“Sir.” She stayed. Bob Davies and Pete Gallin discretely withdrew, and the reg who had brought some of the luggage in deposited it near the door and closed the door on his way out.
“I think you know,” he said, “that something’s wrong. I imagine it bothered you–my not being down here.”
“I understand the procedure calls for the ranking officer to stay on the ship in case–”
“Don’t put me off.”
“I’ve had some concern.”
“All right. You’ve had some concern.” He took a breath, jammed his hands into his belt behind him. “I’ll be honest with you. I reckoned you could handle the landing, the whole setup if you had to.–I’m feeling a bit of strain, Ada. A bit of strain. I’m getting a little arthritis. You understand me? The back’s hurting me a bit.”
“You think there’s a problem with the rejuv?”
“I know I’m taking more pills than I used to. You use more when you’re under stress. Maybe it’s that. I’ve thought about resigning, going back to Cyteen on a medical. I’ve thought about that. I don’t like the thought. I’ve never run from anything.”
“If your health–”
“Just listen to me. What I’m going to do–I’m going to take the command for a few weeks; and then I’m going to step down and retire to an advisory position.”
“Sir–”
“Don’t sir me. Not here. Not after this long. I just wanted to tell you the stuffs failing on me. That’s why we have redundancies in the system, isn’t it? You’re the real choice, you. I’m just lending my experience. That’s all.”
“If you want it that way.”
“I just want to rest, Ada. It wasn’t why I came. It’s what I want now.”
“There’s still that ship up there.”
“No.”
“I’ll take care of things, then.” She put her hands in her hip pockets, blinked at him with pale eyes in a naked‑skulled face, showing age. “I think then–begging your pardon…it might be a wise, thing under the circumstances–to take a joint command and ease the moment when it comes.”
“Eager for it, are you?”
“Jim–”
“You’ve already started doing things your way. That’s all right.”
“The staff has wondered, you know–your absence. And I think if you talked to them frankly, made it clear, your health, your reasons–you really are a figure they respect; I think they’d be glad to know why you’ve suddenly gone less visible, that it’s a personal thing and not some upperlevel friction in command.”
“Is that the rumor?”
“One’s never sure just what the rumors are, but I think that’s some of it. There’s a little bit of strain.”
“Troopers and civs?”
“No. Us and Them. The visible distinction–” She rubbed her shaved scalp, selfconsciously returned the hand to her pocket. “Well, it solved an immediate problem. People get tired and they get touchy; and I went and did that on the spot, that being the way I knew how to say it. And the rest of the staff followed suit. Maybe it was wrong.”
“If it solved the problem it was right. I’ll talk to them. I’ll make everything clear in my own way.”
“Yes, sir.” Soft and quiet.
“Don’t respect me into an early grave, Beaumont. I’m not there yet.”
“I don’t expect you to be. I expect you’ll be around handing out the orders. I’m your legs, that’s the way I see it.”
“Oh, you see further than that. You’ll be governor. I think that’ll suit you.”
She was silent a moment. “I considered it a matter of friendship. I’d like to keep it on that basis.”
“I’ll rest a bit,” he said.
“All right.” She tended to the door, stopped and looked back. “I’ll warn you about the door–you have to keep the door closed. Lizards have discovered the camp. They’ll get into tents, anything. And the window–they come in windows if you have the lights on and the windows open. We try not to carry any of the flitters back to the camp, but a few have made it in, and they’ll make a nuisance of themselves.”
He nodded. Loathed the thought.
“Sir,” she said quietly, left and softly tugged the thick door shut. He lay down on the bed, his head pounding in a suspended silence–the absence of the ventilation noises and the rotation of the ship and the thousand other subtle noises of the machinery. Outside the earthmovers growled and whined and beeped, and human voices shouted, but it was all far away.
The arthritis story was real. He felt it, wanted a drink; and tried to put it off–not wanting that to start, not yet, when someone else might want to call.
He had to hold off the panic, the desire to call the ship and ask to be lifted off. He had to do it until it was too late. He had never yet run; and he was determined it would not be this time, this last, hardest time.
ii
Day 03, CR
That evening (one had to think in terms of evening again, not main‑day and alterday, had to learn that things shut down at night, and everyone slept and ate on the same schedules)…that evening in the main dome, Conn stood up at the staff mess and announced the changes. “Not so bad, really,” he said, “since there’s really a need for a governing board and not a military command here. Headquarters and the Colonial Office left that to our discretion, what sort of authority to set up, whether military or council form; and I think that there’s a level of staff participation here that lends itself to council government. All department heads will sit on the board. Capt. Beaumont and I will share the governorship and preside jointly when we’re both present. Maj. Gallin will take vicechairman’s rank. And for the rest, there’s the structural precedence in various areas of responsibility as the charter outlines them.” He looked down the table at faces that showed the stress of long hours and primitive conditions. At Bilas, with a bandage on his shaven temple. That had been bothering him: the thoughts wandered. “Bilas–you had an accident?”
“Rock, sir. A tread threw it up.”
“So.” He surveyed all the faces, all the shaven skulls–commissioned officers and noncoms and civs. He blinked, absently passed a hand over his thinning, rejuv‑silvered hair. “I’d shave it off too, you know,” he said, “but there’s not much of it.” Nervous laughs from the faces down the table. Uncertain humor. And then the thread came back to him. “So we’ve got the power in; got electricity in some spots. Camp’s got power for cooking and freezing. Land’s cleared at least in the camp area. We’ve all got some kind of shelter over our heads; we’ve done, what, seven thousand years of civilization in just about three days?” He was not sure of the seven thousand years, but he had read it in a book somewhere, how long humankind had taken about certain steps, and he saw eyes paying earnest attention to what sounded like praise. “That’s good. That’s real good. We’ve got excuse for all of us to slow down soon. But we want to do what we can while the bloom’s on the matter, while we’re all motivated by maybe wanting a hot shower and a warmer bed. What’s the prospect on the habitats? Maybe this week we can start them? Or are we going to have to put that off?”
“We’re looking,” Beaumont said, beside him, seated, “at getting all the personnel into solid housing by tomorrow, even if we have to take crowded conditions. So we’ll be dry if it rains. And we’re putting a good graded road through the azi camp, to help them under the same conditions. We’re clearing and plowing tomorrow; looking at maybe getting the sets in the ground for the garden in three more days; maybe getting general plumbing out to the azi camp.”
“That’s fine,” Conn said. “That’s way ahead of schedule.”
“Subject to weather.”
“Any–”
“Hey!” someone exclaimed suddenly, down the table, and swore: people came off the benches at that end of the table. There was laughter and a man dived under the table and came up with a meter long green lizard. Conn stared at it in a daze, the struggling reptile, the grinning staffer and the rest of them–Gutierrez, of the bio section.
“Is that,” Conn asked, “a resident?”