REVOLT ON ALPHA C
BY ROBERT SILVERBERG
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY • NEW YORK
Copyright 1955 by Robert Silverberg
All
rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form, except by a reviewer, without the permission
of the publisher.
Manufactured
in the United States of America by
the Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, New York
LIBRARY
OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 55-9219
First Printing
For
My Parents
REVOLT ON
ALPHA C
ThE STOPOVER at Pluto was brief, but for Larry
Stark it seemed to be much too long. The Garden and
its crew had spent a week on the cold, small planet at the outermost edge of
the solar system, making the necessary changeover to overdrive. This was the
second stop on the journey that would take him to the fourth planet of the star
Alpha Centauri, four and a half light-years away.
The
conversion of the Garden
for interstellar travel was
necessary if they wanted to cross that gulf of space in less than a decade.
Standard drive was limited to use within the solar system, and it operated at a
comparatively slow maximum speed of 100,000 miles
per second. The overdrive installed on Pluto would enable the Garden to travel the trillions of miles to Alpha C in a litde over two weeks;
without the drive the trip would take years.
Larry
was impatient to get on to Alpha C. The stop at Mars had been made in order to
pick up Harl Ellison, like
1
2 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Larry
a newly graduated cadet of the Space Patrol Academy. They were making their
Final Cruise—the traditional post-graduation space cruise, at the end of which
they would be awarded their commissions as officers of the Patrol.
Most
of the Cruises had been to points within the solar system. But Larry, and Harl,
who had studied at the Martian branch of the Academy, and Heitor van Haaren
and three other Earth Academy cadets, had been chosen to go on the first
Interstellar Cruise in Academy history. They were on their way to the primitive
fourth planet of Alpha Centauri, where four small Earth colonies struggled for
existence amid a prehistoric environment.
Larry
had secretly hoped that his father, Commander Stark of the Space Patrol, would
use his influence to get him assigned to the coveted Interstellar Cruise. But
Larry had not dared mention the matter, knowing that his father's code of honor
would allow no such thing, and had earned his way aboard by finishing first in
his class at the Academy. His father had been tremendously proud; Larry came
from a long line of Space Patrol commanders, and his father was determined that
his son would keep up the tradition. It was hard to tell which one was more
happy when the notification came that Larry had been chosen for the Cruise.
The trip to Mars had been full of excitement,
but the
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 3
novelty
of life in space lost some of its glitter during the nine-day journey to Pluto
for the change-over to overdrive. Still, ahead of him lay Alpha C IV, a young
world peopled by giant dinosaurs, and the delay on Pluto nearly exhausted
Larry's patience.
At
last the overhauling of the Car den was finished and he could say good-by to the
bleak, snow-covered world. The crew of the Carden made quick farewells to the colonists who lived under the dome on Pluto
and trotted back across the snow to the ship to await blastoff.
Larry
stared out the port while stowing his things for blastoff. He looked at the
white blanket of snow, broken here and there by jagged splinters of rock
towering high above, and at the black sky with the sun a bright dash of light,
hard and brilliant without any appearance of warmth. This was the sun, Larry
knew, as it appeared from the uttermost depths of its realm.
He
compared the Plutonian landscape with the view of Mars as he recalled it from
the brief glimpse he had had. Mars was starkly monotonous, without trees, all
bleak and barren for vast distances, a brick-red desert with scraggly patches
of green. Neither Mars nor Pluto was suitable for human life except under the
protection of a dome. But ahead of him was Alpha Centauri IV, where the air was
fresh and warm and the forests thrived with growing things.
4 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Larry cushioned himself in his acceleration
cradle and braced against the shock of blastoff, as the Garden escaped from Pluto's grip. The great roar of the jets filled the cabin
and an invisible fist bashed Larry down against the cradle. The Garden sprang up away from Pluto, stood for a moment on a fiery tail, and then
headed outward to the stars.
Now the long haul started,
the fifteen-day trip from Pluto to Earth's nearest stellar neighbor.
Actually
Alpha Centauri was not the closest star: Proxima Centauri, an insignificant
star with no planets, was slightly closer to Earth. But around Alpha G there
whirled eleven planets, of which one—the fourth from the sun—was inhabitable by
human beings. A colony had been planted there some 125 years before, and one on
a planet of the bright star Sirius, about twice as far from Earth as Alpha C.
In
the twentieth century the great Einstein had pointed out that it was impossible
for a moving body to exceed the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. The
Lorentz-Fitz-gerald equations showed the strange effects which would take place
when a body approached the speed of light.
But
"impossible" is a word not found in the vocabulary of most
scientists.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 5
The
Huxley discovery of 2183 gave man the path to the
stars.
Until then, faster-than-light travel was impossible.
And,
with traveling speeds limited to the velocity of light,
it
would take almost five years to make the trip to Alpha C;
nine years, round-trip.
Huxley's discovery was a
method of warping space, a
new drive principle called
"overdrive."
Larry's main duty aboard ship was to serve as
radio operator, the specialty which he had chosen while in the Academy. Once a
day he transmitted the ship's log, dictated by grizzle-haired, iron-faced
Captain Reinhardt, a stern old spaceman who reminded Larry of his father and
whom he had once nearly addressed as "Dad" in an absent-minded
moment.
Larry
would transmit the log regularly to the Space Bureau, which required daily
contact with all ships in space. The rest of his working day was devoted to
taking care of the radio instruments and picking up occasional messages beamed
to the ship.
His
schedule allowed him frequent free hours which he usually spent in his cabin,
along with Harl Ellison, the Martian cadet he bunked with. Ellison was short, a
head shorter than Larry, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and sturdy. Like all
Martians he was heavily tanned.
6 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"We enter overdrive sometime
tomorrow," Larry said as he entered the cabin. "Reinhardt entered it
in today's log."
"Quiet!" Harl said. "If I know
anything about Earth-men this whole ship's probably wired for sound, and you
know you're not supposed to be telling me what's in the log." Harl's voice
was deep and booming, a low growl emanating from somewhere in his huge chest.
Larry
smiled and sprawled out on his berth. "I doubt it," he said.
"Why would they want to wire us for sound? Don't they trust us?"
Harl leaned back and closed the book he had
been studying. "I know Earthmen," he repeated. "They're probably
listening to us right now."
There
was a knock on the door of the cabin. Harl and Larry exchanged glances.
"Come in," Larry called.
The door opened and Olcott, the pilot, a
veteran spaceman, entered.
"I got your note," he said.
"What did you want to talk to me about, Larry?"
"It's this: I've been looking through
the textbooks, and none of them answers a question I'm puzzled about. Why does
overdrive work?"
Olcott
chuckled and sat down. "Why? Why does it work? No one knows that,
Larry—not even old Huxley
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 7
himself.
No one knows exactly how electricity works, either, or magnetism, but we manage
to control them."
"I
thought maybe you could help me out, Olcott. They didn't teach us too much
about overdrive at the Academy."
Harl nodded. "They sort of passed over
it at the Martian Academy too, Larry. They seemed uneasy."
"It's
pretty simple," Olcott said. "We don't know why it works, but we know
how it works. It's a spacewarp. Look: it folds space over on itself, making
sort of an accordion pleat where we go through."
He
picked up a sheet of paper on which Larry had been doing some equations.
"Here. Imagine space as this piece of paper. You have to travel from one
side of the paper to the other, and the distance is four inches. Got the
picture?"
"Yes, but space isn't flat—"
"Never
mind that for a moment," Olcott put in. "Just follow me. Now, instead
of making this journey all the way across the flat surface, you find some way
of folding up the edges so where you are and where you want to be are right
next to each other. Then you just cross over, and you've made your trip of four
inches without moving more than a couple of millimeters.
"So
what the Huxley Drive does is to go outside the normal three dimensions—to go
above them, in a way— and cause that folding effect. Then we just cross from
8 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
one
edge to the other, and we've made our journey in hardly any time at all."
Olcott
stood up as if to leave. "By the way, we enter overdrive tomorrow, in case
you haven't heard. I suppose it's all right to tell you."
"Why don't we ever use overdrive within
the solar system?" Larry asked.
Harl
suppressed a laugh. "And you're number one in the Earth Academy? Use your
head, Larry—it's like using an H-Bomb to kill a rabbit, to use the Huxley Drive
to go from Earth to Mars."
"Harl's right," Olcott said.
"It's not very precise. It's hard to pin your distances down to a few
million miles. If you tried to go from Earth to Mars, more likely than not
you'd end up near Jupiter, or maybe you'd come out of overdrive right inside
Mars itself—and that would destroy the whole planet. So overdrive is never used
within the system."
"That's
why we stop off at Pluto before heading out, eh?"
"That's
it. Pluto is the last outpost of the system, and then there's nothing but space
for four light-years. So all outbound ships stop off there and have their drive
mechanisms changed; the standard one is removed and a Huxley Drive installed.
Then we stop back there on the return trip."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 9
Larry
nodded. "Does space look any different in overdrive?"
"I'm
afraid not. It's not very strange. You wouldn't be able to see anything, but
there's nothing to see anyway. It's empty out there; empty and black and cold.
It's space, Larry, and space is a lonely thing."
"I
know," Larry said, looking hard at the old spaceman's tired face. "I
know."
The final leg of the journey, that to Alpha
C, was scheduled to last fifteen days. Of that time, some six days were being
used to get clear of Pluto, and seven days would be used to coast into Alpha C
IV. The remaining two days would be spent in overdrive, and in those days they
would cover four light-years, or twenty-five million million miles. The Carden would range out through the vast emptiness and come out of overdrive a
few million miles from its destination.
Larry
was fast learning to appreciate the great loneliness of the spacemen. A
spaceship was a world in itself, a tiny metal world floating between the stars.
There was no corner candy store, no evening paper, no game of ball in the
street.
There
were long hours of staring at the velvet blackness of space, and hours of
study, and hours of work. And in the evening, the same group would gather all
the time. A
10 REVOLT ON ALPHA
spaceship
is a small world, with five or ten or a doz people, or maybe twenty or thirty.
But no more. Ne\ any strangers, never anyone new moving into the blo< A
small, quiet, self-contained, self-sufficient world.
And
the men of space, Larry found, those gods in gr uniforms, they felt the
loneliness. But it was part of the no, it was them. Space filtered in and mingled with t calcium in their bones.
Space meant waiting. Larry discovered that
traveling space meant long periods in the ship, broken by a it moments on this world, a few hours on that.
He had be on Mars a day, had seen that broken and twisted ha dead world, and
then had pulled up stakes again. Then was Pluto, a weird world of frozen
fields, and then back space again.
And now the long haul, the big trip. To the
next st
Out
ahead was Alpha C. Larry stood staring out ii the long night of space as if to
search for the planet tl lay somewhere ahead.
It
was July 7, six days out from Pluto. The visiphc crackled
to life and the announcement filled the ship.
Prepare
for overdrive. We enter overdrive in ten s onds.
Larry
and Harl hastily strapped themselves into tl acceleration cradles, not knowing
any other way of j paring for overdrive. Nine. Eight.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 11
The voice pounded out the seconds over the
visiphone. Seven.
Six. Five.
"Empty out there. Empty and black and
cold," Olcott had said. Larry wondered what would happen to the ship as it
shifted to overdrive. Four.
Three.
Larry
looked across the cabin at Harl. They grinned. Larry felt the excitement
pounding in him, just as it had the first time he had blasted off from Earth.
Once again he was moving into the Unknown.
Two. One.
Swiftly
there came a twist and a squeak and the ship seemed to spin around Larry's head
for a minute. Then all grew still.
The Garden had
erupted into overdrive.
OvERDRIVE
PROVED to be nothing unusual
after the first twisting shock of conversion, and life proceeded as usual
aboard the Carden.
The
only difference, so far as Larry was concerned, was that during overdrive it
was impossible to use the radio equipment, and so he was on relief for the two
days the Carden
would spend on the Huxley
Drive. As soon as he found this out, he headed for the rear jet section, where
huge O'Hare would be sitting, strumming his electronic guitar and bellowing out
the songs of space.
O'Hare
was a tubemonkey, a member of that lower class of spacemen who tended the jets,
did menial work, and rarely came forward to join in the society of the ship. He
was an immense red-haired man with intense blue eyes and a powerful bass voice,
who spent most of his free time playing his intricate electronic guitar and
singing. He had become friendly with Larry before blastoff from Earth, 12
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 13
and
the two had remained close friends despite the silent disapproval of some of
the officers, who did not like cadets mingling with tubemonkeys.
"I've
got two days off," Larry told Harl. "Radio won't be able to make
contact with anyone till we're out of overdrive. I'm heading back to the
jets."
Harl, bent over a textbook, merely nodded,
and Larry went out. He strode down the familiar corridor and into the
lead-walled jet section, where he saw O'Hare and his two assistants carrying
things from wall to wall far at the other side of the jet chamber.
"Pat!"
Larry called. The big Irishman put down whatever he had been carrying and came
over.
"Ho,
laddy! You draw a blank during overdrive, don't you? It's a soft life you
radiomen lead." The giant was stripped to the waist and sweating. "We
were just stowing some fuel pellets when you showed up." He lifted his
hand to his mouth as a megaphone and yelled to the two men still working.
"Boggs! Grennell! Knock off and come over here."
They
came. They were both big, husky men—though not as big as O'Hare. They greeted
Larry curtly.
Grennell
was a squat, broad-shouldered fellow with sharp features and an ugly red scar
on one cheek. Boggs was tall, with close-cropped hair and thick, vein-corded
forearms.
14 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
O'Hare lowered himself to the floor and
propped himself up against the lead-lined wall.
"How
come Reinhardt hasn't reassigned you for these two days?" O'Hare asked.
"He hates to waste a man."
"I'll say," Grennell agreed. "He'll
work you till you drop."
Larry
frowned. The jetmen were forever grumbling about the captain. This was one
thing he found hard to take; his training all through life, from his father and
later at the Academy, taught him to respect his officers.
"Maybe he just forgot about me. He—"
But O'Hare wasn't listening. He was rippling
his hand, his great veined hand, over the controls of the guitar. A few chords
drifted out. He looked off into the distance and began to sing, mournfully, in
his resonant basso.
Oh, Mars is dry and bare of life—
Gone the race of Mars. Peace on the world of
the god of strife—
Gone the race of Mars.
Grennell
picked up the melody there. His voice was deep and hard, but underneath was the
mixture of melodiousness and rough tenderness which creeps into the voices of
all spacemen. Grennell sang the plaintive minor refrain.
The towers stand in the desert— Bone-dry and
dusty, all.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 15
The race that built them also's dust, Faces
to the wall.
The visiphone clicked.
All hands to quarters, came the announcement.
Larry looked around uneasily. He knew he had
to get back to his cabin; being out against orders would get him in trouble.
The first rule, when the back-to-quarters signal was given, was to get back to
quarters. But none of the tubemonkeys were moving, none showed the slightest
sign of having heard the announcement, and Larry decided to follow their
example and ignore the warning. There was bound to be a second call for
back-to-quarters, and he could leave then. He knew how these men felt about Captain
Reinhardt's authority, and he did not want to displease them by seeming too
easily ordered around.
"That's pretty gloomy music," Boggs
said, making one of his rare contributions to the conversation.
O'Hare
gave no answer, but began strumming harder and faster, and wild chords leaped
from the instrument. He threw his head back and roared.
The men of space are a hardy race,
They're built of fire and stone. They roam
the stars and know no bars
In space they find their home.
It
was the familiar, hundred-versed ballad that was the unofficial anthem of the
spacemen. Larry joined the
16 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
chorus in his clear baritone, and Boggs and
Grennell followed.
Heigh-ho! Hear the jets!
Feel them blast, feel them rip, heigh-ho!
Feel them blast!
Feel them rip!
Oh, heigh-ho!
O'Hare took up the solo again.
Oh, I was born on Alpha C
Among the dinosaurs. I'm ten feet high and
bold and free—
But
the song was interrupted. The visiphone crackled to life and the announcement
filled the jet section.
All hands back to quarters! Emergency!
Emergency!
In
the middle of a note O'Hare put down the guitar, leaped up, and ran to his
jets; Boggs and Grennell did likewise. Larry suddenly realized he should have
been in his cabin long ago, and headed for the corridor. He began to race down
the hall, aware that he had broken a regulation.
There
came an abrupt twist and there was the shock of change-over as the Garden burst out of overdrive. Larry grew dizzy and sank to his knees. The
corridor wall was racing around his head, coming closer and closer each
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 17
time around. An immense bulkhead loomed up
and grazed past his head.
Larry fell flat, hardly conscious of what was
happening, and began to crawl along the floor toward his cabin. Somewhere in
the back of his mind he wondered what his father, resplendent in the uniform of
a commander in the Space Patrol, would think if he saw his son creeping along
the floor because he had disobeyed an instruction. Then the ship gave another
lurch and he sank into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER
LaRRY FELT a stinging slap against his cheek. He waved his arm vaguely, trying
to drive away his attacker, and slowly returned to consciousness.
"Stop
that," he mumbled, as another slap brought him further awake. He looked up
to see O'Hare standing over him, preparing to bring down his hand once again.
"Never
mind. I'm awake," he said, hastily scrambling to his feet and rubbing the
side of his face. "What happened? Why are we back in regular drive?"
"I
don't know, laddy," O'Hare said. He looked worried. "Reinhardt's
called a general meeting in the Central Room to discuss the situation, and
we're late."
"I
was on my way back when we shifted over," Larry said as they hurried down
the corridor to the Central Room. "The twist caught me and I must have
banged my head on a bulkhead."
He felt a sudden twinge of pain from the
bruise on his
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 19
head,
reminding him of his carelessness in not returning to his cabin when the order
came. Dad wouldn't like this at all, not at all, he thought, remembering the
way the sunlight glinted from the gold braid on his father's uniform.
