Someone was talking urgently. The voice had been going on for a long time, he knew, but now it began to penetrate:
" . . . . you understand? Come on, Covv, wake up!"
Gus tried to speak, said "Awwrrr. . . ."
"Come on, on your feet!"
Gus forced his eyes open. It was a different face that bent over him, not one of the technicians. A half-familiar face, except for the half-inch beard and hollow cheeks.
"Sergeant. . . . Berg. . . ." Gus got out.
"That's right, Covv, come on, let's move, there's work to be done."
"Wha' went wrong. . . ."
"Hah? What didn't go wrong? Hull damage, mutiny—but that's not for you to worry about, Covv. We're ten hours out; you've had your sleep—"
"Ten hours. . . . from Earth?"
"Hah? From Alpha Three, Covv! Eighteen hundred and fourteen days out of Terra."
Gus rocked as though he had been struck. Almost. . . . five years.
"We're almost there," he said. Berg was urging him to his feet.
"That's right. And you've been tapped for ship's complement—you and a few other Covvs—to help out during approach. Coolie labor. Follow me."
Staggering a little, Gus trailed the noncom along a tight gray corridor, green-lit by a glare-strip running along the low ceiling. Passing an open door, he caught a glimpse of a wrecked wall, sheet plastic partitioning bulging out of line, broken pipes and tangled wires, a scatter of debris.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Never mind," Berg growled. "You're just a dumb Covv. Stay that way."
They rode a lift up, walked along another corridor, came into the Christmas tree brilliance of the bridge. Silent, harried-looking men in rumpled tan peered worriedly into screens and instrument faces. Officers muttered together; technicians chanted into vocoders. A young-looking officer with short blond hair gestured to Berg.
"This is the last of 'em, sir," the noncom said.
"I'll use him as a messenger. No communications with sections aft of Station Twenty-eight now. The tub's coming apart."
"Stand by here," Berg told Gus, and went away.
"Lieutenant, take over on six," a guttural voice called. The blond lieutenant moved to a gimbaled seat before a screen that showed a vivid crescent against velvet black. A moon was visible at the edge of the screen, a tiny blob of greenish-white. No stars showed; the sensitivity of the screen had dimmed in response to the blaze of the nearby sun.
Gus moved back against the wall. For the next hour he stood there, forgotten, watching the image of the planet grow on the screens as the weary officer worked over the maze of controls that swept in a twenty-foot horseshoe around the compartment.
" . . . . we're not going to try it—not while I'm on the bridge." The words caught Gus's attention. A lean, hawk-faced officer tossed papers onto the floor. "We'll have to divert!"
"You're refusing to carry out my instructions?" The squat, white-haired man who Gus knew was the captain raised his voice. "You press me too far, Leone—"
"I'll put her down for you on Planet Four," the first officer shouted him down. "That's the best I can do!"
The captain cursed the tall man. Other voices joined in the dispute. In the end the captain bellowed his capitulation:
"Planet Four, then, Leone! And there'll be charges filed, I guarantee you that!"
"File and be damned!"
The argument went on. Pressed back against the wall, Gus watched as the crescent swelled, grew to fill the screen, became a curve of dusty-lighted horizon, then a hazy plain dotted with the tiny white flecks of clouds. Faint, eerie whistlings started up, climbed the scale; buffeting started. The men on the bridge had forgotten their differences now. Crisp commands and curt acknowledgements were the only words spoken.
Under Gus, the deck bucked and hammered. He went down, held onto a stanchion as the shaking grew, the scream of air became a frantic tornado—
Then, quite suddenly, the motion smoothed out as a new thunder vibrated through the deck: the roar of the engines waking to life.
Minutes crawled past while the Niagara-rumble went on and on. Then a shock slammed the deck, sent Gus sprawling. Half-dazed, he got to his feet, saw the officers swinging from their places, whooping, slapping each other's backs. The captain bustled past, leaving the bridge. The big General Display screen showed a stretch of dull gray-green hills under a watery sky.
"What the devil are you doing here?" a voice cracked at Gus like a whip. It was First Officer Leone. "Get off the bridge, you bloody Covv!"
"Sir," Sergeant Berg said, coming up, "Captain's orders—"
"Damn the captain! Damn the lot of you." He waved an arm to include everyone on the bridge. "Reservists! The bunch of you wouldn't make a wart on a regular officer's rump!"
Gus made his way alone back down to the level where he had been brought out of Coldsleep. A cadreman greeted him with a curse.
"Where the hell have you been, Covv? You're on the defrost detail. Get aft and report to Hensley in the meat room—and don't get lost!"
"I wasn't lost," Gus said, returning the noncom's glare. "But I think a fellow named Leone was."
