Between Planets (15 page)

Most of the opinions seemed to favor a draft, nor could Don argue against it; it seemed reasonable to him even though he would be caught in it. One quiet little man heard the others out, then cleared his throat. “There will be no draft,” he announced.

The last speaker, a co-pilot still wearing the triple globe on his collar, answered, “Huh? What do you know about it, Shorty?”

“Quite a bit. Let me introduce myself—Senator Ollendorf of CuiCui Province. In the first place we don’t need a draft; the nature of our dispute with the Federation is not such as to employ a large army. Secondly, our people are not of the temperament to put up with it. By the drastic process of selective immigration we have here on Venus a nation of hardy individualists almost anarchists. They don’t take to forced service. Thirdly, the taxpayers will not support a mass army; we have more volunteers now than we can find money to pay for. Lastly, my colleagues and I are going to vote it down about three to one.”

“Shorty,” complained the co-pilot, “why did you bother with the first three reasons?”

“Just practicing the speech I mean to make tomorrow,” apologized the Senator. “Now, sir, since you are so strong for the draft, pray tell why you haven’t joined the High Guard? You are obviously qualified.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, just like you told me. First or firstly, I’m not a colonial, so it’s not my war. Secondly, this is my first vacation since the time they grounded the
Comet
-class ships. And thirdly, I joined up yesterday and I’m drinking up my bounty money before reporting in. Does that satisfy you?”

“Completely, sir! May I buy you a drink?”

“Old Charlie doesn’t serve anything but coffee—you ought to know that. Here, have a mug and tell us what’s cooking over on Governor’s Island. Give us the inside data.”

Don kept his ears open and his mouth (usually) shut. Among other things he learned why the “war” was producing no military action—other than the destruction of Circum-Terra. It was not alone that a distance varying from about thirty million to better than one hundred, fifty million miles was, to say the least, awkwardly inconvenient for military communications; more important was the fear of retaliation which seemed to have produced a stalemate.

A sergeant technician of the Middle Guard outlined it to anyone who would listen: “Now they want to keep everybody up half the night with space raid alerts. Malarky! Terra won’t attack—the big boys that run the Federation know better. The war’s over.”

“Why do you figure they won’t attack?” Don asked. “Seems to me we’re sitting ducks here.”

“Sure we are. One bomb and they blow this mudhole out of the swamp. Same for Buchanan. Same for CuiCui Town. What good does that do them?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t relish being A-bombed.”

“You won’t be! Use your head. They knock out a few shopkeepers and a lot of politicians—and they don’t touch the back country. Venus Republic is as strong as ever—because those three spots are the only targets fit to bomb on this whole fogbound world. Then what happens?”

“It’s your story; you tell me.”

“A dose of reprisal, that’s what—with all those bombs Commodore Higgins snagged out of Circum-Terra. We’ve got some of their fastest ships and we’d have the juiciest targets in history to shoot at. Everything from Detroit to Bolivar—steel mills, power plants, factories. They won’t risk pulling our nose when they know we’re all set to kick them in the belly. Let’s be logical!” The sergeant set down his cup and looked around triumphantly.

A quiet man at the end of the counter had been listening. Now he said softly, “Yes—but how do you know that the strong men in the Federation will use logic?”

The sergeant looked surprised. “Huh? Oh, come off it! The war’s over, I tell you. We ought to go home. I’ve got forty acres of the best rice paddies on the planet; somebody’s got to get the crop in. Instead I’m sitting around here, playing space raid drill. The government ought to do something.”

PSALM XXXIX
:3

T
HE GOVERNMENT
did do something; the draft act was passed the next day. Don heard about it at noon; as soon as the lunch hour rush was over he dried his hands and went uptown to the recruiting station. There was a queue in front of it; he joined its tail and waited.

Over an hour later he found himself facing a harried-looking warrant officer seated at a table. He shoved a form at Don. “Print your name. Sign at the bottom and thumb it. Then hold up your right hand.”

“Just a minute,” Don answered. “I want to enlist in the High Guard. This forms reads for the Ground Forces.”

