The Cold Equations (51 page)

The doctor would watch over him during the next one hundred hours, waiting for a pilot he knew did not exist to reduce the acceleration. For one hundred hours the doctor would wait, knowing as fully as he that no spectral finger would reach out from the empty chair and press the deceleration button. 

The doctor could reduce the acceleration. The doctor knew he wanted it done but the doctor was waiting to be ordered to do so. He had only to speak two words: "Reduce acceleration." The doctor would obey at once—the doctor was patiently waiting for him to speak the words. 

But the doctor knew he couldn't speak! 

* * *

There was a soft thump outside the door of his cottage and Knight left his after-breakfast coffee to pick up the morning paper. His cottage sat on the slope above Computer Center with the near-by Miles cottage his only close neighbor, and the Center laid out below in neat squares. The gray concrete hemisphere that housed the Master Computer was at the southern edge of the city with the four laboratory buildings grouped beyond it. Beyond them the landing field reached out into the desert and the desert stretched on to the harsh, bold mountains to the east.

Center hadn't looked like that, at first. In the seven years he had been there it had grown from a random scattering of army barracks into a city of four thousand with all the bustle and ambition of a city that intended to grow still larger. Even then it would not be a large city as cities go but it would, in its way, be the most important city in the world. One of its achievements alone, the synthesis of food starch, would soon gain it that distinction.

He carried the paper inside and spread it out on the breakfast table, to read with certain skepticism:

* * *

CHUIKOV NEW AMBASSADOR

* * *

Nicolai Chuikov has been appointed the new ambassador to the United States. Demoted in the first post-war years from a position of power in Dovorski's cabinet to a minor clerical job in an obscure province for his expression of the desirability of trade and friendly relations with the West, Chuikov has been reinstated with honors. This is in line with a softening of the anti-American attitude that first became evident two years ago and an increasing emphasis on the need for East and West to observe the nonaggression agreements of the peace terms.

An item near the bottom of the page was more interesting:

* * *

TRAITOR MOVES UP

* * *

The ambitious American traitor, William Peter Cullin, was promoted to Commanding Supervisor of the State Police today. He was lauded by the official press for his "patriotic and tireless zeal in strengthening the efficiency of the police and enabling them to guard Russo-Asia from traitors against the people."

Cullin, once head of Russo-Asia's spy network in this country, has acquired the dubious honor of being the first American to ever rise to a position of considerable power in an enemy country. He renounced his American citizenship two years ago, after having served eighteen months as a behind-the-scenes co-planner of State Police operations. His "efficiency" in ridding Russo-Asia of "traitors" has been remarkable for its machinelike precision and thoroughness—

* * *

There was a sudden racket outside, a sputtering and rattling, and he looked up from the paper in time to see an ancient and rusty coupé approaching his driveway. It was June Martin and he sighed instinctively, then flinched as the coupé, without reduction of speed, whipped into his driveway, spraying red petals from the rambler rose at the driveway's entrance. It slid to a brake-squealing, shivering halt and the driver climbed out with a swirl of blue skirt and a flash of bare legs. She observed the furrows her wheels had plowed in the gravel with evident satisfaction, then shook her head sadly at the sight of the rambler rose trailing from the battered rear fender.

Knight opened the door and she came up the walk with an apologetic smile. "Sorry about your rose, Blacky. I had my car's brakes fixed yesterday and I wanted to try them out." She looked back at the disreputable coupé and the furrows it had plowed in the gravel of the driveway. "Not bad, eh?"

"A matter of opinion," he growled. "Come on in and have a seat, then tell me where your brain, such as it is, was when you were
approaching
the driveway. Why didn't you slow down then?"

"Oh, I suppose I should have," she admitted, entering the cottage. "I told you I was sorry." She picked up the percolator on the table. "Any coffee left over?" she asked, pouring herself a cup.

"What brings you here so early on the day I'm supposed to go fishing and forget my job and haywire assistant?"

"Haywire assistant, you say?" she asked, setting down the cup and smiling with anticipation. "And you were going fishing, you say?"

