Lifeboat Read online

  A second later he was outside the dome, bouncing over the rough rocky surface on the outsize wheels of the buggy. The incredibly distant white dwarf sun of the mining world illuminated the landscape around him no more than the full moon might back on Earth, and with much the same eerie contrast of pale light and black shadow. Behind him the huge Complex dome was like some enormous crouching monster, that dwindled as he moved off from it.

  The autopilot of the buggy drove it steadily toward its as yet invisible destination. Under the dim light of the dwarf sun, the surface of 20B-40 was like a small, rocky platform surrounded by uncountable numbers of stars. It came to Giles, strangely, that after all his days of being lost in the tiny lifeship, it was now, with his feet firmly on planetary surface, that the utter, incomprehensible depths were making their impact upon his feelings. On the lifeship the stars had been only points of light on a screen. Here they were naked and real, and seemingly almost close enough to touch.

  Reality, in fact, enclosed him. Even through his thermal suit, it reached and cooled him like the touch of some wind that could freeze him to the bone if he dared to face it without coverings. In the thin light of the far daystar owning this lifeless world, his beliefs about the situation of men and Albenareth and all his own personal plans and duties shrank in his mind’s eye to passing things, inconsequential, transient touches of warmth in a cold universe. Touches that would come and go, in any case, leaving no mark or sign of their having been.

  In the end, said a deep, atavistic part of him, there’s only survival. Nothing else counts. Nothing else matters.

  No, said his stubborn, upper mind. There has to be meaning. Survival without a meaning to it is nothing.

  Survival, said the deep gut part of him, insisting.

  Meaning, he said above, in his upper mind.

  Surviv—

  He wrenched his mind away from the internal argument. The rock buggy was approaching a dome which, by its size, should house no more than one dwelling. The buggy trundled forward as if it would smash itself against the blank-surfaced, back-curving outer wall. But half a dozen meters from it, the wall opened an iris and the buggy carried him inside, the iris closing after them.

  Within, there was a small garage area large enough to hold three other rock-buggy vehicles like Giles’, but empty at the moment He parked his own buggy, got out and approached a door in a further wall. There was an annunciator button inside it, and he pushed it, but no one answered from within the house to ask who had come calling. He put his hand on the button latch, experimentally, and it gave, unlocked to his touch.

  The door opened before him. He stepped through it into a lounge room, wide, white-ceilinged, and filled with comfortable chairs—empty except for one large figure that rose at the sight of him. It was Hem, holding a laser pistol.

  15

  “Hem!” Giles snapped out the order instinctively. “Don’t point that thing at me! Put it down!”

  Hem looked puzzled for a moment; then his face creased in contrition.

  “Sorry, Honor, sir,” he said. He stuck the pistol into the waistband of the gray work slacks he was wearing. Giles drew a deep breath.

  “What are you doing here?” Giles demanded.

  “I had to stay here,” said Hem. He beamed. “To guard you.”

  “Guard me?” Giles felt a cold prickling beneath the back of his collar as sweat popped out there. He had been just about to order Hem to give him the laser. But if Hem had already been given other orders about the weapon, a direct command might not be wise. Giles altered his tactics. “What are you doing here anyway, Hem? Doesn’t a man named Arne Willo live here?”

  “Oh yes,” said Hem, “but he had to go someplace else for a few days.”

  Giles felt his temper begin to stir. He forced it down. It was not Hem’s fault that the big arbite laborer was limited to simple answers to simple questions. There was something going on here; a part of it was that laser in Hem’s possession, as dangerous a toy in those big hands as a live grenade would be in the grasp of a five-year-old child. It might be significant that Hem had put the weapon back into his waistband, instead of laying it down out of easy reach as Giles had ordered. Or perhaps it had meant nothing at all. The situation called for a careful phrasing of questions.

  “You’re here all alone, then, Hem?” Giles asked.

  Hem nodded.

  “They all went to make sure nobody was after you.”

