The Cold Equations (41 page)

"We?"

"Colonel Primmer has had only a few hours flying time and I have had none. You will be our pilot."

He shook his head. "I'm as afraid to die in the morning as the next man but I'll be damned if I could run like
that
."

Annoyance passed across Beeling's face. "You will obey my order and forget the heroic ideals. It would be only stupid for all to die when some can be saved with the helicopter."

"I agree. But why not let everybody cut cards or draw straws so all would have the same chance?"

"This Field Installation is not a gambling casino. Furthermore, there is an ERB regulation which reads: 'In times of critical danger and limited transportation the unit commander will arrange for the survival of his command in the order of each individual's importance to the unit as a whole.' "

"I see," he said, and thought: So in the ERB you do even your running by the book? 

* * *

Beeling began hastily scribbling a note. "This is an order to Colonel Primmer, authorizing you to go past the helicopter guards. Make sure you overlook nothing in preparing it for the trip."

"I have other things to do. Primmer can check it."

Beeling stopped writing and his face hardened dangerously under its pink softness. "As commander of this outpost and your superior officer, I can have you locked up in chains for insubordination if I wish to. Would you prefer that?"

"It still wouldn't force me to be your pilot. Anyway, you needn't worry about my absence—the helicopter is easily enough handled that Primmer can land you safely at your destination."

He saw that the sun was setting, already a bright, molten silver on the horizon, and he turned to Loper.

"Run to the storage shed and get me that coil of small rope. I'm ready to start."

"Where are you going?" Beeling demanded, suspicion in his eyes and his hand reaching inside his blouse.

Loper ran to the door, using both paws to turn the knob. He slammed it shut behind him and Rider saw him race past the window, where the spinning, wind-blown dust half obscured the ground. It was a good thing, he thought, that the Altairians were immune to beryllium poisoning. Loper and Laughing Girl would never see any other world again . . . 

"Where are you going?"

"The Sea Cliffs," he answered.

"Do you think you can hide from the natives there?"

"Not to hide. To keep my promise to Laughing Girl. The Big Tide is coming and she can't escape it."

Beeling stared, as though he had babbled gibberish.

"You—you're going to walk forty miles through beryllium dust, through armed natives and man-killing beasts, to save an animal—and yet you refuse to lift a hand to help save the lives of your fellow human beings?"

"Or, to be specific, the lives of you and Primmer. That's right."

He went to the corner where his remaining possessions lay and swung the still-full canteen from his shoulder. He kicked his respirator to one side—he would never need it again—and picked up the long-bladed knife.

He shoved the knife in his belt and said to Beeling, "I'm leaving my blaster for the others to use."

Beeling withdrew his own blaster from his blouse and laid it on the desk with the muzzle pointing toward Rider. His hand continued to rest on it as he stared at Rider with cold savage calculation.

The door banged open and a gust of wind scattered the pages of the Analysis across the floor as Loper plunged through. The coil of rope was in his mouth and he was panting from his running as he dropped it at Rider's feet.

"Are you ready to go, Captain—can we hurry now, prease?"

"Just a minute, Rider—"

Beeling reached out with the transmitter key in his left hand and unlocked the hyperspace communicator. His right hand did not leave the blaster.

"You might be interested in knowing what my report will be," he said. He flipped on the signal switch.

"I suppose I already know," Rider answered. "I ask you to overlook our personal differences and tell them the real cause behind tomorrow's massacre. It could go a long way toward saving the lives of others in the future."

Beeling nodded, smiling. "Such a report is precisely what I have in mind. I feel they should know how your blundering Frontier Corps methods had stirred the natives into such a murderous anti-human frenzy that my ERB unit arrived too late to remedy the situation. I shall point out that every world lost by the ERB was due to the incompetence of the Frontier men who preceded the ERB units there and created hatred and distrust among the natives. I shall point out the tragic mistake of continuing to permit Frontier Corps laymen to try to assume the duties of ERB specialists and I shall urge the Supreme Council let this be the last bloody sacrifice by passing the Harriman Proposal now before it; the proposal that would dissolve the Frontier Corps and place all its ships and men under ERB supervision.