"All right—get on with it. I see the delight in your sadistic little soul. What's come up?"

"I'm the special messenger of Dr. Clarke this morning. You will go to Lab Four at once, to meet some high brass who wants to see how we're getting along on our spaceship. And then, my friend, you will spend the rest of the day checking the SD-FA blueprints."

"I will?" He stared gloomily at her from her dark, curly hair to the small foot that swung back and forth from her crossed leg. "That sounds like a lot of fun. If you hadn't been such an eager-beaver in your role as messenger, I would have been gone from here in another ten minutes; on my way to the Colorado River and a pleasant day of catfishing. I've been looking forward to this day all week, and now
you
have to throw a monkey wrench in the works."

"Glad to do it," she answered him. "You needn't feel so humbly grateful about it. Besides, the day won't be wasted for the catfish—I'll be glad to take your new streamlined coupé and go fishing in your place."

"You'll go with me to Lab Four."

"I? Your haywire assistant? Why should I?"

"Because I said so. Checking those blueprints is going to be a long job and I can't imagine myself doing it alone while you loaf all day and happily reflect upon all the grief you managed to cause me."

"
I
can," she said, smiling, "and it makes pleasant imagining."

"Well, it never will be any more concrete than it is right now. You're going with me and you're lucky I don't wipe that smile off your face by giving way to the impulse to lay you across my knee. In fact, one of these days I will."

"Oh?" Her brows arched, mockingly. "Why don't you try it? I'll bet you'd forget you were mad before you ever . . . 
don't you dare!
" She dodged behind the table as he started toward her. "I take it back—I take it—" He reached over the table and seized her by the upper arms, to bring her kicking and struggling across it. "
Blacky!
If you spank me, I'll . . . I'll—"

The musical jangling of the doorbell sounded and he released her. She straightened her clothes and smiled triumphantly. "Saved by the bell!" she jeered.

"A stay of execution," he promised, then called: "Come in!"

* * *

The door opened and Connie Miles stepped through, swinging a straw hat in one hand. "Hi," she greeted. "Look—no cane this morning." She walked the few feet to them with steps that were almost normal. "How was that?" she asked, the gray eyes in her young face alight with pride.

"That was wonderful!" June hugged her sister with affectionate delight, then dragged over a chair for her. "You're getting better every day. I told you that you would walk as good as ever, some day. I told you that a year ago when you were in a wheelchair, remember? And now you're doing it!"

"Not yet," Connie said, taking the chair, "but I intend to in the end. The doctor said to take exercise every day and that's what I'm doing." She looked at them questioningly. "You two are going somewhere for the day, I suppose?"

"Ha!" June laughed. "We're going somewhere—back to work.
He
was very much upset by the news. In fact, only your timely arrival prevented the big ox from laying a hamlike hand where it would hurt the most."

"Oh?" Connie smiled at her younger sister. "Maybe he was just taking up where I left off on the job of trying to spank some sense into you."

"My brain isn't
there
," June objected. "Besides, it's George's fault, not mine, that we have to work today. I don't suppose we ever will be able to teach him to act like a human being."

"Then he did something to cause Tim to have to stay overtime?" Connie asked. "Tim phoned that he had to stay for a while, but he didn't say why."

"Probably too mad to want to rehearse the details," Knight said. "As the ship's pilot-to-be, Tim likes everything to progress smoothly in its construction and George sometimes introduces an unexpected ripple."

"George was supposed to check those blueprints," June said. "He didn't—I wonder why?"

"We'll find out when we get there," Knight answered, then spoke to Connie. "Do you want to go along? I can get you a pass."

"No, thanks." Connie stood up and rested her hand on the back of the chair. "I wouldn't want to try that much standing on hard concrete, right now. I'm going to take a walk down Saguaro Street this morning—if Tim gets home before I do, he'll know where I am."

"Look—don't overdo that walking," June said, concern for her sister in her voice. "I know it's doctor's orders, but don't try to walk too much in one day."

