The Loafers of Refuge (5 page)

When he walked into his ship next day he found it more representative of the Earth it was leaving than the planet to which it was going. It was crowded from stem to stern with people. The Call picked men and women equally, and they were all kept too busy for much introspection or longing for the families they had left behind. There were endless training classes, hours of instruction in the use of machinery to men who had never lifted a tool heavier than a pencil, classes on child care and family medicine for the women, and a thorough indoctrination in what the Colonial Service law required of everyone.

The trip took twelve weeks, and in less than six the image of Kay’s face had faded to a dim memory. Harper found himself looking over the single women of the crew, trying to determine who would make him a good wife. When he finally made his pick he wondered if he was subconsciously
trying to spite the memory of Kay, for the woman he chose was tall and strongly built, more supple than slender, with an olive complexion and very black hair, the opposite of small, dainty blonde Kay in almost every way. She had a six-year-old daughter who looked very much like her. And Harper noticed more than once that she eyed him in a speculative way in the classes they attended together. This was not surprising, considering that he was the largest man among the callees and she perhaps the tallest woman. He did a little quiet checking and found, without much surprise, that he was not the only volunteer on the ship. Of the consignment of three hundred males, three hundred females and approximately forty babies and children, about twenty-five men had volunteered. One woman had done likewise. Her name was Cassie McDougal.

He came upon her one day in the observatory, during an idle hour between the last meal and their shift’s sleeping time. She was alone, staring pensively out at the incredible brightness-darkness of open space. He walked up to her and said, “You’re Cassie McDougal.”

“And you’re Sam Harper. I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

“I’m glad of that. Will you marry me when they perform the mass ceremony at the landing field?”

She was silent for a moment, her face turned to the stars. “You don’t have to, you know,” he said quickly. “Even if there’s no one else you want. You can get a three-month extension from the port authorities after we land if you haven’t found anyone to suit you on the ship. And in case you’re wondering about your Jeannie—I left a baby son on Earth.”

She swung around to look into his face, and there were tears in her eyes. “I won’t need the extension,” she said huskily. They smiled at each other in the diffused starlight, and then kissed, once, before reporting to their bunkrooms for the section’s rest.

Their feeling for each other grew with dream-like rapidity after that first kiss. A week later they applied to the Captain for permission to be married on board and were summarily refused, on the grounds that all married quarters were occupied.
They spent the remaining weeks in comparative unhappiness, but had no time for pitying themselves. It did not seem long before the great red disk of Antares filled the observatory with purple light, and soon the ship’s huge magnetrons had locked into the magnetic field of Refuge and were lowering them safely to land. The ports opened and admitted the different, oddly-smelling air of Refuge, and the disembarkation began. There was no delay for the families. A guide met each group at the ramp and took them into the orientation room immediately. For the remaining hundreds, the Captain had a few words.

“I’m very sorry to say,” he began heavily, “that of the four hundred and eighty single people on this trip I still have not received marriage petitions from eight. I feel it my duty to warn you eight people that, though the law grants you a three-month extension before compulsory marriage, it is not very often a wise idea to take advantage of it. The number of available men and women on Refuge is small, very small indeed. You may find yourselves far less satisfied than you would have been had you chosen now.”

There was a small stir among the remaining eight people and two of them, a short, sturdy young woman with a round face and a thin man who looked small beside her, stepped forward. “We’ve decided we’d like to try it, Captain,” said the young man awkwardly.

The remaining six people looked doubtfully at each other, and made no move.

