CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Since their emergence as a recognized political force, the Pragmatists had built up their organizational center and focus of support on Iapetus, second outermost to Phoebe among Saturn’s principal moons. After their failure to open a back door to power in the Directorate arm of the Kronian Congress, Valcroix and Grasse departed from Titan for Iapetus with a coterie of leading Party names, staff, and sympathizers aboard a local transorbital called the Eskimo. Most observers of the scene concluded that the intention was to consolidate after their defeat and consider where they would go from there.
A day out from Titan, Eskimo vanished without warning. It was the kind of thing that could happen at any time in a region still subject to hazard from rogue objects of all sizes, and the incident was recorded as “Presumed Impact Destruction. Unconfirmed.” Many felt inwardly, though it would have been in poor taste to say so, that perhaps Kronia had been spared much in the way of future complications that it really didn’t need right now. Those who believed it was Kronia’s destiny to found a civilization intended by Divine Purpose interpreted the event accordingly.
Aboard the Trojan, still following the initial part of the course that would take it to Jupiter, Colonel Nyrom met privately with Lieutenant Robin Delucey in a sparsely furnished staff office in Accommodation Module 3, not currently being used. Since the ship was carrying a large consignment of material and industrial equipment for the cache to be established somewhere in the Jovian system for future use, occupancy was relatively light for a vessel the size of the Trojan, comprising the crew and the SA contingent, and scientific groups concerned with the mission’s survey work.
Nyrom waited until Delucey sat down opposite him at the metal-edged table, then took off his hat and leaned back. “At ease, Lieutenant. What I want to talk to you about is just between us and the walls.”
Delucey made the concession of resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, but otherwise remained guarded. He said nothing but regarded Nyrom questioningly.
“We know a lot more about you than you might imagine, Lieutenant.” Nyrom made his voice pointed and confidential, communicating that this was a time to open up. “You went through a lot back there, didn’t you? Lost everything, lost practically everybody. And you made a heroic effort to start out again and make a go of it. I’m full of admiration for the guts it took. But it didn’t work out, did it, son? You’re not happy. Am I right?” He paused, reading the face that without change of expression asked where this was going, then shook his head. “Kronia isn’t for you. Stifling, unexciting… But demanding. And that’s how it was going to be for the rest of your life. That was why you joined the Security Arm. That was why a lot of young people who are here on this ship did.”
Delucey’s eyes retained their detached, mildly cynical look. “What else is there?” he asked after taking a few seconds to consider what Nyrom had said.
“There’s Earth.” Nyrom’s voice warmed to the thought of it. Again the wary look, waiting, conceding nothing. “All the things you remember are still there: oceans, mountains, endless landscapes, air you can breathe under open skies. Except now it’s wild again, untamed. There’s room for a thousand lifetimes there, all different.”
“They’re going back. The Varuna . . .”
“And what will they do there? I’ll tell you. They’ll turn it into Kronia all over again. Is that what you want to have waiting if you ever go back too one day? Or would you rather have your world, that lets you be what you used to be, the way you ought to be?”
“You sound as if you’re offering some kind of choice,” Delucey said.
Nyrom liked directness, and nodded. “As we all know, the recent Pragmatist proposal to broaden the Kronian political process to a more equitable basis was rejected by those who control the present system. What most people don’t know is that it didn’t end there. The Congress had the chance to reform within the legitimacy of its own constitution. But since they won’t change to something that’s fairer for everyone there, we’ll take the only alternative…”
“We?”
Nyrom nodded. “It’s bigger than you probably think. We’ll create our own system—the only kind that’s workable in the long run—in the only other place available at the present time. We’ll build Earth again. And you can be part of it, Lieutenant.”
Delucey stared hard at the table. Nyrom could almost feel his mind racing. “But I thought the Pragmatists were against returning to Earth,” he said finally.
“Against trying to support a major Earth base from Kronia and sustain Kronia at the same time,” Nyrom agreed. “But a self-contained operation on Earth would be something different. And the beginnings of it are right there, waiting for us already.”
“You mean the base there? Taking it over?” Delucey’s reply followed so easily that Nyrom got the feeling he had been ahead of the conversation all along.
“There’s enough aboard this ship to start a pilot industrial operation—and to defend it if need be, while it’s becoming self-sufficient. Add that to what’s there now, and the things the Aztec is carrying, which is bound for Earth already, and we’re off to a pretty solid start.” Nyrom paused, to let Delucey take it in, watching his eyes flicker unconsciously around the room as if searching for the flaws. “And you wouldn’t even be saying goodbye to the family,” he went on. “Since your mother is on the Aztec too.” He noted the surprise that flashed in Delucey’s eyes and nodded. “Oh, yes. I told you we know more about you than you probably imagined. And we know how you think too, Lieutenant.” Another pause, shorter this time, indicating that he was through. “Whatever your answer, clearly we have to deny you access to communications beyond the ship until our purpose becomes more widely known. But we have to begin detailed arrangements now. When we move to assert control of the Trojan, where will you stand, Lieutenant? Will we be able to count on you?”
Delucey answered quicker than most of the others that Nyrom had already talked to, and he had fewer questions. “I’m with you, Colonel,” he said simply.
A probe reconnoitering over the southern part of western Asia discovered a band of survivors apparently moving northward out of the devastation that had been the Middle East. Guesses were that they had somehow ridden out the floods in the higher places, and were moving toward the gradually warming, less hostile central area of the continent. Another probe sent back pictures of crude shanty structures built on a high pass in the resculpted North American Rockies, but they appeared to be deserted.
