Wheelworld Page 4

  “There probably must be some. There are police after all. Why do you ask?”

  “Have you ever known criminals, or people who have broken the law?”

  Jan could not stay quiet. He was too tired, his nerves rubbed too raw.

  “Are you a narkman? Is that your job here?” His voice flat and cold. Lee raised his eyebrows but his expression did not change.

  “Me? No, of course not. Why should I send reports to offworld police about things that happen on Halvmörk?”

  You’ve given yourself away there, my boy, Jan thought. When he spoke again he was as cool as the other.

  “If you’re not a narkman—how do you know what the term means? It’s an earthy slang term that is not in good repute. It mocks authority. I’ve never seen if on a 3V tape or read it in a book approved for use on this world.”

  Lee was uncomfortable now, wringing his hands together slowly, his tea forgotten. He spoke reluctantly, yet when he did it all came out in a rush.

  “You could tell, of course, you know about these things. You know what Earth, other places are like. I have long wanted to talk to you about it but thought it would be an affront. You have never talked, yourself, you must have good reasons. That is why I am here tonight. Hear me out, please, do not tell me to leave yet. I mean no insult. But—your presence here—the fact you have stayed all these years means, perhaps, you cannot leave. Yet I know you are an honest man, one of good will. I do not think you are a narkman. It is a thing you would not do. If you are not that, then you are no criminal, no, but, you … well, perhaps … .”

  His voice trailed away; these things were no easier to talk about here than they were back on Earth.

  “You mean that even if I am not a criminal I must be on this planet for some reason?” Lee nodded rapidly. “Is there any reason why I should talk to you about it? It is really none of your business.”

  “I know,” Lee said desperately. “I should not ask you, I am sorry. But it is very important to me … .”

  “Important to me, too. I could get into trouble talking to you—get you into difficulties, too. Don’t let anything I tell you go any further … .”

  “I won’t—I promise!”

  “Then, yes, I was in trouble with the authorities. I was sent here as punishment of a kind. And I can live here as you see me as long as I don’t make any waves. Such as telling you things like this.”

  “I don’t mean to ask—but I must. I had to know. There is something I must tell you. I am taking a chance, but I feel that the odds are right. I must tell you or give up everything—and that is something that I could not bear.” Lee straightened up and lifted his face as though waiting for a blow. “I have broken the law.”

  “Well, good for you. You are probably the only one on this primitive planet with the nerve to do it.”

  Lee gaped. “This does not bother you?”

  “Not in the slightest. If anything, I admire you for it. What have you done that bothers you so?”

  Lee lifted the flap of his jacket pocket and took out something small and black, and passed it to Jan. It was thin and rectangular and had a row of tiny studs along one edge. “Press the second one,” he said. Jan did, and quiet music poured out.

  “I made it myself, my own design, but with parts from supply. Not enough for anyone to ever notice. Instead of tape I use a digital memory store on a molecular level, that is why it can be so small. It will record music, books, anything, with perhaps a thousand hours easily accessible.”

  “This is very good, but not what I would call a criminal act. Since the first man worked on the first machine, I imagine mechanics have been using bits and pieces for their own ends. The amount of materials you have used will neither be heeded nor missed, and I do admire your design. I don’t think you can call this breaking the law.”

  “This is just the beginning” Lee took the box from the floor and put it on the table. It was made of a pale alloy, machine turned and held together by rows of tiny rivets, the construction a labor of love in itself. He worked the combination and opened the lid, tilting it towards Jan. It was filled with row after row of tape cassettes.

  “These are from the men who land with the supply ships,” he said. “I have been trading my recorders for these. They are very popular and I get more of them each time. There is one man who gets me all I can use. I think this is illegal.”

  Jan sat back heavily and nodded. “That is indeed against the law, against how many laws you don’t know. You shouldn’t mention this to anyone else, and if I am ever asked I have never heard of you. The simplest thing that would happen to you if you were discovered would be instant death.”

  “That bad?” Lee was paler now, sitting bolt upright.

  “That bad. Why are you telling me this?”

  “I had an idea. It doesn’t matter now.” He stood and picked up the box. “I had better be going.”

  “Wait.” As soon as he thought about it Jan knew why the radio technician had come. “You are afraid of losing the tapes, aren’t you? If you leave them behind the heat will destroy them. And the Elders are checking all personal luggage, as they have never done before, and they’ll want to know what you have in the box. So how do you expect me to help?”

  Lee did not answer, because this was obvious as well.

  “You were going to ask me to conceal them in my equipment for you? Risk death for blackdirt tapes?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I guess not. Here, sit down, you’re getting me nervous standing there. Pour the tea into the sink and I’ll give you something better to drink. Just as illegal as the tapes, though with not the same penalties attached.”

  Jan unlocked a cabinet and took out a plastic bottle filled with a lethal-looking transparent liquid. He filled two tumblers and passed one to Lee.

  “Drink up—you’ll like it.” He raised his own glass and drained half of it. Lee sniffed suspiciously at the glass, then shrugged and drank a good mouthful. His eyes widened and he managed to swallow it without choking.

  “That’s … that’s something I never tasted before. Are you sure that it is drinkable?”