They entered the Central Room, O'Hare first,
Larry behind. The entire crew was ringed around the room, with Captain
Reinhardt standing stiff and erect in the middle. He looked sternly at the two
latecomers.
"Now
that the complete crew is here, we can begin. You two may file written excuses
for your lateness."
They
nodded. The veteran captain seemed to stare hard at Larry, in just the way his
father would, and Larry felt like hiding behind O'Hare. The big tubemonkey met
the captain's stare impassively.
"Now.
Here's what happened." Captain Reinhardt spoke in short, hard, staccato
bursts of sound. "There's something in the jets. Some kind of obstruction.
Could be anything—meteor, dirt accumulation, anything. Probably just a speck of
dust that floated in and managed the million-to-one. Something has disturbed
the balances of our drive mechanism and shut off the overdrive."
He looked around at the crew. "If we
don't get our drive fixed, it's going to take us four years to reach Alpha
C—some time in 2367. And 2367's a long time. We only have food for four weeks,
not four years.
20 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"We can only reach the mechanism from
outside the ship. O'Hare, it's your department, so you're going outside to
clear it up. Get yourself into a spacesuit and start moving."
O'Hare
said nothing, but saluted and left to get into his spacesuit. Larry watched his
departure. Going out into space was risky—standing there on the skin of the
ship, with the cold of space held away by the thin protection of the
spacesuit—but it was absolutely necessary that O'Hare go outside. If the drive
stayed off, they would run out of food years before they reached Alpha C. And
finding a ship in space was harder than looking for a needle in a haystack, so
there was little chance of a rescue.
"It violates space rules to send a man
outside alone," Captain Reinhardt said. "Cadet Stark, your lateness
to this meeting is construed as volunteering to accompany O'Hare. Get a suit on
and join him."
Larry stared blankly for just a moment, but
his control reasserted itself almost immediately. He saluted smartly and left,
without saying a word.
So this was space at first hand, Larry thought
as he climbed through the airlock. His suit and helmet was a closed system,
ventilated, protected from the biting cold of space. His one contact with
humanity was the radio in his helmet. In one space-gloved hand he held a small
gun;
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 21
another
was clamped to his suit at the hip. On his feet were magnetic shoes.
O'Hare was already out there, moving slowly
along the ship to the jet section. Larry followed, carefully placing his feet
on the steel walking tracks. The magnet clicked and he knew he was held fast.
He switched on his helmet-radio with a movement of his chin.
"Pat! Wait for me."
O'Hare twisted around till he could see the
face in the space helmet. "Larryl You too?"
"Reinhardt sent me. Thought you'd get
lonesome."
O'Hare's
curses were vivid. "He's thought nothing of sending me out here alone
before. It's just that he wanted to give you a bad time of it for coming late
to his useless meeting." O'Hare turned and continued moving. "But
what would you expect from him? Or any Patrol officer? They're all alike—steel
bellies."
He
gestured with his hand. "Let's go, laddy. You're safe enough out here.
Let's get this over with. I'd like to flay that captain's duralumin hide!"
"Don't
talk like that, Pat," Larry said. "He is the captain, whether you like him or not."
"Sorry,
lad. I forgot you're from the Academy. But you'll learn, someday, I hope. Come
on—let's move."
Larry puzzled over what O'Hare had
said—"you'll
22 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
learn,
someday." What would he learn? Not to obey the captain? Impossible. The
captain had to be obeyed; otherwise how would society
stay preserved? If every man were his own captain there would never be any
tubemonkeys.
He looked around at his view. Space was naked
before him. The ship seemed not to move at all; it hung motionless, floating
in the void. All around there was blackness, broken by dots of light scattered
through and around.
There
was no danger of falling off the hull, Larry knew, but still he was just a bit
nervous. Even if the magnetic shoes failed to hold, Newton's Laws of Motion
assured him that he'd continue to drift along in the same direction and at the
same speed as the ship. But, all the same, he'd rather do his space traveling within the ship, he decided.
That
was what the small gun was for. It made him a miniature rocket of his own. A
spaceship moves by propelling jets; the jets force fuel out, and the balancing
reaction forces the ship forward. For every action, an equal and opposite
reaction. The same law that provides for the kickback of a revolver allows for
the motion of a spaceship. And so with Larry's gun. In case he started to
drift away from the ship, a bullet carefully fired would aim his drift back
toward the ship.
It was
O'Hare's whisper over the helmet-radio that brought him back and made him
realize that he had been
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 23
standing
on the skin of the ship as if frozen, staring out into space. "Hsst,
laddy. Work to do. Let's go!" O'Hare's deep voice was cold and metallic
over the helmet-radio.
Slowly
Larry worked his way across the ship's skin, following the tracks that led to
the rear jets. O'Hare was up ahead, leading the way.
Larry
walked gingerly along the steel tracks. The fact that he was Larry Stark, a
twenty-year-old human being, had dropped away from him completely; he was Thor,
he was Zeus, he was some Olympian god up here in the heavens, walking across
his chariot. All around was his domain; here, in the blackness—
A
bright flash and an amazed roar snapped him back to reality for the second
time. In his helmet he heard an amazing string of curses.
"May
the devil plague this thing! Going off in my hand! Help me, Larry! Help!"
O'Hare
was drifting slowly away from the ship! Larry realized quickly what had
happened. Somehow O'Hare's gun had gone off in his hand and had blasted him
loose from the walking-tracks. The reaction, Newton's inevitable law, had set
him going on a trajectory aimed away from the ship.
O'Hare was moving slowly, so slowly, drifting
just overhead. Larry strained up, trying to reach the massive boot that hung
above him, but it was just a few inches from his
24 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
grasp
and drawing further away. A mixture of curses and prayers filled his ears.
Larry
abandoned his attempt at grabbing O'Hare, for he knew that if he should lose
his own footing on the outside of the ship he would drift off in the same
direction as the big Irishman.
"Use your gun, Pat!"
O'Hare
stopped cursing for a moment. "That's just the trouble," he said.
"I don't have it. And this old-fashioned suit doesn't have an extra like
yours."
O'Hare's
own gun was floating off into space in the opposite direction. The redhead had
dropped it in his amazement when it fired, and it had kicked itself out into
space. It was headed back toward Earth, while O'Hare gradually drifted out to
the stars.
He was
a hundred feet away when Larry thought of the gun he held clutched in his space
glove. O'Hare was moving slowly, swimming in space, unable to direct himself
back to the ship which steadily moved further and further away.
His
bull voice continued to crackle in Larry's receiver. "I guess it's fitting
for an O'Hare to be dying out here in the stars," the giant was saying.
"Better be it here than in bed like an old man, eh, laddy?"
"Just
a minute, O'Hare," Larry called into his radio's transmitter. "I've
got another gun here, you know."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 25
"What? Saints be blessed, lad, can ye
throw it straight? If ye can, fling itl"
"I'll
try, Pat." Larry knew it would be tough. Not only did the throw have to be
accurate—right at O'Hare—but he had to judge the velocity. If he threw too
slowly, the gun would never catch up with O'Hare, and he would drift out
forever toward the stars with his means of safety trailing just a few yards
behind him. Or, if he threw too hard, it might swiftly fly past O'Hare before
he could catch it.
It
was the only thing Larry could do, though. He had been a pretty good pitcher,
back in the days before he had traded his baseball uniform for his Space Cadet
uniform.
He
took careful aim, drew back his arm, and sent the gun flying out into space.
Tiny,
dark, almost invisible, it drifted toward O'Hare. If only the aim were true
enough, Larry hoped. The gun followed the inflexible path imparted to it by
Larry's throw, passed an inch or two beyond O'Hare's desperate grasp, and
continued on its way through space.
O'Hare
watched it go, without ceasing his running chatter.
"If
I don't get back, lad, tell Grennell to give you my guitar, now that you know
how to use it. And don't let that rascal be dragging you into any card games,
either! And someday, Larry, when you're a captain and wear the
26 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Grays
and can order people around like slaves, think of the tubemonkeys, and a big
stupid redheaded Irishman who—"
"Quiet.
There's one other thing I can do." And before he had a chance to reflect
on what he was doing, he drew the extra gun from its clamp and fired it,
throwing himself out into space in the general direction of O'Hare.
O'Hare
gave a roar of surprise and anger, but Larry hardly noticed. Moving in space
was something like swimming in ice, he found; space seemed frozen around him.
But as he continued to move, he decided it was more like swimming in molasses.
The ship lay behind him, an alarming distance away. The silver hull gleamed
dully in the dark. Above and below him there was nothing but darkness
sprinkled with bright hard stars.
Now
he was approaching O'Hare. He saw he was going to miss the big man by almost
ten degrees, and fired again to correct the error. The explosion of the gun
made no sound, since there was no atmosphere to carry the sound waves, but the
bright flash seemed to light up the galaxy.
The
shot had the required effect. He floated straight at the waiting O'Hare, who
extended one powerful arm and gathered him in.
"You fired two shots, didn't you?"
"Right."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 27
"We have two left. They'd better be good
ones. Give me the gun."
Larry
very carefully handed the gun to O'Hare, who took it as if he were handling a
soap bubble and secured it in his hand, completely hiding it in his great paw.
Deftly he fired once, aiming them back, and slowly and surely they drifted back
toward the Carden.
Moving
in slow motion, they approached the ship and hovered some fifteen feet above
it. There was not a sound in the universe; they might have been frozen in some
cosmic photograph instead of moving and breathing and struggling. They stayed
fifteen feet above the ship.
"No
good," O'Hare said. "The ship's carrying us along now, and we won't
get any closer. Here—hold on to me with your arms outstretched. Feet toward the
ship. That's it."
O'Hare took both Larry's hands in one of his
and extended him toward the ship feet-first. Then he fired the final shot.
They
moved forward till Larry's feet hung in space just a few inches from the ship.
Larry stretched until one shoe touched the walking strips and caught with a
satisfying click. He reached up and hauled O'Hare down until he, too, was
safely anchored to the skin of the ship.
They
looked at each other. Through his helmet Larry saw that O'Hare's usually florid
face had turned pale, and
28 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
his
breath was coming thick and heavy; Larry heard it in his radio.
Suddenly
Larry felt very weak, very tired. He wanted to be back inside, safe and snug.
O'Hare
clapped Larry on the back with a space-gloved hand. "Thanks, lad," he
said. Even with the distortion of the helmet-radio Larry felt the gratitude
flowing from the big tubemonkey.
They
said nothing else, but gingerly edged along the ship to the jets in silence.
The problem facing them seemed insignificant after the excitement just past,
but Larry realized that the fate of the entire crew hung on O'Hare for the
moment. If he couldn't perform the necessary repairs, perhaps no one could.
And the Carden
would drift on and on,
slowly and steadily, while its crew starved within.
They
reached the entrance to the tubes, and O'Hare paused.
"Wait here, Larry. Ill take care of it
myself."
The big man disappeared around the curve and
into the maw of the jets like a king striding to his throne room. Larry stood
at the entrance and tried to peer into the darkness.
The
stars all around were sharp points of hard light. There was no atmosphere, no
dust to make them twinkle.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 29
Larry glanced up as if to stare at them as
their conqueror; space had tried to get him, but he had overcome it.
After
what must have been ten minutes, O'Hare's helmet loomed up over the lip of the
tube, and the rest of him followed.
"I've fixed the trouble," O'Hare said. "Freakiest accident I've ever seen. We can go back inside now,
Spaceman Stark."
CHAPTER
IjARRY SHED
his heroism as he entered the Carden. There
were no heroes in the Patrol, only spacemen. Spacemen's ethics held that such
a rescue was mere line-of-duty operation, not worth discussing. So Larry
proceeded to forget the matter had ever taken place, though he knew O'Hare
would always remember.
The overdrive went back on without snag—O'Hare had done his job well—and the Carden resumed its journey toward Alpha Centauri at faster-than-light veloc-
Life aboard the Carden swung back to the familiar routine. Classes—by now, he thought, he could navigate a spaceship by himself—and chores, and exams, and visits to the jet section, and long
arguments with Harl.
O'Hare had taught Larry how to play the
electronic
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 31
guitar,
and for hours during free time the two of them would sing together, would sing
the plaintive ballads and roaring tunes developed during the two and a half centuries
of space travel.
Occasionally
O'Hare would sink into a sentimental mood and sing of Earth, its hills and
lakes, its towering cities and its pretty girls. But those songs were few and
far between: for the most part he sang of space, of the bold pioneers who left
their corpses on the Moon in the twentieth century.
Now
and then Larry would stop to think of the planet he had left behind. Not often,
for it was hard to wrench himself from space. But he would look back at his
home town, and at his friends and playmates, and wonder how he had been able to
stand Earthbound life so long. For this, this was the real life, out here next
to the starsl
They
moved back out of overdrive on schedule the next day.
"We
ought to hit the monitor station any minute," Harl said. "Shouldn't
you be up front listening?"
"The
captain said it wasn't necessary," Larry replied, looking up from his
book. "We won't be in range of the monitor station for more than an
hour"—he looked at his wristchron—"and I'll be back on duty by
then."
The monitor station was an artificial
satellite revolv-
32 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
ing
around the sun Alpha Centauri. All spaceships bound for any of the planets of
Alpha C checked in with the monitor station before landing.
Harl
reached over and turned on his recorder. The sad, weary sounds of his favorite
compositions, Elsberry's "Dance by the Martian Sea," flowed into the
room.
"That's your Martian thing, isn't
it?" Larry asked.
"Yes," Harl said. "You don't
mind my playing it?"
"Go
right ahead. I was getting sick of studying anyway." He closed the book
and dropped it.
"You don't like this piece much, eh,
Larry?"
"I'm
getting to. It's awfully old-fashioned, really, but Tm starting to like
it."
"I'm glad. Martian music is a lot like
Mars itself. No one likes it at first, but it grows on you till you can't help
feeling it in every fiber of your body. That's why this piece means so much to
me."
"Check,"
Larry said. "But maybe the music doesn't mean so much to people who aren't
native Martians. Maybe—"
"Who said I'm a native Martian?"
Harl interrupted. "I was born on Jupiter."
"Oh,"
Larry said. "That
explains it." Larry
had wondered why Harl was short and burly, while all the other Martians he had
seen were tall and attenuated. Apparently he was part of the ill-fated colony
which had strug-
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 33
gled
against the overpowering gravity of Jupiter for twenty-five years before
admitting defeat.
"I
was part of the Jupiter colony," Harl said. "I was born there and
lived there for three or four years, enough time to develop these muscles. You
mature early when you have to fight gravity nearly three times that of
Earth."
"And you went to Mars when the colony
broke up?"
"Right.
My parents were killed in the Revolution. I lived with an older cousin who was
a Martian colonist."
Larry
was silent, fitting this new information into the pattern of what he already
knew. He wondered what Jupiter-born Harl Ellison was doing in the Patrol Academy.
An Earth boy chosen for the Academy could not refuse the honor—who ever
did?—but non-Terrans had the option of turning down the bid.
And
Jupiter-born Harl Ellison, with his background, should have every reason to
hate Earth and its colonial policies. The Jovians, Larry knew, had never
understood why it had been necessary to evacuate the struggling colony on the
huge planet. A Jovian would tell you that Earth had ruthlessly exploited the
rich mineral mines on Jupiter, without offering any aid to the struggling colonists
in return. Actually, Larry thought, we know that Earth poured so much money
into Jupiter that it nearly wrecked its own economy and had to end the colonization.
If the colonists had only understood this, it might
34 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
have
been possible to avoid the war in which the outraged colony finally revolted,
refused to turn any minerals over to the Earth commissioner, and declared
itself independent. They had been forcibly evacuated by a large Earth force,
with many casualties as a result, and the Jupiter mines were now operated by
convict labor.
"We've
been away from home nearly a month," Harl said. "Another month or so
more and we'll be officers in the Patrol at last."
"At
last," Larry repeated. He thought of his father, stern and resplendent in
his uniform, and of his old grandfather, still an upright and powerful man,
and of the long line of Starks who had served Earth in the Space Patrol.
"I've waited a long time for this,"
Harl said. "I've always wanted to be a spaceman, and the Patrol is the
ideal, for me. That and visiting Earth—I've never been there. But we'll have to
go there to get our commissions, won't we?"
"That's right," Larry said.
"As soon as we get back from Alpha C."
Harl
nodded. "Alpha C. That's another of my ambitions coming true.
You didn't think I was so ambitious, did you? I want to see the dinosaurs, and
see the colony. I don't have to tell you how I feel about space colonies— I've
been a colonist all my life."
"I heard some strange things about the
Alpha C colony,
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 35
though,"
Larry said. "Before I left some fellow was telling me about a book he'd
read that said Alpha C ought to have its independence after all this
time."
"You
don't mean No
More Slavery, do
you?" Harl reached into his bag and hauled forth a blue paper-covered
booklet. "This? Very fine book."
Larry looked at his bunkmate coldly.
"Yes, that's the book. But I didn't expect to find a cadet reading it. You
may come from a colony of rebels, but you knew what you were asking for when
you joined the Patrol. Your loyalty belongs to Earth."
Harl
put his finger across his lips and Larry realized he had been talking too loud.
"Quiet. The neighbors'll think we're fighting. Hold on a minute, Larry.
I'm as loyal to Earth as the next fellow. But I happen to think these fellows
on Alpha C may be right when they say they ought to have their
independence."
"If
you think that you can't be loyal to Earth," Larry said. Inwardly he felt
vaguely disturbed. In the month he had lived with Harl he had come to respect
his judgment in many matters, to see that the powerful young Martian had a wide
and intelligent view of things. And now here was Harl practically attacking
Earth, which Larry had been taught to hold virtually sacred. Larry decided to
cling to his loyalty; he had often bowed to Harl's keener judgment, but he
would not now.
36 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"If you'd only read the book, maybe you
wouldn't think so. Earth can't always be right, Larry. Be objective about it.
