Eden (12 page)

"May I say something?" said the Physicist.

"Go ahead."

"I'd like to return to the Doctor's point of view. Emotional though it is, there is an argument in its favor. This situation of a first contact is by no means neutral. When they find us, it will be because they have been looking for us. And it will be hard then to 'reach an understanding.' There will undoubtedly be an attack, and we'll have to fight for our lives. But if, on the other hand, we go out to meet them, though the chances of reaching an understanding may not be great, they will at least exist. So, for purely tactical reasons, morality aside, it would be better for us to take the initiative."

"All right, but what does that mean in practice?" asked the Engineer.

"In practice, nothing is altered for the time being. We must have weapons, and as quickly as possible. However, as soon as we have them, we should try to make contact—though not on the terrain that we've explored so far."

"Why not?" asked the Captain.

"Because it's extremely likely that we'll be attacked before we reach the city. By the beings that drive the disks."

"And how do you know we'll find more peaceable beings elsewhere?"

"I don't. But there's nothing for us to the north or east. At least not now. I'm sure of that."

"And what else?" said the Captain.

"We must activate Defender," said the Chemist.

"How long will that take?" the Captain asked the Engineer.

"I can't say. Without the robots we can't even get to Defender. The thing weighs fourteen tons. Ask the Cyberneticist."

"It will take two days to check it. At least," said the Cyberneticist. "But first I have to have working robots."

"How long, to get the robots running?" asked the Captain.

"Let's see… I'll need a repair robot first, then a lifter, and they have to be checked, too, of course, which will take a couple of days, assuming there isn't too much damage…"

"Can't we take the heart out of Defender and armor it up here, beside the hull?" the Captain asked, looking at the Physicist.

The Physicist shook his head. "No. The pivot alone weighs more than a ton. Besides, the heart won't fit in the tunnel."

"The tunnel can be widened."

"It won't go through the hatch. And the freight hatch, as you know, is filled with water from the broken stern reservoir."

"Did you check the water contamination?" asked the Engineer.

"Yes. Strontium, calcium, cerium, all the barium isotopes. The works. We can't let it out—it would contaminate the soil within a radius of a thousand feet—and we can't purify it until the antirads have working filters."

"And I can't clean the filters without a robot," added the Engineer.

The Captain, looking from man to man as each spoke, observed, "We have a fair-sized list of can'ts. But it's important to take stock. What about the atomic throwers?"

"They're not throwers," said the Engineer with a grimace of disgust. "Let's not deceive ourselves. The Doctor made so much noise about them, you'd think we were planning to start a nuclear war here. Their range is less than two thousand feet. They're hand sprinklers, nothing more, and, besides, they're inconvenient. A man firing has to wear a shield that weighs two hundred pounds."

"We have a lot of heavy things on board," the Captain muttered, and nobody knew whether he meant that as a joke.

The Physicist said, "But if two throwers are placed three hundred feet apart and shoot in such a way that the beams intersect at the target, you get a supercritical concentration and can produce a chain reaction."

"That's fine on the firing range," remarked the Chemist, "but I can't see such precision under field conditions."

"In other words, we really don't have atomic throwers?" the Cyberneticist said, amazed and angry. "Then what is the sense of this whole discussion—this argument—about whether we should arm ourselves to the teeth or not? We're not thinking!"

"That's right. We haven't done a great deal of thinking," said the Captain calmly. "Not until now. But we can't allow ourselves that luxury any longer. With the throwers," he went on, "there is another tactic: one fires half the charge, and the chain reaction takes place at the target. Except that the firing must be done from the best possible cover, and at maximum distance."

"That means we have to go three feet underground before shooting?"

"Five, at least—and behind a six-foot embankment," the Physicist put in.

"For stationary warfare that's fine. For expeditions it's useless," the Chemist snorted.

"If the need arises," said the Captain, "one man with a thrower can cover our retreat."

"Without digging any embankments?"

"Without digging any embankments."

There was silence.

"How much usable water do we have left?" asked the Cyberneticist.

"Less than three hundred gallons."