  “Who’s they, Hem?”

  “You know, Honor, sir. Everybody. All of us on the ship.”

  “I see,” said Giles. “You mean Mara and Biset, Groce, and the rest?”

  Hem nodded again. He seemed to have forgotten the laser at his waist. Giles began to walk slowly toward the massive arbite. If he could get close enough to simply reach out and take the weapon from Hem ...

  “Are they coining back soon, Hem?” he asked, as he moved. If he could keep Hem talking, the bumper would have no attention left over to focus on what else Giles might be trying to do.

  Hem nodded.

  “Guess what, Honor, sir?” he said.

  “Just a moment,” said Giles, talking calmly and steadily as he continued to advance, “then I’ll guess. First, I want to know how you knew I’d be coming here.”

  “She knew,” Hem said.

  “She? You mean Mara?”

  Hem shook his head.

  “No. Not Mara. The split—Biset.”

  “So,” Giles said. He was only a few casual steps from Hem now. “It was Biset who knew I was coming out here. How did she know?”

  Hem shook his head, looking puzzled.

  “I don’t know, Honor, sir,” he said. “She didn’t tell us. She just said we all had to come out here, because you’d be coming here sooner or later. Then, when you came in, everybody had better go look and make sure nobody was after you. So, when the light went on for the garage, everybody went out to see. Everybody but me.”

  Giles checked his forward movement, under an irresistible temptation to turn and see if anyone was behind him. If Biset and the others had just stepped outside the dome enclosing this building for a moment, they might be back inside even now. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and around the room, but it was still empty and silent, except for Hem and himself.

  “Guess what, though, Honor, sir?” Hem was asking again. Giles looked back to see the broad face before him literally glowing with excitement and happiness.

  “What?” Giles asked, taking another step forward.

  “I’m going home!” Hem almost shouted. “I’m going back— to Earth.”

  “Going back?”

  Surprise checked Giles’ feet.

  “Going back, you say?” he echoed, slowly.

  Hem nodded vigorously.

  “I’m going to see Jase!” he said. “And Tm going to say to him, ‘Jase. guess where I’ve been?’ and Jase, he’ll say, ‘Where? They put you in some other barracks?’ And I’ll say, ‘I was clear off Earth. I was out in a spaceship and in a lifeship and on a whole different world. Look, Jase,’ I’ll say, ‘I brought you back a piece of that other world to show you!’ See ...”

  Hem fumbled in his slacks pocket and came out with a small bit of igneous rock, obviously picked up somewhere outside the dome.

  “And Jase’ll say to me, ‘Hey! Great you’re back!’ He’ll say, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to get back. That’s why I didn’t pick some other bumper for a beer-mate.’ “

  Giles’ ears pricked up. Had that been a sound from somewhere in the structure? No, it must have been only his imagination. He turned back to Hem, who was still rehearsing the conversation he would have with Jase when the two were back together again.

  “Just a minute, Hem,” said Giles, taking advantage of a momentary pause of the other, to draw breath. “What makes you think you’re going back to Earth?”

  “She said I could,” Hem answered, happily.

  “She?”

  “Biset,” said Hem.

 
“Well, damn her guts!” said Giles, with a sudden spurt of anger. “Hem, listen to me. Biset doesn’t have any control over where you’re stationed. She can’t arrange to have you shipped back to your barracks on Earth.”

  “Oh yes, sir,” said Hem, solemnly. “She’s a split Everybody knows a split can do anything.”

  “They do, do they?”

  “Sure, Honor, sir. They can put you in jail and beat you and keep you there for the rest of your life. Or they can get you transferred anyplace you want if they like you enough. They can even just kill you, and the judges and all say it’s all right.”

  Giles stared at the big man with tightened eyes.

  “Hem,” he asked, “who’s been telling you all this nonsense? The World Police don’t beat anyone. That sort of thing hasn’t been allowed for a couple of hundred years.”