Here. Read the book and then well discuss the thing." He held out the
book. Larry looked at it, almost reached for it.
"No.
I don't want to read it. Earth's doing the right thing—the only thing—with
Alpha C, and I don't want to bother reading something like this. Look, Harl. I
understand how it is. Your parents had some friction with Earth when you were
a baby, and you've always resented the Jupiter affair. But I'm sure it's you
who's not being objective. Earth knows what it's doing on Alpha C, and I think
it's right."
Harl
was smiling oddly. Larry looked at his wristchron. "Hey! I'm due at the
radio set in one minute." He snapped his shoesnaps and tidied his uniform.
"Let's forget the whole thing, shall we, Harl? The whole argument never
took place."
Harl
nodded. "All right, Larry. If you want to. I'll put the book away. But if
you ever want to read it, go right ahead. Maybe it'll open your eyes a
little."
"Don't
talk about opening my eyes. You're the one who's not seeing clearly."
Larry left, but as he sped down the corridor toward the radio room strange
doubts twisted in his mind. He wondered whether or not he ought to
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 37
take a look at Harl's book after all. It
couldn't do any harm, and his father wouldn't ever have to know. He turned off
and headed for the radio set. Captain Rein-hardt was waiting next to it as he
entered.
ÜUST ON TIME, Cadet Stark," Reinhardt said in his staccato voice. "I've turned
the machine on for you. We're within radio range of Alpha C now."
Larry
sat down at the huge and complex machine which served for interplanetary
communications. Ignoring the captain, who peered over his shoulder to make
sure nothing went wrong, Larry turned dials, checked figures, and made hurried
computations. Then, in the background, a soft but piercing noise started up
from somewhere.
It swelled and swelled until it seemed to
fill the room. Larry thought his brain would burst, but he gave no sign and sat
at the machine making adjustments. Intercom was a science requiring great
skill; Larry's aptitude test, taken when he was a recruit at the Academy,
showed that he promised to be a more than outstanding radio operator, and he
had gone on to prove the test right. 38
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 39
Suddenly
the noise ceased and was replaced by a dry, impersonal, metallic voice.
"Alpha
Centauri Monitor Station X03216. Who is approaching, please?"
Larry
gave the answering formula. "Spaceship Garden, out of Earth 15 June Earthtime, seeking
entrance to London Colony on Alpha Centauri IV. Do we have clearance?"
The
metallic voice was replaced by a more human one as the robot which had made the
initial question gave way to the human operator who handled the station.
"Who's this? Mellillo?"
"No," Larry said. "Stark. New
man."
"First
trip, Stark? Name's Henry. Cant give you clearance, Stark. You'll have to get
it from the local authorities on TV. 7 hear
the London Colony spaceport is semi-closed."
Larry
looked at Captain Reinhardt. "On whose authority?" the captain
asked.
Larry
said, "Captain Reinhardt of the Garden wants
to know on whose authority they're closing up."
The
Alpha Centauri operator replied, "On their own, it seems. They've applied to the Interstellar
Council for permission to close up, and in the meantime they've gone ahead and
done it themselves. I think they're up to something down there."
40 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"Can we get clearance from them?"
"I
suppose so, unless they just don't want company. I don't see how they can
refuse a Patrol ship. Hold on while I try to make contact with the local
operator."
A few minutes passed, and then a new voice
came over the radio.
"Operator
Miller speaking from the Free World of Alpha Centauri IV. What is your request,
please?"
Larry
turned in amazement and stared at the captain. "Free World of Alpha
Centauri IVl"
"What is your request, please?" the operator repeated.
The
captain signaled for Larry to get up. He did, and Captain Reinhardt slid
smoothly into the seat.
"Captain
Reinhardt of Earth ship Carden
speaking. Request landing
privileges at London Colony."
"This
is a semiclosed planet, Captain Reinhardt. Present regulations prohibit
landing at London Colony."
Larry saw the captain begin to grow angry.
"Semi-closed? Under whose authority?"
The reply was swift and even. "Under the authority of the Council of the Free World of
Alpha Centauri IV. Are you in need of
repairs?"
"No.
This is a Space Patrol Training Cruise. May I be connected with the office of
President Harrison, please?"
"The
President and his council are no longer located at London Colony."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 41
Captain Reinhardt stared at the machine as if
it were some live beast. He said nothing, only stared.
"Are you in revolt?" he snapped.
"Landing
on the Free World of Alpha C IV is
prohibited temporarily" the operator repeated, ignoring the captain's question.
Suddenly
a new voice cut in. "You
may land at Chicago Colony, Captain Reinhardt."
The
London Colony operator made an attempt to scramble reception, but Larry quickly
reached in front of the captain and touched the dial that would prevent this.
"Who is speaking now?" asked
Captain Reinhardt.
"Office
of President Harrison, in Chicago Colony. You may land here, if
you wish."
Captain
Reinhardt frowned. Larry thought of Harl, of the little book Harl had, of the
Jupiter colony.
"Yes. We'll land immediately."
"Very
good, sir. President Harrison will be there to greet you when you land." He signed off.
Captain Reinhardt got up from the machine, signed to Larry to shut it
off, and strode off to his cabin, his face creased with frowns, without saying
a word.
Larry returned to his cabin. Harl was reading
a book very intently, and listening to some early Earth music. He turned off
the recorder as Larry entered.
42 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"Well?"
"We're landing at Chicago Colony instead
of London." Larry decided not to say any more. What he transmitted was
supposed to be forgotten immediately by the operator, and he wasn't sure he
wanted to repeat it to Harl anyway.
"I've computed an orbit while you were
gone," Harl said. "We ought to hit Alpha C IV sometime tomorrow. We've
already passed Alpha C I. And II and III are coming up."
"Certainly
are a peculiar bunch of planets in this system. Alpha C I is normal
enough—it's almost identical to Mercury. But II and III are funny ones."
"Are they the double ones? I'm pretty hazy
about the planets in this system."
"Yes.
The second and third planets revolve around each other. They're both about the
size of Mars, and completely unsuitable for human life."
"How come?"
"The
two planets are so close to each other that the tides are completely mad, and
there are regular floods that cover the whole planet in sections. If there ever
is a colony there they'd have to be nomads, wandering around just ahead of the
floods."
"And
it could never be self-sufficient," Harl said. "They wouldn't be able
to raise any crops."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 43
That part always interested Harl, Larry
thought. He wanted every colony to be self-sufficient. Larry was becoming more
and more perplexed by his friend; he wanted to believe that Harl was loyal to
Earth and the Patrol, but he was beginning to feel he was not.
"What's the rest of the system like,
Larry?"
"Well,
IV is the planet most suited for human life, because of the atmosphere. It's
almost like Earth's." Larry reached for one of their textbooks and flipped
through it. "Let's see. Then there's V, which is the same size as Earth
but which has an atmosphere of poisonous gases, and VI, which is pretty cold but
which has a tiny colony planted there."
"Colony?"
Harl looked extremely interested. "I didn't know about that. What does the
book say about them?"
"Hmm.
It's pretty tiny. At last report it's about twelve people living in a pressure
dome."
"It's a start," Harl said,
laughingly.
"Alpha
C VII and VIII are giant planets," Larry continued. "Too heavy to
support human life or even to allow any humans to land there. Sort of a
super-Jupiter, you might say."
"I
remember reading about those two," Harl said. "Two exploratory ships
landed on VII about twenty years ago, but the pull of gravity was so strong
they couldn't lift the ship up once it landed. In fact they couldn't do
anything
44 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
at
all—the gravity plastered them to the ground, and they just stuck there till
they starved to death. Typical Patrol foul-up."
"You'd almost think you didn't want to
be in the Patrol," Larry said, looking down at Harl. "The way you
keep talking as if—"
"Never
mind," Harl said. "I thought you had a sense of humor, but you're
awfully touchy when it comes to the Patrol."
Larry
flushed. He saw that once again Harl was right. He was acting pretty stuffy
about the Patrol. "Sorry, Harl. I don't mean to keep harping like
that."
"Forget
it. What does your book say about native life on these planets?"
"Nothing
much. We can't tell if there's any life on VII and VIII, of course, but the
gravity is so strong that probably nothing can stand up to it but some sort of
jellyfish. And planets IX, X, and XI are too cold to support any form of life
at all. There's aquatic life on II and III, and primitive snow animals on VI.
It's too hot on I, and we haven't found anything on V so far. You know about
IV."
"I sure do," Harl said. "Who
doesn't?"
Larry closed the book and tried to picture
Alpha C IV in his mind. They would land tomorrow; tonight he could see it in
imagination only. Alpha C IV was a lush, young, tropical world. Here and there
the jungles were dotted
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 45
with
Earth colonies. But the planet was green and primitive, and its natives were
giant dinosaurs. Larry wondered if you could hear the ground shake when they
came near.
A.T MIDDAY on July 16 the Garden hung just outside the atmospheric blanket of the fourth planet of the
sun Alpha Centauri. Guided by a base on the planet, the ship entered a landing
orbit and spiraled down.
Twenty miles from planetfall, a small ship
from Chicago Colony came out to meet them and guide them down through the
atmosphere. The two ships landed on a field just outside Chicago Colony. A
small group of colonists was waiting for them as they came out of the ship.
The
first thing that struck Larry was the strong pull of gravity. Alpha C IV was a
big world, he recalled; its diameter was nearly ten thousand miles, as compared
with Earth's own seven thousand miles. Thus, Larry reasoned, the natives—no, he
corrected himself, not the natives but the colonists—would all be heavy and
muscular, their muscles developed from fighting the strong gravity. A look at
the Centaurans confirmed this. 46
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 47
The next thing that struck him was the
atmosphere. He sucked in a chestful of air and reluctantly exhaled it; Harl, he
saw, was doing the same thing, as were all the spacemen. Not since leaving
Earth had they breathed real air. On Mars he and his shipmates had breathed the
artificial air of the dome, not the thin, sharp, low-oxygen Martian air
outside. On Pluto there was no air outside the dome; it all lay frozen on the
rocks. And the Carden,
like the Mars and Pluto
domes, used artificially restored air. Larry had almost forgotten what real air
tasted like.
Alpha
C IV had no domes. Everything was out under the sky, in the real air. Larry
pulled in a sharp breath.
After
a month, breathing natural air was luxury. The air on Alpha C IV was sweet,
almost dizzying—it's the oxygen, Larry thought. Slightly greater oxygen content
than Earth air—but above all else, it was fresh. Stepping from the ship into
this air was almost a physical shock, as the clean new air poured into his
lungs.
They
walked quickly from the ship to where an immense wall loomed up before them—at
least a hundred feet it rose into the air, perhaps more. All around he saw lush
vegetation, strange green plants that towered high overhead.
"Those walls keep out the native
animals," explained a muscular-looking colonist who was leading them.
"Each
48 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
of
the four settlements is surrounded by a similar wall, and so far none of the
big beasts has gotten through."
Larry
looked around. He knew he was on a young world, still in the stage known as
Mesozoic on Earth. The dominant form of life was the giant reptile, just as it
had been on Earth hundreds of millions of years before.
Down
at the bottom of the huge wall was a tiny gate, a bare six feet high, through
which none of the great beasts could possibly enter. The little party of
Earthmen followed through the gate and into the Chicago Colony.
It was a busy place. Larry saw stores,
markets, homes. It looked as any other frontier town might look. There was none
of the gleaming chrome which decorated Earth's cities, none of the sharp
functional lines. Chicago Colony seemed a simple, almost primitive place.
They
followed the guide through the streets. Captain Reinhardt walked next to him
and was talking in a low whisper. A few colonists gathered in clumps and stared
with open curiosity.
"Look
at the streets," Larry whispered to Heitor van Haaren, a short, chubby
cadet who had bunked on the other side of the corridor. "I think they're
paved with concrete."
"Maybe they can't afford plastine,"
Heitor suggested. "Maybe they don't want it," Harl said. "It's
not as durable as concrete."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 49
"That's
true," Heitor said. "Plastine has to be replaced every few
years."
The
guide turned off into an imposing building and the Earth party followed him.
They climbed a flight of stairs—a strange experience for Earthmen accustomed to
escalators and power lifts—and entered a large room.
A
white-haired, distinguished-looking man was waiting there for them, simply
dressed in an old-fashioned style. He rose and walked toward them as they
entered.
"I'm Harrison," he said.
"President of the Colonial Council. In exile," he added in a lower
voice.
Captain Reinhardt introduced himself and some
of his party quickly, and seemed to be about to say something else when
President Harrison interrupted.
"Are you people hungry?" Harrison
asked abruptly.
Larry
felt like saying "yes" himself, he was so hungry. But Captain
Reinhardt surprised him by replying, "Why, yes, we are." It would
have been more like him to take care of official business first.
"Then let's eat first and talk
later," Harrison said.
He led the way to a dining room and indicated
that they were to take any seats around the table. He sat down between Larry
and Captain Reinhardt.
They
ate in silence. A few colonists joined them at the table: all, like Harrison,
were heavy-set, silent men. None
50 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
of
the food was familiar to Larry, who was accustomed to concentrates and
synthetics.
The
main course was some sort of steak, tough but flavorous. Larry had just
finished his piece when President Harrison turned to him and said, without
prologue, "Did you like the meat?"
"Very much, sir," said Larry,
somewhat surprised. It was the first thing Harrison had said since the meal
began.
"Good
to hear it. Some of our visitors aren't too fond of our dinosaur steaks."
"Dinosaur
steaks!" Larry stared at his plate in amazement, and several of the
spacemen smothered laughter.
"It's
our major food here," Harrison went on. "We only have about a
thousand people in Chicago Colony, so two or three dinosaurs can feed most of
us for a week. Those statues you saw outside were carved from 'saur
bones."
Then
Harrison turned back to his plate and finished in silence. When the meal was
over he signaled to the Earth-men to follow him back to the large room.
Suddenly he said, "I'm glad you came,
Captain Reinhardt. We've had a lot of trouble here, and we're
going to have more. But I didn't want to call the Patrol because I want to
settle this thing peacefully."
"What are you talking about, President
Harrison? I've
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 51
heard
some strange things. Why did you move from London Colony to Chicago Colony,
for example? What's going on here?" The captain was frowning. It seemed
to Larry that he would rather discuss these things in private with Harrison,
and was annoyed at having to talk in front of all his men and the other
colonists.
President
Harrison sat back in his chair. "You know, of course, that there is a
motion on the floor of the Interstellar Council that will give independence to
the Alpha C IV colony within twenty-five years, provided the colonists can
show unified self-government."
"I'm
aware of that," said Captain Reinhardt. Larry and Harl exchanged glances.
The men from Earth watched quietly, listening to every word.
"Why should that make the people of
Alpha C IV—ah —unfriendly to the people of Earth?" the captain asked.
"A
group of hotheads in London Colony decided that this bill would be an excuse
for putting off our independence indefinitely, on the grounds that we would
never be considered ready for self-government. They took over the rule of
London Colony and forced me to come here."
"What
about Henrikstown? And Bombay Colony? Have they gone over also?"
"Probably.
Chicago Colony is the only one of the four still loyal to Earth."
52 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Captain Reinhardt stood up and paced angrily
up and down. "This is preposterous. Where's the Resident Governor? Why
hasn't he done something about it?"
"The
London Colony people have sent him back to Earth, Captain." President
Harrison's voice dropped. "By regular drive. They gave him a five-year
food supply."
The Garden men were shocked, but even so a few of them chuckled, Harl the loudest.
Larry had to admit it was a clever stroke, packing the Earth Resident Governor
off to his home planet in a ship that wouldn't arrive for years. But it was an
even more serious matter than exiling the local government.
"And
you didn't notify me? You should have informed Earth immediately."
Harrison
smiled like a small boy caught doing something wrong. "I intended to,
Captain Reinhardt. But then I was told the Garden was approaching, and I waited for you before I did anything."
The
captain continued to pace up and down. Larry felt anger beginning to grow
within him. These colonists —even the loyal ones like Harrison—had managed to
make fools of Earth and had spurned Earth's offer to let them have their
independence. But Larry felt sure they would soon be put back in their place by
the Patrol.
"What's
the sentiment in Chicago Colony about joining the other three?"
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 53
"About half and half. They're holding a meeting tomorrow night to
decide which they want to do, support Earth or the revolutionaries."
"We'll
stop that quick enough. Get me the leader of the local revolutionaries.
Olcott," he said, turning to his pilot, "announce that Chicago Colony
is now under martial law. The rest of you get to whatever quarters these
colonists have provided. I want to talk to Harrison some more."
The men from the Carden were conducted to a building near the edge of town, and Harl, Larry, and
Heitor van Haaren were given a large, bare room to themselves. There was one
window, and it looked outward over the great wall, so one could see the jungle
beyond.
"Do
you think there's going to be any fighting?" Heitor asked as soon as they
got settled. Larry smiled. He had known Heitor slightly at the Academy; he was
a rotund, slow-moving boy, a brilliant student who had often baffled his
professors with scientific points beyond their comprehension. Larry knew that
Heitor would prefer as little fighting as possible.
"I
don't know," Larry admitted. "They'll probably call in the nearest
Patrol destroyer if there's any trouble, and pack us right back to Earth."
"It looks like a pretty good fight
shaping up," Harl
54 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
said.
"It reminds me of what I was told about the early days of the Jupiter
revolution. They followed the same pattern, and it turned into a full-scale war."
"I hope they can prevent it here,"
Larry said. "These Centaurans look like good hard-working people. It would
be too bad if we had to fight them."
"Yes,"
Harl said, laughing softly as he walked to the window. "It's too bad these
good hard-working people don't have sense enough to let Earth sit on their
necks forever, eh, Larry? Just like the Martians, and the Jupiter people before
them."
