Farmer in the Sky Part 17

Paul shook his head. "The Patrol won't let us down. But they won't be able to stop it. A police force is all right for stopping individual disturbances; it's fine for nipping things in the bud. But when the disturbances are planet wide, no police force is big enough, or strong enough, or wise enough. They'll try-they'll try bravely. They won't succeed."

"You really believe that?"

"It's my considered opinion. And not only my opinion, but the opinion of the Commission. Oh, I don't mean the political board; I mean the career scientists."

"Then what in tarnation is the Commission up to?"

"Building colonies. We think that is worthwhile in itself. The colonies need not be affected by the War. In fact, I don't think they will be, not much. It will be like America was up to the end of the nineteenth century; European troubles pa.s.sed her by. I rather expect that the War, when it comes, will be of such size and duration that interplanetary travel will cease to be for a considerable period. That is why I said this planet has got to be self-sufficient. It takes a high technical culture to maintain interplanetary travel and Earth may not have it-after a bit."

I think Paul's ideas were a surprise to everyone present; I know they were to me. Seymour jabbed a finger at him, "If you believe this, then why are you going back to Earth? Tell me that."

Again Paul spoke softly. "I'm not. I'm going to stay here and become a 'steader."

Suddenly I knew why he was letting his beard grow.

Seymour answered, "Then you expect it soon." It was not a question; it was a statement.

"Having gone this far," Paul said hesitantly, "I'll give you a direct answer. War is not less than forty Earth years away, not more than seventy."

You could feel a sigh of relief all around the place. Seymour continued to speak for us, "Forty to seventy, you say. But that's no reason to homestead; you probably wouldn't live to see it. Not but what you'd make a good neighbor."

"I see this War," Paul insisted. "I know it's coming. Should I leave it up to my hypothetical children and grandchildren to outguess it? No. Here I rest. If I marry, I'll marry here. I'm not raising any kids to be radioactive dust."

It must have been about here that Hank stuck his head in the tent, for I don't remember anyone answering Paul. Hank had been outside on business of his own; now he opened the flap and called out, "Hey gents! Europa is up!"

We all trooped out to see. We went partly through embarra.s.sment, I think; Paul had been too nakedly honest. But we probably would have gone anyhow. Sure, we saw Europa every day of our lives at home, but not the way we were seeing it now.

Since Europa goes around Jupiter inside Ganymede's...o...b..t, it never gets very far away from Jupiter, if you call 39 degrees "not very far." Since we were 113 west longitude, Jupiter was 23 degrees below our eastern horizon-which meant that Europa, when it was furthest west of Jupiter, would be a maximum of 16 degrees above the true horizon.

Excuse the arithmetic. Since we had a row of high hills practically sitting on us to the east, what all this means is that, once a week, Europa would rise above the hills, just peeking over, hang there for about a day-then turn around and set in the east, right where it had risen. Up and down like an elevator.

If you've never been off Earth, don't tell me it's impossible. That's how it is-Jupiter and its moons do some funny things.

It was the first time it had happened this trip, so we watched it-a little silver boat, riding the hills like waves, with its horns turned up. There was argument about whether or not it was still rising, or starting to set again, and much comparing of watches. Some claimed to be able to detect motion but they weren't agreed on which way. After a while I got cold and went back in.

But I was glad of the interruption. I had a feeling that Paul had said considerably more than he had intended to and more than he would be happy to recall, come light phase. I blamed it on the sleeping pills. Sleeping pills are all right when necessary, but they tend to make you babble and tell your right nametreacherous things.

19. The Other People

By the end of the second light phase it was clearto Paul, anyhow-that this second valley would do. It wasn't the perfect valley and maybe there was a better one just over the ridge-but life is too short. Paul a.s.signed it a score of 92% by some complicated system thought up by the Commission, which was seven points higher than pa.s.sing. The perfect valley could wait for the colonials to find it ... which they would, some day.

We named the valley Happy Valley, Just for luck, and named the mountains south of it the Pauline Peaks, over Paul's protests. He said it wasn't official anyway; we said we would see to it that it was made so-and the boss topographer, Abie Finkelstein, marked it so on the map and we all intialed it We spent the third light phase rounding up the details. We could have gone back then, if there had been any way to get back. There wasn't, so we had to dope through another dark phase. Some of them preferred to go back on a more normal schedule instead; there was a round-the-clock poker game, which I stayed out of, having nothing I could afford to lose and no talent for filling straights. There were more dark phase bull sessions but they never got as grave as the first one and n.o.body ever again asked Paul what he thought about the future prospects of things.

By the end of the third dark phase I was getting more than a little tired of seeing nothing but the inside of our portable range. I asked Paul for some time off.

Hank had been helping me since the start of the third dark phase. He had been working as a topographical a.s.sistant; flash contour pictures were on the program at the start of that dark phase. He was supposed to get an open-lens shot across the valley from an elevation on the south just as a sunburst flash was let off from an elevation to the west.