  “Oh yes, Honor, sir!” Hem was very earnest. “They don’t beat Adelmen, but any arbite who gets in the wrong place or doesn’t do what they tell him, they beat him at least a little. Even an office arbite. A couple of them beat our timekeeper once for letting half a dozen barracks gangs of us into town, one day they didn’t want any of us there. Of course, with office arbites, they usually just send them to jail or transfer them someplace bad.”

  “Now listen to me, Hem,” said Giles, sternly. “You’ve been frightened by a lot of tall tales. You don’t understand. For anyone in the Police to get away with anything like that nowadays, nearly every other branch of social control—the courts, the records departments, everybody—would have to be involved.”

  Hem looked unhappy.

  “But they do it, Honor, sir”‘ he said. “And they can send you anywhere. She can send me back to Earth—Biset!”

  Giles recognized a blank wall, and shifted his questioning.

  “All right Hem,” he said. “We’ll talk about that some other time. Tell me why it is Biset’s going to help you get back. Can you tell me that?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Hem, cheerful again. “She said it’d be all because of you. Because I’d be helping her with you.”

  “Helping—” began Giles, then stopped. Hem, smiling, had obviously no understanding of what Biset had meant in saying what she had. There was no point in asking the question of him....

  A faint sound behind him, as of a foot shuffling on some smooth surface, made the back of his neck chill abruptly. He spun about—and they were all there. Mara, Groce, Esteven, Di and Frenco—and Biset, like Hem, holding a laser pistol. But, unlike Hem, the Policewoman was not holding hers casually.

  “Don’t move,” Biset said. “Don’t stir a muscle until I tell you to!”

  Her laser was pointed directly at his chest He stood still— and from behind some drapes at the further end of the room a seventh figure entered. A man, Adelborn, tall and erect with a thin, handsome face but without the tan normally found on Adelborn features.

  “Well, Paul,” said Giles.

  “Hello, Giles,” said Paul Oca, halting beside Biset “So you tracked me down here, after all?”

  “But not for long,” said Biset almost with relish.

  “No, not for long.” For a second a frown shadowed Paul’s face. “Of all the Adelborn in that glorified debating society I founded, Giles, I’d hoped that you’d be the one to see the light The time for change is here, and nothing can stop it You remember Tennyson’s ‘Morte d’Arthur’? ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new...’ ”

  “True enough,” said Giles. “I believe it The old order’s about to change, Paul, but not necessarily the way you see it changing.”

  “Oh?” Paul Oca’s dark brows raised.

  “That’s right” said Giles. “For one thing, it’s never occurred to anyone to realize that the Albenareth are up against the same problem we are. Only the way they think of death is so alien to the way we think of it that nobody saw the parallel. But we and they can help each other—”

  “Giles, Giles,” Paul interrupted, shaking his head. “How long are you and the others going to cling to straws, in the hope of getting change without trauma? Change never comes easy. Face it In this case the price of it is nothing less than amputation of the two useless and crippling elements in our society so that a true middle culture of the human race can take over.”

  “Amputation?” Giles stared narrowly at him.

  Paul nodded at Hem, as someone might nod at a post, or an animal chained to a post. His voice deepened.

  “As long as the Adelborn and the genetically suppressed arbites, like this one, still exist, change is blocked. But the human race can’t endure that block any longer. We’ve got to cut loose at any price, and build a strong, new management class out of the best of the arbites, in a culture that’s wholly arbite—arbite alone.”

  “The best of the arbites?” Giles looked at him keenly. “Since when were you concerned only with the best among the arbites?” Paul’s aristocratic face became even a shade paler.

  “Don’t chop words with me, Giles,” he said. “Obviously some group has to remain in control while the middle culture is maturing.”

  “What group? And what do you mean by cutting loose at any price? You can’t just line up all the Adelborn and work arbites and shoot them down!”

  Paul’s face did not change. It was like the ice-cold visage of some ancient Roman’s marble bust in a winter-frozen garden. The silence that was his answer stretched out in the room.

