“I haven’t mentioned anything yet,” Stirling pointed out drily, then brought the conversation back to the point which interested him most.
“If Melissa has such a high opinion of herself, why does she let Johnny order her around so much?”
Biquard looked knowing. “The judge is a sick man. Melissa’s scared to kick up too much fuss in case Jaycee turns real nasty and frightens the old man to death. And mebby she don’t want to put Jaycee right off her. When the Judge goes, there’s going to be a big rush for that dame. She’d be better off with Jaycee than with some of the cave men we have around here, even if he does play it a bit rough at times.”
When they had finished eating, Stirling and Biquard began walking north along the margin, but skirted the fertilizer pits and raised tanks of water and agricultural chemicals. Twice they had to get out of the way as the big robots trundled clear of the soil beds to let their arms and hoses scoop up supplies. A complex of metal tracks ran the length of the margin at right angles to the main rails. This enabled the robots to be diverted to other strips. Here and there stood bright red scarecrows, all identical to the one which had gone for Stirling on his arrival in the transit area. With their heat-sensitive receptors deactivated, the lurid machines stood quietly in the morning sunlight, their multiple arms hanging at their sides. It occurred to Stirling that some of the rebels must have a fair amount of electronic knowledge.
On the way north, finding Biquard still in the mood to talk, he returned to the subject of Melissa Latham and Johnny. As near as he could determine it from the other man’s deliberately oblique answers, the situation on the He was that most of the villagers had acquiesced to Johnny’s abrupt take-over. It made little difference to them whether their infrequent orders came from Judge Latham or Jaycee, as long as they had enough time between jobs to sit about and drink their homemade liquor. But there was a sizable group which had objected to Jaycee and the men he had chosen as his Council. Stirling got the impression that, while Johnny had become an enthusiastic proponent of power politics in his microcosm, he would find “marriage” to Melissa a valuable asset.
For perhaps the thousandth time since his arrival on the Be, he marveled at its self-contained, clinical demonstration of man’s inability to live in any sort of a community without someone claiming the right to be in command. Or, perhaps, Johnny had no positive desire to give orders, just the need to escape receiving them. If Judge Latham had not “assessed” him, things might have turned out differently. As Johnny had said, other people had been assessing him all his life and coming up with the wrong answers. Stirling made up his mind on the spur of the moment that, when he got back down on the ground, he would keep quiet about the rebel colony. He could claim he had taken the trip as a stunt, which would make some excellent news copy. And it would, too, if the F.T.A. ever let it get into print.
As they walked, Stirling took every opportunity to step up onto tank support structures and look along the varicolored strips tapering away into the distance, like threads gathered into perspective’s fist. Gradually, the shimmering, white oblong of the lie’s central power station moved across his field of vision until he judged he was right on the longitudinal axis.
Biquard had set a cracking five miles an hour for the walk and had grown used to his companion constantly lagging behind. Stirling unhitched the coil of high-tensile plastic which had been provided for lashing anything the scavenging expedition produced. He closed the gap between himself and Biquard, and got ready to loop the coil over Biquard’s head and shoulders, then regretfully decided it could be too risky. The rangy oldster moved as though he was powered by steel springs; and, if he got the chance to ran, Stirling would never catch him. There was too much at stake.
Stirling got in close, chopped downwards behind Biquard’s ear, and sent him down on one knee. He threw the rope around Biquard’s arms and a second later found himself struggling with a sinewy ball of fury—like a trout angler who had hooked a shark.
“I’m sorry, Pete,” Stirling grunted. “I was trying to avoid this.” He punched Biquard under the ribs, this time putting his full weight into it. A full two minutes went by before Biquard’s eyes began to open, and by then Stirling had trussed him securely. He dragged the older man into the shadow of a tank and made him as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
“You’re a fool,” Biquard wheezed. “Nobody has ever made it. And you won’t.”
“Only one way to find out, Pete. I’m sorry about hitting you. Tell Jaycee I’m not going to give away any secrets down below.”
“You bet you ain’t. There’s a …”
Stirling ran across the lateral tracks and plunged into a green alley of bean plants, which immediately shut out most of the mid-morning light. He kept up his speed for several hundred yards, then realized he was likely to sprain an ankle on the closely spaced rails. Giving in to the fact that he was not built for long-distance running anyway, he slowed down to a fast walk, occasionally stumbling as he misjudged the interval between the sleepers.
At first a fierce sense of urgency drove him on, but the minutes stretched out in safety. By the time he had been traveling through the green blankets of summer silence for half an hour, he began to relax a little. After another thirty minutes he climbed up to soil bed level and took his bearings. The power station marking the He’s central point was only a little over a mile ahead and slightly to his right. Behind him, Heaven’s broad acres slumbered in utter peace. Even the random, yellow flecks of the robots seemed to be at rest.
Stirling kept his elation in check until he had passed the featureless block of the power station; then he began to grin furiously as he struggled to maintain speed. He did not know how many villagers would be traveling the eastern margin; but even if they had found Biquard almost right away, it would have taken them some time to organize a pursuit party. A group would be necessary because Stirling felt adrenalin boost his muscle power—having got this far, he was not going to be stopped by one, two or three men.
He became aware of the rail beneath his left foot thrumming slightly; it meant a robot was approaching from the direction of the transit area. Stirling kept a wary eye ahead and saw the massive yellow structure in good time. Feeling pleased with his newly acquired expertise in the ways of Heaven, he climbed into the soil bed on his right and nestled down into the cool green stalks. The robot swept by, its turret hanging impassively from the hundred-foot beam, and disappeared to the east, moving at a ponderous fifty miles an hour. He remembered with a feather-flick of unease that the only other time he had seen a robot do its maximum speed was on his first eventful day, but he was unable to pin down any reason why some part of his mind should feel alarm over the fact. The halfway mark was well behind him now, and he was moving as fast as when he had set out.
Ten minutes later he passed the robot tending the strip to his right. The spider legs moved listlessly below its turret and hissed chemicals into their submissive charges while the servos hummed faintly in the downy air. By the time the robot had dwindled out of sight in the leafy vee behind him, Stirling was beginning to tire. He had covered upwards of fourteen miles since leaving the village—most of them under difficult walking conditions, and his thighs were protesting at each step. But this was the last lap, and the structures of the transit area would soon be looming up, hi front. Once he got in view of the monitor cameras, Johnny and the others would have to let him go down and take their chance on his keeping silent. He began to think about the He in past tense. Heaven! Stirling found it almost impossible to make his mind bridge the gap between the fairy tale vision of his childhood and the hard, practical reality. Think of it this way. You ‘re not gaining a father, but losing a brother. Yet, the excursion had paid off in some respects. The discovery that he was not his brother’s keeper had been an important one. All his life he had been climbing a long, steep hill; then someone had told him there was no need, that he should turn back; now he was running downhill, traveling fast and free.