"Hold
onl" Larry said. "What do you mean, Earth sitting on their necks? I
don't like the way you've been talking, Harl. Earth's been helping this colony
along since it started, and they just want to get their investment back. If it
weren't for Earth none of the colonies could get started."
"That's
right. But if it weren't for Earth all the colonies would be rich independent
planets now, instead of piddling little mudholes! I don't know, Stark. I guess
that's what comes of coming from a long line of Space Patrol people. Your
family's filled your head full of so much nonsense about Earth that you don't
know—"
"You can't talk like that," Larry
snapped, and moved menacingly toward Harl. The burly Martian waited for him,
but Heitor interposed.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 55
"Hold on, you two. If you want to have
your own private war, go outside and do it. Or work off your feelings hunting
dinosaurs. I'm tired, and I want to sleep." "Heitor's right, Larry.
We're acting pretty silly." "I suppose we are." He held out his
hand and Harl grasped it. "You could be a great guy," Larry said.
"If only you didn't—"
"That'll be enough," Harl said,
giving Larry a gentle tap on the arm with his fist. "Well talk about it
some other time. Suppose we get some sleep."
CIn HIS first morning on Alpha cIV Larry awoke early. The cadets had left the
window wide open, and the warm, sweet air drifted in and hung in the room like
perfume.
He
got up silently—Harl and Heitor were still asleep —and walked to the window. He
stared out over the wall. There was a clearing in which the Carden was standing, just as it had been left. And stretching around behind the
clearing was a tangled forest of great weird green trees, hundreds of feet
high.
The trees were not the familiar maples and
oaks of home, though Larry saw an occasional tree looking something like an
ordinary pine standing in the midst of the strangeness.
Suddenly
he noticed a commotion in the trees. The closely packed branches began to wave
back and forth and thresh around. Larry stretched on tiptoes to get a better
view of whatever was going on. The early morning 56
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 57
sun
was over the wall by now, and all was as quiet as it always is just an hour
after dawn.
The
disturbance in the trees grew more frantic, and then abrupdy the trees parted
and something ambled out into the clearing. Larry gasped. It was the biggest
animal he had ever seen.
Keeping
one eye on the window as if he feared the animal would disappear if he looked
away, Larry backed to Harl's bed and grabbed the bare foot that stuck out from
under the covers. He shook it a couple of times.
"Go away," Harl murmured sleepily.
"Go away."
"Wake up!" Larry whispered.
"Look out the window!"
"What
do you want?" mumbled Harl. He slowly pushed the covers off and almost
fell out of bed. Larry led him, still half asleep, to the window. They looked
out.
Harl
was silent for a minute. Then he rubbed his eyes and said, "Pinch me. I'm
still asleep."
"No
you're not," laughed Larry. "That's one of the natives of this
planet, that's all. How'd you like to have him for a pet?"
They
stared. The huge reptile in the clearing was dull gray in color, and long. It
had four ponderous legs and a huge neck, at the end of which was a tiny head.
Tiny by comparison with the rest of the body, that is. Behind the massive body
a tail studded with spines swept away into the jungle.
58 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
There was no way of telling the size of the
beast, but it was immense.
"It's
going near the ship!" Harl said. The monster was cautiously approaching
the Garden, which stood upright and gleaming in the
morning light. Each step the animal took seemed to be a drumbeat far off. The
ground shook under him.
Heitor, awakened by the conversation, left
his bed and came to the window. There wasn't room for all three of them, and
they jostled for position to see what was happening.
The
dinosaur had come close to the empty ship now. It lifted its huge neck and
gently nuzzled the cold side of the ship—probably, Larry thought, wondering
what sort of animal it was dealing with. Then it continued its explorations
until it reached the door at the top of the catwalk—the door sixty-five feet
above the ground.
With great care it pushed the door open with
the tip of its nose, and put a giant eye to the open door. Appar-endy it saw
nothing, for it lowered its head again, slowly marched once around the Carden, and, puzzled, turned tail and ponderously
strode off once again into the jungle.
The Earthmen assembled downstairs
in a long room ringed with the stuffed heads of bizarre native animals. Several
of the other men had seen the dinosaur approach
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 59
the
ship also, and the incident was a topic of general discussion until Captain
Reinhardt entered the room. He was followed by President Harrison and two
Centauran soldiers, escorting a slender, dark-skinned young colonist.
"This
is Jon Browne," President Harrison said. "He's the leader of the
local revolutionary faction."
Captain
Reinhardt looked at the young man coldly. "Stand over there, Browne. I
want to question you."
Larry
surveyed the scene. He wished he could understand what motivated Browne, why
he wanted to break loose from Earth. Whatever reasons he might have, Larry
thought, they could never be sufficient.
But
he didn't like Captain Reinhardt's overbearing attitude much either, he
reflected. He had admired the stern military man at first, but as the voyage
had gone along he had almost begun to dislike him.
Browne
walked cockily over to the place the captain indicated and stood there awaiting
questioning.
"I
understand you're holding a town meeting here tonight," the captain said.
"For what reason?"
"Are
you going to hold any of this against me, Captain? I don't want to testify
against myself, you know."
"Don't worry about that. Why this
meeting tonight?"
"Very
well," Browne said. "You know about the other three colonies, don't
you? Tonight I'm going to ask that Chicago Colony join the other three. And if
I don't do it,
60 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
someone
else will. Only a united planet can win independence for us from the people of
Earth, who neither care about us nor about our liberty, but just about our
taxes—"
"That'll
be enough, Browne," the captain broke in. "You know, of course, that
Chicago Colony is now under martial law and that I can prevent this meeting
from ever being held?"
"That's violating free speech,"
Larry whispered in amazement to Harl.
"Shhh," Harl said. "Listen to
them."
"Very true, Captain. But that would not
prevent Chicago Colony from revolting."
"Suppose you tell me why Alpha C IV
suddenly wants to be free, Browne."
The
young colonist's eyes flashed. "Not suddenly, Captain Reinhardt. We've
wanted to be free as long as we've been here. But now our dependence on Earth
is over; we're self-sufficient. Can't you understand that we don't need Earth,
and Earth doesn't need us? They just cling to us for our taxes and in case they
might need us some day. Earth gets no benefit from this colony, really—the
taxes we send mean nothing to her economy. No; it's just greed and fear that
makes you cling to us I"
"That's
not true," Captain Reinhardt snapped. "Commerce is—"
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 61
"Commerce?
Across four light-years? We're too far away for any particular commerce. It's
all we can do to get the books and tools Earth can supply us."
"But
if you rebel," said President Harrison, "you'll cut off your last
supplies of these things."
"We
can manage. We are a free people," said Browne, "and we should be
free to carry on our own experiments in self-government, without the necessity
of reporting our every action to Earth, without the necessity of paying taxes
to Earth for the privilege of being governed by them."
"That's
a quote from the book I have," Harl whispered to Larry. "Most of this
stuff comes straight out of it."
Larry
said nothing. He was deep in thought, trying to find some way out of his
confusion. All his life he had been taught that Earth was noble, Earth was
good, the protector of the colonies, the aider of the weak. For the first time
that faith was being questioned, and he was very worried.
Captain
Reinhardt sat silently, his jaws clamped. A few other colonists had filtered
into the room and were standing near the door, and he looked at them uneasily.
Browne went on arguing, as if the captain could give the Alpha C her
independence by himself.
"Earth's trade restrictions hamper us.
Their taxes are a burden we shouldn't have to pay. We have no represen-
62 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
tation
on the Interstellar Council anyway, and—maybe you know your Earth history,
Captain Reinhardt. Six hundred years ago a colony of another nation on Earth
was in the same position. What did they say? No Taxation without
Representation? Remember those words, Captain?"
"I have heard them," Captain Reinhardt
said stiffly.
"Don't
they mean anything to you? This colony is ready to stand on its own feet as an
independent planet," Browne shouted, "and you can tell that to your
Council when you get back. Sure, they plan to give us independence—when they're
good and ready 1"
"How does he know they won't?"
Larry asked.
"He knows his history better than you
do," Harl said. "The Council never gives anything up till they don't
have any choice."
"If you'd only be patient,"
President Harrison said.
"You
tell us to be patientl" Browne shouted. "You tried to tell that to
London Colony, and they threw you out. Now you're here and trying to tell us we
should wait and not act by ourselves. Why? Do you want to save your own
miserable job, Harrison? You're wrong and London Colony's rightl We have to
proclaim our independence—all four colonies."
Captain
Reinhardt stood up. "I think that's enough," he said. "I see the
picture more clearly now. I would like
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 63
to
settle this peacefully, if I could—you could tell your people that, Harrison. I
will try to negotiate before I call in the armed might of the Patrol to put
down the revolution. In the meantime, I think we'll keep this man"—he
indicated Browne—"in our custody."
Several
of the colonists standing at the door began to edge forward menacingly.
President Harrison turned to the captain.
"No," he said. "Arresting
Browne would be the worst thing we could do. If we let him go, all he can do is
talk. If we arrest him we'll be making a martyr out of him. It might be a very
dangerous situation."
Captain
Reinhardt scowled. "You're right. I hate to let him go, but there's
nothing else we can do. What do you think is wisest about tonight's
meeting?"
"Let
it go on as scheduled," Harrison said. "It'll only make official what
we know already. Canceling it might touch off something serious."
The
captain nodded. "All right, take him out and let him go. Harrison, come
with me. I want the background of this whole affair, from the beginning."
They left. The others, who had witnessed the
discussion with some amazement, straggled slowly out of the hall, conscious
that something big was brewing and also aware that as long as the captain
remained in conference they were free.
64 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Harl
began to walk out quickly. Larry caught his sleeve.
"Wait a minute, Harl. Let's go
upstairs—I want to look at that book of yours."
Harl's face reflected surprise. But he shook
his head. "Some other time, Larry. I want to find that fellow Browne. I
want to talk to him.'"
And he dashed out, leaving
Larry standing by himself.
Heitor CAME up behind Larry as he stood there, and nudged him out of his
reverie.
"Hey,
Larry. What say we take advantage of our free time to explore the town?"
"Good enough," Larry said. He and
Heitor headed out into the street.
They were in a business district, apparently;
the street in front of them was a long line of shops.
"What
did you think of Browne?" Heitor asked as they crossed to one of the
shops.
"i don't
know, Heitor. What he says seems to make sense, but I'm sure if we looked at
Earth's side of the matter too—"
"Yes. I wish I knew why Earth has to
treat its colonies like that," Heitor said. They entered the first store.
It seemed to specialize
65
66 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
in carvings from dinosaur bones. The
proprietor, an elderly but still powerful-looking man, came out to meet them.
"Welcome! I'm honored to have Earth
visitorsl" His accent was strange; the vowels were blurred, in a way, so
it was somewhat difficult to understand him. What he seemed to be saying was,
"Wilcam! Ay'm hanared ta hove Eerth vesetars!" This dialect, Larry
knew, was the result of decades of isolation, during which time the pronunciation
of the colonists had wandered further and further away from that of Earth.
Larry picked up an exquisite carving of some
native animal. "Is this all you sell?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. Bone carving is our most
important local art, and most of the artists in Chicago Colony use my shop as
their outlet."
"Look
at this one," Heitor said, holding up a four-inch representation of an
odd-looking beast with a curling tail. "Real cute."
"You
wouldn't think so if you saw him in the flesh," the old man said.
"He's about eighty feet high and thirty feet long, and he eats young chaps
like you for afternoon snacks."
"What's his name?"
"Wouldn't
help if I told you. The names vary from settlement to settlement, and you
Earthmen have your own
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 67
names
for them as well. I can't even pronounce your name for it," he said.
"How much do you want for this
one?" said Heitor.
"Normally,
about three solars. But you probably don't have any local currency anyway, and
I prefer to trade."
"Trade?"
"Yes,"
the storekeeper said. "Suppose we swap even-up —the statue for that book
under your arm. We have so few books here."
"I'm
afraid I can't do that," Heitor said. "This is one of my
textbooks." He opened the book and showed its contents. "I need it to
study from—it's very important."
Larry
smiled. He had come to like Heitor much more in the past few days than ever
before, probably because his frequent arguments with Harl had taken some of the
ease out of his friendship with him. And this was so much like Heitor, who
clung to his textbooks at all times and would rather part with a finger than an
astrogation text.
The
old man sighed. "Well, in that case I guess we can't swap. Look
here—suppose you just take this as a gift from me. From Chicago Colony."
"Why—thank
you." Heitor picked up the little statuette and stroked the polished
ivory.
Larry
looked admiringly at the object, wondering how he could find one as pretty. It
would look good on his desk at home, he thought.
68 REVOLT on ALPHA C
Home. It was the first time in days that he
had even let the word enter his mind. Home was Earth, far across the sea of
space. The distance was so vast it was meaningless. Twenty-five million
million miles away.
They
turned to leave, staring at the eight-foot statue of a dragonlike animal that
stood near the entrance. Larry opened the door, then turned around.
"Say,
old man. Is that meeting tonight open to Earth-men too? I think I'd like to
come."
The storekeeper smiled slowly. "It won't
concern you at all, lads. Better forget about it."
Another store was selling some
strange-looking vegetables. The shopkeeper there gave Larry a small, round,
red fruit which looked something like an Earth apple. He tasted it. It was
bitter, tangy, strange.
Walking
on Alpha C IV was almost difficult. Each step was a small battle; after ten or
twelve steps, the cadets began to breathe a little harder. The air was rich and
mysterious.
There
was no sign in the settlement of the wild jungle which was rampant just outside
the walls. The heavy vegetation was under control, and just a few weird trees
with scaly bark served as reminders of the wild forest which lay without the
walls.
Larry thought it was almost possible to feel
as if he were
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 69
back
on Earth when he forgot about the gravity. But one glance into the clear blue
sky dispelled any such thoughts.
The
sun Alpha Centauri hung high and beat hot and yellow overhead. It seemed just a
bit larger and hotter than the sun of Earth. But—in one corner of the sky hung
pale Beta Centauri, the companion sun, a small circle of light. And over at the
other side, down near the horizon, was the tiny red ball of Proxima Centauri,
the other nearby star.
The
sunlight was yellow, as on Earth. But mingling with it was the ghostly beam
from Beta C and the trickle of crimson from Proxima. The overall effect was one
of almost overpowering strangeness.
The
cadets sat down on a bench, thankfully, since they were tired from fighting the
heavier gravity of Alpha CIV. After a moment or two, Larry looked up to see Jon
Browne standing nearby.
His
face turned red and hot. He knew he was in the presence of a sworn enemy of the
planet he held most dear —but he was unable to dislike him as he knew he should.
Browne was a quite unferocious-looking, pleasant-faced young fellow.
"I
don't think we were introduced," Browne said, opening the conversation in
the abrupt way characteristic of the colonists. "But I think you saw me
this morning. My
70 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
name
is Browne—with an V at the end." He smiled. "Jon Browne."
"We saw you this morning," Larry
said. "Yes," Heitor agreed.
"Are
you coming to the meeting tonight? It's open to you Earthmen, you know. But
maybe you don't want to. I fear you've heard all there is to hear already, when
I spoke with your captain."
"We'd like to come," Larry said.
"At least, I would."
"So
would I," Heitor said. "You know, I recall a song about someone with
the same name as you. It's an old Earth song."
Larry
nodded in recollection. It was a song O'Hare had taught him one night.
"It's
some sort of political song," Heitor said. "It begins, 'John Brown's
body lies a-moulderin' in the grave—*"
"An ancestor of mine, maybe?" said
Jon Browne.
"Maybe."
It developed that Browne was a
second-generation colonist; his father had come from Earth about 2320, and he
himself had been born on Alpha C IV.
"I have some free time now," he
said. "Would you two like to climb the wall with me? It means some
exercise, but if we're lucky you'll get a good view of our jungle. I understand
you saw one of our 'saurs this morning nosing around your ship. What did you
think of it?"
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 71
Larry drew in his breath. Finally he said,
simply, "It's big."
Browne
laughed. "You saw one of the biggest of all this morning. The scientists
call it by a name half as long as the animal itself, but the colonists here
call it twotails because the neck is so long it seems like a tail." He
waved his arms to illustrate.
"Well, anyone joining me for a
climb?"
"I'm game," said Larry. "How
about you, Heitor?"
Heitor shook his head. "I'm beat. You
two go climb your wall; I'm going to rest awhile and then head back to quarters
to see what's going on. Anyway, I have some studying to do."
"O.K.," Larry said. He and Browne got up and walked off toward
the wall.
Browne
was likable enough, Larry decided. He made up his mind he would ignore the fact
that he was going for a walk with the revolutionary leader. Jon Browne would be
just another colonist to him.
"How much do you know about our planet,
Larry?"
"What?
Oh—well, that there are four settlements, called London Colony, Bombay Colony,
Henrikstown, and Chicago Colony. That there are about five thousand humans on
the whole planet, with about half of them in London Colony."
72 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"Not quite half, Larry. Two thousand is
more like it,
and a thousand in each of the others."
They walked on for a while, till they
approached the
wall.
"How old is the colony?" Larry
asked.
"Oh,
about a hundred years—no, make it a hundred twenty-five. The first batch of
settlers had trouble adjusting to the heavy grav, but it doesn't bother us any
more. Our chief food comes from those big beasts out there— that's our chief
problem, too. Until we get the 'saurs under control we can't have a true
planet-wide culture. But when we do we'll have to substitute other sources of
food. But we'll manage; don't worry."
At
the base of the wall was a staircase cut into the stone and winding up to the
top. They began to climb, Browne first, Larry behind.
"Do
the 'saurs wander around the clearing very much?" Larry asked, panting a
little as he climbed the stairs.
"Usually
just early in the morning," said Browne. "Those twotails are so timid
that the city noises usually scare them away after dawn. You were lucky to see
one."
"Timid, you say?"