  “By God!” said Giles at last on an indrawn breath. “You actually are planning it! You’re planning to kill millions of people —millions—to make this change of yours take place!”

  “It’s something that has to be done, Giles,” said Paul. “That’s why we couldn’t let you find me. It’ll take another six months to set up a world-wide, spontaneous purge of Adelborn and manual arbites alike—”

  “Hey,” said Hem. His unnaturally old, hoarse voice broke in on Paul’s words. “You aren’t going to hurt Jase? You aren’t going to do that?”

  Giles hardly heard Hem’s words. He was staring wolfishly at Paul.

  “Who’s ‘we,’ Paul?” he asked.

  “Listen, Biset,” Hem was saying, looking at the Policewoman, “listen, you don’t have to send me back to Earth. Just don’t hurt Jase.”

  Biset laughed.

  “You didn’t think it was for your sake you were going back to Earth, did you, bumper?” she said. “No, it’s for our sake— because you can be useful that way.”

  “That way?” echoed Hem, bewilderedly.

  “This way,” said Biset.

  Calmly, she pointed the laser pistol in her hand and pressed the firing button. The pale sighting beam that guided the laser thrust seemed barely to touch Hem’s broad chest, but his knees sagged. Slowly, he fell and Biset shot him again in the chest as he was going down.

  He had fallen forward. He rolled painfully onto his side to look up at Biset.

  “It hurts,” he said. “Why—”

  There were no more words in him. His eyelids fluttered for a second, then closed, and he lay without moving.

  “Why?” Biset told his corpse. “To make sure anybody coming after your high and mighty Adelborn friend here runs up against a dead end.”

  She turned to face Giles with the laser still in her hand. Suddenly realizing she was about to shoot him also, Giles half crouched to spring. But before he could leap at her, a shocking coldness lanced through his left shoulder and his knees went weak without warning. He caught at the back of a chair and kept himself from falling. Through blurred vision he saw Mara wrenching the weapon from Biset’s grasp. Then his vision cleared and he saw Mara clearly, holding the laser, half-pointed at Biset.

  “You idiot!” she was raging at the Policewoman. “Didn’t I say I had to be the one to shoot him? The wound needed to be placed just right anatomically if he’s to live until he’s safely away from here. Now you’ve complicated things!”

  Biset’s teeth drew back from her lips. She almost snarled like an animal.

&nbs
p; “Don’t give me orders! You and your handful of Black Thursday fanatics aren’t running things. It’s the Association that’s been preparing for this day for two hundred years—and it’s only the Association that’s got the size and power to take over, when the change comes. I don’t do what you say, you bumper’s-get; you do what I say!”

  Giles still held to the back of the chair, although he was already beginning to throw off the effects of the shot. Lasers could be lethal when one of their beams hit a vulnerable spot in the human body, but in a non-vulnerable area they made a particularly dean, self-cauterizing wound that—except for the heat shock when the beam first struck flesh—did less overall damage to the body than many earlier weapons had done. It was a little like being run clear through by a very thin sword blade at forge heat. Biset’s shot—as far as Giles could guess—had struck high on his shoulder and gone mainly through flesh and muscle without touching a bone or an important blood vessel. He had been lucky. But it might pay not to act as recovered as he was, just at the moment.

  “Association?” Giles said, gazing from his chair at Biset. “What Association?”

  Biset laughed at him.

  “Fool!” she said. “Overeducated fool! Do you think worldwide revolutions are made by a few philosophers like yourself and your friend there”—she nodded at Paul—”or even by half a hundred like her Black Thursdayites”—she turned toward Mara— “who solemnly go out to get themselves shot down, to provide martyrs for the cause?”

  She turned to glare at Mara.

  “They couldn’t even do that by themselves!” she spat “We of the Association had to have the proper men in Police uniform, ready and briefed to make sure they were all killed on the spot neat and tidy, otherwise the whole thing would have come apart.”