The officer swore mildly. “Everybody wants the High Guard. Listen, son, the quota for the High Guard was filled at nine o’clock this morning—now I’m not even accepting them for the waiting list.”

“But I don’t want the Ground Forces. I’m—I’m a spaceman.”

The man swore again, not so mildly. “You don’t look it. You last-minute patriots make me sick—trying to join the sky boys so you won’t have to soldier in the mud. Go on home; when we want you we’ll send for you—and it won’t be for the High Guard. You’ll be a duckfoot and like it.”

“But—”

“Get out, I said.”

Don got. When he reached the restaurant Old Charlie looked at the clock then at him. “You soldier boy now?”

“They wouldn’t have me.”

“Good thing. Get me up some cups.”

He had time to think about it while bending over suds. Although not inclined to grieve over spilt milk Don could see now that Sergeant McMasters’ advice had been shrewd; he had missed what was probably his only chance (slim as it might have been) to get to Mars. It seemed a vacuum-tight certainty that he would spend the war (months? years?) as a duckfoot in the Ground Forces, getting no nearer to Mars than opposition distance—say sixty, seventy million miles. Hardly shouting distance.

He thought about the possibility of claiming exemption on the basis of Terran citizenship—but discarded it at once. He had already claimed the right to come here as a citizen of Venus; blowing hot and cold from the same mouth did not suit him. His sympathies lay with Venus anyhow, no matter what the lawyers eventually decided about his nationality.

More than that, even if he could stomach making such a claim, he could not see himself behind wire in an enemy alien camp. There was such a camp, he knew, over on East Spit. Sit out the war there and let Isobel bring him packages on Sunday afternoons?

Don’t kid yourself, Don, my boy—Isobel was fiercely patriotic; she’d drop you like a mud louse.

“What can’t be cured must be endured”—Confucius or somebody. He was in it and that was that—he didn’t feel too upset about it; the Federation didn’t have any business throwing its weight around on Venus anyhow. Whose planet was it?

He was most anxious to get in touch with his parents and to let them know he had Dr. Jefferson’s ring, even if he couldn’t deliver it right away. He would have to get up to the I.T.&T. office and check—there might be communication today. Charlie ought to have a phone in this dump.

He remembered that he had one possible resource that he had not exploited—“Sir Isaac.” He had sincerely intended to get in touch with his dragon friend as soon as he landed, but it had not proved to be easy: “Sir Isaac” had not landed at New London, nor had he been able to find out from the local office where he had landed. Probably at CuiCui Town or at Buchanan—or, possibly, since “Sir Isaac” was a V.I.P., the Middle Guard might have accommodated him with a special landing. He might be anywhere on a planet with more land surface than Earth.

Of course, such an important personage could be traced down—but the first step would be to consult the Office of Aborigine Affairs over on Governor’s Island. That meant a two-hour trip, what with a gondola ride both ways and the red tape he was sure to run into. He told himself that he just hadn’t had time.

But now he must take time. “Sir Isaac” might be able to get him assigned, or transferred, to the High Guard, quotas or no. The government was extremely anxious to keep the dragons happy and friendly to the new regime. Mankind remained on Venus at the sufferance of the dragons; the politicians knew that.

He felt a little bit sheepish about resorting to political influence—but there were times when nothing else would work.

“Charlie.”

“Huh?”

“Go easy on the spoons; I’ve got to go uptown again.”

Charlie grunted grumpily; Don hung up his apron and left. Isobel was not on the desk at I.T.&T.; Don sent in his name via the clerk on duty and got in to see her father. Mr. Costello looked up as he came in and said, “I’m glad you came in, Mr. Harvey. I wanted to see you.”

“My message got through?”

“No, I wanted to give you back your note.”

“Huh? What’s the matter?”

“I haven’t been able to send your message and I don’t know when I shall be able to send it. If it turns out later that it can be sent, I’ll accept your note—or cash, if you have it.”

Don had an unpleasant feeling that he was being given a polite brush-off. “Just a moment, sir. I understood that today was the earliest that communication could be expected. Won’t conditions be better tomorrow—and still better the next day?”

“Yes, theoretically. But conditions were satisfactory today. There is no communication with Mars.”

“But tomorrow?”