"Ahhh. . . ." the noncom gave him terse directions. He followed them to a narrow, high-aisled chamber, bright-lit, frosty. A bowlegged NCO waddled up to him, pointed to a rack of heavy parkas, assigned him to a crew. Gus watched as they undogged a thick, foot-and-a-half square door, drew out a slab on which the frost-covered body of a man lay under a thin plastic membrane.
"Automatics are out," the foreman explained. "We got to unload these Covvs by hand—what's left of 'em."
"What do you mean?"
"We took a four-ton rock through the hull, about fifty hours ago. Lost a bunch of officers and some crew—and before Leone got around to checking, we lost a lot of Covvs. Splinter right through the master panel." The man lifted the plastic, which peeled away from the waxy flesh with a crinkling sound. "Spoiled, you might say—like this one."
Gus looked at the drawn, hollow face, the glint of yellowish teeth behind the gray lips. The plastic dropped back and the crew moved on to the next door.
In the next five hours, Gus saw twenty-one more corpses. One hundred and forty-one presumably intact colonists were rolled into the revival room. Gus caught glimpses of the gagging, shivering men as they responded to the efforts of the Med crews.
"It ain't easy to die and come to life again," the bandy-legged corporal conceded, watching as a man retched and bucked against the hold-down straps.
The work went on. The horror had gone out of it now; it was simply monotonous, hard, bone-chilling work. He had learned to spot the symptoms of tragedy early: a bulge of frost around a door invariably meant a dead man inside. The trickle of life processes of a living Coldsleep subject generated sufficient heat to prevent frosting inside the capsule.
There was the tell-tale trace on the next door. Gus opened it, tugged to break the ice seal, slid the tray out. There was a heavy layer of ice over the plastic. Gus leaned close, his attention caught by something in the face under the ice. He stripped the sheet back from the body, felt an icy shock that locked his breath in his throat.
The face was that of his younger brother, Lenny.
"Tough," the corporal said, flicking an eye curiously at Gus. "According to the tag, he was in the draft next to yours; must have come into Mojave the day after you. We was five weeks loading. . . ."
Gus thought of the screening trials, the torture of the dunking cage, the walk across emptiness on the narrow catwalk. And Lenny, trying to follow him, going through all of it, and dying like this.
"You said by the time Leone got around to checking, some of the colonists were dead," Gus said in a ragged tone. "What did you mean?"
"Forget it, Covv. Let's get back to work. We got the live ones to think about." The corporal put a hand on the small pistol strapped to his hip. "We're not out of the woods yet—any of us."
The ship had been on the ground twenty-seven hours when Gus' turn came to walk down the landing ramp and out under the chill sky of a new world. A light, misty rain was falling. There was a sour smell of burned vegetation and over it a hint of green, growing things, alien but fresh, not unpleasant.
The charred ground was a churn of black mud trampled by the thousands of men who had debarked ahead of him. They were lined up in irregular ranks, row after row, that stretched out of sight over a rise of ground. Gus's group was formed up and marched off toward the far end of the bivouac area.
"This don't look like much to me," Hogan said. His red hair looked wilder than ever. Like the other colonists, he had acquired an inch of beard while in Coldsleep.
"This isn't where we were supposed to land," Gus told him. "We're on the wrong planet."
"Hah? How do you know?"
Gus told him what he had heard during his stay on the bridge.
"Cripes!" Hogan waved a hand at the treeless, rolling tundra. "The wrong planet! That means there ain't no colony here, no housing, no nothing!"
"As the man said," Franz put in, "we're on our own. We can carve our own town out of this—"
"Yeah? With no trees, no lumber, no running water—"
"Sure, there's running water. It's running down my neck right now."
"We been had!" Hogan burst out. "This ain't the deal I signed on for!"
"You signed like the rest of us, no questions asked."
"Yeah, but—"
"Don't say it," Franz said. "You'll break my heart."
"No shelter," Hogan said an hour later. "I heard the best food all went to the colonists. Where is it?"
"Wait until the ship's unloaded," Franz said.
"Nothing's come off that tub yet but us Covvs." Hogan rubbed his hands together for warmth, looking toward the grim tower of the ship. The damage done to the hull by the meteorite was clearly visible as a pockmark near the upper end.
"They're probably still busy doing emergency repairs," Franz said.
"Don't look like a little hole like that could of done all that damage," Hogan said.
"That ship's nearly as complicated as a human body," a man standing by said. "Poking a hole in it's like shooting a hole in you."
"Hey—look there!" Hogan pointed. A new group of parka-clad colonists was filing over the brow of the hill.
"Women!" Franz whispered.
