Marjorie and the boys, lying sick month after month, dying one after the other in a cancerous agony while he stood by helplessly in the ruins of what had been their home.
No! His mind warned him. Don’t think of that. Not that. Think of Jason, Jason who prevents you from doing the one thing you want, who is taking your life from you; Jason, the peerless leader; Jason, who’s afraid of the cities. Why? Why is he afraid of the cities? That’s the hub of everything down there. Why does Jason fear the cities?
It wasn’t until he finished connecting the satellite’s last unit—the sighting mechanism—that Tom realized the answer.
One answer. And everything fell into place.
Everything … except what Tom Morris was going to do about it.
Tom squinted through the twin telescopes of the sighting mechanism again, then pushed away and floated free, staring at the Earth bathed in pale moonlight.
What do I do now? For an instant he was close to panic, but he forced it down. Think, he said to himself. You’re supposed to be a Homo Sapiens … use that brain. Think!
The long night ended. The sun swung around from behind the bulk of Earth. Tom looked at it as he felt its warmth penetrating the insulated suit, and he knew it was the last time he would see the sun. He felt no more anger—even his hatred of Jason was drained out of him now. In its place was a sense of—finality.
He spoke into his helmet mike. «Jason.»
«He is in conference with the astronomers.» Dr. Arnoldsson’s voice.
«Get him for me, please.»
A few minutes of silence, broken only by the star-whisperings in his earphones.
Jason’s voice was carefully modulated. «Tom, you made it.»
«I made it. And the satellite’s finished.»
«It’s finished? Good! Now, what we have to do—»
«Wait,» Tom interrupted. «It’s finished but it’s useless.»
«What?»
Tom twisted around to look at the completed satellite, its oddly-angled framework and bulbous machinery glinting fiercely in the newly-risen sun. «After I finished it I looked through the sighting mechanism to make certain the satellite’s transmitters were correctly aimed at the settlement. Nobody told me to, but nobody said not to, either, so I looked. It’s a simple mechanism… The transmitters are pointed smack in the middle of Hudson’s Bay.»
«You’re sure?»
«Certainly.»
«You can rotate the antennas.»
«I know. I tried it. I can turn them as far south as the Great Lakes.»
A long pause.
«I was afraid of this,» Jason’s voice said evenly. I’ll bet you were, Tom answered to himself.
«You must have moved the satellite out of position while assembling its components.»
«So my work here comes to nothing because the satellite’s power beam can’t reach the settlement’s receivers.»
«Not … not unless you use the ship … to tow the satellite into the proper orbital position,» Jason stammered.
You actually went through with it, Tom thought. Aloud, he said, «But if I use the ship’s engine to tow the satellite, I won’t have enough fuel left to get back to Earth, will I?» Not to mention oxygen.
A longer pause. «No.»
«I have two questions, Jason. I think I know the answers to them both but I’ll ask you anyway. One. You knew this would happen, didn’t you?»
«What do you mean?»
«You’ve calculated this insane business down to the last drop of sweat,» Tom growled. «You knew that I’d knock the satellite out of position while I was working on it, and the only way to get it back in the right orbit would be for me to tow it back and strand myself up here. This is a suicide mission, isn’t it, Jason?»
«That’s not true…»
«Don’t bother defending yourself. I don’t hate you anymore, Jason, I understand you, dammit. You made our deal as much to get rid of me as to get your precious satellite put together.»
«No one can force you to tow the satellite …»
«Sure, I can leave it where it is and come back home. If I can fly this ship, which I doubt. And what would I come back to? I left a world without power. I’d return to a world without hope. And some dark night one of your disappointed young goons would catch up with me … and no one would blame him, would they?»
Jason’s voice was brittle. «You’ll tow it into position?»
«After you answer my second question,» Tom countered. «Why are you afraid of the cities?»
«Afraid? I’m not afraid.»
«Yes, you are. Oh, you could use the hope of exploring the cities to lure me up here on this suicide job, but you knew I’d never be back to claim my half of the bargain. You’re afraid of the cities, and I think I know why. You’re afraid of the unknown quantity they represent, distrustful of your own leadership when new problems arise …»
«We’ve worked for more than ten years to make this settlement what it is,» Jason fumed. «We fought and died to keep those marauding lunatics from wrecking us. We are mankind’s last hope! We can’t afford to let others in … they’re not scientists, they wouldn’t understand, they’d ruin everything.»
«Mankind’s last hope, terrified of men.» Tom was suddenly tired, weary of the whole struggle. But there was something he had to tell them.
«Listen, Jason,» he said. «The walls you’ve built around the settlement weren’t meant to keep you from going outside. You’re not a self-sufficient little community. You’re cut off from mankind’s memory, from his dreams, from his ambitions. You can’t even start to rebuild a civilization—and if you do try, don’t you think the people outside will learn about it? Don’t you think they’ve got a right to share in whatever progress the settlement makes? And if you don’t let them, don’t you realize that they’ll destroy the settlement?»
Silence.
«I’m a historian,» Tom continued, «and I know that a civilization can’t exist in a vacuum. If outsiders don’t conquer it, it’ll rot from within. It’s happened to Babylonia, Greece, Rome, China even. Over and over again. The Soviets built an Iron Curtain around themselves, and wiped themselves out because of it. Don’t you see, Jason? There are only two types of animals on this planet: the gamblers and the extinct. It won’t be easy to live with the outsiders, there’ll be problems of every type. But the alternative is decay and destruction. You’ve got to take the chance, if you don’t, you’re dead.»
A long silence. Finally Jason said, «You’ve only got about a half-hour’s worth of oxygen left. Will you tow the satellite into the proper position?»
Tom stared at the planet unseeingly. «Yes,» he mumbled. «I’ll have to check some calculations with the astronomers.»
Jason’s voice buzzed flatly in his earphones. A background murmur, scarcely audible over the crackling static.
Then Ruth’s voice broke through, «Tom, Tom, you can’t do this! You won’t be able to get back!»
«I know,» he said, as he started pulling his way along the lifeline back to the ship.
«No! Come back, Tom, please. Come back. Forget the satellite. Come back and explore the cities. I’ll go with you. Please. Don’t die, Tom, please don’t die …»
«Ruth, Ruth, you’re too young to cry over me. I’ll be all right, don’t worry.»
«No, it isn’t fair.»
«It never is,» Tom said. «Listen, Ruth. I’ve been dead a long time. Since the bombs fell, I guess. My world died then and I died with it. When I came to the settlement, when I agreed to make this flight, I think we all knew I’d never return, even if we wouldn’t admit it to ourselves. But I’m just one man, Ruth, one small part of the story. The story goes on, with or without me. There’s tomorrow … your tomorrow. I’ve got no place in it, but it belongs to you. So don’t waste your time crying over a man who died eighteen years ago.»