Colony, page 14
“Orders? Come, now...”
“And paid taxes to the World Government. Heavy taxes, which should have remained at home to help our poor.”
“But you pay lower taxes to the World Government than you spent on your military budget back before we initiated the disarmament.”
Villanova shook his head. “That was years ago. The taxes we paid to you were paid now, this year. The children who are starving are starving now.”
“But we send food to needy nations. We have programs...”
“Your programs do not reach the people. They make the rich richer, while the poor go hungry. Why do you think the people of Argentina, of other nations all around the world, are ready to join El Libertador? Because they love the World Government and are happy with it?”
De Paolo thought a moment, then said slowly, “Why don’t you join us, then, and take charge of our programs for the needy?”
Villanova jerked his head back and gasped as if he had received an electric shock. “That... that is a very generous offer.”
“It is sincerely made,” De Paolo said.
“But I am a soldier, not an administrator. I would be lost behind a desk.”
“You are a leader,” De Paolo urged. “Others can do the desk work. You can direct them.”
For a long moment Villanova said nothing. But then, “And who would direct me?”
De Paolo shrugged. “The World Council, of course.”
“The same faceless men who direct the World Government now. The same ones who allow villages to starve and cities to fester into hellholes.”
“We are trying...”
“And failing.”
“We would not fail if we had your cooperation,” De Paolo said, his voice rising, “and the cooperation of those who support you.”
“Support me? I have no supporters, except the poor, the starving.”
Waving a hand in midair, De Paolo countered, “Come now, señor. Is it a coincidence that the drought which brought ruin to Argentina’s cattle-raising district has disappeared since you set up your new government? Is it a coincidence that the reservoirs of drinking water for Santiago have been found to contain such a high bacterial count that the Chilean capital must now buy its drinking water from Argentina?”
Villanova hesitated. “What are you saying? What do you accuse me of?”
“The multinational corporations have been tampering with the weather on your behalf—poisoning water reservoirs, spreading diseases—all to cause the hunger and poverty that you capitalize on to ride to victory and power!”
“Untrue!” Villanova said. But it was the soft answer of a man who was unsure of himself.
“The storms in India, the floods in Sweden, the rioting and epidemics... and all over the world, revolutionaries and guerrillas carry your picture and demonstrate against the World Government.”
“Mother of God, am I responsible for the weather?”
“Someone is!”
“I have never heard of such a thing.”
De Paolo could feel the pulse throbbing angrily in his ears. “Then you are either a liar or a fool. The corporations have been tampering with the weather and using ecological warfare all around the world to weaken the World Government. You are their beneficiary. You are the one they are helping.”
“Me? It is your World Government that feeds the corporations and starves the poor.”
“Nonsense!”
“Truth! Who makes the profits from grain shipments? Who sells medicines around the world? Why are all the Solar Power Satellites beaming their energy to the nations of the North?”
Forcing himself to regain his composure, De Paolo said, “We are trying to bring the corporations under our control. But their power is enormous. And we have evidence that they are helping you and other revolutionary movements, such as the PRU.”
“I swear I know nothing of that,” Villanova said.
“Then prove it.”
“How?”
“Let Argentina rejoin the World Government. Work with us instead of against us.”
“I cannot. My own supporters would turn against me.”
“Then we must crush you.”
El Libertador’s nostrils flared. “Try to. If your tired old men of the Council have the courage to try, they will discover that the hungry poor can fight. We have nothing left to lose. We know that death is near. Attack Argentina and you will ignite all of Latin America; I promise you. All of the Southern Hemisphere!”
De Paolo realized what his pent-up anger had made him say. Fool! Fool! All these years of self-control thrown away on an adventurer.
“I was not speaking of war,” he backtracked. “None of us wishes to bring death and destruction. I am pleading with you to see the world as it really exists. Why do you think that the corporations are aiding you?”
“I have no evidence that they are.”
“They are,” De Paolo insisted. “They know that by helping you they weaken the World Government. By fomenting revolutionary movements, they can destroy the World Government. And what will be left in the ruins? A shattered world, split into hundreds of separate nations, each of them too weak and too proud to be anything but separate. What will be the most powerful force in that world? The corporations! They will rule the world. Your petty national governments will be no match for them.”
“That sounds like the paranoid dreams of...” Villanova hesitated.
“Yes, yes, finish it—of an old man. That’s what you meant to say. But it is not paranoia. It is the truth. They are using you. And once they have achieved their goal—once they have destroyed the World Government—they will sweep you away like a fallen leaf.”
“They can try.”
“They will succeed—if there is anything left in the world when my government falls. We are struggling to preserve order, to preserve stability and peace. If they succeed in tearing down the World Government, the chaos that results will destroy everything—everything!”
“No,” Villanova said softly. “The people will remain. The land. The fields. The people will endure no matter what happens.”
“But how many of them?” De Paolo insisted, forcing the words out despite the tightness in his chest. “Or, rather, how few? Billions will die. Billions!”