"That's not much."

"True."

"Now let's have some concrete proposals," said the Captain. A red spot appeared on his white bandage. "Our goal is to save ourselves and … the inhabitants of this planet."

Suddenly all heads turned in the same direction. Through the wall came muffled music, a melody they all recognized.

"The player's survived?" the Cyberneticist whispered in surprise. Nobody said anything.

"I'm waiting," said the Captain. "No one? Then I'll decide: the expeditions will continue. If we make contact in favorable circumstances, we'll do everything in our power to communicate. Our water supply is too low. With no means of transport, we cannot increase it. Therefore, we must divide up. Half the crew will work in the ship, half will go exploring. Tomorrow morning we start repairing the jeep and assembling the throwers. If we're successful, we make a motorized excursion in the evening. Does anyone have anything to say?"

"I do," said the Engineer, his face in his hands, looking through his fingers at the floor. "The Doctor should remain in the ship."

"Why?" asked the Cyberneticist. But everyone else understood.

"He won't … do anything against us, if that's what you're thinking," the Captain said, choosing his words carefully. The red spot on his bandage was a little larger.

"You know what he did at that … factory, at the wall," said the Engineer. "He might have been killed."

"On the other hand, he was the only one to help me … trample…" the Captain said, but did not continue.

"True," the Engineer admitted. "That's why I was reluctant to speak."

"Anyone else?" The Captain straightened up, put his hand to his head, touched the bandage, and looked at his fingers. The music was still coming through the wall.

"Here or out there in the open—we don't know where we'll meet them first," the Physicist said quietly.

"Do we draw lots?" asked the Chemist.

"No point. The ones who stay are those who have work to do on the ship," said the Captain. He got up slowly, unsteadily, then lost his balance. The Engineer jumped up and caught him, and the Physicist held the Captain from the other side. The others spread cushions on the floor.

"No, I don't need to lie down," the Captain said, his eyes shut. "Thank you. It's nothing. The stitches seem to have opened."

"I'll turn off the music," said the Chemist, making for the door.

"No," said the Captain, "let it play…"

They called the Doctor. He changed the dressing, put a clamp on the wound, and gave the Captain some medicine. Then everyone lay down. It was almost two when they finally turned off the lights and the ship fell silent.

The next morning the Physicist and the Engineer drew off a gallon of enriched uranium solution from the pile reserve and transferred the thick fluid to the laboratory, to a lead tank. Wearing large plastic protective suits and oxygen masks under hoods, they used long-handled graspers and a burette to measure out, carefully, the concentrate and feed it into the specially made lead-glass capillary tubes of the throwers, which were held in place by frames on the table. When they were done, they tested the seals of the tank with a Geiger counter, then turned each thrower over and shook it.

"Good, no leaks," the Physicist said, his voice distorted by his mask.

The armored door of the radioactive storeroom, a block of lead on a shaft, slowly moved aside. They wheeled the tank back inside and, when the bolts snapped to, removed the masks and hoods from their sweaty faces with relief.

The rest of the day they worked on the jeep. Since the freight hatch couldn't be used, they dismantled the jeep first and carried the parts outside through the tunnel, which had to be widened in two places. The jeep required practically no repairs. They had not been able to use it before, because, with the reactor immobilized, there had been no fuel available—it ran on a mixture of radioisotopes, converting that to current. The vehicle had room for four persons, and at the rear there was a cage carrier able to hold up to four hundred pounds. The cleverest feature was the wheels, whose diameter was variable, regulated by air pump according to need. They could be expanded to four and a half feet.

Preparing the fuel mixture took six hours, but required only one person, who checked the pile from time to time. Meanwhile the Engineer and the Captain crawled on all fours through the passageways below the deck, checking and replacing the cables that ran between the control room and the distributor units in the engine room. The Chemist had built himself a kind of stove outside, close to the ship, and was heating up a greasy substance that bubbled like a muddy volcano. He was melting and stirring bits of plastic, the plastic that had been brought out of the ship in buckets. Nearby lay molds, with which he intended to make new instrument panels for the control room. He was in a vile temper and wouldn't speak to anyone, because his first molds had failed dismally.