"Oh, I won't try to make a marathon of it, honey. I take my time and every day I seem to be a little stronger and more certain in the way I can walk. If this keeps on, I'll be able to go back to my old job in another year or two. And now, you two be on your way to your mechanical marvels—I'm going down to that little park by Saguaro and Third where there's a chipmunk who loves peanuts."

She left the house, walking with the slow, careful steps of one who has not walked unaided for a long time; a slight little thing with gray eyes too large for her face and too wise and understanding for her age, going with one pocket of her white sweater bulging with peanuts to feed a saucy and impudent chipmunk.

* * *

June watched Connie's progress through the window. "Do you think she ever will be completely well again?" she asked. "She's getting a little better all the time—she'll be completely well one of these days, won't she?"

There was unconscious pleading for assurance in June's voice and he made his own casual and confident. "Of course. There isn't any doubt about it."

"She wants to go back to her job. It takes all kinds of people to make the world, and Connie is the kind to restore your faith in all of them. All she asks is to be able to walk again so she can go back to the hospital and take up her job as nurse—go back to caring for the sick and the hurt."

"She will in another year or two. That last operation on her back really was the last operation—she won't need any more."

"Mama died when I was six and Daddy had to be away all day, working," June mused, still watching Connie through the window. "Connie was only ten. It was a good thing she was so wise and so sensible for her age, or they would have taken us away from Daddy. Connie showed them—she kept the house clean and my dirty face washed and my clothes clean. She was the one I went to when I got skinned up, or I got my feelings hurt. Part of the time she was my sister to play with but most of the time she was my mother."

June turned away from the window and looked up at him. "Why did it have to be Connie who got hurt in that wreck? Why couldn't it have been someone the world wouldn't miss—like me?"

"Connie will get well—you just give her time and you'll see. Now cheer up, little worry-wart, and let's be on our way."

"In my car?" she asked, the devilment back in her eyes.

"No, not in your car. We'll take mine—I want to get there in able-bodied condition."

"We'll take mine," she corrected. "You can't get yours out of the driveway until I let you."

"Get your junkpile off to one side and I can."

"Oh, come on—don't be a coward!" she begged. "Let me drive you down."

He sighed with resignation. "All right, then—let's go."

June drove the eight blocks to the Computer area gate with an excess of reckless abandon and a roaring of the mufflerless engine that made conversation impossible.

"One of these days," Knight said as the coupé bucked and shivered to a stop before the gate, "you're going to go hell-for-leather around a corner like that and take the front end off a patrol car. And then what are you going to say to them? Tell me that—what
can
you say?"

"The wrench is on the floor."

"What?"

"I said, 'The wrench is on the floor!' If you want to get out, you have to open the door. The door handle is broken off so you have to turn that little stem with that wrench."

He sighed again and felt for the wrench. "Nature blundered hideously with you; you should have been born a boy."

* * *

Another car stopped at the gate as Knight, with the aid of the wrench, opened the door. It was an Air Corps car, with four stars on the license plate. Dr. Clarke climbed out, to be followed by a tall man with neat gray mustache and four smaller duplicates of the license plate stars on each shoulder. Knight walked to meet them, June beside him.

They were greeted by Dr. Clarke, a small, gray man with quick, nervous movements. "Glad Miss Martin was able to reach you before you left for the day, and I'm sorry this had to come up." He made quick introductions. "General Gordon, this is Mr. Knight and this is Miss Martin, his assistant."

The general acknowledged the introductions with a brief handshake with Knight and a slight bow to June. "Very interesting, the work you're doing here," he remarked politely. "I was here once before—saw the Master Computer that's making such a big change in the lives of all of us. I would like to see the progress you're making with the ship this time. I can't stay long, as much as I would like to take a look at some of the marvelous things the papers say the 'Big Brain' has thought up for us."

Knight gave Clarke an amused side glance. The general caught it but said nothing until they were through the guarded gate and in one of the sedans used for personnel transportation with the Computer and laboratory area. The general and Clarke got into the back seat and June slid under the wheel without invitation. Knight seated himself beside her, gave her a warning and significant look which she returned with one of bland innocence, and she set the sedan into motion.