"Females, by God!" Hogan burst out.
"It figures," someone said. "You can't make a colony without women!"
"Boys, they kept that one up their sleeve!"
The men watched as squad after squad of female colonists toiled up the hill, forming up beyond the men. Then they turned at the sound of car engines. A carryall towing a small trailer came along the line, stopped near Gus. A cadreman jumped down, pulled back the tarp covering the trailer, hauled out a heavy bundle.
"All right, you Covvs," he shouted as the car pulled away. "You're going to dig in. File up here and draw shovels!"
"Shovels? Is he kidding?" Hogan looked around at the others.
"Dig for what?" someone called.
"Shelter," the corporal barked. "Unless you want to sleep out in the open."
"What about our pre-fabs?"
"Yeah—and our rations!"
"There's power equipment aboard the ship! If there's digging to be done, by God, let's use it!"
The corporal unlimbered his foot-long club. "I told you Covvs," he started, and his voice was drowned by the clamor as the men closed in on him.
"We want food!"
"To hell with digging!"
"When you going to hand out the women?"
"I. . . . I'll go see." The noncom backed away, then turned, went off quickly down-slope. Voices were being raised all across the hill now. Gus saw other cadremen withdrawing, one with blood on his face and minus his cap. The uproar grew. A carryall raced up from the ship, took cadremen aboard. Clubs swung at colonists who gave chase.
"After 'em!" Hogan yelled. Gus grabbed his arm. "Stop, you damned fool! This is a mistake!"
"It's time we started getting a fair deal around here! We've not convicts, by God!"
"The power's all theirs," Gus said. "This won't help us!"
"We outnumber them a hundred to one," Hogan crowed. "Look at 'em run! I guess the digging party's off!" He shook off Gus's grip, looked toward the women. "Boys, let's pay a call. Them little ladies look lonesome—"
Gus shoved the redhead back. "Start that, and we're done for! Can't you see the spot we're in?"
"What spot?" Hogan began to bluster. "We showed 'em they can't push us around!"
"They're loading up, going back aboard." Gus pointed. Heads turned to watch the last of the cars wheeling up the ramp.
"They're scared of us—"
"We jumped them, forced their hand—"
"Yeah?" Hogan frowned ferociously. "So they ran from us."
"You damned fool," Gus said wearily. "Suppose they don't come back out?"
"They can't do this to us," Hogan whined for the fortieth time. The suns—both of them—had set hours before. The rain had turned to sleet that froze on the springy turf and on the men's clothing.
"It must be five below," Franz said. "You think they'll leave us out here to freeze, Gus?"
"I don't know."
"They're in there, eating our rations, sleeping in soft beds," Hogan growled. "The dirty blood-suckers!"
"Can't much blame 'em," Franz said. "With boneheads like you roughing 'em up. You expect 'em to come out and let you finish the job?"
"They can't get away with it!"
"They can get away with anything they want to," Gus said. "Nobody back on Earth knows what's going on out here. It takes ten years to ask a question and get an answer. And in ten years the population will have tripled. They'll have other things to think about than us. We're expendable."
A ripple of talk was passing through the ranks of men squatting on the exposed hillside under the relentless sleet. Dark figures were advancing from the direction of the women's area.
"It's the girls," Hogan said. "They want company."
"Leave them alone, Hogan," Gus said. "Let's see what they want."
The leader of the women's delegation was a strong-looking blonde in her late twenties, muffled in an oversized parka. She planted herself in front of the men. They closed in, gaping.
"Who's in charge over here?" she demanded.
"Nobody, baby," Hogan started. "It's every man for himself. . . ." He reached out with a meaty paw. The girl brushed it aside. "Pass that for now, Porky," she said briskly. "We've got important things to talk about, like not freezing to death. What are you fellows doing about it?"
"Not a damn thing, honey. What can we do?" Hogan jerked a thumb toward the lights of the ship. "Those lousy crots have cut us off—"
"I saw what happened; you damned fools started a riot. I don't blame them for pulling out. But what are you going to do about it now? You going to let your women freeze?"
"Our women?"
"Whose women you think we are, Porky? There's even one for you—if you can keep her alive."
"We've got a few shovels," Gus said. "We can dig in. This sod ought to be good enough to make huts of."
"Dig holes for over nine thousand people, with a couple dozen shovels?" Hogan jeered. "Are you nuts—"
A crackle like near-by lightning sounded. "Attention-on," a vast voice boomed across the bivouac. "This is Captain Harris-is. . . ." Floodlights sprang into life at the base of the ship.
"You people are guilty of mutiny-any," the great voice rolled. "I'd be justified in whatever measures I chose to take at this point-oint. Including leaving you to suffer the consequences of your own actions-shuns." There was a pause to allow the thought to sink in.