  “Very much so. You know those apples I raise behind the shop? The little ones about the size of your thumb? Very sweet they are and the juice ferments easily with the right yeast strain. I get an apple wine that must be about twelve percent alcohol. Then I put it into the deep freeze and throw away the ice.”

  “Very ingenious.”

  “I admit it’s not an original idea of mine.”

  “But it’s such a simple way of concentrating the alcohol. In fact, after drinking a bit it tastes better and better.”

  “That’s not original either. Here, let me top you up. Then you can show me some of those tapes.”

  Lee frowned. “But the death penalty?”

  “Let us say my first fright has vanished. It was just reflex. With the ships late, and they may never arrive at all, why should I worry about the retribution of Earth, light-years away.” He flipped through the tapes, squinting at some of the titles. “All pretty innocuous stuff, red hot by this planet’s standards, but nothing political at all.”

  “What do you mean, political?”

  Jan poured their glasses full again and stared into his. “You’re a rube,” he said. “A hick. And you don’t even know what those words mean. Have you ever heard me talk about Earth?”

  “No. But I never thought about it. And we know about Earth from the taped shows and …”

  “You know nothing at all here on Halvmörk. This is a dead-end planet, a concentration-camp world at the end of nowhere, been nowhere, going nowhere. Settled by forced migration, probably, or with politico prisoners. Doesn’t matter, it’s in the records someplace. Just an agricultural machine filled with dumb farmers designed to chum out food for the other planets for maximum profit at minimum input. Earth. Now that is something else again. With the elite on top, the proles on bottom, and everyone in between fitted into place like plugs into a
board. No one really likes it, except those at the top, but they have all of the power so things just go on and on for ever. It is a trap. A morass. With no way out. I am out of it because I had no choice. This planet—or death. And that is all I am going to tell you. So leave the tapes. I’ll take care of them for you. And why the hell should we worry ourselves about something as trivial as tapes?” He banged his glass down with sudden anger.

  “Something is happening out there—and I don’t know what it is. The ships always arrive on time. Yet they haven’t. They may never come. But if they do, we have the corn and they will need it … .”

  Fatigue and alcohol dragged him down. He finished the last swallow in his glass and waved Lee toward the door. Lee turned back before opening it.

  “You didn’t say anything to me tonight,” Lee said.

  “And I never saw any damn tapes. Good night.”

  Jan knew that a full three hours had gone by, but it seemed that the light and the buzzer clawed him awake just seconds after his head hit the pillow. He wiped at his encrusted eyelids and was all too aware of the vile taste in his mouth. And it was going to be a very long day. As his tea was brewing he shook two stims out of the bottle, looked at them, then added a third. A very long day.

  There was a heavy knocking on the door before he had finished his tea, and it was thrown open before he could reach it. One of the Taekeng, he forgot his name, thrust his head in.

  “All the corn loaded. Except this car. Like you said.” His face was streaked with grime and sweat and he looked as tired as Jan felt.

  “All right. Give me ten minutes. You can start cutting the hatches now.”

  Lee’s illegal tapes were in with the machine tools, sealed and locked. All the clothes and personal items he would need were in a bag. As he washed the tea things and stowed them in their cabinet niches there was a burst of ruddy light from the ceiling. The point turned into a line and began to trace a circle in the metal. As he pushed his bed, table and chairs out through the front door, the circle was complete and the disk of metal clanged down, biting deep into the plastic flooring. Jan threw his bag over his shoulder and left, locking the door behind him.

  His machine shop car was the last to go. It seemed that everyone was working at once. A thick tube snaked over from the nearest silo and up the side of the car. The man above called out and waved and the hose writhed as the flow began. It bucked in the man’s hand and a golden rain clattered down on Jan before the man leaned his weight against it and sent the corn flowing down into the car through the newly cut hole. Jan picked a kernel from his shoulder. It was as long as his middle finger, wrinkled from vacuum dehydration. A miracle food, product of the laboratories, rich in protein, vitamins, nutrition. It could be made into a child’s first meal, a grown man’s food, an old man’s gruel and it would be all the nutrition he would need in that lifetime. A perfect food. For economic slaves. He put it into his mouth and chewed ruminantly on its hard form. The only thing wrong was that it just did not taste like very much of anything.

  Metal creaked as the corner jacks lifted the car above its concrete bed. Men were already in the black pit below, shouting curses as they stumbled in the darkness, lowering the wheels and locking them into position. It was all happening at once They scrambled up the ramp at the end just as the tugtank was backing into position. While it was being hooked up, the corn loaders on the roof topped off and the pumping stopped. So well coordinated were the activities that the men who sealed plastic sheets over the newly cut ports actually rode the roof, shouting protests, as the car was pulled forward slowly, rising as it rode up the ramp. Once it was on the level the brakes were locked while the mechanics crawled beneath its massive bulk to check the tires, unseen for four years.

