Balance of Power (7 page)

One day ashore, and one man dead.

I knew full well that a good meal wasn’t going to square this up. Things were bad, and getting worse.

The stockade grew, and took on a comforting solidity. The first of the huts was marked out on the ground, and the foundations were laid. Another expedition into the forest passed off without mishap, and I made steady progress checking all the possible food sources. I passed most of them as edible, but thought it diplomatic not to call for volunteers immediately. I used only one test subject—myself. I didn’t even ask Mariel, whose stomach was of proven sensitivity.

And then, in the afternoon, lightning struck again.

A big, burly man felled one of the giant trees that grew in relative isolation. It was at the northern end of the area outside the stockade that had been cleared, and would have smashed the stockade if it had fallen the wrong way, but he had done his work well. It fell the right way, with no one underneath it. He walked out along its length to inspect his work with justifiable pride. A snake, upset by the upending of its resting place, struck at him from the foliage.

I was with him inside a minute, but there was no way to identify the snake or the kind of poison it had pumped into him. There were three or four different types of poison used by Attican snakes, and this just had to be one of the fast-acting ones. By the time the symptoms were clear enough to treat, his nervous-system was paralyzed. I managed to keep his heart going for an hour or more, but I hadn’t the means to save his life. He died before sunset.

That was two down, and I knew that the apple-barrel was really going sour.

In the evening, another hunting-and-foraging party set out. I stayed at home. Nieland took charge. They took three guns, and they looked ready to shoot anything that moved. I hoped that the natives had the sense to stay away. They didn’t look ready to play “Take Me To Your Leader” with any seven-foot catmen.

I dissected the snake that had killed our second casualty, and prepared a specific anti-serum for its poison. You never know when things like that will come in handy, though I was certain in my own mind that the next person to get bitten would make sure it was a different species that got him. Such is life. Mariel did some of the routine food tests for me and offered to keep the score if the test specimens I’d eaten should prove to be debilitating. That’s what’s known as undiplomatic generosity.

But I didn’t get ill.

It was just getting dark when a man stuck his head into the tent and said: “Come quick.”

It was Thayer, and he had been doing a lot of running—he was panting hard. I recalled that he had gone out with the foraging party. Mariel had gone back aboard ship—as much to avoid my bitter temper as because there was anything still aboard that needed transporting up to the camp. There seemed to be no time to look for her and tell her where I was going.

“It’s Ling,” gasped Thayer. “He’s hurt.”

I grabbed the medical kit and pushed past him, without a word. My jaw was set tight. A chapter of accidents was one thing, but this seemed to be verging on the surreal.

Thayer reached into the tent and fished out my dart-gun, and also the lantern I’d just switched on.

“I’ll bring this,” he said. I didn’t bother to argue about it. I waited for him to lead the way. He did so, at a fast trot.

We followed a blazed trail that led off at an angle of about sixty degrees from the ill-fated course I’d followed the previous day. Dusk didn’t last long, but the fuel-celled electric lamp was quite bright enough for us to find our way from one score-mark to the next. We didn’t have to go far—just half a mile or so.

“What happened?” I asked, as we slowed down in a patch of tall grass where four or five figures waited, silent shadows in the dim light. They were looking down at a prostrate form on the ground—Ling’s body. I recognized Malpighi standing close by, and looked for Nieland. I didn’t see him, but I couldn’t spare more than a glance as I knelt beside Ling.

Some seconds dragged by before I realized that no one was answering my question.

I turned Ling over because he was lying face down. He was unconscious, but there seemed to be no sign of an injury to his body. Not until I felt the skin beneath his thick black hair did I realize that he had been hit on the side of the head. Hard.

I looked around. Malpighi had moved well away. Thayer was already raising my gun.

Strangely, I felt neither surprise nor anger. The realization that it was a trap came to me smoothly and coherently, clicking into place in my head like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle.

I hurled the medical bag at Thayer, but he had no trouble dodging it. The others raised their guns. There was nothing I could do—no earthly point in pretending that I could run or make a fight of it.

