O Pioneer! (28 page)

He took a deep breath, then opened the door a crack, listening. The Centaurian pups were whining softly, but he heard nothing else, and it was dark outside. When he poked his head out there were no lights.

There would be no better chance than this. "Mrs. Threewhiteboots," he said, "do you have a key card for the hover? If I could get around the outside to the rocket pad—"

She made a snuffling sound that might have been amusement, "What you do with keycard? You think you driving Centaurian hover?"

"Maybe you could tell me how to do it."

"Maybe you being very ridiculous, Large Male Giyt. Never happening; driving instruments quite complicated. Also what you think those large males do, they finding us here and you gone? No, not giving keycard. Driving vehicle own self, most fearfully."

Mrs. Threewhiteboots delayed only to scrabble in a compartment for a body-shawl and a set of flat disks like snow-shoes. When she had strapped them to her little feet she muttered to her husband, and the two of them led Giyt to the door.

The hovercraft started quickly and moved easily over the drifts. It took only a few minutes to reach the rocket launch pad.

And then they stopped, looking at each other, looking back at the dome they had left. There were more of those handheld lights moving around outside that door. They undoubtedly belonged to some of Hagbarth's people, searching for them. If they went back there, they would be caught.

But there wouldn't be much point in trying to do that, anyway. The pad was empty. The suborbital rocket itself was gone.

XXVIII

With heartfelt sadness I have to tell you all, dear friends, that there isn't any doubt any more. Our mayor, Evesham Giyt, was definitely lost in that terrible explosion at the Pole.

So, folks, I think it's time for us all to show what big hearts we have here in Tupelo. Never mind that the explosion was his fault. Never mind what it's going to cost us all—many months of lost production, and. I don't even want to think about how much money. Say nothing mean about the dead and gone, folks, no matter how much of a mess the guy made. Probably he just didn't know any better, maybe. So let's forget that part of it and just give our deepest sympathy to his grieving widow—who, you know, is probably going to be leaving us herself before long anyway.

—
SILVA CRISTL
'
S BROADCAST

When Rina was awakened from a restless sleep with the word that Giyt was missing and presumed dead, she didn't believe a word of it. Wouldn't believe it, because it was just too unexpected and far too awful for her to accept. And then, when she accessed the Earth-colony news channel, she had no choice but to believe it, because the scenes of destruction from the Pole were too terribly convincing to be denied. In the view from outside, the Earth autofactory dome was split completely open, oozing black smoke into the dark polar sky. In the view from inside, everything was simply wrecked. Rina sat quietly in front of the screen, sometimes remembering to eat a bit of the breakfast she had absently made for herself, sometimes simply sitting motionless, not even thinking. When the news items began to repeat themselves she switched randomly to other files, her lessons, her household reminders, sometimes Giyt's own files . . . but that was painful; because he wasn't there. She was a practical woman. She always did her best to be prepared for whatever future needs and problems might arise well in advance, so that she could deal with them when they came. But she had not envisaged any future for herself that did not include Evesham Giyt there to share it.

Lupe was the first to arrive at the house. "Oh, Rina, hon," she said, her voice as mournful as her face, and stopped there because she had nothing to add. She sat quietly next to Rina, holding her hand. Then it was Matya, with the younger children, the others busy getting themselves off to school. Matya was more businesslike, and full of news. The six-planet meeting was convening early to discuss the accident. The loss of life, at least, had been small—two eeties missing and supposed to have been caught somehow in the blast. And Giyt. The suborbital rocket had made an emergency flight to the Pole, bringing twelve Earth firemen to help control the damage, and was already on its way back for more. The economic consequences for the Earth community were worrisome; until the autofactory could be rebuilt everything would have to come by portal from the home planet. As would everything needed for the rebuilding; the Earth delegation had already sent a message back to Earth to say what had happened and that emergency help was needed.

Rina listened politely to everything Matya had to say—having, of course, already heard it all for herself on her screen—until Lupe finally gave up trying to force food on her and Matya insisted that she go back to sleep. It was easier to pretend to obey than to argue, but Rina knew that sleep was impossible.