Meanwhile, expansion of Serengeti continued. A transportation depot for surface vehicles was commenced, facing the pad area, which was being extended as planned, and two more storage domes appeared behind the labs and workshops to house the flow of supplies and materials arriving from orbit. Foundations were laid for a General Fabrication Plant to be built around the profab equipment that was on its way aboard the Aztec. Capable of producing just about anything commensurate with its size limits and the variety of available materials, this would add enormously to the base’s capability and potential for further expansion. Since the profab units could just as easily turn out parts for more profab units, Serengeti would be on its way to becoming literally a self-constructing factory town freed from dependence on supply from Kronia.
Finally, an area outside the base was cleared for experiments in crop cultivation and rearing livestock. Beyond that, possibilities were limited only by what further exploration of Earth might reveal.
These were still surface installations, and therefore vulnerable to strikes by meteorite showers from the debris that Athena had left in the vicinity or strewn liberally in Earth-crossing orbits. However, even at the bottom of its deep gravity well Earth was a large place, and it had been decided that the risk was acceptable until deeper excavations and shelters could be commenced using the lithofracture gear also being sent with the Aztec.
The Agni system was functioning flawlessly, which meant that until Aztec arrived, Keene’s commitments would be fairly light. He found his thoughts going beyond the immediate engineering needs of the base and plans for its further expansion, to the longer-term reasons for hastening the return to Earth that Foy had talked about and which Gallian had come here primarily to oversee: the grounding of a new civilization in the ways and values of Kronia. If humanity had been able to accomplish as much as it had by the time of Athena despite all the blotches on just about every page of the history of the past five thousand years, then how much more might it stand to achieve without them?
Sariena by her nature was concerned over the same issues too, and they spent a lot of time together and with Gallian debating the philosophy they should adopt toward survivors who were not only uncomprehending of such concepts, but schooled by their experiences in just the opposite direction. The object, after all, was to set the basis for a society that would embrace all its members, not create some master race versus slave situation. No surer way than that could have been devised for insuring that the same troubles, resentments, hatreds, and evils that had shaped the past would one day arise all over again.
Keene and Sariena stood near the workshop domes on the “industrial” side of the base, watching a jib crane swinging a preformed roof truss into position in one of the new buildings, directed by a Kronian using a remote control unit nearby. With the weight under Earth gravity, construction was a trickier and more hazardous business than in freefall or on Saturn’s moons, and the Kronians were working to master the requisite skills and judgment. All the same, there had been several accidents already. No amount of briefing and instruction, or attempts at simulation by hologram or in rotating space structures, could substitute for the actuality of being here and doing it, and feeling the real fears of knowing what might happen if something went wrong.
“That guy’s getting a hands-on crash course in high-gravity physics,” Keene commented. “Everything’s dinosaur proportions compared to what he’s been used to back home.”
He was still finding it exhilarating just to be able to stand outside without a roof between him and the sky, even if the sky was turbulent gray, and the wind cutting and laced with stinging dust. Sariena was acclimatizing, getting outside for gradually longer spells, and spending as much time standing as she could comfortably manage.
“I never thought of it that way,” she said. “Remember to tell that to Vicki when she gets here.”
One of the subjects that Vicki had been involved in since the days on Earth, which was now just one more puzzle in the story of biological origins and change that the Kronians were trying to piece together, was how not only dinosaurs but the whole world of massive life-forms that they had been part of could have existed, since they simply weren’t viable under the conditions of modern Earth. The prevailing theory was that at the time it existed as a satellite of Saturn, Earth’s surface gravity had been smaller on the side that was phase-locked toward the primary, and extinction of the largest creatures had been part of the upheaval that had come with its detachment.
“I think I run into my own dinosaur problem when it comes to figuring out the right way to deal with Rakki and his Tribe,” Sariena said. “Trying to talk with them can only get you so far. But if nothing they’ve known or can remember gives them any grounding to relate to what you’re talking about, how do you get through?” She sighed. “Sometimes I feel like some kind of moral preacher. There’s got to be a better way.”
“Definitely not your image,” Keene agreed.
“Well, do you have any thoughts, Lan?”
“Did Gallian put you up to this?” Keene asked curiously. It was a subject that Gallian had been lamenting about and asking for suggestions on from all who would listen, both down at the base and up in the two ships.
“Yes, he did… . Why, what’s wrong with that? It seemed a sensible thing to do.”
Keene just smiled and shook his head to himself. Sometimes the Kronians’ directness and utter incapacity for guile left him with nothing to be said. Small wonder they had walked into a blender when they tried taking on Earth’s political establishment.
He looked back at the riveting crew moving into position to secure the roof member while the crane operator held it steady. The piece had traveled from Saturn on one of the unmanned open-frame freight haulers, after being formed on Titan from ores extracted from Hyperion. All around, work was in progress on the beginnings of bringing a devastated world back to life. He felt again an exultation at the power of creativity of the human species and the knowledge that he was a part of it… . And yet it was the same power that could unleash such destructiveness. That was the dilemma that Sariena had meant: How to open people’s eyes to the potential within them to reach the stars, when their lives had been lived under a canopy of darkness?
“Show them,” Keene said suddenly. “Of course all the talk in the world isn’t going to do any good. It never has.” He waved an arm to take in the things going on all around them, the constructions taking shape, the shuttles on the far side of the pad area and the excavations in progress behind them. “Bring them here and let them see for themselves what it’s all about… . Even take some of them up to the Varuna.” He turned back to Sariena and shrugged. “Why not?”
She stared at him for a moment, then repeated, “Why not? It’s too obvious, isn’t it?”
But of course, something like that would be a matter of mission policy, not a decision that the two of them could make purely on their own initiative. Keene used his compad right there to raise Gallian, who was bustling about the site somewhere. Keene put the proposition to him.
“A great idea!” Gallian said right away. “Very well. Let’s get on with it.”