"That's
right. They just eat grass, and they have to spend almost all day eating
because they have such small heads. In order for them to pack away enough food
to
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 73
fill
that big body, they have to spend ten or twelve hours a day just eating."
"Are
all your 'saurs too scared to bother you?" Larry asked.
Browne
chuckled. "Hardly, friend. Some of them would hop over the wall and eat us
alive if they could. Maybe we'll see some of the dangerous kind while you're
here."
They
reached the top of the wall. Larry looked down at the ground two hundred feet
away, with a few tiny people walking back and forth on the distant streets below.
Then he walked across the top of the wall and peered cautiously over the other
side.
The
view was breathtaking. He saw a great green forest spreading away on all
sides, wild, untamed, with strange leathery birds flapping above it. Directly
below was the clearing in which the Carden stood,
and not far away was the edge of the jungle. The nearest trees were almost as
high as the wall.
"What's
that?" Larry asked, pointing to one of the great birds which was hovering
over a treetop.
"It's
a wingfinger," said Browne. "Sort of a flying reptile, with those
wings stretched out on its fingers, which are eight or nine feet long. The
scientists call them pterodactyls, and they're just like a kind which once
lived on Earth."
74 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"Do they ever fly over the city?"
"They
used to," said Browne. "For a while it was a serious problem—the
wingfingers used to swoop low over the city, and there's a legend that one of
them once carried off a child—but we shoot them on sight, and they've learned
their lesson by now. They're afraid of us. They never come near the city."
The
wingfmger was hovering over a treetop. Suddenly its long beak pounced on a
branch and emerged with a wriggling snake held tight. Triumphantly it flew off
to enjoy its meal.
Larry
shuddered. Browne said, "That's the way it is in the jungle. The
wingfingers are always lying in wait for the tree snakes, and they manage to
catch enough to keep well fed. But now and then a wingfmger will swoop too low
over a lake and get dragged down by a water reptile with long arms."
A
large dinosaur with ferocious teeth appeared at the edge of the clearing. Larry
turned to point it out to Browne, but the colonist was peering at his
wristchron.
"Getting
late," he said. "I have to get back and prepare for the meeting. Do
you want to stay here by yourself?"
The
shadows of early afternoon were beginning to fall. Larry pictured himself on
top of the wall at dusk, with the wingfingers humming by overhead. "No,
thanks. I'll go back down with you."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 75
"Fine," he said. "Will I see
you at the meeting?" "Most likely," Larry said. He followed
Browne down the steps silently. Apparently these revolutionaries were pretty
human people, Larry thought. He would have to get a look at that book of Harl's
when he got back.
The place was in turmoil when he returned. There were colonists all over the
building, some demanding to speak to Captain Reinhardt, some just trying to
make their feelings heard to anyone who would listen. Larry reported in to the
captain, who was sitting at the dinner table talking in a low voice to Harrison
and two other colonists, but Reinhardt signaled to him that he did not want to
be disturbed.
Feeling
that he was being left out of everything, Larry headed upstairs to his room.
Heitor was in one corner, studying, and Harl was sprawled in the other, also
reading. They looked up as he entered.
"Hi,"
said Harl. "O'Hare was in here looking for you before, but Heitor said you
were out walking with Jon Browne. Did I hear straight?"
"That you did," Larry said.
"We're invited to the town meeting tonight." 76
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 77
"Are you going?" Heitor asked.
"Unless Reinhardt needs us. But so far
this trip it seems
he needs us like a Martian
sandstorm," Larry said. "Except when there's a floor to be
scrubbed."
"Or
a message to send," Harl said. "But you're not serious about going,
are you?"
"Sure," Larry said. "Why not?
I'm curious to see what happens. We've got history being made right in front of
us, you know."
"True enough," Harl said. "But
if they vote to rebel the first thing they may do is lynch the nearest
Earthmen, if Browne stirs them up enough."
Larry
looked at Harl in amazement. "You're kidding! I spent the afternoon with
Browne, and he seems a perfectly fine fellow. I don't think he'd do any such
thing."
"Treason!"
Harl exclaimed, in mock oratorical style. "I accuse you of treason, Cadet
Stark! What do you mean by complimenting a rebel? Someone who is risking his
life to overthrow the colonial rule of Earth? Isn't he a vile creature,
completely evil? That's what you seemed to be saying up to now, and naturally I
believed you."
"Naturally,"
Larry said, with a smile. Harl's sarcasm was not lost on him. He sank into the
nearest chair, considerably puzzled. What Harl was saying was right—he had
thought of the revolutionaries as little more than criminals until meeting
Browne and the other townspeo-
78 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
pie.
Now he wasn't sure what to think at all. Enemies were beginning to look like
friends, friends like enemies. He remembered what his father had often told
him: "Always remember, Larry. Earth knows what it's doing. Don't let
anyone fool you."
But
were they fooling him? Was Earth all-wise and the colonists doing something
wild and rash, or were they merely honest people fighting for their rights and
Earth the blind oppressor? He wondered.
There
was a knock on the door. Larry, glad of the interruption, leaped up to see who
was there.
It was O'Hare. Larry looked up at the face of
the big man, who had been his first friend among the spacemen. Under his arm
O'Hare was carrying the treasured electronic guitar which he had taught Larry
to play. O'Hare handed the guitar to Larry, who took it gently and cradled it
in his arms.
"I
think it's about time I give this to you, Larry," O'Hare said. Larry
noticed that his face seemed pale, making his flaming red hair all the brighter
by contrast. His eyes were deeper, even more intense than usual, and he had a
strange grim look on his face.
"Why,
Pat? I—" Larry looked at the
instrument, then at O'Hare. It was an expensive, carefully built guitar with
remarkable sound, and Larry knew it had been O'Hare's companion on many a
voyage.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 79
"It's just that I think you ought to
have it, that's all," O'Hare said, speaking somewhat quickly. "I have
to go now, laddy. A friend of mine's waiting for me. But I'll be back soon
enough to hear you play it. You've got the makings of a good man with a guitar,
Larry. I've often thought it a pity that you'll be a Patrolman instead of a
tube-monkey. Such talents are wasted on the Patrol. But keep the guitar well,
Larry. It's served me well for many years now, and I'd hate to see it kept
poorly. You know how to tune it." "Yes, O'Hare."
"And
if you have any trouble with it, well—bring it along and come to see me. So
long, Larry."
He opened the door, and walked out quickly.
"So
long, Pat. And thanks," Larry said to the closing door.
"Strange," Larry said. "Why'd
he do that?"
"Maybe he doesn't have room for
it," Heitor suggested.
Larry shook his head. "He'd sooner make
room for his guitar than for one of his legs. No, there must be some other
reason."
"He'll tell you soon enough, if he wants
to," Harl said. "Let's hear this fabulous instrument, anyway. I've
heard some fine guitar-playing in my day—think you can match it?"
80 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"I'll try," Larry said. He made the
connection, and, as the guitar warmed up, he tried some preliminary strums.
A
weird distorted noise came forth. Harl and Heitor dissolved in laughter.
"Very
good, Professor Stark!" Harl said. "Now play us your next
selection!"
Larry
looked down at the guitar. He had never heard it so badly out of tune.
He strummed it again, and the sound was even
worse.
"I
think he dumped a sour job on you," Harl said. "Or maybe he's playing
games."
"He's
not the game-playing kind," Larry said. He fingered the fine controls on
the guitar, trying to restore the sound. There was no improvement.
"It
seems to be in tune. But the sounds are coming out sour."
"I know," Larry said. "Maybe
there's something broken in the soundbox. There's a little latch under here—"
He reached in and groped around in the heart
of the guitar. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong in here —uh—" he reached a little deeper
in—"oh, here's the trouble! There's a piece of something wedged in here
that's been ruining the sound. Wonder why O'Hare didn't take it out before he
gave me the guitar?"
Larry
drew forth a folded piece of paper and closed the latch on the guitar. He
strummed the guitar once again,
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 81
and
this time the sound was quite satisfactory. Then, remembering the piece of
paper he had taken out, he put down the guitar and unfolded the grimy sheet.
He
stared at it. It was a letter, written painstakingly in O'Hare's flourishing
script. Larry read it through twice without saying a word, and looked at it a
third time almost uncomprehending.
"Why—I
don't believe it," Larry said. He held the paper out and scanned it once
again.
"What does it say, Larry?" Harl
asked softly.
"Yeah. Why the mystery?" Heitor put
in.
"I'm sorry. Here—I'll read it out loud.
'Dear Larry,' it says. T hope you won't hold it against O'Hare for what he's
done. Maybe they haven't missed me yet, but pretty soon they'll find out I'm
gone. And you can show them this, after I'm gone.
" 'I've switched sides, lad. I want you
to tell that to Reinhardt and anyone else who's interested. That was my whole
idea in coming along on this voyage. I saw from the beginning that it was what
I've always wanted to do. I've decided to join the revolutionaries on Alpha C
and help them in their fight for independence.'"
Larry
paused and tried to piece together the fragments of his world. Harl was staring
solemnly at him; even Heitor was frozen and grim.
" 'I know how you feel about all
this,'" Larry continued
82 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
reading.
" 'You probably think I'm a traitor to Earth, a rebel and all the rest,
and you're wondering how your pal O'Hare could have done it. Well, if the word
pleases you, call me a rebel. I'm only doing what I have to do. Someday you'll
learn that everyone has to do what he has to do, and that day you'll wake up.'
"What does he mean by that?" Larry
asked.
"Finish reading," Harl said.
"
'O'Hares have always been—well, rebels, and I can't let my fathers down any
more than you can. I can't accept any hard and fast rules when I can see
better things beyond. The Clan O'Hare is moving to the stars for good. I won't
be coming back to Earth.
"
'Don't be angry with me, lad. We all do what we have to do, and this I must do.
Just as you must go to space and serve the Patrol. Have a long and great
career, Larry, and keep that guitar well tuned. Your friend always, Patrick
O'Hare.'"
Larry put down the letter.
"I never dreamed he'd do anything like
that."
"I
did. He told me about it a long time ago," Harl said. "He was planning
to do it all along."
"He never told me," Larry said.
"He never told me."
He
stood stiffly, looking at the letter, acutely conscious that O'Hare's stunning
personal rebellion made an impression on him that not even Browne's
impassioned plea
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 83
for
freedom had. He had felt toward O'Hare as he'd felt toward few people before,
and here was O'Hare running off to join the rebels too. When he got back to
Earth Larry had planned to tell his father all about O'Hare, hoping to get him
a promotion of some sort. But he knew now that his father would never have
approved of his friendship with O'Hare in the first place. O'Hare was a
tubemonkey, not a Patrolman. Just a big ox who cleaned the jets.
And
now he would be fighting against Earth. Sudden tears blinded Larry's eyes, and
anger filled him and drove all else from his mind. O'Hare couldn'tl He couldn't
join the rebels! For a moment Larry hated the big fellow for running away to
London Colony. He was destroying everything Larry held most dear. He had no right
to—
Suddenly Larry was conscious of his two
roommates standing silently and staring at him. They didn't understand, he
thought. No one did. But maybe there was still time. Maybe.
He moved abrupdy to the door.
Where ARE you going?" Harl asked.
"To tell Reinhardt. He'll be able to
keep O'Hare from getting a copter, if he's not gone yet."
Harl
moved between Larry and the door. "You mean you'd report O'Hare to the
captain? He's your own friend!"
Larry looked at Harl. The short, squat Martian
had the door blocked. Heitor circled uncertainly somewhere behind.
"Get out of my way, Harl."
Harl made no move. Larry stepped forward and
tried to push him, but he was firmly planted and Larry could not budge him.
"You're a traitor too!" Larry said.
He could hardly see from rage; somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that
he was hopelessly ensnarled in something he did not 84
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 85
understand,
but now all he was conscious of was that he had to get through that door.
He
grabbed Harl by the arm and tried to twist him away from the door. The Martian
was barely five-six, and Larry was an even six feet tall, but Larry knew Harl
outweighed him considerably and his muscles, trained under the rigorous gravity
of Jupiter, would serve him much better on this heavy world than Larry's
Earth-trained ones.
Harl gave a little and backed away, taking
Larry with him. Larry succeeded in pushing Harl toward the center of the room
and tried to break away and dash through the door. But Harl held him fast.
Larry tugged but could not break loose.
Harl
drew Larry to him the way a fisherman would reel in a fish, and held him. Larry
managed to work one arm loose from Harl's grip and push away with it, levering
off Harl's chest. He widened the gap between them and with a sudden twist got
his other arm loose. They circled each other, breathing hard, Larry trying to
break past Harl to the door and Harl waging a defensive fight to keep Larry in
the room.
Larry
looked at his short adversary. Harl's dark-skinned face was set in an iron mask
of concentration. Time was on his side, and he only had to keep Larry under
control. Larry felt all of his anger and frustration rush to the sur-
86 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
face.
Harl, his adversary in argument all through the voyage, had now become his
physical adversary as well.
Larry
dashed at Harl as hard as he could, hitting him amidships with his shoulder. A
bolt of pain shot down Larry's arm, and Harl went spinning across the room to
crash against the wall. He hit hard and stayed there a moment, and Larry rushed
to the door, only to find Heitor standing by the door with a confused
expression on his face, as if he did not know whose side to take in the struggle.
Larry shoved him aside and, just as Harl recovered himself and headed for him,
he opened the door.
He dashed through, Harl following and
grasping for his arm. Larry raced out the door and collided with someone who
was coming in. For a moment he thought he would ignore the collision and keep
going, but then he realized who it was he had crashed into.
Captain Reinhardt.
Immediately
the mad dash ended. He stood as straight as he could and tried to catch his
breath. The captain stared at him gravely. There was a long silence.
"May
I ask what's been happening here?" the captain said.
Larry
said nothing. Harl said nothing. Heitor said nothing. The three cadets looked
at each other and at the captain. There was another long silence.
"I—"
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 87
But just as Larry began to
speak, there was the sound of
a copter taking off just
outside. Captain Reinhardt strode
to the window and watched
as the copter rose over the
wall
and headed out toward the jungle. "What was that?" he said.
"O'Hare, sir," Larry said.
"He's going to London Colony to join the revolution!"
"What!"
Larry nodded. Harl abruptly left the room
without a word.
"What
was that fight about?" the captain snapped. "It was unimportant, sir.
Just a squabble. But O'Hare left this note for me. Said he's decided to join
the rebels." "I see," the captain said. "When did he leave
the note?" "Just now."
"And
why didn't you come to me immediately, Cadet Stark?"
Larry
paused. He didn't want to incriminate Harl, but there was no other explanation.
And Larry was beginning to feel that Harl had even less love for Earth than he
thought.
"Because—because
Cadet Ellison delayed me, sir," Larry finally said, feeling like a
betrayer.
The door flew open and Olcott burst into the
room.
"O'Hare,
sir! He just grabbed a copter and took off in it!"
88 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"1 know," Captain Reinhardt said. "You
say he's joined
the rebels, Cadet Stark?" "Yes,
sir. And when I went to tell you Harl—I mean—
well, we got into this fight, sir. When you
found us." "What sort of fight?"
"A meaningless one, sir. It was just an
argument that turned into a brawl." "Where is he now?"
Larry looked around. "He's—that is, he
was a minute ago—I was sure—"
"He just walked out,
sir," Heitor said.
"Go find him,"
the captain said. "This is serious."
There was a roar from overhead. They all
turned to look out the window.
Another
copter was soaring over the wall, heading for the jungle.
"I don't think we'll
find him now, sir," Larry said.
"I
IS HE A traitor too?" the captain asked.
"Is there one loyal man left in my crew?"
Larry felt sick. First O'Hare, then Harl.
"Let
me get this straight," Captain Reinhardt said. "O'Hare took a copter
to go to London Colony. He let you know first. You were on your way to tell me
when you got into a fight with Cadet Ellison. Now he has taken a copter too,
presumably to go to London Colony also. Right?"
Larry nodded.
"I
think it's time we cracked down on this. You two— Stark and Van Haaren—get a
copter and go to London Colony too. Tell them you're switching sides too; tell
them anything. But find out exacdy what they plan to do, when they plan to go
up in arms, and get back here as soon as you have something concrete. Then we
call
89
90 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
in the Patrol and let them squash this. Tell
those two turncoats that they're under arrest as deserters. Olcott, give these
cadets a copter."
Olcott led them downstairs and let them have
one of the copters parked in the street. It was an old model, Larry could see,
probably some twenty or thirty years old. He knew no jetcopters were being
manufactured on Alpha C IV, and wondered how much else of Centauran life
depended on imports from Earth.
They
climbed in. Despite the age of the copter, it was equipped with standard
controls and presented no problems. Larry swung into the pilot's seat and
Heitor sat next to him.
He checked the compass and got the engine
working, and they felt the copter lift. London Colony was a thousand miles due
west; the planners of the colonies had established their settlements according
to a neat geometric pattern.
The
copter cleared the wall, crossed the clearing, and headed out over the jungle
between the two colonies.
As Larry looked down through the front window
he saw wingfingers hovering over the green, strange-looking trees just a few
dozen feet below. Farther down, on the ground, he caught glimpses of the great
beasts of the jun-
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 91
gle,
roaming in search of food, locked in combat, paddling around in the many lakes
and streams.
Uneasily he lifted the copter another fifty
feet. He had no wish to be any closer to the turbulent jungle below.
"What happens when we get there?"
Heitor asked.
"I'm
not at all sure," Larry admitted. "We'll snoop around a little and head
back. Maybe we can get those two to come back with us."
"Some chance," Heitor snorted.
The
copter roared on over the jungle. Larry watched the fuel indicator with some
alarm; it showed the tank was almost empty. They had left in such haste that he
had forgotten to check it.
The
compass showed them traveling in the right direction. Larry stepped up his
speed; if the fuel was going to give out, he would just as soon have it give
out someplace else than the heart of the jungle.