Well, not quite impossible.

Rina had taken it as given that she would He wakeful in the bed that still bore traces of Evesham Giyt's friendly male odor, while horrid thoughts recirculated through her brain. However horrid, they needed to be thought anyway: Should she stay on Tupelo? Go back to Earth? Bear the child that was just beginning to stir inside her? Abort it?

All of those unpleasant thoughts had subsidiary thoughts, just as unpleasant, that followed instantly from the first: wondering about what life would be like as a single parent (or about what childless life would be like if she aborted the one thing she had left of Evesham Giyt). And what should or could she do about Hoak Hagbarth?

They were ponderous thoughts that would keep anyone awake, one way or another. They were all attempts to discern whether she had anything left that was worth the trouble of going on living for. They didn't do the job, though. Willy-nilly, she drifted off, and the first she knew that she had gone to sleep after all was when Lupe touched her shoulder to wake her. "It's Mrs. Brownbenttalon," Lupe whispered. "She just wants to pay her respects."

Actually the Centaurian female had brought more than sympathy. She hadn't come alone; with her was a nearly grown female, painfully lugging two large packages wrapped in green fabric. "This shade of green our frequency devoted to sadness," Mrs. Brownbenttalon explained. "Contents of package food and drink. Hey, everybody know have no time for cookery with death in family. You meet my third daughter. Miss Stubnose? You say hello, Miss; good, now go back home." She crawled up onto a couch and acknowledged introductions to Lupe and Matya. "Yes, very sad happening," she agreed. "Have serious pain in abdomen, right here where husband mostly hang, for you, Mrs. Large Male Giyt. You main husband damn good son of a bitch. You know I also lose close family members in cataclysmic event?"

That took Rina by surprise. "You did?"

The matriarch bobbed her long snout mournfully. "Esteemed wife of male littermate Mrs. Threewhiteboots gone missing, perhaps caught in blast, also said secondary husband of same. No trace found. Damn Hagbarth claims must have been trespassing in Earth factory at accident time. Untrue. Mrs. Threewhiteboots never waste personal time in dumb Earth human factory."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"For what? It not you guilt." Mrs. Brownbenttalon sighed. "Simply accident, surely. Reason I sorrowing, six babies of littermate's esteemed wife now orphans, very sad. But," she added emphatically, "remember I still friend; you need any kind help you ask."

"Thank you," Rina said. "I think Lupe's making tea. Would you like some?"

"Earth tea?" Mrs. Brownbenttalon pondered for a moment. "Sure, why not? Only why is Earth female Lupe waving at you in this fashion?"

The reason Lupe was trying to attract her attention turned out to be something on the kitchen screen, and when Matya turned on the one in the living room, the face that appeared was Hoak Hagbarth's, being interviewed by Silva Cristl! as he got off the polar rocket at the pad. ". . . total devastation," he was saying to the interviewer. "No, we don't know what the hell Giyt did, but somehow he blew up the whole damn factory; God knows how long it'll take to get it running again. And it's dangerous up there, so Chief Tschopp has ordered half the fire company to the Pole to prevent any further loss of life. Giyt? Oh, he's dead all right, missus. He probably got blown up in that blast, I don't know if we'll ever find the pieces. But if he didn't, maybe he staggered out into the snow and then just froze to death." He shook his head. "The damage is just unbelievable, but you know what is the worst part of it? It's the way he left his poor widow and their unborn child—"

That was more than Rina could take. "Turn the bastard off," she said, her voice shaking with anger at the man. But the fury she felt had one good quality. It told her that she did have one definite thing to go on living for.

Her plan was simple. If she couldn't bring Giyt back, at least she could avenge him. When she was finally alone she considered how to set about it.