“Excellent,” said the Captain cheerfully. “Join the others and clasp hands. Repeat after me, using your name where I use mine. I, Joshua Henderson, do solemnly pledge …”

The orientation lecture was designed to make them feel they belonged on Refuge, and succeeded fairly well. They were shown tri-D’s of the native fauna and flora, with emphasis on the dangerous beasts such as the giant grogroc and a small but dreaded killer, the flying cat. They were given maps of the area around the City of Refuge, and informed that the planet had ten towns built around ten transmitters
and a total population in excess of fifty thousand, quite a few of them born there. Refuge was the oldest town; the newest was two years old. For the first time they heard the word Loafer and saw tri-D’s of the humanoid natives, hairy creatures who lived like animals in the woods and refused honest labour of any sort. They had large preserves of their own and were strictly protected by the law, represented here by Central Government, which in turn reported to Earth Central. They were also given a complete list of what Central Government furnished them, and what they were expected to make themselves. It was readily apparent that C.G.’s largest offering was to be instruction and advice.

The newly-married couples filed out of orientation and joined the long lines moving towards the first article they were to receive, a huge, atomic-powered tractor, complete with all accessories. There was a powerful two-way radio built into the tractor. Refuge had no other form of personal long-distance communication.

There was a large trailer hooked to the tractor, and in it was a folded two-room house, a set of hand-tools, several small power tools and a miscellany of other articles, including their personal possessions from Earth.

“And now we’re pioneers,” said Harper somewhat bitterly, looking at the tiny bit of equipment with which he was expected to farm three hundred and twenty acres.

“You’ll be issued more supplies when you’re settled in,” said the busy official who was examining their I.D. cards. “Now start the tractor and join the line, please.”

Instruction in driving the tractor was one of the courses given on the ship. Sam gingerly mounted the skeleton frame, deposited himself in the bucket seat and flipped the switch activating the powerplant. The machine began to hum. He grasped the wheel and eased the hand-throttle down. The tractor hissed gently and moved forward. He drove it slowly towards the next line, Cassie and Jeannie pacing along beside him.

They received enough concentrated food to last for months, though it occupied very little room in the large trailer. At the next point they received weapons, which Cassie
handled in unfeigned awe. The last man in the long line gave them a pile of books and pamphlets, some of which were instructions on how to use the equipment they already had, most of which dealt with farming the crops they were expected to grow.

When they were through at last the trailer was loaded to its capacity. In Sam’s hand was a certificate to the land he would own and farm, subject to the usual repayment provisions. Spread before him on the control panel was his map of the area.

“Sam, do we want to drive on out there today or stay tonight at the Welcome Centre?” asked Cassie, looking over his shoulder at the map. She nodded pointedly in the direction of Jeannie, standing by one big tractor wheel and gazing with childish wonder at the multitude of activities going on around her.

Harper pulled his mind off his land and back to the present. For the first time it occurred to him that he was a newly-married man, and that tonight was their wedding night.

He looked at the tall, black-haired woman who had been his wife for almost two hours. “We’ll drive on out. I want to spend my first night on Refuge on my own land.”

Cassie nodded in agreement, and got into the trailer with Jeannie.

There were four roads out of the town of Refuge, one in each of the major directions, and they were of unpaved earth, with shallow ditches running along each side. Their land was clearly marked on the map, about thirty miles out.

They drove slowly through the town. It was an unimpressive cluster of wooden government buildings huddling around the central steel giant that housed the matter-transmitter. The great majority of the people lived on farms. Each colonist was an independent businessman and stood or fell on his own merits, but all business was conducted with the representatives of C.G. They manned the transmitter, whose operations were free of charge, bought all goods produced on Refuge and transmitted all goods ordered from Earth. The Colonial Service was one area where Earth Central gave nothing away. People to whom all comforts were freely given sat and did
nothing. A businessman-farmer on Refuge, with hard work and reasonable luck, could amass comforts and conveniences equivalent to those on Earth in a few short years. In addition, he had all the advantages of being a free citizen on an un-crowded world. Quite a few hard-working men had accumulated impressive surpluses of Earth Central credit notes. Earth, in turn, received several million tons of badly needed food each week.

Some peculiar refractive property of the atmosphere turned great An tares a soft shade of purple. It was at the zenith as they entered the open countryside. The land around them, though mostly cleared and under cultivation with crops from Earth, still held many areas of shaded forest. The native vegetation was green but possessed a slight ochre tinge. Only in parks back on Earth had Harper ever seen such a profuse riot of growth. His home, and that of most of Earth’s billions, had been the dead walls of the skyscrapers.