Hank had a camera of his own, just acquired, and he was shutter happy, always pointing it at things. This time he had tried to get a picture of his own as well as the official picture. He had goofed off, missed the official picture entirely, and to top it off had failed to protect his eyes when the sunburst went off. Which put him on the sick list and I got him as kitchen police.

He was all right shortly, but Finkelstein didn't want him back. So I asked for relief for both of us, so we could take a hike together and do a little exploring. Paul let us go.

There had been high excitement at the end of the second light phase when lichen had been discovered near the west end of the valley. For a while it looked as if native life had been found on Ganymede. It was a false alarm-careful examination showed that it was not only an Earth type, but a type authorized by the bionomics board.

But it did show one thing-life was spreading, taking hold, at a point thirty-one hundred miles from the original invasion. There was much argument as to whether the spores had been air borne, or had been brought in on the clothing of the crew who had set up the power plant. It didn't matter, really.

But Hank and I decided to explore off that way and see if we could find more of it. Besides it was away from the way we had come from camp number one. We didn't tell Paul we were going after lichen because we were afraid he would veto it; the stuff had been found quite some distance from camp. He had warned us not to go too far and to be back by six o'clock Thursday morning, in time to break camp and head back to our landing point, where the Jitterbug Jitterbug was to meet us. was to meet us.

I agreed as I didn't mean to go far in any case. I didn't much care whether we found lichen or not; I wasn't feeling well. But I kept that fact to myself; I wasn't going to be done out of my one and only chance to see some of the country.

We didn't find any more lichen. We did find the crystals.

We were trudging along, me as happy as a kid let out of school despite an ache in my side and Hank taking useless photographs of odd rocks and lava flows. Hank had been saying that he thought he would sell out his place and homestead here in Happy Valley. He said, "You know, Bill, they are going to need a few real Ganymede farmers here to give the greenhorns the straight dope. And who knows more about Ganymede-style farming than I do?"

"Almost everybody," I a.s.sured him.

He ignored it. "This place has really got it," he went on, gazing around at a stretch of country that looked like Armageddon after a hard battle. "Much better than around Leda."

I admitted that it had possibilities. "But I don't think it's for me," I went on. "I don't think I'd care to settle anywhere where you can't see Jupiter."

"Nonsense!" he answered. "Did you come here to stare at the sights or to make a farm?"

"That's a moot point," I admitted. "Sometimes I think one thing, sometimes the other. Sometimes I don't have the foggiest idea."

He wasn't listening. "See that slot up there?"

"Sure. What about it?"

"If we crossed that little glacier, we could get up to it."

"Why?"

"I think it leads into another valley-which might be even better. n.o.body has been up there. I know-I was in the topo gang."

"I've been trying to help you forget that," I told him. "But why look at all? There must be a hundred thousand valleys on Ganymede that n.o.body has looked at. Are you in the real estate business?" It didn't appeal to me. There is something that gets you about virgin soil on Ganymede; I wanted to stay in sight of camp. It was quiet as a library-quieter. On Earth there is always some sound, even in the desert. After a while the stillness and the bare rocks and the ice and the craters get on my nerves.

"Come on! Don't be a sissyl" he answered, and started climbing.

The slot did not lead to another valley; it led into a sort of corridor in the hills. One wall was curiously flat, as if it had been built that way on purpose. We went along it a way, and I was ready to turn back and had stopped to call to Hank, who had climbed the loose rock on the other side to get a picture. As I turned, my eye caught some color and I moved up to see what it was. It was the crystals.

I stared at them and they seemed to stare back. I called, "Hey! Hank! Come here on the bounce!"

"What's up?"

"Come here! Here's something worth taking a picture of."

He scrambled down and joined me. After a bit he let out his breath and whispered, "Well, I'll be fried on Friday!"

Hank got busy with his camera. I never saw such crystals, not even stalact.i.tes in caves. They were six-sided, except a few that were three-sided and some that were twelve-sided. They came anywhere from little squatty fellows no bigger than a b.u.t.ton mushroom up to tall, slender stalks, knee high. Later on and further up we found some chest high.

They were not simple prisms; they branched and budded. But the thing that got you was the colors.

They were all colors and they changed color as you looked at them. We finally decided that they didn't have any color at all; it was just refraction of light. At least Hank thought so.

He shot a full cartridge of pictures then said, "Come on. Let's see where they come from."

I didn't want to. I was shaky from the climb and my right side was giving me fits every step I took. I guess I was dizzy, too; when I looked at the crystals they seemed to writhe around and I would have to blink my eyes to steady them.

But Hank had already started so I followed. The crystals seemed to keep to what would have been the water bed of the canyon, had it been spring. They seemed to need water. We came to a place where there was a drift of ice across the floor of the corridor -ancient ice, with a thin layer of last winter's snow on top of it. The crystals had carved a pa.s.sage right through it, a natural bridge of ice, and had cleared a s.p.a.ce of several feet on each side of where they were growing, as well.