I looked at Malpighi, but he was too far away from the lamp for it to illuminate his face. Obviously, though, he knew what he was doing. This had been planned. Ogburn must be in on it too.

“Where’s Nieland?” I asked.

“Behind a bush,” said Malpighi. “He ain’t dead. Gagged and tied. He’ll get free easy enough. We ain’t murderin’ nobody.”

“You’ve cracked Ling’s skull,” I said, not knowing whether it was true or not.

“He gave us a fight. Someone had to hit him. He’s not dead. Where’s the girl?”

The last question was addressed not to me but to Thayer.

“Wasn’t there,” said Thayer. “Maybe on the ship. We can take care of her later.”

My mouth was dry.

“We’ll put her ashore before we leave,” said Malpighi. There was a note of relish in his voice—not because he was sadistically contemplating raping Mariel, but because he was in control and I couldn’t do anything and he wanted me to know it.

“Where are you going to go?” I asked him.

“Home,” he said. “We got water. We got all the rations you piled up for your stay here. We don’t need no roots or meat. We just want to get out of here. We don’t see any reason why any more of us should get killed. You promised us a lot of money for this trip, but you didn’t say nothing about people getting killed. We don’t want to end up like the others—Verheyden and his crew. We’re going home. Now.”

“And when you get back home?” I said. “What do you tell them?”

“We tell them you all got carried off,” he said. “You went out to look for natives an’ you never came back. We waited, we hunted, but two of our best men were shot. There was a fight. We had to retreat or we’d ha’ been slaughtered to a man. We’ll make ourselves heroes. An’ we’ll collect our money, too.”

I said: “Someone will talk. You lot don’t like one another any better than you like us. Someone will blow the whole thing to spite someone else. Half of the poor sods don’t know what’s happening, do they? Just Ogburn and you, hey? You’ve left them all an excuse. It wasn’t me, they’ll say, it was Ogburn and Malpighi. I had to go along. Someone will say it. Someone always does. What’s the penalty for a crime like this back in the colony, hey? But suppose Thayer there has a change of heart, Malpighi? Suppose he shoots you instead of me? He can be a hero. You can all be heroes, boys. Just shoot the right man....”

I never thought it would work.

It didn’t.

The dart took me in the shoulder. I tried to look over the shoulder to see where it had gone in, but the angle was impossible.

I remained kneeling, waiting for the drug to black me out. I didn’t try to fight it. I keeled over slowly. I didn’t want to hurt myself, or make him fire again.

The world spun around me, like a black whirlpool, and I seemed to continue falling, through the ground...a long, long way.

“I got into the rowboat and started upriver. I had to lighten the load a bit more, so some of the heavy stuff went over, but I managed to get away all right. It was dark, of course, and the boat was moored on the far side of the ship, so no one could see what I was doing. I found a place to land and unloaded all the food and such into a crack in the rock. Then I pushed the boat out into midstream again so it would float back to the ship and maybe past it and all the way down to sea. I transferred the food bit by bit to the top of the slope, and then hid it in the trees.

“I sat tight for a while, then wormed my way back to see what was going on. They’d packed up for the night. I skirted the stockade and set off in the direction the foraging party had gone. There were no lights ashore, so I presumed there were no lookouts, and I put the lamp on low until I found a scored tree. Then I followed the trail, turning up the light as I came. I think we’re safe, though—I’m pretty sure they’re all back on the ship. They’ll probably take off first thing in the morning...unless, of course, they start checking supplies.”

“Jesus,” I said, softly.

“The only problem is,” she said, “what do we do next. We’ve got the bulk of the food—except for the stuff that had already come ashore—and we have some of your equipment, though not the most important stuff. We don’t have any guns, and they have six plus your dart rifle. On balance, I’d say we’re in a bit of a spot and so are they. They could navigate their way across the ocean without the instruments or the compass, but will they try without supplies they can trust? You’ve tested a lot of the local produce, but will they be able to make anything of your notes? I sure as hell never can.”