She leaned over to kiss him afresh. When he could talk again, he said: “You see, machinery and engineers are scarce. The Smithy itself has none too big a supply. Any day, someone else might’ve instigated a project which’d tie everything up for years to come. And in fact, if word should leak out that we lowlanders might seriously bid, why, then chances were that somebody else would tie the Smithy up, and invent a project afterward. Not to suppress us or anything, but because it’s true that profits are higher here than amongst us.
“It wouldn’t’ve mattered if you, under anesthesia or whatever, if you let slip that I was quietly prospecting. I knew there’d be suspicion of that in Anchor; and what the hell, plenty of people go on such ventures, even if not quite that far afield. This other thing, though, this real aim of mine—”
“I see, I see. And you did succeed? You’re a marvel.”
“According to Tom de Smet, I’m a bastard.” He grinned. “Then after we’d talked awhile, he said I was a damn fine bastard who he was proud to call a friend, and we shook on it and have a date later today to go out and get roaring drunk.”
Puzzlement darkened her eyes. “What do you mean, Dan? First you talk about prospecting, but evidently you didn’t find your mine. Then you talk about getting this contract that you were actually after all the while. Didn’t you simply, finally, persuade Tom to give it to you?”
He shook his head. “No. I tried and tried, for lunations, and he wouldn’t agree. I grew sure he wanted to, down inside. But his silly social economic conscience insisted he stick by the dictates of economic theory. In the end, I told him I knew I’d gotten to be a bore on the subject, and I’d dog my hatch, and why not go fishing?”
“And—” she said like a word of love.
“This is a secret you and I take to our graves with us. Promise? Fine, your nod is worth more than most people’s oaths.
“I took him to a mother lode of gold I’d found on land of his. I explained that I hated, the same as him, how a gold rush would destroy the wilderness, let alone the currency, and draw effort away from things more useful. But I had a duty to my own community, I said, to my friends who’d asked me to speak for them. I offered my silence, and my fellow prospectors’—I’d picked them very carefully—I offered him that in return for his contract with us. We could write that in, as a provision not made public unless our blabbing gave him cause to cancel the deal. Take it or leave it, I said. A fair exchange is no robbery.
“He took it, and I really am convinced he was personally glad to have that excuse for helping us. Say, how about letting him and Jane foster Charlie? They’re more than willing.”
“Dan, Dan, Dan! Come here—”
He knelt by the bed and they held each other for a long while.
Eventually, calmed a little, he took his chair and she lowered herself back onto her pillows. Eyes remained with eyes.
One of hers closed in a wink. “You don’t fool me, Dan Coffin,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“That act of yours. The simple, hearty rural squire. Nobody gets to lead as many people as you do without being bloody damn shrewd.”
“Well….” He looked a trifle smug.
“My love,” she said, barely audible, “this may be the first time in history that anyone salted a mine which the victim already owned.”
“I have my contract, which Tom de Smet will honor in word and spirit both. Further than that, deponent saith not.”
Eva cocked her head. “Have you considered, Dan, that the possibility may have occurred to Tom, and he decided not to check the facts too closely?”
“Huh?” Seldom before had she seen or enjoyed seeing her husband rocked back hard.
But when at last he left her—for a while, only a while—he walked again like a young buccaneer. The wind outside had strengthened, a trumpet voice beneath heaven, and every autumn leaf was a banner flying in challenge.
TO PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE
The Constitutional Convention had recessed for the midwinter holidays, and Daniel Coffin returned to his house at Lake Moondance. In this part of the lowlands the season brought roaring, chill rains, winds which streaked along mountains to make forests creak and sough, dazzlements of light and hasty shadow as the cloud deck swirled apart, re-formed, and broke open again upon sun, moons, or stars. To travel by aircar was not predictably safe; thus custom was for folk to stay home, visit only near neighbors, in revelry draw closer to their kindred.
Last year he had not done so, but had been the guest of Tom and Jane de Smet in Anchor. His place had felt too big and hollow, and at the same time too full of ghosts. Soon afterward, though, his eldest granddaughter Teresa and her husband Leo Svoboda had suggested they move in with him. It was partly kindness to an old man they loved; their dwelling was no mansion like his, but it was comfortable and they were prospering. Yet there were enough mutual practical advantages—such as centralizing control over the vast family holdings, now that improved transportation made it possible—that they were not offending him with charity. He was glad to agree.
Pioneers marry young. However well tamed this region might be, the frontier was not far off, that entire planet which beckoned every lowlander on Rustum. Leo and Teresa already had two children, and a third on the way. Again the house resounded to joyous voices, again the lawns knew fleet little bodies of his own blood; and Daniel Coffin regained the happiness which is peace.
Today his household had been trimming the tree. Afterward he felt tired. He wasn’t played out, he knew. His hair might be thin and white, the broad face seamed, but his eyes needed no contacts, his stocky frame was erect as ever, and he could walk many a man half his age into the ground. Still, he had overdone it a trifle in romping with the kids. A quiet couple of hours before dinner would let him take full part in its ceremonies and cheer.
He passed slowly through rooms and halls. Much of their serene proportions, blue-gray plastering, gleaming-grained wood floors, furniture and fireplaces, had grown beneath his hands; much of the drapery was Eva’s work. Later, when the plantation commanded a large staff and most of their attention, they had hired professionals to enlarge the building. But the heart of it, he thought, would always be the heart that Eva and he had shared.
Upstairs was their suite, bedchamber, bath, and a separate study for each. At first, after she died, he had wanted to close hers off, or make a kind of shrine of it. Later he came to understand how she would have scorned that, she who always looked outward and lived in the overflowingness of tomorrow. He gave it to Teresa for her use and she could make whatever changes she wished.
His private room stayed as it had been, big desk, big leather armchair, walls lined with books as well as microtapes, book publishing having become a flourishing luxury industry well before anyone might have expected it to on an isolated colony world. French doors gave on a balcony. The panes were full of rain, wind hooted, lightning flared, thunder made drumfire which shuddered in the walls. He could barely see down a sweep of grass, trees, flowerbed-bordered paths to the great lake. Waves ran furious over its iron hue. Besides the storm, Raksh was at closest approach, raising tides across the tides of the sun.
The apartment was gloomy and a touch cold. He switched on the heater and a single fluoropanel, put Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg on the player, poured himself a small whisky and settled down with his pipe and the Federalist Papers.
My duty to reread them, if we’re trying to work out a government which’ll stay libertarian, now that population’s reached the point where Rustum needs more than a mayor and council in Anchor, he thought; then chuckling: Duty, hell! I enjoy the style. They could write in those days.