“Can you dig with that shoulder?” she asked Dalehouse.
“I guess so. It’s not bleeding.”
“Then go help Kappelyushnikov dig graves. Dimitrova, you’re a radio operator now. No transmissions. Just listen. If the Greasies say anything, I want to hear about it right away.”
She left them and headed for the surviving latrine. She didn’t particularly need to go to the bathroom; she just wanted to be alone for a moment to clarify her thoughts. She ranked her way to the head of the line, closed the door, and sat there smoking a cigarette and staring into space.
There was no question in her mind that she could win this war, because she had some powerful cards to play. The plutonium store was one of them. The other was Major Vandemeer’s little dispatch case. There were still four birds in orbit; one could hit the Greasy main camp, and another their Farside base, anytime she gave the order — and that would be that.
The trouble was, she didn’t want to destroy the Greasy facilities. She wanted to acquire them. The birds and the bomb were overkill, like trying to take care of a mosquito with a mortar.
No. It would have to be a straight overland operation. Maybe the plutonium, if it could be placed exactly right. Not the missiles. It was a pity the Greasies had launched their preemptive strike before she was quite ready to launch hers. But not a disaster. The worst thing about the raid was that her cadre of effectives had been seriously reduced. How was she going to mount her retaliatory strike without grunts?
Marge Menninger had just taken the only decision that gave the human race a future on Jem, even though she didn’t know it.
“The only good thing about all this,” Dalehouse said to Kappelyushnikov, “is that most of the casualties were military. At least now we can get on with the real business of the expedition.”
Kappelyushnikov grunted and threw a few more spadefuls of dirt before he answered. “Of course, is so,” he said, pausing and wiping sweat off his face. “Only one question. What is real business of expedition?”
“To survive! And to preserve. God knows what’s happening on Earth. We may be all that’s left of the human race, and if anything’s going to be left of, what, maybe five thousand years of science and literature and music and art, it’s here.”
“Very discouraging amount of responsibility for two grave-diggers,” Kappelyushnikov commented. “You are of course right, Danny. We have saying in Soviet Union: longest journey begins with single step. What step do we take now?”
“Well—”
“No, wait, was rhetorical question. First step is apparent.
Have finished covering up graves of now absent friends, so you, Danny, please step up to colonel’s headquarters and report burial services can begin.”
He jammed his spade into the dirt and sat down, looking more despondent than Dalehouse had ever seen him.
Dalehouse said, “All right. We’re all pretty tired and shook up, I guess.”
The pilot shook his head, then looked up and grinned. “Am not only tired, dear Danny, am also very Russian. Heavy load to carry. We have other saying in Soviet Union: in thousand years, what difference will it make? But now I tell you the truth, Danny. All sayings are bullshit. I know what we do, you and I and all of us. We do the best we can. Is not much, but is all there is.”
Dalehouse laid down his spade and trudged up the hill to the headquarters shack, thinking hard. A heavy responsibility! When you looked at it carefully, there was no way to preserve everything; so much that was irreplaceable would inevitably be lost — probably already was lost. There was not much chance that the Arc de Triomphe and the British Museum and the Parthenon had all survived, not to mention some billions of fairly irreplaceable human beings. It was hard for Danny to accept that he would never again see a ballet or listen to a concert. Or fly in a clamjet or drink in a revolving restaurant on top of a skyscraper. So much was gone forever! And so much more would inevitably vanish as they tried to rebuild…
Yet there was one great asset not yet destroyed: hope. They could survive. They could rebuild. They could even rebuild in a better way, learning from the mistakes of the past, on this virgin planet -
There was a knot of people gathering around the headquarters shack, and Marge Menninger, with a couple of her aides, was trotting up to join them. Dalehouse hurried his pace and arrived in time to hear Ana saying, “This message just came in, Colonel Menninger. I will play the tape for you.”
“Do it,” snapped Marge, out of breath and exhausted
Dalehouse moved closer to her. She seemed near to collapse. But as the tape player hummed and scratched, she pulled herself together and stood listening intently.
Danny recognized the voice. It was the black air vice-marshal, Pontrefact; and what he said did not take very long.
“This is an official message on behalf of the Fuel Exporting Powers to the Food camp. We offer an immediate and permanent armistice. We propose that you remain within twenty kilometers of your camp, in the direction toward ours, and we will observe the same limits from ours. We request an answer within one hour.”
There was a pause, as though he was shuffling papers in his hand, and then the rich Jamaican tones began again.
“As you are aware, our air strike against your camp was provoked by your destruction of our satellites. It was ordered only after full exploration of all alternatives. Our intention was to wipe your base out completely. However, as you are also aware, we terminated the strike after inflicting relatively minor damage on your base. The reason for this decision is the reason for this offer of armistice now.
“Our star, Kung, is unstable. It is about to flare.
“We have been aware for some time that its radiation level has been fluctuating. Within the past twenty-four hours it has become more extreme. While the air strike was in progress we received information from our astrophysicists that a major flare will occur in the near future. We do not have an exact time. Our understanding is that it may occur as early as forty-eight hours from now, and almost surely within the next two weeks. If you accept our offer of armistice, we will transmit all technical data at once, and your people can make their own judgments.”
The voice hesitated, then resumed in a less formal way. “We have no knowledge of conditions on Earth at present and suppose you have none as well. But it is clear that for all practical purposes we on Jem are alone in the universe at this time. We think we will need all the resources we have to prepare our camp for this flare. If we continue to fight, we suppose we will all die. I do not propose that we work together. But I propose that we stop fighting, at least until this crisis is past.” Another pause. Then: “Please respond within an hour. God help us all.”
Margie closed her eyes for a moment while everyone waited. Then she opened them again and said, “Call them back, Dimitrova. Tell them we accept their offer, ask for their technical data at once, and say we will be in contact again when we have something to say. Folks, the war is over.”
Ten minutes later, the whole camp knew it. Margie had gone on the public-address system, played the tape from Marshal Pontrefact, and broken the news of the disaster and the truce. She had called a general meeting for 0300 hours, about ninety minutes from then, and ordered Alexis Harcourt, the nearest thing they had left to an astronomer, to go over the data from the Greasies and report before that time. Then she turned to Danny Dalehouse and said, “I don’t have a bed anymore, but I need about an hour’s sleep real bad.”
“There’s a spare in my tent.”
“I was hoping you’d ask.” She peered up toward the sullen glow in the clouds where Kung was hiding and shook her head. “It’s been a son of a bitch of a day,” she said as they picked their way toward the tent row. “And it’s not over yet. Know what I’m going to do at the meeting?”