  While Jan slept, the trains had been formed up. This was only the third time he had seen the great migration, and he was as impressed as he had been at the first. The native Halvmörkers took it for granted, though there was excitement at the change in the daily pace of their lives. The move was just as exciting for Jan, more so perhaps since he had been accustomed to the variety and novelty of travel on Earth. Here any escape from the boredom and repetition of everyday life was a relief. Particularly with this unexpected change, this altering of the physical world he had grown to accept since they had arrived. A few days ago this had been a thriving city, surrounded by farms that stretched to the horizon and beyond. Now it had all changed. All of the bustling transport and machines had been locked away in the massive silos, their doors sealed. The domed pressure buildings had been deflated and sealed away as well. The other buildings, the mobile ones, had changed character completely. No longer earthbound structures, they had risen on rows of sturdy wheels and been formed into regular lines, along with the farm buildings which had been trundled in to join them. Where the city had been there now stood just foundations, as though it had been wiped away in some incredible blast.

  On the wide Central Way there now stood a double row of trains. The buildings, which had seemed so different as homes and shops, with their canopies and stairs and flowers, now proved all to be of the same size and shape. Cars in a large train, connected together and uniform. Twelve cars to a train, and each train headed by an engine. An incredible engine.

  Big. At times Jan still found it hard to believe that a power plant this size could actually move. And power plants they were for all of the time they were off the Road. Jacked up and stationary, their atomic generators producing all the electricity the city and farms could possibly need, waiting patiently for their transformation back into the engines they really were.

  Big. Ten times bigger than the biggest truck Jan had ever seen before coming to this planet. He slapped the tire of one as he passed, solid and hard, the top of the tread so high above his head that he could not reach it. Lug nuts the size of dinner plates. Two steerable wheels before, four driving wheels in back. Behind the front wheels were the rungs up to the driving compartment. Fifteen of them, climbing up the burnished golden metal of the solidly riveted side of the beast. In front the battery of headlights, bright enough to blind a man in an instant, if he were fool enough to stand and look at them. There was a glitter of glass from the drivers’ compartment, high above. Out of sight on top were the banked rows of tubes and fins that cooled the atomic engines. Engines large enough to light a small city. He couldn’t resist slamming his hand against the hard metal as he passed. It was something to drive one of these.

  Ivan Semenov was waiting by the lead train.

  “Will you drive engine one?” he asked.

  “That’s your job, Ivan, the most responsible one. The Trainmaster sits in that seat.”

  Ivan’s grin was a little twisted. “Whatever titles are given, Jan, I think we know who is Trainmaster on this trip. People are talking. Now that the work has been done, they think you were right. They know who is in charge here. And Hein has few friends. He lies in bed and rubs the cast on his arm and will talk to no one. People pass his car and laugh.”

  “I’m sorry I did that. But I still think it was the only way.”

  “Perhaps you are right. In any case they all know who is in charge. Take engine one”

  He turned on his heel and walked away before Jan could answer.

  Engine one. It was a responsibility that he could handle. But there was an excitement there as well. Not only to drive one of these great brutes—but to drive the very first. Jan had to smile at himself as he walked faster and faster down the lengths of the trains, to the first train. To the first engine.

  The thick door to the engine compartment was open and he saw the engineer bent over the lubrication controls. “Stow this, will you,” he said as he slung his bag in through the doorway. Without waiting for an answer he grabbed the rungs and pulled himself up onto the first. To his left was the empty Road surrounded by the barren farms, more and more of the Road appearing as he climbed higher. Behind him the dual row of trains, solid and waiting. He pulled himself through the hatch into the dr
iving compartment. The co-driver was in his seat leafing through his checklists. In the adjoining compartment the communications officer was at his banked radios.

  In front, the expanse of the armored glass window, a bank of TV screens above it. Below this, row after row of instruments and gauges that fed back information on the engine and the train it towed, and the trains behind that.

  In front of the controls the single, empty chair, solid steel with padded seat, back and headrest. Before it the wheel and the controls. Jan slid slowly into it, feeling its strength against his back, letting his feet rest lightly on the pedals, reaching out and taking the cool form of the wheel in his hand.

  “Start the checklist,” he said. “Ready to roll.”

  Five

  Hour after frustrating hour passed. Although the trains appeared to be joined up and ready to begin the trek, there were still hundreds of minor problems that had to be solved before the starting signal could be given. Jan grew hoarse and frustrated shouting into the radiophone, until he finally slammed the headset back into the rack and went to see for himself. Fitted into a niche at the rear of the engine was a knobby-tired motorcycle. He undamped it and disconnected the power lead to the battery—then found both tires flat. Whoever should have checked it hadn’t. There was more delay while the engineer, Eino, filled a compressed air cylinder. When he finally mounted the cycle, Jan had the pleasure of twisting the rheostat on full and hearing the tires shriek as they spun against the road surface and hurled him forward.

  As Maintenance Captain, Jan’s responsibility had been to keep the machinery repaired and in preparation for this day. Physically, it was impossible for him to do alone, and he had had to rely on others to carry through his orders. Too often they had not. The multiple connectors on the thick cables that connected the cars should all have been sealed with moistureproof lids. Many of them had not. Corrosion had coated them with nonconducting scale in so many places that over half of the circuits were dead. After crawling under car after car himself he issued an order to all the trains that all connectors were to be opened and cleaned with the hand sandblasts. This added another hour to their departure.