Swan Song. Brian Stableford
either run into space,” he said, with an all too accurate assessment of the probable alternatives, “or run on the ground. You can’t dodge a man like that standing still.”
His logic was devastating. I had this slender thread of hope which stretched n thousand light-years to the long arm of Titus Charlot and the New Alexandrian puppetmasters, but no gambler would ever put his loose change on a chance like that, let alone his shirt and all its contents. I had to reckon to be on my own, and if I was on my own I had to start thinking rabbit. It was either space or dirt. Sam was on my side, and if I could only reach Captain Haeckel’s hard heart maybe a run for the stars was on—semi-legally, at least. But if Haeckel wasn’t on the side of the angels...if he even remained neutral....
And we had to remember that it wasn’t Haeckel’s ship. He was an employee, not an entrepreneur. And I knew from the way he chewed his gum that he hadn’t spent his boyhood dreaming about the day he was going to cut loose and become a highwayman. He was nobody’s sucker, and his best friend would never accuse him of being a hero. No serious student of probability would back Haeckel. No way. So what was I left with?
Mud.
“It’s not a bad world,” said Sam, meaning it was godawful. “The colony hasn’t ever really got off the ground, but you know damn well that the way the billions scattered, no colony ever had a fair chance without luck or a bonanza.” That was true enough, I guessed—the old overpopulation neurosis and the back-to-the-trees brigade had contrived to spread the human race as thin as butter in an Earthside sandwich.
“It’s rough out beyond the port complex,” said Sam, “but that might be all to the good from your point of view.”
“I’m no backwoodsman,” I told him sourly. “I’m not the type to go traipsing out into nowhere to build myself a log cabin, plant potatoes, and trap the local equivalent of the squirrel. It’s not my life. I’m a machine-man. I’m a starman, and you can’t be a starman without living so close to machines you become fifty percent printed circuit yourself. If nothing else, I’ve proved that in my long and checkered past. I spent two years on the side of a mountain haunting the ruins of a shattered starships, and it was every single day too long. It’s not my life. It’s just no kind of life at all.”
“It’s not forever,” said Sam. “The heat never lasts forever. They’d lose interest in you...how fast? A year? A month? This bird has better things to do than hang around here waiting for you to surface. How can he search a world?”
He was right, of course. Unless I wanted to face out Soulier—and I’d have to be crazy to do that—I had to take a long walk in the wilderness. My memory kept flashing back to the long blur in my history that was two tormented years on a bleak black rock. Here, there were trees. But it was still cold, still wild, still empty. I stared the prospect in the face, but it wasn’t an easy one to look at steadily. Two years of sitting in on my own death-watch had provided me with one hell of a distaste for the simple life.
No doubt I could survive it, but could I face it?
How about you, sunbeam? I asked. What’s your solution?
You got it all taped, he said. There’s nothing to add.
It must be the first time, I commented bitterly.
I’m only a tactician, he said. I could have won you the fight if you hadn’t been so determined to play tortoise. I can keep you alive till tomorrow. Say the word and we’ll go to war with Soulier. But you’re the strategist. It’s your body and your life. You live it the way you choose to live it. You need help, you call me, and it’s yours. But you and I have both learned a lot from trying to fit together. I’m hurling no insults, I’m making no comments. I’ll go along with you.
That I suppose, testified to the fact that I’d won some kind of victory in the months of my freedom. I’d won respect from my mind parasite. One time, he’d been ever-ready to tell me exactly how to take the next hurdle—and ever-ready to take it himself if I was ready to cop out. I’d learned from him, he from me. We were running the race together now.
It didn’t help the decision, but if he’d offered advice it wouldn’t have helped either. It would have sidetracked the whole issue. This way, I was still poised. Devil or deep blue sea?
“It pays to stay alive,” said Sam.
“I’m not going to let Soulier have his way,” I said. “Of all things, that’s the top priority. I can’t fight Caradoc, but I’m damned if I’ll let them crush me. I’ll go to hell first, let alone the backwoods. They made me an offer I can’t refuse.”
“That’s the worst kind,” agreed Sam.
“So bugger ’em. I’ll cheat the bastards if it kills me.”
Trouble was, it might.
My stomach had never recovered from the sinking it took when I first found the man from Caradoc standing at my shoulder, and the gut-blow it took from the heavy hadn’t helped any. If it wasn’t for the wind I could have had a hellish case of indigestion. In spite of the wind, I felt one coming on.
Then the call circuit beeped. It sounded like I felt.
I automatically reached out to answer it, but Sam was up off his couch knocking my hand away. “I’m O.O.W.,” he muttered. “Want to get me shot?”
He acknowledged the call, and I heard the captain’s voice interrupt him, in a cold, syrupy tone.
“You get that drive-unit into shape,” he said. “Wake Grainger. I’ve got the others here and I’m bringing them in. Plus a couple of passengers. We’ve been chartered and we’re taking off tonight. As soon as humanly possible. These guys have pressing business.”
“We can’t,” Sam protested. “Half the cargo is still underneath our fins. They knocked off shifting it when their time ran out. Where you going to find a gang at this time of night? Or is the kid going to do it all himself?”
“The gang is on its way out right now,” said the captain. “The area will be clear in ninety minutes. We’ve been cleared for takeoff already. We lift at oh-oh-six ship-standard. Move it.”
“Yes, Captain Haeckel, sir,” said Sam, with more than a hint of insubordination, “you’re the boss.”
He switched off the circuit, and he turned his pale eyes on me.
“They found out you’re not in the hospital,” he said. “You just ran right out of time. If you’re going to run, you better start right now. They’ll be covering the port, but there are ways of getting through the perimeter....”
My legs were itching. For all I knew they might be underneath the fins right now, with a butterfly net, just waiting. I looked at the screen, and I saw half a dozen tiny figures ambling across the tarpol. The jumbo crew. No Haeckel, no passengers.
“I’m on my way,” I said.
“I’ll come with you,” said Sam.
“What the hell for?”
He was already on his way out of the door, running for his cabin.
“I’ll show you the way through the perimeter,” he called back.
“Man,” I said, “I know how to skip a field. I’m not an idiot.”
But he’d gone. He was coming. I knew he was a fool, and that it wouldn’t do him or me the slightest bit of good. I knew that he didn’t and shouldn’t owe me anything, and that he was riding the tide of some ridiculous impulse. But I didn’t have the heart to stop him. I didn’t want to stop him.
“Thanks, Sam.” I said, as I moved to the door myself. He couldn’t hear me. I was talking to myself.
CHAPTER FOUR
I grabbed my packsack, which contained virtually nothing except some clothes and some junk (eyeshades, a few tools, a miniature