An
hour passed. Larry stared impassively ahead, watching for some sign of London
Colony, while Heitor remained silent. Larry tried to forget all about the
events of the past day and concentrate solely on piloting the copter.
The
fuel-tank indicator finally reached zero. Larry knew he had a little fuel left
anyway, a safety reserve, but
92 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
it
would not be enough to get them to London Colony. He squinted out over the
jungle.
"Look," he said, nudging Heitor out
of his reverie.
They looked. Far off in the distance they saw
the wild-ness of the jungle begin to thin out into a clearing, and then they
saw a great wall standing high and separating the colony from the wilderness.
For a wild moment he thought he had gone in a
circle and arrived back at Chicago Colony, but the village he could see was
much bigger than the other colony, and the compass confirmed that he was at
London Colony— almost.
Heitor suddenly noticed the fuel-tank
indicator for the first time. Larry had carefully not said anything about it to
him, reasoning that it wouldn't do any good to have both of them worrying.
"I
know," Larry said. "We may make it or we may not, depending on the
size of the safety margin in this copter."
But
he knew they would not. The engine was starting to sputter already, and they
would never make it to the colony, which was at least ten miles off.
They traveled on for a minute more in silence
and then the motor began to choke in earnest.
"This is it," Larry said.
"We're going to come down here—and we'll have to leg it through the jungle
for the rest of the way."
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 93
The
copter began to slip lazily down to the jungle. They were about a mile from the
wall, Larry noted. He guided the copter down through the trees as best as he
could. It hit the ground gendy and they leaped out.
Larry
consulted his compass and they headed off toward the west. Five thousand two
hundred eighty feet, Larry thought. One mile through this prehistoric jungle.
He took a couple of steps. Five thousand two hundred seventy-five feet, he
thought.
He
headed through the jungle, warily, with Heitor behind. The jungle smell was
overpowering—humid, tropical, overwhelmingly alive and growing. It was dark
down under the trees, and the vegetation was twisted and tangled and they were
hard put to make much headway through the thick plant life. They marched as
quickly as they could, not looking anywhere but straight ahead. Larry tried
hard not to think of the dinosaurs roaming through the jungle.
The
jungle was alive with sounds—the cluttering of a billion insects, the curious
croak of the wingfingers soaring overhead, the thumping of froglike animals in
the streams, and, someplace off in the distance, the great booming roar of some
huge reptile.
The
direct nuisance of the insects bothered Larry more than the distant menace of
dinosaurs. They walked through what amounted to a soup of insects of all sizes
94 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
which
flew at them, covered their faces with little bites, got in their eyes and
ears. Occasionally an immense dragonfly the size of a turkey would buzz by,
droning an ominous note.
Larry
set as fast a pace as he could, and Heitor puffed along behind. They had
traveled for ten or fifteen minutes—Larry estimated another five minutes would
get them out of the jungle and into the clearing—when Heitor sank down on a
rotting tree stump.
"Wait a minute, Larry," he called.
"I'm winded."
Larry
turned and saw Heitor wiping the sweat from his face. He was exhausted, Larry
saw, and there would be nothing he could do to get him to move.
"Come on, Heitor," he said
impatiendy. "Just another few minutes and you can rest inside the
walls." He batted away a large insect which came too close. "Let's
go."
Heitor
continued to mop away perspiration. "I can't, Larry. I'm not as strong as
you are."
"But we're exposing ourselves to all
sorts of dangers as long as we're in the jungle, Heitor. Come on—I'll go slowly
so you can keep up."
"O.K.,
Larry," Heitor said. A smile crossed his pudgy face. "Why not catch a
dinosaur and I could ride on him?"
Just
then a small animal bounded out of the thick vegetation behind them, gave them
a puzzled glance, and continued at a rapid clip. It was some three or four feet
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 95
high,
standing upright like a kangaroo on two legs, balancing on a long tail, and
holding two tiny arms folded at its chest.
"There's one now," Heitor said.
"A small one. I don't think he could carry me." Heitor struggled to
his feet. "Well, let's get on. But slowly."
They moved onward at a reduced pace for a few
minutes more. An immense butterfly whose beautifully colored wings were the
size of serving dishes flew by. Two more of the small kangaroolike animals came
by, moving with great speed, and a third somewhat larger followed them. Two
more of a different sort, but still small, followed.
A
wingfinger trumpeted overhead. Larry stepped up the pace, sensing something
unusual happening in the forest, and Heitor, panting, tried to keep up.
They
heard a great crashing off to the left. Larry looked through the trees and
dimly saw one of the ponderous twotails crashing through the forest in a path
parallel to theirs. Browne had said they were harmless, but Larry was uneasy
about the nearness of the great beast. It might not eat the two cadets, but in
its clumsy way it might trample them if their paths coincided. Larry watched it,
and saw with relief that it was wending its way toward some body of water
hidden behind the trees.
A small brown and green animal skittered out
from
96 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
under
their feet and climbed the trunk of a scaly tree right in front of them. Larry
chuckled with amusement at the little squirrel-like beast, but the amusement
turned to horror as he saw what he thought had been a vine suddenly come to
life and wind itself around the little animal.
He turned to show it to Heitor. But Heitor
was sitting again, wiping the moisture from his cheeks.
"Up,
Heitor. Come on. Look—that light ahead is the clearing."
It
was another five hundred feet or so to safety, he estimated. They had just
about done the impossible by traveling for a mile through the jungle without
accident. Larry was not going to risk it now. He pulled Heitor to his feet.
"Just another few steps, Heitor."
"I
can't, Larry. Just let me sit here." The insects and the heat and the mile
hike had combined to leave him almost exhausted.
Larry saw there was no use dragging him. He
would give him a minute or two to rest and then they would continue.
The sounds of the jungle seemed to be getting
more intense. The great deep roaring of the dinosaur somewhere in the heart of
the jungle—did it seem nearer? Larry decided it was just his imagination.
Two more small reptiles rushed past them from
behind.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 97
Why were they running only in that direction?
he wondered. Was there something behind them?
"Let's go, Heitor. Up, boy." He was
going to say something else, but it was drowned by a sudden great snarl.
The trees behind them began to whip wildly about, and the snarl grew to
a bellow that filled the jungle. Larry looked up and saw a giant reptile standing
over them, roaring as it advanced through the jungle. In the split second
before he could move, he saw that it was at least a hundred feet high and all
teeth. Then he began to run, shouting wildly for Heitor to follow him.
J.HE ROAR of the dinosaur seemed to fill the
jungle. Larry felt oddly calm as he ran. It was only five hundred feet to the
clearing, and just a hundred yards or so from there to the protecting wall. And
it seemed too much like a dream for him to feel really afraid.
Once
he looked back. Heitor was chugging along a few feet behind him, his face
contorted with exertion. And behind them, trampling everything in its way,
came the dinosaur. Its head was high in the trees, and Larry suspected it was
not hunting them in particular but just out on a foraging expedition looking
for some succulent titbit as a snack.
Heitor slipped and fell. Larry reached out
and caught his arm and dragged him along till he clawed his way back to his
feet.
"Go ahead," Heitor gasped. "Go
on—run!"
Larry said nothing, but continued to pull
Heitor on-
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 99
ward.
The dinosaur had paused to investigate something hiding in a treetop.
A
hanging vine whipped around Larry's face. He disentangled himself, kept
running, and burst into the clearing. The wall of London Colony rose high into
the air a hundred yards away.
Larry heard Heitor's frantic panting not too
far behind, and knew that Heitor had managed to get out of the jungle on his own
power. The earth seemed to shake under the pounding of the dinosaur's tread as
it, too, emerged from the jungle.
Larry reached the gate of the wall breathless
and looked back for Heitor.
The other cadet had fallen from exhaustion
and was sprawled out on the ground. The dinosaur had paused and was looking
down at him with curiosity.
For a second Larry thought of dashing out,
grabbing Heitor, and dashing back, but he let that thought drop. Heitor was at
least a hundred feet away, and the dinosaur would simply snatch up both of
them. No; some less foolhardy plan would be necessary to save Heitor.
The
huge reptile was bending over Heitor now and poking him tentatively with the
tiny kangaroolike arms which it used as hands. It squinted its great saucer of
an eye in an attempt to get a better view of the strange-looking creature on
the ground in front of it.
100 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Apparently it had not made up its mind what
to do about Heitor, Larry saw. Heitor was still alive and making feeble
attempts to crawl away, but he was overcome with exhaustion and seemingly
paralyzed with fright.
Larry
saw one way to save Heitor. He picked up the largest rock he could see, danced
out to within ten feet of the great beast, and hurled the rock at the
dinosaur's face.
The
'saur emitted a tentative growl, as if it were not quite sure it had been hit.
Larry found another rock and threw it at the dinosaur.
The fact that there was a second creature,
this one menacing him, slowly trickled through the dinosaur's tiny brain.
Heitor, Larry saw, was reviving and was aware of Larry's strategy, for, while
Larry was distracting the animal, Heitor began slowly to crawl toward the
gate.
The bewildered dinosaur shook its massive
head from side to side as it tried to puzzle out the situation. Larry danced
back and forth agilely, throwing stones from different sides of the dinosaur's
head. A rock thrown from Larry's left told him that Heitor, who had reached the
gate, was adding to the dinosaur's confusion.
Larry
saw no further reason to provoke the animal, which would probably solve its
dilemma by striking out at anything in its reach, and he ran backward till he
reached the gate. The dinosaur continued to weave back
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 101
and
forth in indecision, looking now for Heitor, whom he had almost forgotten, and
then for Larry. Finally, trumpeting a cry of rage and desperation, he charged
at the wall.
Larry
and Heitor backed inside the gate, knowing they were now in perfect safety, and
watched as the dinosaur crashed into the wall with a mighty impact. It drew
back again—neither the dinosaur nor the wall showed any sign of damage—and hit
the unyielding wall. It clawed futilely at the wall with its two small
forefeet, bellowing its anger against the small animal which had cheated it of
its prey. Finally, in pain and outrage, it ceased belaboring the wall and
turned and strode off into the jungle.
They
turned to enter London Colony, and walked straight into the arms of a group of
men in green uniforms, one of whom was Harl.
"Come to visit us?" Harl asked.
Larry
stared at him coldly, but then remembered he was planning to pretend to be a
turncoat.
"I've
come to join the revolution," Larry began, struggling for breath after
the escape from the dinosaur. "But we got a pretty unfriendly reception
from one of your watchdogs."
"Yes," said a
tall man. "We saw the dinosaur come out
102 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
and
that attracted our attention." He turned to Harl. "What do you think,
Ellison? You know them."
"I'm
inclined to suspect this one," Harl said, pointing to Larry. "He's
always been so loyal to Earth."
"And now you want to join us?" said
the tall man.
"Yes," Larry said.
"I
think he's lying," said a short, rotund colonist. "I think he's a
spy!"
"So do I!" someone else shouted.
The
tall man, who seemed to be in command, frowned. "Suppose we lock them up
for a while," he said. "Then we'll find out whether they're with us
or against us."
"Lock
'em up!" the short man said. There was general agreement at this, and the
tall colonist nodded and directed the others to take Larry and Heitor inside
the colony.
It
looked just like Chicago Colony, except for great banners strung in the
streets.
Freedom
for Alpha Centauri No Taxation
without Representation We Demand Independence Sever the Bond with Earth
A green and red flag hung from a flagpole which
stood high in the street. The pole was newly cut, Larry noted;
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 103
the
wood was fresh, and he suspected that just a few days before it had been a
proud jungle tree.
The
flag was dotted with four lightning bolts, apparently the new flag of the
colonists.
They
bundled the cadets into a car—an old model, Larry noticed again—and drove off
to an impressive building located on the other side of the colony, near the
great wall. The tall man introduced himself as Carter, head of the provisional
government at London Colony.
They
mounted the steps of the building, Carter and Harl and a few of the
green-uniformed colonists, with Larry and Heitor. "This is the capitol of
the Free World of Alpha Centauri IV," Carter announced.
The inside of the building was almost bare.
"Sorry
we couldn't furnish it better," Carter said, with a genial smile.
"But the previous occupants took most of the decorations with them when
they moved to Chicago Colony. Give us time and we'll have it properly fixed up
for guests."
He pointed to a staircase, and the cadets
descended silently.
"Next floor you'll find your
apartments," Carter said. They went down further. It was dark and damp
below. "Down this corridor, please." Carter led the way and Larry and
Heitor followed, with two colonists bringing
104 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
up
the rear. Larry began to curse the whole foolhardy business of going to London
Colony.
"I
think it would be best to give you chaps private rooms for a while,"
Carter said. He turned to one of the colonists. "Take this one and put him
in Block A." He tossed a key to him.
"Are
we going to be locked up indefinitely?" Larry asked.
"Until we've determined your
loyalty," Carter said. "You may very well be genuine converts like
Ellison. But if you're not, and if you're equal to walking through the jungle
to get here, it might be dangerous to let you roam around."
The colonist led Heitor off with him down a
winding corridor. Larry heard a cell door creak open, and the colonist said
something. He heard Heitor say something in protest, but the echoes distorted
it so he couldn't pick out the individual words, and then the cell door closed
with a clang.
"Come,"
said Carter. "Let me show you your room." He led Larry off down
another corridor. Larry wondered why he was taking all this so calmly, and
realized it was probably because he would be doing the same thing as the
colonists if he were in their position. Besides, after the escape from the
dinosaur, this imprisonment seemed comparatively unimportant.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 105
"You realize there'll be trouble for you
on Earth for
this," said Larry. "I'm hardly in a
position to care," said Carter. "In here,"
he
said, opening a cell. Larry entered.
"Sorry
the accommodations aren't all that could be desired," Carter said as
Larry sank down on the cell's hard bed. "I
hope they'll be temporary."
Larry
leaned back on the bed. "All right, Carter. Just lock up and go back
upstairs."
Carter laughed, clanged closed the door of
the cell, and walked away.
Larry sat quietly in the darkness thinking
hard. It was almost a dream. Only a few weeks before he had been a top-ranking
cadet at the Space Academy, and now he was caught up in a revolution and
imprisoned.
He
smiled despite himself. It was hard to believe that this was all really
happening. Perhaps he would wake and find himself back at home, instead of in a
dank prison on Alpha C IV.
But
it was no dream. He thought of Harl, who had given up everything to join the
revolution, wearing the green uniform of the revolutionary army instead of the
Grays of the Patrol. And O'Hare, too—did they have a uniform here to fit his
giant frame?
106 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Suddenly he leaped off the
bed and ran to the gate of the cell, trying to peer out through the bars into
the darkness. For he could hear, coming toward him in the dark, the steady
beat of footsteps.
CHAPTER
The darkness was too thick for Larry to see anything but dim shadows. The footsteps
continued until they reached his cell. He heard the tapping of something on the
metal of his cell door.
"Larry!" someone whispered.
"I haven't gone anywhere," Larry
said.
"It's
me—Harl." The other figure lit a match and Larry saw the face of the
Martian.
"Hello, turncoat," Larry said.
"I
thought we'd been through that before." The match flickered and went out,
and once again they were left in darkness. "They sent me down here to talk
with you."
"Go ahead," Larry said.
"Talk."
"They've
decided that you and Heitor are spies. They intend to keep you here."
108 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"Why won't they believe we've honestly
changed sides?"
Harl
laughed. "Quit it, Larry. They asked me and I told them. I know you're
still working for Reinhardt."
A
moment passed in silence. Larry stared impassively out into the black, trying
to discern Harl's features, and wondering why he was unable to hate Harl the
way he knew he should.
"You are still on Reinhardts
side, aren't you?" A
note of doubt seemed to tinge Harl's voice.
"Yes,"
Larry said resignedly. "Yes. He sent us here as spies. I suppose there's
no point in trying to bluff it any more. I never thought they'd believe
us."
"No. We never did."
Larry noted Harl's use of "we." He
was fully on the other side, then.
There was silence again, and Larry began to
suspect that Harl had vanished into the darkness. But after a moment he spoke
again.
"Tell
me, Larry: just why do you stay loyal to Reinhardt and his bosses? Give me a sincere answer. Have you ever thought it
through carefully, or are you just following blindly along because you think
it's the right thing?"
"I don't know," Larry said.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 109
"Whereabouts on Earth are you
from?" Harl asked.
"Appalachia.
New York City, in the State of Appalachia. Western Hemisphere—North
America."
"I know," Harl said. "I studied geography. That means you come
from what used to be called the United States of America, before the
Consolidation."
"That's
right," Larry admitted. He stared glumly ahead; his eyes were getting used
to the darkness and he could almost see Harl's face.
"Man,
manl You're from America, and this revolution doesn't mean anything to you? How
can you be so dense?" Harl's harsh whisper rose to a rasping half-voice
sound. "Don't you know how your own country got its start? The very same
way the Centaurans are doing itl Tell me: what was the main slogan of the
American Revolution?"
Larry thought. It was all so long ago—he had
studied it in Medieval History, though.
"No
taxation without—without—" He
paused as the force of what Harl was saying struck him. "No taxation
without representation."
"ExactlyI" Harl said triumphantly. "Now where have
you seen that slogan anywhere else, Larry? Think hard," he said
sarcastically.
"The
banners in the streets of London Colony," Larry said in a small voice.
"They said the same thing."
110 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Harl chuckled. "So here we are. You now
find yourself taking the side of Great Britain against the Americans. Now
let's see you justify your refusal to help us. How can you remain loyal in the
face of all this?" Harl demanded.
"I
don't know," Larry said. He was very confused, and all the arguments he'd
had with Harl now seemed to have gone for naught. He had been wrong and Harl
had been right, and he should have admitted it long before.
"You
don't know," Harl mimicked. "But you still stick with Earth, because
it's what your father and grandfather did. Why, you may think you're nineteen
or twenty or so, but you're just an old fossil. You're as stodgy as they
come!"