"However, as it happens, I have repairs to undertake-ache. I'm shorthanded-dead. Time is important-ant-ant."
"Tough," Hogan growled.
"I want twenty volunteers to aid in the work of preparing my ship for space-ace. In return, I'll see to it that certain supplies are made available to you people-lull."
A mutter went up from the men. "The son of a bitch is holding us up for our own rations!" Hogan yelled.
"At the first sign of disorder, I'll clear a one-mile radius around the ship," the captain's voice boomed out. "I'm offering you mutineers the one chance you'll get-et! I suggest you think it over carefully! I want you to select twenty strong workers and send them forward-herd!"
"Let's rush the crots when they open the ports," Hogan shouted over the surf-noise of the crowd. "We can take the ship and rip those crots limb from limb! There's enough supplies aboard to last us for years! We can live in the ship until a rescue ship gets here!"
Faces were turning toward Hogan. Greedy eyes glistened in half-frozen faces.
"Let's go get 'em!" Hogan yelled. "Let's—"
Gus stepped after him, caught him by the shoulder, spun him around, and hit him square in the mouth with all his strength. Hogan went back and down and lay still.
"I'm volunteering for the work crew," Gus called, and started forward. A path opened to let him through.
Franz walked at Gus's side, leading the little troop of volunteers down the slope to the ship. The big floods bathed them in bluish light. Gus could feel the muscles of his stomach tighten, imagining guns aimed from the open ports. Or maybe it would be a touch of the main drive. . . .
No guns fired. No flame blossomed beyond the gigantic landing jacks rising from the mud. A squad of crewmen met them, searched them for weapons, detailed them off, marched them away. Gus and the blond woman were escorted to the Power Section, handed over to a bald, grim-faced engineering officer.
"Only two? And one of them a woman? Damn the captain's arrogance! I told the—" He shut himself up, barked at a greasy-handed corporal who gave the newcomers a ration of mush and set them to work disassembling a fire-blackened mechanism.
"What's the rush?" the girl asked the NCO. "Why work all night? We're all tired—you too. How long since you've slept?"
"Too bloody long. But it's captain's orders."
"What's he doing for the colonists? Has he sent out the food and shelter he promised?"
"How do I know?" the man muttered. "Just stick to the job and can the chatter."
Half an hour later, with the corporal and the engineer busy cursing over a frozen valve at the far end of the room, the girl whispered to Gus, "I think we're being double-crossed."
"Maybe."
"What'll we do?"
"Keep working."
Another hour passed. Abruptly, the engineer threw down the calibrator with which he had been working, stamped out through the outer door.
"Try keeping the corporal occupied for a few minutes," Gus hissed at the girl. She nodded, rose, and went over to the corporal.
"I feel a little dizzy, sugar," she said, and folded against him. Gus went quickly to the door and out into the green-lit corridor.
He emerged in the darkened anteroom outside the bridge.
" . . . . nine hours at the outside!" a harsh voice was saying. "We lift before then, or we don't lift!"
"I don't trust your calculations, Leone."
"I showed you the fatigue profiles; check them for yourself—but do it fast! The structure is deflecting at the rate of two centimeters per hour. We'll have major strains in three hours, and buckling in eight—"
"I'll need six hours, minimum, to unload cargo, after the priority one work is out of the way—"
"Forget unloading, Captain. Your first job is to get your ship back, intact!"
"And you with it, eh, Leone?"
"The other officers feel as I do."
"After you've brow-beaten them! What about the colonists? Their equipment, their rations—"
"We can't spare the food," Leone said crisply. "You know what the damage inventory showed. We'll be lucky if we make it ourselves. The Covvs will manage—they'll have to. That's what they're here for, remember?"
"They were slated for an established colony on Three—"
"They can survive on Four. It's chilly, but no worse than plenty of areas of Terra."
"You're a cold-blooded devil, Leone."
"It's what you've got to do. . . ."
Gus stepped back, departed as silently as he had come.
The engineer whirled with an oath as Gus appeared. Gus stepped directly to him, and without warning hit him hard in the stomach, hit him again on the jaw as he doubled over. The corporal yelled and jumped, tugging at his gun. He went down hard as the girl threw herself at his legs. Gus knocked him cold with a blow on the head.
"Let's get out of here!" Gus helped the girl up; her nose was bleeding. He led her into the corridor, headed back toward the loading deck. They had gone fifty yards when a crew of armed men burst from a crossway and cut them off. It took three of them to hold the blond girl. Gus saw a club swinging toward his head; then the world burst into a shower of fireworks.