"And it is my duty"—Beeling's smile was as vindictive as the sting of a wasp—"to report your actions of this afternoon; your flagrant insubordination, your flat refusal to assist in transporting others to safety, your desertion in time of danger, your flight to the Sea Cliffs, leaving the rest of us to do the fighting."

It required a few seconds for Rider to comprehend the extent of Beeling's malice, then he said, "I thought you were only inexperienced and too blind to see. I didn't know the half of it, did I?"

"It should be obvious to you what my report will do to the Frontier Corps when it's read before the Supreme Council."

It was very obvious. Beeling's report would be the climax of the ERB's all-out effort to absorb the Frontier Corps. The already delicately balanced scales would be tipped, the Harriman Proposal would be passed, and the Corps would cease to exist . . . 

"Do you still want to go to the Sea Cliffs?" Beeling asked.

He saw Beeling's prime objective. Beeling was still afraid to let the inexperienced Primmer be his pilot.

"Suppose I should decide to be your pilot?" he asked.

"I certainly couldn't report you as a deserter. In fact, I might find it possible to forget to mention several of the facts concerning you and the Frontier Corps."

He did not reply at once and Beeling added, "What is the welfare of an animal compared with your life and the existence of the Frontier Corps to which, I understand, you and the others have dedicated your lives?"

Loper made a whining sound, looking up at Rider with his face twisted in apprehension.

"What are he mean?" Then he read the answer in the conflicting emotions of the two men and his question came like a despairing whimper. "Are it
have
to be that way?"

* * *

The hyperspace communicator blinked an orange light and said in a metallic voice:

"Extraterrestrial Relations Board, Communications Center."

Beeling spoke into the transmitter: "Connect me with General Supervision, Classified AA circuit." He turned to Rider. "Which will you take, Rider?"

It seemed to him that he could see the two alternative courses of events with vivid clarity. He could see the dissolution of the Frontier Corps, his name in the records as a coward who had run in vain—and he could see Laughing Girl crouching cold and scared in the crevice, trusting him to come for her before the black tide rushed out of the dawn to kill her, knowing in her child-like mind that he would be there in time as surely as she and Loper had raced to him in time that night on Vulcan when he lay injured and helpless under the cliff and the moon wolves were gathering around him for the kill . . . 

"Office of General Supervision," the communicator said. "Classified AA. Give us your report."

"A moment, please," Beeling said to it. To Rider he said, "I give you exactly ten seconds—which will it be?"

Which would it be? Death and infamy at the Sea Cliffs—and know that to the end he had done what seemed right and just to him? Or life and safety and an unmarred record on the Northern Islands, while Laughing Girl died still waiting for him and he knew he was a coward no less than Beeling?

"Now!"

There was the brittle snap of ultimatum in Beeling's single word. He gave his answer:

"I'm going to the Sea Cliffs."

For a moment Beeling sat rigid, so sure had he been that the answer would be the one he wanted. Then he leaned forward, his lips thin and white with the intensity of his hatred and his words half choking in his throat:

"You fool—you incredible fool! I can legally shoot you down where you stand as a deserter!"

The muzzle of the blaster tilted up. Loper's eyes went fire-bright with understanding and his claws ripped at the floor as he threw himself back, into position to leap at Beeling's throat. Rider reached for the knife in his belt, warned by Loper's action and knowing he would never live to throw it. Beeling, in the insanity of his rage, was going to fire—

* * *

"Sir, the natives are—"

Primmer burst into the room and the scene froze. Primmer gawked at Beeling's blaster, at Rider's hand reaching for the knife, then he seized his own blasters and leveled them waveringly on Rider.

"Don't touch that knife!" he commanded. He turned his red face to Beeling. "What is it, sir—what is he trying to do?"

Slowly, almost regretfully, Beeling let his grip on the blaster relax.