“I haven’t made myself clear. We tried to signal Mars; we got no answer. So we used the radar check. The bounce came back right on schedule—two thousand two hundred and thirty-eight seconds, no chance of a ghost blip. So we know that the channel was satisfactory and that our signal was getting through. But Schiaparelli Station fails to answer—no communication.”

“Out of order, maybe?”

“Most unlikely. It’s a dual station. They depend on it for astrogation, you know. No, I’m afraid the answer is obvious.”

“Yes?”

“The Federation forces have taken the station over for their own uses. We won’t be able to communicate with Mars until they let us.”

Don left the manager’s office looking as glum as he felt. He ran into Isobel just coming into the building. “Don!”

“Oh—hi, Grandma.”

She was excited and failed to notice his mood. “Don—I’m just back from Governor’s Island. You know what? They’re going to form a women’s corps!”

“They are?”

“The bill is in committee now. I can’t wait—I’ll be in it, of course. I’ve already put my name in.”

“You will be? Yes, I guess you would be.” He thought about it and added, “I tried to join up this morning.”

She threw her arms around his neck, much to the interest of customers in the lobby. “Don!” She untangled herself, to his blushing relief, and added, “Nobody really expected that of you, Don. After all, it’s not your fight; your home is on Mars.”

“Well, I don’t know. Mars isn’t exactly my home, either: And they didn’t take me, they told me to wait for my draft call.”

“Well—anyway, I’m proud of you.”

He went back to the restaurant, feeling ashamed that he had not had the courage to tell her why he had tried to enlist and why he had been turned down. By the time he reached Charlie’s place he had about decided to go again to the recruiting office the next day and let them swear him in as a duckfoot. He told himself that the severance of communication with Mars had cut off his last connection with his old life; he might as well accept this new life with both arms. It was better to volunteer than to be dragged.

On second thought he decided to go over to Governor’s Island first and send some sort of message to “Sir Isaac”—no use staying in the Ground Forces if his friend could wangle a transfer to the High Guard. It was a dead cinch now that the High Guard would eventually send an expedition to Mars; he might as well be in it. He’d get to Mars yet!

On third thought he decided that it might be well to wait a day or two to hear from “Sir Isaac”; it would certainly be easier to get assigned to the Guard in the first place than to get a transfer later.

Yes, that was the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately it did not make him feel pleased with himself.

That night the Federation attacked.

The attack should not have happened, of course. The rice farmer sergeant had been perfectly right; the Federation could not afford to risk its own great cities to punish the villagers of Venus. He was right—from his viewpoint.

A rice farmer has one logic, men who live by and for power have another and entirely different logic. Their lives are built on tenuous assumptions, fragile as reputation; they cannot afford to ignore a challenge to their power—the Federation could not afford
not
to punish the insolent colonists.

The
Valkyrie
, orbiting Venus in free fall, flashed into radioactive gas without warning. The
Adonis
, in the same orbit a thousand miles astern, saw the explosion and reported it to PHQ at New London; then she, too, became an expanding ball of fire.

Don was awakened from work-drugged sleep by the ululation of sirens. He sat up in the dark, shook his head to clear it, and realized with leaping excitement what the sound was and what it meant. Then he told himself not to be silly; there had been talk lately of holding a night alert—that’s what it was: practice.

But he got up and fumbled for the light switch, only to find that the power seemed to be off. He felt around for his clothes, got his right leg in his left trouser leg, tripped. Despite this he was practically dressed by the time a small flickering light came toward him. It was Charlie, carrying a candle in one hand and in the other his favorite cleaver, the one used both for business and social purposes.

The cyclic moan of the sirens continued. “What is it, Charlie?” asked Don. “Do you suppose we’ve actually been attacked?”

“More likely some dumbhead leaned against the switch.”

“Could be. Tell you what—I’m going uptown and find out what’s happening.”

“Better you stay home.”

“I won’t be gone long.”

In leaving he had to push his way through a crowd of move-overs, all bleating with fright and trying to crowd inside to be close to their friend Charlie. He got through and groped his way to the street, closely escorted by two move-overs who seemed to want to climb into his pockets.