The Captain, the Chemist, and the Doctor were supposed to head south at five, which was three hours before nightfall. As usual, no one kept to schedule, and it was almost six by the time everything was ready and packed. A thrower was placed on the fourth seat. And on the carrier in the back they strapped a twenty-five-gallon canister, for water.

After dinner the Engineer, equipped with large binoculars, clambered up the ship's hull. The ship had penetrated the ground at not much of an angle, but because of its length the end of the hull, the exhaust funnels rose a good three stories above the plain. After finding a place to sit between the conical mounting of the upper funnel and the hollow of the main body, the Engineer first looked down along the huge sunlit cylinder to where the men were standing, no larger than beetles, beside the black dot that was the tunnel entrance. Then he brought the binoculars to his face with both hands and carefully pressed the eyepiece to his eyes. The magnification was considerable, but the view quivered. He had to steady his arms by propping his elbows on his knees, which was not easy. It wouldn't take much to fall off, he thought. The scratch-proof ceramite surface was smooth, almost slippery. Pressing the contoured rubber sole of his left boot against the funnel, he began to sweep the horizon systematically with his binoculars.

The air shimmered from the heat. He could feel the pressure of the sun on his face when he turned south. He was glad that the Doctor had agreed to the Captain's plan, which everyone else had accepted. The Doctor did not even want to hear of apologies—he made a joke of their argument. But what really surprised the Engineer was the end of their conversation. He had been alone with the Doctor, and it had seemed that they had nothing more to say to each other, when suddenly the Doctor tapped him on the chest.

"I wanted to ask you something… Do you know how to set the ship upright when it's repaired?"

"First we get the freight robot and the digger to…" the Engineer began.

"No," the Doctor interrupted him. "The technical details, as you know, mean nothing to me. Just tell me if you—you personally—know how to do it."

"What, are you frightened by the figure of sixteen thousand tons? Archimedes said he could move the Earth, given the right fulcrum. We'll dig it out and…"

"I'm sorry, that's still not what I mean. I'm not questioning your theoretical knowledge, the textbook methods. Can you actually do it and—wait!—if you say yes, can you give me your word that you are thinking yes?"

That had made the Engineer hesitate. There were still a couple of points he was not clear on, but he had always told himself that, when it came down to it, somehow or other it would all work out. Before he could reply, the Doctor squeezed his hand.

"Henry," he said, "do you know why you shouted at me? It's because you're as big a numskull as I am and don't want to admit it."

And, smiling in a way that recalled the photograph of him as a student, which the Engineer had seen in his drawer, the Doctor added,
"Credo quia absurdum
—did they teach you any Latin?"

"Yes, but I've forgotten it all," said the Engineer.

The Doctor winked, released his hand, and walked away, leaving the Engineer alone. Still feeling the Doctor's fingers on his hand, the Engineer had the impression that the man had wanted to say something quite different, and that, if he thought hard, he might guess what the Doctor had left unsaid… But he couldn't concentrate, feeling—for no clear reason—fear, despair. The Captain called him to the engine room, where fortunately there was so much work to do that there was no time for reflection.

He now recalled that scene and that feeling. He had gained no insight into it. In his binoculars was a plain with gentle hummocks separated by strips of shadow. What he had expected the evening before and had kept to himself—the conviction that they would be discovered, and that there would be a battle at daybreak—had not materialized. How many times had he resolved not to take his forebodings so seriously! He squinted to see better. The binoculars showed clumps of willowy gray calyxes obscured at times by clouds of dust. The wind must be strong there, though he could not feel it where he sat. Near the horizon the terrain gradually rose, and still farther away—though that might not be land but low clouds ten miles away—was a formation of a darker hue. Now and then something ascended and either dissolved or disappeared. It was too indistinct to tell him anything, though the phenomenon was strangely regular. Having no idea what he was watching, he measured the frequency with which the change occurred, consulting his watch: eighty-six seconds.