"A little matter of desertion," he said to Primmer. He spoke to Rider. "I've changed my mind. You are experienced in eluding danger on alien worlds and you might have a good chance of hiding from the natives until a ship comes to pick you up. I hope so. I want you to live, to sit in your death row cell and read about the end of the Frontier Corps before they take you out and hang you as a deserter and a coward."

He motioned toward the door with a quick jerk of the blaster. "Now go! Get out of this room!"

Rider picked up the coil of rope and started toward the door, Beeling's blaster following him. Primmer spoke in protest:

"But General Beeling! As a deserter he should be held for proper punishment, sir—"

Beeling silenced him with a hard look and turned to the communicator. He began his report:

"General David A. Beeling, Unit Twenty, Deneb Five. Subjects: Impending attack of native armies, due to erroneous reports and general incompetence of Frontier Corps commander Captain Harold Rider; Report of Captain Rider's rebellion and desertion on eve of attack; Details of dangerous impracticability of Frontier Corps methods and—"

The words faded away, drowned by the wind, as Rider and Loper went down the street.

"He rie," Loper said. "They can't berieve him, can't ever hang you, can they?"

He smiled a little. "No, they won't be able to hang me."

He angled across the street, toward the edge of the dagger-brush thicket, and passed not far from one of the guards. It was the red-haired boy, facing the enemy lines with his weapon, a crate hammer, gripped tightly in his hand. Rider saw the code number on the supplies he guarded: XG-B-193.

"I'll be damned," he said.

"What are he guarding?" Loper asked.

"Exchange items and good-will gifts that the ERB has designated as suitable for barbaric cultures of this type. He's supposed to fight to the death to protect three thousand pounds of glass beads, hand mirrors, and bright red toy magnets."

They went into the thicket and the camp was hidden from view. The winding course of an old animal trail led in the desired direction and they followed it until it skirted the base of a small hill. He climbed to the top of it, with Loper at his heels, and looked back at the camp. There was a great deal of activity around the helicopter and he could distinguish Primmer standing to one side and directing the refueling operations.

He looked to the southeast, along his route to the sea, and along the rocky ridge that lay like a barrier between he saw the natives waiting and watching.

"I think," Loper said, "that they not want us to pass. I think we fight there, Captain."

"You'll stay here, on this hill," he said.

"Stay?" Loper jerked up his head in surprise and defiance. "No!"

"That's an order. I want you to watch the camp until after it's all over with tomorrow."

"I not stay safe whire you fight arone!" Loper braced his forepaws wide-apart and stubborn on the ground. "I not do it!"

* * *

He sat down on a sun-blackened boulder. "Listen, Loper—listen to the reasons why you have to help me:

"The government of Earth is four hundred light-years away and they will have to believe Beeling's story; that the natives are treacherous and hate all humans and that the Frontier Corps goaded them into massacring the entire camp. The natives are honest in their fear and distrust of humans—they think they are fighting for their world—and there will be no one after tomorrow to tell them they are wrong.

"Except you and Laughing Girl. They might listen to you Altairians since you know humans well and yet aren't human. You must tell them that Earth never takes a world by force, that even Beeling meant well but did not understand, and that all the things I told them Earth would do for them would have been done. And you must stay here until after tomorrow morning and watch the camp so that when a ship comes from Earth to investigate you can tell the officers exactly what happened here and what caused it to happen. It will be too late to save the Frontier Corps but if they will listen to you it might not be too late for them to see the mistakes that have been made and start over again."

The rigid stubbornness was gone from Loper, understanding and dark misery in its place. "It wrong—everything are happen awr wrong and I never see you again!"

"Yes," he said, "everything is all wrong and shot to hell. I'm trying to salvage the remains the best I can and I have to have your help."

"I do everything you say, Captain."

"For some time this will be your world and Laughing Girl's. Maybe for all your lives. So be friends with the natives and don't blame them for what they did. Remember that."

"Yes, sir. I remember."

He looked at the sunset's violet afterglow and stood up. "I'll have to hurry or I won't get there in time. Good luck, Loper."