What was hard to see was just how to go about doing that. Giyt, damn the dear man, had not left a clear record of what it was that he knew or guessed. There were any number of items in his files that provided clues: the tabulation of chiplet imports paired for some reason with the shipping records of finished products; a log of failed attempts to access the ongoing processing data from the Pole; scraps of files that might have meant something, but without Giyt there to explain their relevance were simply puzzling. There was even a just-arrived packet of data from Earth that was directed to Evesham Giyt himself, but how useful that was going to be was dubious, because of course it was encoded. Perhaps there was something interesting in that, provided it wasn't just a financial statement from one of Giyt's half-dozen money dumps.

The trouble was, Giyt wasn't there to provide the key.

It was high noon, then it was dark, then it was light again. When Rina could not stay awake she slept for a while. Then she got up and made the bed, so that company wouldn't think her a slob. And there continually was company, usually Lupe or Matya coming by every few hours and staying until she somehow managed to get them to leave again, usually by pretending to be sleepy—and often enough by actually going to sleep. And getting up. And making the bed again. And repeating the process. She picked up things in one place and put them down in another, made herself meals but couldn't always make herself eat them, switched on the news channel, and for lack of anything more useful to do, watched the unfolding stories: raucous times at the six-planet meeting as the eetie delegates joined in deploring the sloppy precautions the Earth humans had provided at the Pole; warnings that there would be shortages of some consumer items until new shipments could be received from Earth, coupled with appeals to refrain from buying anything not urgently needed during the emergency. She watched only as long as her interest was held—not long—and then she turned the screen off again.

If she had some technical help, she thought, absently rubbing her belly, she might be able to piece together whatever it was that Giyt had learned.

But help from whom? Was there anyone she could trust? Or would anyone she asked for help be just as likely to be part of the problem?

But she could not let Hagbarth get away with whatever he was up to.

So Rina faced up to the fact that if anything was going to be done, she would have to do it herself. She sat down before the screen again and attacked the problem of decoding the data packet from Earth. Although she hadn't had much recent practice, it was like riding a bicycle, she found. Once she got started she remembered the skills Giyt had taught her. She set up a program to try every possible password, feeding in every word she could imagine Giyt including.

It took a while, but the program ultimately produced the password, which turned out to be "I guess I love Rina."

She cried at that, but only for a bit. Then grimly she began to study the packet.

And it was all there.

Ex-Earth was a front for an American expansionist conspiracy that reached up into high levels of the administration. They were planning to take Tupelo over. The autofactory at the Pole had been secretly manufacturing weapons.

Rina sat back, considering. Then she called Mrs. Brownbenttalon. "It seems that I do need help," she said. "Can you get me into the meeting?"

It was the first time Rina had been in the Hexagon since it was rearranged for the six-planet conference. The six little platforms for the members of the Joint Governance Commission had been replaced with a cluster of seats (or pads or trees) to accommodate the high officials from the home planets; there were from six to a dozen members of the appropriate species in each position, with most of the floor space given over to their staffs and experts. It was crowded. And as they were all talking at once, it was also hopelessly noisy. Rina's translator button struggled valiantly to render scraps of the other languages into English for her, but it was unequal to the task. What came out was a sort of chowder of half sentences and expletives, and she finally took the thing out of her ear. It eventually took the best efforts of the chief Centaurian delegate, Mrs. Oneeyewanders, a female so august that she had not one but three husbands scuttling about in her fur, to restore something like order. When she screeched for quiet the rumblings of the crowd simmered down enough for Rina to finish her testimony. And all the while, there were the Hagbarths standing in the little cleared space next to her, giving her poisonous looks, shaking their heads in the simulation of reproof.

Poisonous looks were all they could manage. It had not been smart of Hoak Hagbarth to send all his fellow conspirators in the fire company to the job of cover-up at the Pole, because the ones that were left behind were not part of the conspiracy. Behind the Hagbarths stood a pair of the brawniest fire police left on the island, and neither of the Hagbarths dared move.

Then Rina accessed Giyt's decoded packet from Earth, and everyone was still, Or nearly still apart from indignant whisperings to each other, as the record unrolled.