was guided by a very few people,
kept in strict secrecy from the rest. Check again.

A
plan that had taken over a hundred years to set in readiness.
Check.

A
plan that would take care of all five hundred people in the colony, a plan that
would allow them to
blow
up the mines and the colony they had been living in.
Check.

Hold
it. Slow now. Something was missing there-Tuck shifted his weight as the
half-track slid down a grade, then hit the bottom and lurched up again with a
roar. A plan, a last-ditch plan,
a way out—

A
way out that Anson
Torm
thought was suicide, and
risked being branded a traitor to oppose. But
Cortell
was eager to set it in motion—

A difference of opinion, then.
Odd?
Very odd.
A last-ditch plan that was
hazardous, terribly hazardous, but which
might work.
That made sense! There was great risk involved. It might be a way out,
or it might be death.
Cortell
was willing to gamble;
Torm
was not— But that meant that it might be a
permanent way out for the colonists, if it
worked.
A
way out in utter defiance of Earth-Tuck chewed his lip.
An
underground station?
Could that possibly, even conceivably, be a
permanent
way out?

Never.
It just didn't add up.

But what else?
A ship to escape in?
To escape where?
What kind of a ship would carry five
hundred people and let them hide out in a Solar System teeming with Security
Patrol ships, a ship that would be hunted down to the bitter end.
Possible?
Even conceivable?

Never.
There could be no escape
off the planetoid itself.
There was no place to go, no place to hide.

But
what?
Open war against Earth?
Even
more ridiculous.
There were big enough ruthenium stores on Earth to last
for several weeks. The colonists would be wiped out, utterly massacred.

Then
what was the Big Secret?

It
was something
big,
and something desperate beyond
belief.

It was something
on Titan.

Therefore—it was something
that
could he found.

Tuck
stared at his father, an impossible plan forming in his mind. His father
wouldn't listen to reason
now,
he wouldn't believe
anything the colonists told him. Nothing would change his father's attitude at
this point but
facts—
cold, clear, unarguable facts. And there was
only one fact that would make much difference.
The plan.
The true nature of the Big Secret.
If Tuck could get
back to the colony, somehow, contact David there, there might still be time.
Time to find the Big Secret, wherever it was,
whatever
it was, and bring back the facts to
lay
before the two men.

Tuck's heart pounded, and he tensed against
the gripping bar, the plan crystallizing in his mind. Carefully he began
watching his father drive the half-track. He'd never driven it before, but he
seemed to be doing all right, and Tuck had watched David drive it. His eyes
narrowed thoughtfully. There wasn't any other vehicle at the ship that could
travel over this kind of ground. If it were possible—

After a long, unbearable time, the 'track
mounted the last rise, and tumbled over the rim, down into the shallow crater
where the Earth ship stood, tall and shiny. Already there was a brightening on
the horizon —the night was short, and it was almost dawn. Weird shadows were
creeping out of the blacks and grays, showing the surface of the valley in more
detail.

"We'll
need some sleep," the Colonel was saying, "and I think we'd better
get it while the getting is good. Well have the men alerted as soon as anything
pops, and have them radio for a troopship from Ganymede right now—it can't be
too soon." He glanced over at Tuck. "And I think you'd better stay on
the ship, no matter what happens. I've had no right to drag you into this in
the first place, particularly since I've made such a nice mess of things. And
don't worry too much about your young friend—I've a notion he'll make out all
right."

Tuck
nodded, his conscience jabbing him sharply. It was a desperate decision, a
desperate chance to take, yet he knew he had to take it. It would mean disobeying
his father—but there would be no answer but violence and death if he didn't do
it. And they could find the answer, if only there were time—

The
half-track stopped thirty yards from the crane, and the top sprang open with a
hiss. The Colonel clambered out, stepping down to the frigid ground. Tuck
leaned over the back seat, as though hunting for something in the storage
space, his heart beating in his throat, moving as slowly as he dared, until he
saw his father start walking away from the half-track. Then, like lightning,
Tuck snapped the switch that slammed the hood back down; in the same motion he
started the pump at top speed, its motor roaring in his ears. For the briefest
instant he caught a glimpse of his father's face, startled, realization
dawning; then he revved up the motor, jerked back on the steering bar, threw
the gear into reverse, and felt the vehicle lurch back thirty feet from his
father. The Colonel started running toward the vehicle, shouting, and Tuck
desperately snapped on the emergency lamp, catching the Colonel full in the
face, blinding him for an instant. Then, with a roar, the half-track pivoted,
started rolling crazily away from the ship again, headed up the path that led
to the colony. Through the back of the hood he saw his father's tiny figure,
running after the half-track for a few steps, then stopping, standing still,
just staring. And then Tuck wrenched his mind away, forcibly thrust his
betrayal out of his mind, concentrated on guiding the lumbering vehicle.