"Harl—Harl—how
could I help the revolution? What could I do?"
"You
don't mean you're considering joining us, do you? What would Commander Stark
say if he found out?"
"Just answer me," Larry said
quietly. "What could I do—me, in particular—to make it worthwhile giving
up Earth?"
"President
Carter had a plan all worked out. You could be very useful to us."
"How?"
Larry asked. His eyes had now become accustomed to the dark, and he could see
Harl's face watching him earnestly.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 111
"We
planned to let you go back to Chicago Colony as if we had never caught you and
let you sabotage the Carderis
radio. That way Reinhardt
won't be able to get the reinforcements here until we're all set up."
The
thought made Larry shudder. Sabotaging a Patrol ship's radio! Suddenly he
realized that his conditioning was too deep—that, though he was almost fully
sympathetic with the revolution, that he could never force himself to do such
an outrage. But he decided not to tell Harl until
he had heard the rest
"Go
on," Larry said. "What happens after I smash the radio?"
"Well,
once we're safe from armed Patrol forces, we can proceed with our plans. We
grab Reinhardt and hold him as a hostage, along with all the other Earthmen and
pro-Earth colonists. This gives us a bargaining edge, and we begin setting up
our defenses. We build camps in the jungle, fortify them against the animals.
In the meantime Centauran agents now on Earth arrive with the warcraft we've
been purchasing with our export profits and any other money we could scrape up.
We settle down for a lengthy defense of the planet—or, as we hope, Earth won't
even bother to go to the expense of sending ships here to get involved in
guerilla warfare, and they'll let us go. But it all depends on whether or not
we can get Reinhardt out of the way and his radio silenced."
112 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"1 see," Larry said. "That means I'm a
key piece in the machine."
"Just
about," Harl admitted. "Carter went wild when he heard me say that
you were the radio operator. He saw it was our best chance of knocking out that
communications set. What do you say?"
"Let me think about it a minute,"
Larry said. He sat down on the hard bed in one corner of the cell, and tried to
balance all the factors.
He knew now that the revolutionaries were
more right than wrong, Earth more wrong than right. Neither side was completely
right nor completely wrong, but Earth was definitely not being fair. It was
hard for him to accept the concept of Earth's being in the wrong, but Harl had
driven it home so many times that at last he acknowledged it.
But still—even if the revolutionaries were
right, why should he get involved? If he could get out without joining them,
he could go on to become an officer in the Patrol—his fondest dream as long as
he could remember— and possibly someday have enough influence to help the
Centaurans that way. If he joined them now, it would mean giving up the Patrol
after years of dreaming and years of hard work, all to be thrown away in a
moment. All to live on a wild, primitive planet and fight against Earth.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 113
The revolutionaries were right. But sabotage
a Patrol ship's radio to help them? What if the revolution failed and he were
brought back to Earth in disgrace, to stand trial in a court which might
include his own father? Larry thought of the commander, how at first he would
be unable to believe what his son had done and then how he would calmly wipe
all memory of Larry from his mind, as if he had never existed. "No,"
Larry said.
"Are you sure? Hurry it up—Carter's
waiting to get things under way."
No," he repeated. "I can't do
it."
Harl
stared silently at him. "I thought you'd finally grown up, Larry. I see
you haven't, not really. You can't take the one step more you need to make
it."
"I
can't give up the Patrol, Harl," Larry said. "And my father—and
Earth—it's too much to ask, all at once. Your side is right, but—" His voice trailed off weakly.
"I
see," Harl said coldly. "You just can't do it, I'll tell them. All
right." He turned to leave and Larry watched him move away.
"Harl?"
Harl stopped and turned back. "What do
you want?"
"How long will they keep us in this
prison?"
"They would have let you out now. I have
the key with
114 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
me. But now you'll have to stay here till
your trial. I wish you had listened to me, old man; you're not as dense as you
try to be." "Trial?"
"Your spy trial. Caught in enemy
territory, remember?"
"But we had our Patrol uniforms on—" Larry objected. "You can't
try us as spies if we had our uniforms on."
Harl
laughed. "Sorry, Larry, but we're a little too serious about this
revolution to worry too much about ancient Earth rules of war. It's harsh, but
our lives depend on it. You're a spy."
"But the penalty—?"
"If they find you guilty, Larry, the
penalty is the same one they have on Earth. Death."
The blackness seemed to close in around
Larry.
"Death?"
"You
heard me," Harl said. "I'm sorry, but I gave you a chance."
"You could help me escape—you have the
key—" "Don't ask me
that," Harl said. "Maybe we were friends once, aboard the Garden. But this is war, and I'm on the other side. I
can't help you any more; you'll have to help yourself."
Harl turned again and this time kept moving.
Larry
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 115
watched him as long as he could, until Harl
disappeared in the dark. Then he looked after him. He saw that Harl was
perfectly serious—that their earlier friendship would not stand in the way of
the revolution.
LjARRY
SAT QUIETLY in the
darkness for a long while. He was now a martyr for real—he had had a chance to
save his life by betraying Earth, and he had refused.
But
he didn't feel at all noble. He felt like a fool. Earth had not earned his
life.
Once again the feeling that it was all a
dream wandered over him. It seemed incredible that he should be sitting in a
dungeon somewhere on Alpha Centauri IV, on trial for his life. He reached out
to feel the wall of the cell. It was clammy and cold, and very real. This was
no dream.
He heard footsteps approaching once again.
"Harl?"
There was no answer. He heard the key rum in
the lock, and the gate slowly swung open.
A giant figure stood silently in Larry's cell. 116
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 117
After a moment it spoke, in a deep murmur.
"No noise, lad. It's me—O'Hare."
Larry could hardly repress a whoop of joy.
"Patl"
"Right.
But sorry circumstances I'm finding you under, lad. Harl's told me you won't be
sensible. But I knew from the first you weren't sensible. No sensible person
would come back aft to sing songs."
"So Harl's told you everything,
eh?"
"Yes.
I won't press you any further, Larry. If you want to stay loyal to Earth, I'll
not argue. We won't let a difference in politics end our friendship so
soon."
"I'm to be tried as a spy," Larry
said.
"Oh?
I suspected as much. It looks bad, indeed. But you know what Harl said—"
"How'd you get into my cell, Pat?"
"I'm your jailer, Larry. I have your
key."
Larry thought for a moment.
"O'Hare?"
"Yes, Larry?"
"I
want to get back to the Garden.
Could you—no, I guess you
can't."
O'Hare
bowed his head; Larry could see the gesture even in the darkness. "I can't
do it, Larry. I've switched sides, now. Remember what I wrote you: enemies are
friends, friends are enemies. If I let you go back to the Carden, it'll be bad for the side I'm on. No, Larry.
It wouldn't make sense."
118 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"You're not a sensible man, Pat. You
said so just now yourself."
Larry frowned. He hated to be doing this, but
his father had often told him that the important thing was to survive.
"Pat—Pat, remember that time outside the
ship?" Larry felt his face grow hot with shame; he was begging for his
life now. But he had to get out.
"How could I forget it, lad?"
"Pat—the punishment for spying is
death."
O'Hare
silently looked at him. Larry saw now that he had O'Hare firmly caught. He
wondered what he would do when he got back to the Carden—whether he would ever destroy the radio.
"I
see," O'Hare said slowly. "I see what you want, and I can't refuse.
There are some loyalties higher than political ones, Larry. I can't
refuse."
He
held open the gate. "Go on—go," he said in a choked voice. "Go
before I change my mind. Heitor stays here, though—I don't owe him anything
too. If you're lucky enough to get out of the building, you'll find a jetcopter
parked in back. Chicago Colony—you know the way. Due east, a thousand miles.
Now, go—and good-by, lad."
Larry lingered for just a moment.
"Thanks, O'Hare. Thanks—and good-by," he said softly. He went through
the open gate and tiptoed down the corridor, looking back
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 119
just once at O'Hare, who was still standing in front of the empty cell.
He did not feel very heroic
about it all.
Getting out of the building seemed to take
years. Fortunately Larry remembered the way he had come, so he reversed his
field and tiptoed through the winding corridor and up the staircase, up the
second flight, and up into the main floor of the building.
A
door in the main hall was open, and Larry saw Carter, the head of the
revolutionaries, seated at a desk, reading some reports. No one else was in
sight.
Larry
considered running through the hall and out the open door, but decided against
it. Carter would certainly be attracted by a running figure, but he might not
even bother to look up at someone merely walking out of the building.
Slowly
he walked through the hall, as if he were walking on eggs. He passed Carter's
office with his breath drawn in, walking almost on tiptoe, eyes rigidly
forward. Carter turned almost automatically to look through the door as Larry
passed, and then turned back to his desk, apparently not realizing who it was
going by.
Another
step, then another, and Larry was through the open door and out into the fresh
Centauran air. Alpha Centauri was high and burning yellow; off in the corner
120 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
of
the sky was pale Beta with its ghostly light. Proxima, the third sun in the
system, was nowhere to be seen; the tiny red star was probably below the
horizon.
Now,
to find the copter, Larry thought. O'Hare had said it was parked "in
back." Larry trotted quickly around to the back of the administration
building, but found an empty lot and nothing more.
He
scowled and bit his lip. This was bad. Without a copter, he was as good as in
the cell, since he was a thousand miles from help with no means of reaching
it. A trek through the jungle was impossible—Larry recalled his earlier jungle
experience, and tried to multiply it by a thousand. He thought of the
wingfingers hovering overhead, and the great reptiles. He needed a copter.
He
looked up. A hundred yards away was the great wall. And—he whistled in
amazement—parked atop the wall was a jetcopter.
Larry set out in a sprint for the wall, his
boots clattering against the concrete street and sending echoes reverberating
through the quiet colony. He arrived at the wall winded and quickly found the
steps leading to the top. He paused for breath before beginning the climb,
looked around, and saw three figures come running out of the administration
building.
The
chase was on already. He had less time than he had thought.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 121
Larry
climbed the wall in a rush and ran toward the copter. Standing next to it,
calmly polishing its propeller, was Jon Browne.
They stared at each other in mutual
amazement. "What are you doing
up here?" Browne said as Larry approached.
"I
could ask the same thing. But never mind that. I need your copter."
Browne looked down to the ground. Larry's
eyes followed, and he saw men starting to climb the steps to the top. Not much
time left, Larry thought.
"What?
Do you think I'm going to let you escape? Let's see what these men have to say
about it."
"I want the copter," Larry
repeated.
"You
can't get away with this," Browne said, determined to stall until the
reinforcements arrived.
All's
fair in war, Larry thought grimly. He knocked Browne sprawling and leaped into
the copter.
It
was then that he discovered it was an ancient model and he had no idea how to
start it.
He
studied the control board for a moment, then pressed a button which seemed to
be a starter. The copter gave a little lurch and jumped ten or twelve feet in
the air, and hovered directly overhead. Larry looked out and saw three
colonists coming up to the top of the wall, and Browne struggling to his feet
and pointing.
122 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"No
time to waste," he said, and pressed another button. The copter shot away
from the wall at a blinding speed, and headed out over the jungle. He looked
back and saw a group of colonists standing on the wall—he could barely make
them out at this distance—and waving their arms furiously in the air. Larry
wondered how long it would take for them to begin to pursue.
He looked back and saw a pair of copters
coming after him. But he had a considerable head start on them, and they seemed
to be dropping further behind, until at last they veered off in another
direction and disappeared. Puzzled, Larry devoted his attention to his main
problem, which was finding Chicago Colony.
A
thousand miles due east, O'Hare had said—but which way was east? He had no
compass. He could be going in any direction at all. He decided the best plan
would be to continue straight ahead.
The copter seemed to fly itself, once it had
been put into motion. It maintained a steady course, almost skimming the tops
of the trees, heading straight and fast.
Larry
studied the steaming jungle below. It was all that could be seen. There was no
sign of London Colony behind, nor of Chicago Colony ahead. All around, front
and back, was the jungle.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 123
As
the copter rushed by, Larry caught glimpses of the great beasts living
below—living without any suspicion that the planet was no longer theirs, that
its possession was being contested by two groups of absurd pygmies from another
star.
The
wingfingers were abundant over the jungle. Larry got a good view of one which
kept pace with the copter for a minute or two. It was mostly wing, with a tiny
body surmounted by a long, fierce beak. The wings were leathery and were
stretched batlike on a framework formed from the greatly extended fingers.
Larry's
wingfinger seemed perfecdy capable of moving at the great speed of the
jetcopter, but after following along for a short time it sheered off and
swooped down on the treetops below.
The
copter continued its steady course. Time drifted by; Larry almost forgot where
he was and what was happening, as he watched the monotonous green below. But
after a while he noticed a dot of gray up ahead, which grew and grew until he
realized it was the great wall which ringed Chicago Colony.
He hovered over the colony
for a moment, wondering how to land the copter. There was no apparent landing
gear, and he didn't want to risk a belly-landing. Finally
124 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
he
decided to hover over the wall and leave the copter floating in mid-air while
he clambered down the rope ladder.
Now he knew he had to get back to the
Earthmen quickly. He still was not sure whether he would tell Rein-hardt
everything that happened or smash the radio after all, but he knew he had to get
back. He raced down the steps and toward the first colonist he saw.
He
was a dark-skinned man with a beard. Larry ran up to him.
"Can
you tell me where the Earthmen are quartered? I think I'm lost."
The colonist spoke in a soft, deep voice with
an overtone of puzzlement. "What Earthmen? Are you feeling well,
boy?"
Larry
stared at the colonist. What he had suspected of being a dream was fast turning
into a nightmare.
"The
Earthmen from the Spaceship Carden, sir.
They were living at the Chicago Hotel, but I can't seem to get my
bearings."
"You'll
have difficulty finding the Chicago Hotel here, young man. This is Bombay
Colony."
"But—" Larry stopped, overwhelmed by rage
and frustration. He realized what he had done: he had gone the wrong way and
landed at Bombay Colony, which was off to the west, instead of at Chicago
Colony. No wonder
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 125
the
London Colony copters hadn't bothered to chase him; they saw he was going to
get lost.
The
problem now was whether Bombay Colony had been alerted for him and would
imprison him again.
He
noticed the bearded colonist watching him curiously.
"I have to get back to Chicago Colony immediately," Larry
said. "I'm lost."
The head of the Bombay Colony was a tall,
distinguished man with an unpronounceable name. Larry explained his
predicament in as few words as he could, saying nothing about the revolution
but simply acting like a frightened cadet who had been joy-riding and had gotten
lost. If communications between the colonies were as slow as he hoped, they
might help him before they found out he was a fugitive.
The man with the unpronounceable name nodded
his head.
"I
suppose we can redirect you," he said. "Where did you leave your
ship?"
"My
ship is hovering over the wall, sir," said Larry. "I couldn't figure
out how to land it."
He
waved to a young man in a military uniform standing near the door. "Come
on, then. We'll have to get it down before a wingfinger flies off with
it," he laughed.
126 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"Chandra—you'll
find a copter hovering over the wall at 140 North Quadrant. That is where you
said you came down, isn't it? Give this fellow a compass and point him toward
Chicago Colony and let him go."
Larry
breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently there would be no trouble here.
"You care to stay here tonight as our
guest?" the tall man said.
"No," Larry said nervously.
"I'm afraid they will miss me if I stay away too long."
"All right," the tall man said. He
nodded dismissal.
He sat in silence until the ship reached
Chicago Colony. This time Larry recognized some familiar buildings. He left the
copter hovering over the wall again and headed for the hotel, expecting at any
minute to be stopped by men who had followed him from London Colony or Bombay
Colony or by Chicago Colony revolutionaries. But he walked unopposed and
unnoticed through the quiet streets.
Finally he found the Chicago Hotel. He
realized for the first time that he had not the slightest idea how much time
had elapsed since he had left Chicago Colony. There had been the trek through
the jungle, and his stay in the dungeon, and the wrong-way trip to Bombay
Colony. It might have been hours or days.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 127
He
was bedraggled and exhausted. His once-proud uniform was torn and ragged; his
face was grimy and covered with sweat.
He
decided the first thing to do was to report to Captain Reinhardt.
"There were rings under the captain's eyes; this had been no pleasure jaunt for him. Larry
saluted as crisply as he could, but he was unable to conceal his fatigue.
"You're
back just in time," the captain said. "Last night's meeting puts us
in an awkward position."
Last
night's meeting! Then
the whole adventure had taken not quite twenty-four hours I Larry tried to
arrange the thought to fit his fatigue.
"While
you were gone, Chicago Colony voted to join the revolution. Henrikstown came
through with a repeat vote. Only Bombay Colony seems to be leaning back to
Earth again. But that means we're likely to find ourselves in the midst of a
revolution—a shooting one—before long. What did you learn in London
Colony?" 128
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 129
Larry made up his mind not to tell of the
plan to sabotage the radio.
"It's
the center of the revolution," he said. "The leader is a man named
Carter. London Colony has already proclaimed itself the capital of the Free
World of Alpha C IV," he said. "Carter is the provisional president
of the revolutionary government."
There
was a knock on the door. President Harrison of the loyalist government entered.
"Do you know a man named Carter?"
the captain asked.
"Revolutionary
leader at London Colony," Harrison said. "He's the one who started it
all. Everyone at London Colony is solidly behind him and favors a revolutionary
war if necessary."
"How about the other colonies? Will they
fight?"
"Chicago
Colony probably will. I'm not sure about Henrikstown; Bombay Colony is divided
half and half but is supposedly more pro-Earth than not, and won't revolt. But
they'll support London Colony if all the other colonies do."
"Where's van Haaren?" Captain
Reinhardt asked.
"We
were both captured by the London Colony colonists," Larry said. "I escaped; he's still there. I found
a jetcopter and got away, only I went the wrong way and wound up at Bombay
Colony. They sent me here."