Two hours driving brought them to their land. It was situated in a lovely valley, surrounded on three sides by the Whitecap Mountains, at the point where the range reached its northernmost extension and curved abruptly west towards the sea. The floor of the valley was reasonably flat, and filled with rich green-yellow grass. The slopes of the hills were covered with trees. It was as near paradise as the Harpers had ever expected to see.

They entered the valley from the south end. A small river, the Sweetwater, rising in the mountains to the north, flowed serenely through the length of the valley. There were already two small houses perched close to the water. Around them were cultivated fields, but it was obvious the people were relative newcomers. The houses were small and made from whole logs, and the fields had the rough, unkempt look of newly broken land.

“Are you going to stop and meet our neighbours?” Cassie called from the trailer.

“Maybe later,” Sam turned to shout to her. “Right now I’d rather go up the river to our place and pick a spot to pitch camp.”

The rough trail they were following led to within half a
mile of the first house before branching off in two directions, and Sam had started to swing the tractor into the one that would carry them past the rear of the house when the tractor radio buzzed urgently.

He flipped the switch that activated the set, picked up the mike and said, “Hello? Sam Harper here.”

“Hi, Sam. I’m your neighbour, Willy Miller. Turn that wheel around and come by here and meet the family before you go on upstream, or I’ll start my own personal neighbourhood blacklist with your name resting prominently on top,” said a friendly masculine voice. Sam looked towards the closest house as he slowed the tractor to a crawl and saw a man, small at that distance, standing by a tractor similar to his own a few feet from his barn. As he stared the man lifted one arm and beckoned to him.

“Let’s stop, Sam,” called Cassie happily. Jeannie giggled with excitement.

Sam laughed, flipped the switch to send and said, “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Coming in.”

A few minutes later he was shaking hands with Miller, a small, chubby man with bright red hair and an infectious grin. His wife, Simone, came out of the house to welcome the newcomers, and they all trooped inside for coffee. The Millers had two children, the smallest of which had been born on Refuge.

“Glad to get a real family for neighbours,” Miller was saying as he ushered them through the rough plank door into the small front room. “A lot of the people who aren’t married until they arrive make life miserable for themselves and everyone around them until they get used to each other. Simone stuck with me when I was called, thank goodness.”

“Jeannie is my daughter by a previous marriage, Mr Miller,” said Cassie immediately. “Sam and I were married at dockside, along with quite a few others.”

The small man’s face turned as red as his hair. “There I go again, putting my foot in my mouth up to the knee. I’m sorry if I sounded patronizing, I—”

“—am a loud-mouthed idiot,” Simone finished for him. “Why don’t you fill your mouth with coffee for a change.
Look, I have a suggestion. Would you two like to spend the night with us? You can take the bedroom and Willy and I will sleep in here on the daybed.”

“Thanks, but Sam wants to spend our first night on our own land, even if we have to sleep in a tree,” said Cassie. “And I agree with him.”

“I know how you feel. Well then, why not leave Jeannie with us? She can sleep with my daughter, and I’ll keep her for the next few days, till you at least get settled in. Jeannie,” she swiftly crossed the room to kneel in front of the child, “how would you like to spend the night with me? Your mother and new daddy are going to be sleeping on the ground, and there’ll be animals walking around in the darkness and lots of other scary things. Wouldn’t you like to spend the night with Clara here?”

The small girl looked up at her mother, wonderingly, and Cassie gave a slight nod.

When night fell Harper had the trailer unloaded and the small house erected. Cassie prepared them a meal from the concentrates while he finished pegging the walls to the ground. They had chosen a spot near the riverbank where the stream curled outward in a lazy arc, so that they were surrounded on three sides by water. The nearest edge of the woods was a quarter of a mile away.