Villanova got to his feet and stood at his full height, his head hardly a centimeter below the compartment’s plastic ceiling panels.
“I do not think that this meeting will accomplish anything except further recriminations. With your permission...”
“Go!” De Paolo snapped as the pain spread within him. “Go and play your egoistic games of power and glory. You think you are aiding the people. You are helping to kill them.”
El Libertador turned and stepped out of the compartment. Before the door could close, De Paolo’s aide put his head in.
His jaw dropped open in shock. “Sir!”
De Paolo lay back in his chair, gasping, gray-faced. A sullen hot pain was smoldering in his chest.
The aide came to the desk and punched the communicator button. “Get the physician in here immediately!”
~~~
I've been accepted for Island One! On a trial basis, at least. They didn't take long making up their minds. The counselor who called said they handle all applications by computer, and they process them overnight in most cases.
They want to send me to their test and training center in Texas. I've got a week to make up my mind. But I've already made it up. Sure, it'll be tough on Mom and Dad, but I'm not going to spend the rest of my life stuck here and then get thrown out on the slop pile like they did. I'm going into space.
It's Island One or bust!
—The journal of William Palmquist
~~~
THIRTEEN
Leaning back in his desk chair, David stared sullenly at the computer’s readout screen. Instead of the data about passengers who had confirmed reservations on the next shuttle rocket leaving for Earth, the viewscreen showed the image of Dr. Cobb.
“David, this is a tape,” the old man was saying. “I know you’re trying to break into the computer reservations system and wangle yourself a seat on one of the Earthbound shuttles. I’ve had the computer programmed to respond to your intrusions with this tape. You’re staying here, son. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it’s got to be. I’ve got every possible input to the computer blocked. There’s no way you can tamper...”
With a sour grimace, David touched the keyboard’s OFF button. The viewscreen instantly went blank. Cobb’s voice was cut off in mid-word.
It was the fourth time he had tried to worm his way into the shuttle’s passenger list. He had used a false name at first. Then he had tried inserting his own identification records into the place of a confirmed passenger and “bumping” the real passenger off the flight. Neither worked. Nor did his latest, more subtle attempts to get at the computer’s basic programming and alter it.
Each time his efforts had resulted in Cobb’s taped message. The old man’s face looked faintly amused, as if he knew he had won a battle of wits with his young protegé.
You may have won a few battles, David thought, but you’re not going to win the war. I'll get out of this jail-house yet.
There were other rockets that regularly left Island One’s spacecraft docks. The smaller, more spartan lunar shuttles that ferried men and equipment between the colony and the mines on the Moon’s Oceanus Procellarum. Like the colony itself, the mines were the property of the Island One Corporation. But on the other “shore” of that dark, solid-rock lunar ocean was the underground community of Selene—a free and independent nation, a staunch member of the World Government.
David grinned to himself. “You may have the Earthbound shuttles covered,” he muttered to Cobb, “but I’ll just take the long way around to where I want to go.”
David activated the computer again and asked for the passenger lists for the next few ferry runs. The viewscreen flickered momentarily and then cleared to show Cobb’s face. The old man’s grin seemed bigger, somehow.
“David, this is a tape. I know you’re trying...”
“Some things never change, thank God,” Evelyn said as the taxi swung around the mounted Guardsmen in their splendid, silly uniforms of scarlet with the polished swords and red-tailed helmets of gold. Mounted on clattering black horses, they were jouncing toward Buckingham Palace. The usual crowds of camera-laden tourists were already packed in their places, waiting to catch the Changing of the Guard.
“You didn’t like Island One, then?”
The man sitting in the taxicab beside Evelyn had been introduced to her as Wilbur St. George. He was obviously an Australian, despite his Savile Row tweeds and his careful diction. He had the ruddy-cheeked outdoor look of an Aussie, the blustering, unguarded way of speaking, the informality that was just short of impoliteness.
“I liked it very much,” Evelyn answered. “I only left because the story I uncovered was too big to miss, and they’d never allow me to tell it from up there. Still, it’s good to be home.”
St. George shifted slightly in the cab’s back seat. He was a large man, past fifty, Evelyn judged, and had to work hard to keep from going fat. “I wanted to talk with you without anyone interrupting us,” he said. “Thought a taxi ride through London would do the trick nicely. I don’t get to see much of this city, y’know.”
Studying the man’s face, Evelyn thought, High blood pressure, too, I’ll warrant.
“Mr. Beardsley told me that you were one of the owners of International News,” she said.
“Good man, Beardsley.... Ah, there’s the King’s house now.”
Evelyn barely glanced at Buckingham Palace. “Mr. Beardsley said I’d have to speak with you before writing up any of the stories I’ve brought back with me from Island One.”
“That’s right. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What do you want to know?”
He shrugged good-naturedly. “What did you find out?”
Evelyn hesitated a moment, then began telling St. George about the empty, unoccupied Cylinder B of Island One. She mentioned all the laboratory and industrial work she had seen. She did not mention David Adams—not one word about him, his story, his background, or the genetic engineering that had created him.