ISO REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"What did you find out about London
Colony?" "That they plan to revolt, sir."
The captain scowled. "More definite!
When? How? Didn't you find out anything more definite than that?" Larry
felt his face go red.
"This information may be vital to Earth,
Cadet Stark. Do you realize that? Now: what did you find out?" "I
can't, sir."
Captain Reinhardt looked at him with eyes
burning with anger. "You—cant? You
can't what? Are you in your right mind, Cadet Stark?"
President Harrison started to say something
conciliatory, but the captain ignored it.
"Cadet Stark: I order you to tell me
everything you know about this revolution."
Larry
faced the captain and gritted his teeth. An order was an order.
"They—they plan to seize all of us—and
you—and hold us for hostages, sir."
There;
it was out. He had betrayed them all now, Harl and O'Hare and Carter and all
the others. He wondered what his father would say of all this: he had been
trapped into a maze of lies and counter-lies, of evasions and betrayals and
humiliations. He had sold everybody out now, and had nothing to show for it.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 131
"I
hoped this would never happen," President Harrison said. "It means a
long, bloody struggle, and no one will profit. We could have settled this
peacefully."
"Peaceful
settlements are temporary ones," Captain Reinhardt said coldly.
"There's but one way to end revolutions."
He sat down at a desk and began writing.
"How
many people are there at London Colony, President Harrison?" asked
Captain Reinhardt, as he wrote.
"Over
two thousand, Captain Reinhardt," Harrison said.
"Hmmm. I hope it won't be necessary to
wipe them all out," he said. "Excuse me, President Harrison. Come
with me, Larry."
"Where to, sir?"
"Back
to the ship. President Harrison, will you circulate the word that the crew of
the Carden is to move back aboard ship
immediately?"
"Are you leaving, then?" he asked.
"Not yet. But I feel we have stayed long enough within the
walls."
The crowd was in the
streets as the men of the Carden moved
back to their ship, and they jeered and cursed sullenly as the Earthmen passed
through them.
132 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
There were banners hung in the streets of
Chicago Colony now—the ones Larry had seen at London Colony, and some new ones.
Go Home, Eabthmen We Don't Want You Hebe! Down With Harrison
Larry feared that the mob might attack them
as they went through the streets, but they kept their distance, milling
aimlessly about.
It was comforting finally to reach the wall,
cross the clearing, and climb the catwalk that lead into the ship. Larry's bunk
aboard ship was strangely empty; he thought of Harl, wearing the green uniform
of the revolutionaries, and Heitor, languishing somewhere in that dark London
Colony prison.
Captain
Reinhardt sent for him as soon as they had reestablished themselves aboard
ship.
"There's
a third-order Patrol fleet somewhere in this sector," he said. "I
want you to transmit this message to them at once." He handed Larry the
sheet of paper he had been writing on earlier.
Larry saluted and headed for the radio room.
While the instruments warmed up he read the note.
"Lao-tze
Reinhardt to Space Patrol Commander Carr, emerg X4. Revolution brewing on Alpha
C IV; plan to
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 133
take
all Earth supporters hostage. Come with armed force immediately, prepared to
quell rebellion. Suggested
punitive measure: partial
or total destruction of London Colony, originator of rebellion."
Larry
looked at the message several times. Suggested punitive measure: partial or total destruction of London Colony.
Partial or total destruction.
Partial or total destruction.
He could not do it. Calling the Patrol now
would mean the death of O'Hare, of Harl, even of poor Heitor who had nothing to
do with it. It would mean turning Alpha C rV into another Jupiter—a rebellious colony crushed by the armed might of
Earth. Sending the message would end all hopes of liberty for Alpha C.
Automatically
his fingers flew over the controls of the machine, setting up contacts, sending
the beam out into space, searching for the Patrol fleet.
"Fleet
X16532, Centauri Section," came a voice in his ears. "Who is this, please?"
Larry stared at the message. Partial or total destruction. He started to crumple the sheet, but realized
that that was no solution.
"Who is this, please?" the metallic voice repeated. Larry smoothed
out the crumpled comer of the message, and looked at the words, in Captain
Reinhardt's stiff up
134 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
and
down handwriting, until they ceased to have meaning and became just a
collection of individual letters.
He
could not do it. He broke the connection in the midst of an exasperated "Who is this?" from the fleet operator, and walked out into
the corridor.
"Have you transmitted it yet?" said
Captain Reinhardt from further up the corridor.
"Not
yet, sir," Larry said, controlling his voice. "Mechanical
difficulties; it'll take a moment or two to make contact."
"Hurry it up, then. We have to get them
here before anything serious starts here." "Yes, sir."
Larry
turned back into the radio room and let the machine warm up again. There was no
escaping it: the message would have to be transmitted. But Larry would not let
himself be the agent of London Colony's destruction.
"Fleet X16532," the voice said. "Who is this, please?"
"Lao-tze
Reinhardt to Space Patrol Commander Carr," Larry began in a weak voice.
"I'll
connect you with the commander," the fleet operator responded.
Larry
stared at the complex machine in front of him. In a moment he would be giving
his message to Commander Carr and setting in motion the wheels that
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 135
would
crush Alpha Centauri IV. No. He could not do it.
He
opened the door of the radio room and looked out. Coming down the corridor was
Paolo Campbell, a tall, gangling cadet he had known vaguely at the Academy and
had had next to no contact with on the voyage so far.
"Commander
Can speaking" the
radio said. "Go
ahead."
"Paolo," Larry whispered.
Paolo kept moving. "Paolo!"
"Eh? What is it, Larry?"
"Come in here, will you?"
Larry looked at the message in his hand.
"Go
ahead, please," Commander
Carr said. "We are awaiting your message."
"I want you to transmit an order for me,
Paolo."
"Why can't you do it? It's your
jobl"
"Is
there something wrong with the connection? Do you hear me? Answer,
please."
Beads
of sweat rolled down Larry's face. If only Captain Reinhardt would not appear
and add to the confusion—
"Never
mind that. Just do it for me." "I don't know how to, Larry," Paolo
said. "All you have to do is read it from this slip of paper," Larry
said, exasperated. "You can read, can't you?" "All right, if
it's that important. Give me your message."
136 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
There was the sound of a click, as Commander
Carr broke the connection.
"Just a second. Let me make the
connection again."
Larry
manipulated the dials. After a moment's silence the fleet operator came on
again.
"What's going on, please? Is this a
joke?"
"Sit down here," Larry urged,
pushing Paolo into the seat. "Just read this."
He
handed the paper, now folded and crumpled, to Paolo. As Paolo began to unfold
the paper, Larry left the room, unable to listen.
He PAUSED at the door, turned, and went back in.
Paolo was just beginning the message.
"Hold it, Paolo," he said.
"I'll do it myself."
Paolo looked around, mystified and angry.
"What's going on, Larry? You playing games?"
"Shut
up," Larry snapped. "I said I'd send it." He felt clammy with
sweat, and knew that Paolo might very well report his puzzling conduct to the
captain.
"If you say so," Paolo said.
"Feeling all right?"
"Proceed with message," the radio said.
Paolo left. Larry sat down at the radio and
stared at the piece of paper.
"Proceed with message. What is going on,
please?"
harry
opened his mouth as if to
say something, and then let it slowly close. He reached over and turned off
137
138 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
the
set, interrupting a puzzled protest from the other end. He sat there quietly
watching the quiescent radio.
Larry
tried to balance everything. The message could not be sent. O'Hare, Harl,
Heitor, the whole revolution, against Larry Stark. Larry Stark, he knew, was
not big enough to outweigh all the others. The scales tipped relentlessly.
Carefully
he ripped Captain Reinhardt's message into halves, then quarters, then eighths,
and let the pieces trickle to the floor. He reached inside the cooling set and carefully
undipped the central power tube—the irreplaceable central tube. He looked
meditatively at the tube for a moment and put it in his pocket.
Commander
Stark would never approve, he thought. But maybe he would. With a quick motion
of his hand he reached inside the set and ripped apart the delicate wires which
formed its circuits. He surveyed the wreckage for a brief instant, touched the
tube in his pocket to make sure it was safe, looked at the fragments of the
message on the floor, and left.
"Did you take care of the message?"
Captain Reinhardt asked him.
"It's all taken care of," Larry
said calmly. He saluted and walked on, down the corridor and out to the
catwalk, and down the catwalk to the ground, thinking of his
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 139
father,
of the Patrol, of Earth, of Harl and O'Hare and the revolution, and crossed the
clearing and headed for Chicago Colony.
The man he had to find now was Jon Browne.
The
hotel seemed as good a place to start as any. When he approached he saw it had
been taken over by the revolutionaries and was being used as a headquarters.
"Is
Browne here?" he asked a guard at the door. "I have to see him. At
once."
"What do you want with him?" the
guard said coldly.
"I have to see him," Larry said.
"Suppose he doesn't want to see
you?"
"I
don't have time to play guessing games," Larry said. He forced his way
past the guard and into the hotel. The guard followed, shouting.
"Grab him I"
In an instant he was surrounded by guards,
and he was struggling and kicking and fighting to break free.
"What's
going on here?" said a new voice. Immediately the struggle ceased. Larry,
held by two burly colonists, looked up, and saw Jon Browne standing there.
"Quite
a fighter, aren't you?" Browne said. "You're a better fighter than
you are a pilot, anyway. I've heard about your trip to Bombay Colony."
"I'm
sorry I knocked you down, Browne," Larry said. "I needed your
copter."
140 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"I gathered that. What's been happening
here?"
"I
have to get to London Colony immediately. To warn them. You have to let me
go."
"To
warn them? I understand you went there once, supposedly to join them. Now you
want to go again?"
"I
mean it this time," Larry said. "Let me gol" He struggled with
his captors and succeeded in freeing one arm.
"Let go of him," Browne said. They
did and he moved away from them.
"Now: am I to understand you've changed
sides? You're the most changeable young man I've ever encountered. But luckily
I have to go to London Colony myself this afternoon, and I suppose I can take a
passenger. You can warn them all you like when you get there. Tie him up,"
he said.
The
colonists converged on him again, and this time, without struggling, he let
them tie him. He was unceremoniously dumped into the back of a copter; Browne
clambered into the pilot's seat, and they took off.
They came down in a great square in the heart
of London Colony. Browne got out and waved to someone in the distance. In a
moment Carter and a group of green-clad revolutionaries appeared.
"I've brought you back your guest,"
Browne said. "The
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 141
one
who didn't like your hospitality." He pointed inside the copter.
They let Larry out and untied him.
"How'd you recapture him?"
"We
didn't," Browne said. "He walked right into our headquarters,
demanding to be brought here. We didn't argue with him."
"If you'd only listen—" Larry began.
O'Hare loomed up in the distance. He blinked
in amazement when he saw Larry.
"Put
him back in the cell," Carter directed. "We can't put off building
the camp any longer."
"You're definitely going ahead with
it?" Browne asked.
"Yes,"
said Carter. "The entire army's leaving London Colony in about half an
hour. We'll march till midnight and build the first camp there, and go on to
build the second at dawn. We ought to be ready to march on Chicago Colony
tomorrow night and grab the Earthmen and then we'll have to make a quick
disappearance."
Two
soldiers began to lead Larry away. Harl appeared from somewhere and ran along
with them.
"What
are you doing here?" he asked. "Why'd you come back?"
"If
you'd only listen," Larry said. "Reinhardt gave me a message to
transmit. He asked the Space Patrol to destroy London Colony as a punitive
measure."
142 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
"Holy! We've got to tell Carter! He'll
have to evacuate
immediately."
"No rush," Larry said. "Tell
one of these guys to let go
of me and I'll show you something
interesting."
"Cover him," Harl directed.
"Let's see what he has to
show us."
The colonists released Larry and drew their
guns.
"Don't
shoot. Harl, reach into my pocket here—I'm afraid these fellows may get
trigger-happy if I do—and take out what you find there."
"Careful, Ellison," said one of the
colonists.
Harl gingerly reached into Larry's pocket.
His fingers closed on the radio tube and he drew it out.
He rubbed his fingers on it gently. "A
radio tube?"
"Yes,"
Larry said. "The central power tube from the Cardens radio."
"The
central power tube from the Carden?" Harl
repeated.
"Yes."
Harl looked at Larry—looked up at his eyes.
"Larry—did
you remove this before or after—I mean, was Reinhardt's message ever
sent?"
"I never sent it. I pulled the circuits
loose and took the tube."
"Larry!"
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 143
Carter drew near. "Why isn't he being
taken away?" he asked. "Ellison, what's happening?"
"Reinhardt
is asking the Patrol to wipe out London Colony. Or—he wanted to ask them. But
Stark here sabotaged the radio."
Larry
winced. He still could not stand the thought of what he had done.
"Is this true?"
"There's
the tube." He reached out and took it back from Harl. "They could fix
the circuit, I suppose, but there's no way they could replace this."
"That
means—if we march on them now, we'll have them. Do they know what you've
done?"
"Not
unless they've tried to use the radio since I left. I reported that the message
had been taken care of."
"In that case—"
Carter dashed away. Harl pounded Larry on the
arm and then followed Carter, leaving Larry alone in the deserted London
Colony street as the afternoon shadows began to gather.
LjARRY
STOOD ALONE in the street
amid the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, breathing the air of Alpha C
deeply.
He thought of everything he
was leaving behind: Earth, his father, the Patrol, everything. He stood there,
still, in the quiet street.
Then he remembered Heitor.
Was the pudgy little cadet still somewhere in that dungeon? They couldn't leave
him behind when they evacuated London Colony.
He had to find that prison
building. But all he knew was that it was somewhere near the wall. He began to
trot through the empty streets.
After
ten minutes' fruitless search he found an old man sitting on a bench, seemingly
oblivious to whatever might be happening around him. 144
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 145
He rushed up to him. "Can you tell me
where the capi-tol building is? The one where they have the dungeons?"
"Why are you still here, boy? The others
have left."
"Come on, come on, answer me I"
The
old man pointed patiently to his left. Larry began to dash frantically, and
finally he reached the building. He raced up the steps and through the open
door.
"Heitor!"
he shouted. "Heitor!"
He rushed to the door that
led to the cells. "Heitooooooor!"
"You don't need to shout, lad,"
said a quiet voice behind him. "Heitor's not been forgotten. They took
him with them."
Larry whirled. "O'Hare!"
"Just locking up, that's all. Carter
thought it might be a good idea to protect the capitol building.
Let's go outside."
The
massive O'Hare led him outside and locked the main door.
"There.
Now all's safe." He turned to go. "Wait, O'Hare."
"Sorry, Larry. I can't. They expect me
up front. I'll see you there."
He
ambled down the steps and headed off into the growing dimness of the twilight.
A trumpet call sounded in the distance.
146 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
Larry watched him go. The trumpet call was
repeated, louder.
"Attention. Attention." Carter's
voice came over a loudspeaker from somewhere.
"Attention.
We are now readying for the evacuation. Listen carefully. At the next trumpet
call we are to assemble at the East Gate. Repeat: East Gate. We will proceed
in orderly fashion according to the plans previously circulated.
"We
will march through the jungle, protected by arms. There will be no danger from
the animals, who will run away from our lights. The five hundred people so
designated will remain at Camp 1, which is to be established at a distance of
twenty miles from London Colony. They will fortify this camp as per plan.
"The
remainder will proceed at dawn to Camp 2, which
will be located fifty miles from London Colony. Five hundred designated
colonists will be left there. The rest will be ferried on to Camp 3, which is ten miles outside Chicago Colony. There they will join with
forces from Henrikstown and march on Chicago Colony to seize the Earth
spaceship.
"Be ready to move at the next trumpet
call."
Night
was beginning to fall in earnest now. Larry pondered the events of the past
few days. He had been catapulted into a position of great importance to the
colonies, and, he felt, he had redeemed himself.
REVOLT ON ALPHA C 147
He had redeemed himself, he felt, not only in
his own eyes, but in his father's eyes. What was it his father had said so
often? "A Space Patrolman must be able to make decisions and keep to
them."
He began to walk slowly through the streets.
He
came upon a jetcopter parked in the street. He looked at it, and slowly drew
the radio tube from his pocket. He reflected that it was still in his power to
fly back to Chicago Colony, to the Carden, return
the tube, and end the revolution before it was really under way.
Larry
looked at the tube, smiling, and at the copter. "A Space Patrolman must be
able to make decisions," he said aloud. "And keep them," he
added.
He
looked up at the sky. The stars were beginning to come through the darkness
now, and he stared at them. Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri had set, of
course, but there was still the spectral crimson light of Proxima C staining
the streets.
He
looked at the stars, knowing that he was giving them up. All his childhood
dreams of the Patrol, of racing from star to star, of seeing everything, of
being everywhere, were coming to an end. He was giving up Deneb, and Rigel, and
Procyon, and the other stars; giving them up for a wild and strange planet.
Somewhere
out there, he thought, was Earth—Earth, that planet where he had been born, the
planet he had loved, the planet he could never call home again. He tried
148 REVOLT ON ALPHA C
to
find the old familiar Sun and its nine planets, but they were lost among the
great sprinkling of stars on the velvet black bowl of the sky.
He could not find the Sun. Perhaps it was
just as well, he thought.
The final trumpet call sounded. He looked up
at the stars.
"A Space Patrolman must be able to make
decisions," he whispered. "And keep them."
Somehow
he knew his father would approve after all. For he was being true, not to Earth
or the Patrol, but to himself. And that was what really mattered.
He
looked at the gleaming little tube he had taken from the radio, and fingered
its shining sides. Then he lifted it and dashed it against the ground.
It
broke into a million tiny splinters that scattered over the concrete. They
gleamed faintly red in the weird light from Proxima Centauri.
He glanced at the wreckage of the tube for a
moment, and then broke into a run, running to catch up with the angry, honest
men who were beginning the march on Chicago Colony.