Hank lost his footing as we scrambled through and s.n.a.t.c.hed at one of the crystals. It broke off with a sharp, clear note, like a silver bell.

Hank straightened up and stood looking at his hand. There were parallel cuts across his palm and fingers. He stared at them stupidly.

"That'll teach you," I said, and then got out a first-lid kit and bandaged it for him. When I had finished I said, "Now let's go back."

"Shucks," he said. "What's a few little cuts? Come I said, "Look, Hank, I want to go back. I don't feel good."

"What's the matter?"

"Stomach ache."

"You eat too much; that's your trouble. The exercise will do you good."

"No, Hank. I've got to go back."

He stared up the ravine and looked fretful. Finally he said, "Bill, I think I see where the crystals come from, not very far up. You wait here and let me take a look. Then I'll come back and well head for camp. I won't be gone long; honest I won't."

"Okay," I agreed. He started up; shortly I followed him. I had had it pounded into my head as a Cub not to get separated in a strange country.

After a bit I heard him shout. I looked up and saw him standing, facing a great dark hole in the cliff. I called out, "What's the matter?"

He answered: "GREAT JUMPING HOLY SMOKE!!!"like that.

"What's the matter?" I repeated irritably and hurried along until I was standing beside him.

The crystals continued up the place where we were. They came right to the cave mouth, but did not go in; they formed a solid dense thicket across the threshold. Lying across the floor of the ravine, as if it had been tumbled there by an upheaval like the big quake, was a flat rock, a monolith, Stonehenge size. You could see where it had broken off the cliff, uncovering the hole. The plane of cleavage was as sharp and smooth as anything done by the ancient Egyptians.

But that wasn't what we were looking at; we were looking into the hole.

It was dark inside, but diffused light, reflected off the canyon floor and the far wall, filtered inside. My eyes began to adjust and I could see what Hank was staring at, what he had exploded about.

There were things things in there and they weren't natural in there and they weren't natural I couldn't have told you what sort of things because they were like nothing I had ever seen before in my life, or seen pictures of-or heard of. How can you describe what you've never seen before and have no words for? Shucks, you can't even see see a a thing properly the first time you see it; your eye doesn't take in the pattern. thing properly the first time you see it; your eye doesn't take in the pattern.

But I could see this: they weren't rocks, they weren't plants, they weren't animals. They were made made things, man made-well, maybe not "man" made, but not things that just happen, either. things, man made-well, maybe not "man" made, but not things that just happen, either.

I wanted very badly to get up close to them and see what they were. For the moment, I forgot I was sick.

So did Hank. As usual he said, "Come onl Let's go!"

But I said, "How?"

"Why, we just-" He stopped and took another look. "Well, let's see, we go around- No. Hmm . . . Bill, we will have to bust up some of those crystals and go right through the middle. There's no other way to get in."

I said, "Isn't one chopped up hand enough for you?"

"I'll bust 'em with a rock. It seems a shame; they are so pretty, but that's what I'll have to do."

"I don't think you can bust those big ones. Besides that, I'll give you two to one that they are sharp enough to cut through your boots."

"I'll chance it." He found a chunk of rock and made an experiment; I was right on both counts. Hank stopped and looked the situation over, whistling softly. "Bill-"

"Yeah?"

"See that little ledge over the opening?"

"What about it?"

"It comes out to the left further than the crystals do. I'm going to pile rock up high enough for us to reach it, then we can go along it and drop down right in front of the cave mouth. The crystals don't come that close."

I looked it over and decided it would work. "But how do we get back?"

"We can pile up some of that stuff we can see inside and s.h.i.+nny up again. At the very worst I can boost you up on my shoulders and then you can reach down your belt to me, or something."

If I had my wits about me, maybe I would have protested. But we tried it and it worked-worked right up to the point where I was hanging by my fingers from the ledge over the cave mouth.

I felt a stabbing pain in my side and let go.

I came to with Hank shaking me. "Let me alone!" I growled.

"You knocked yourself out," he said. "I didn't know you were so clumsy." I didn't answer. I just gathered my knees up to my stomach and closed my eyes.

Hank shook me again. "Don't you want to see what's in here?"

I kicked at him. "I don't want to see the Queen of Sheba! Can't you see I'm sick?" I closed my eyes again.

I must have pa.s.sed out. When I woke up, Hank was sitting Turk fas.h.i.+on in front of me, with my torch in his hand. "You've been asleep a long time, fellow," he said gently. "Feel any better?"

"Not much."

'Try to pull yourself together and come along with me. You've got to see this, Bill. You won't believe it. This is the greatest discovery since-well, since- Never mind; Columbus was a piker. We're famous, Bill."

"You may be famous," I said. "I'm sick."

"Where does it hurt?"