“Anything else?” St. George asked, staring out the window as they passed the Tower and Tower Bridge.
“Anything else?” Evelyn echoed. “There’s a huge conspiracy going on up there! They’re going to go right on selling us energy from their satellites at their prices! And they’ve got that entire empty cylinder, big enough to house a million people—empty, unused, waiting!”
“Waiting for what?” St. George asked, his eyes suddenly focused on her, gun-metal gray.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
St. George shook his head. “Not much to show for a month’s work, is it? More than a month, when you count the training they put you through. I’ve seen your expense accounts, y’know.”
“They’re keeping something from us,” Evelyn said. “Something’s going on up there and...”
St. George made a clucking sound of disgust. “Rumors. Insinuations. Paranoid plots. Where are the facts? Where are the hard facts?”
“I’ve got photographs of that empty cylinder.”
“I’ve seen them. What of it?”
“But...”
“Hear me out,” St. George commanded. “This matter of the empty cylinder. I’m sure that if you had asked Dr. Cobb about it, he would have explained it perfectly well.”
“His explanation would have been a smooth one, I agree.”
“So? What do you have? Nothing—certainly not a news story.”
Evelyn was too stunned to reply.
“You didn’t even find out about that boy who was cooked up inside some genetics laboratory or other,” St. George grumbled.
“You know about that?”
He made a sour face. “My dear Ms. Hall, it appears to me that you’ve spent a good deal of International News’ time and money for little more than an exotic vacation. I hope you enjoyed yourself.”
“Enjoyed myself?”
“That’s right. Because you’re fired. As of this moment you no longer work for International News. Go on back to the office and pick up your severance check. It will be waiting for you.”
The cab pulled up to the curb of the narrow, bumpy street in front of a pub called Prospect of Whitby. Evelyn had heard of it since childhood, one of the oldest pubs in London, but she had never been able to afford it.
St. George ducked out of the cab and immediately slammed the door, leaving Evelyn inside. To the driver he commanded, “Take her back to the International News building.”
He turned and headed inside the pub without paying the cab driver a penny.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
David had read that somewhere. As he pedaled his electrobike along the winding forest trail, deliberately keeping the motor off and forcing himself to work for every meter of progress, he kept repeating that phrase to himself.
A doe, startled by his sudden appearance around a bend in the trail, froze for a moment and stared at him with huge, liquid, brown eyes, then bounded off through the underbrush.
That's the way, David thought. Get away while you can.
There was no way for him to get aboard an Earthbound shuttle. Cobb had outsmarted him there. Even the baggage and freight the shuttles carried were minutely inspected, since the rockets landed at spaceports that belonged to the World Government and not to the Corporation.
He couldn’t get into a lunar ferry, either. Cobb had anticipated that move, too. But, David thought as he pedaled, they don't inspect the freight that the ferries carry. Both ends of the lunar run were owned by the Island One Corporation. There was nothing to smuggle back and forth from the colony to the barren desolation of the lunar mines—nothing that Dr. Cobb gave a damn about, at least.
He had worked his way up to the crest of a ridge and was now coasting down the dirt trail, heading out of the woods and toward the grazing area where small flocks of sheep and goats dotted the grasslands.
David clicked on his implanted communicator and queried the computer files for information about the ferries’ cargo holds. As he coasted downslope he consciously relaxed the tension in his leg muscles.
And grunted with disappointment. The ferries had no cargo holds. Individual cargo pods were clipped onto the ferries’ outer framework, riding along like barnacles on a ship’s hull. The cargo pods were sealed, but a stowaway would have to hold his breath for two days as the ferry coasted the quarter-million miles between Island One and the Moon. It would be a cold ride, too: a couple of hundred degrees below zero, cold enough to solidify air... and a human body.
Zooming to the bottom of the downslope, David pumped his bike faster and faster, scattering a bleating knot of sheep that had strayed onto the trail. A dog yapped behind him as the wind plastered his thin shirt against his chest and sent his hair flying.
A few hundred degrees below zero and no air, he repeated to himself. At least Dr. Cobb won't be expecting me to try that route!
It took David nearly a week to prepare his sarcophagus.
He worked by night in the basement of an electronics shop in the village nearest his home. The shop sold omniphonic sound systems and the new three-dimensional television sets to Island One’s residents. It was a simple matter to get past the electronic locks and turn the shop’s basement storeroom into a work area.
Using his knowledge of the computer’s credit systems, David had acquired a cylindrical freight pod, an astronaut’s pressure suit, several tanks of oxygen, and a pair of electricity-generating fuel cells.
He carefully went about his usual routines of study and exercise during the day. He showed up punctually for his regular medical tests and examinations, assuming that Dr. Cobb was watching him—at least intermittently.
He hardly slept at all. I’ll have plenty of time to sleep on the ride to the Moon, he thought. A couple of days—or eternity.
