Torm snorted. “Co-operation! The Earth doesn’t want co-operation, the Earth wants slaves! We’ve cooperated to the limit, and we’ve been slapped in the face every time. We’ve dealt squarely with Earth, and they’ve cheated us and betrayed us and degraded us—”
“And I suppose that these smuggled supplies are part of your policy of dealing squarely with Earth?”
Torm’s face was white. “You’ve been given the wrong information about our supplies. That’s all I can say.” He swung the wheel of the half-track sharply to avoid a huge rock, and the car shook as if every bolt were about to fall loose.
The Colonel’s eyes were dark. “I’m afraid that answer won’t do this time, Torm. Security made the investigation this time, in duplicate—two separate groups working independently, checking shipping orders, receipts, invoices; checking rocket schedules and loading lists and everything else. They both came up with the same results. Oh, the shipping was well concealed—changing suppliers every couple of years, filling duplicate orders—always above quota, extra supplies. No colony in the Universe would need the supplies this colony has been piling in for the last hundred years—”
Torm looked straight at Colonel Benedict, and his face was grave. “But I tell you in all truth that we’ve received nothing in this colony that we don’t need—for survival.”
“You mean you need food enough to feed twice your population?” the Colonel snapped. “What are you doing to that food? Are you trying to tell me that just working these mines requires almost double the normal food supply?”
“I repeat—we have received nothing that we don’t need—for survival.” It seemed to Tuck that the colony leader placed an emphasis on the last two words. “And you must remember that the men are working, they spend their days in physical labor, they need more food than the average Earthman. And you aren’t dealing with the same conditions here as on Earth. We have atmosphere leaks to plague us, we have contamination problems. When food gets contaminated with some of the natural bacterial flora here, or when our hydroponics are thrown out of balance by natural fungi, we can’t take any chances. We have to throw out all we have that may have been contaminated, or run the risk of a plague, or of no oxygen to breathe—”
“And I suppose your people eat metal, Mr. Torm? I suppose they eat tool steel? Or does the strange Titan atmosphere make your tools and machinery more prone to breakage?”
The colony leader gripped the steering bar heavily, not even answering. The half-track reached the top of the grade, and for a brief moment they could see the colony, far ahead, a small, grayish, glass-like bubble, sitting down in a valley between two long lines of jagged peaks. Tuck stared, open-mouthed at the picture, until the half-track went over the ridge and started bumping and jogging down the other side, down a sharp ravine of jagged rock. Torm picked his way carefully, partly following the path that had been worn by generations of supply trains crossing the rocks to the colony, partly moving aside from the path to avoid boulders of black rock which had fallen onto the path from the vibrations. The whole landscape had a strange, uncertain appearance; the rocks did not look stable, they did not appear solid and timeless like the jutting slabs of rock Tuck had seen during his summer climbing adventures in the Rocky Mountains on Earth. These rocks looked sharp, precariously balanced; they jutted up stark and barren, leaning crazily, looking for all the world as if they had been dropped there, quite suddenly, by some celestial hand, and then stopped in motion before they had a chance to roll. The half-track struck one of the boulders near the path a glancing blow, and then Torm slammed on the brakes as the boulder went crashing down the slope before them, bouncing like a huge, crazy black ball until it struck the bottom, bringing down a shower of pebbles and debris after it. Without a word Torm started the machine again, lumbering carefully down the slope. About a mile ahead was a narrow cleft or gorge between two cliffs; the half-track rumbled toward it.
Then, quite suddenly, the men heard an unearthly screech in their ears, and the little jet plane zoomed in close over them, turned a flip, and zoomed back, still closer. The Colonel stared at the plane as it skimmed over, not twenty feet above them, and then turned to Torm in alarm. “What was that?”
Torm frowned, staring through the plexiglass panel at the little plane as it made a graceful arc in the sky, and raced down in front of them, zigzagging across their path. “That’s odd,” he said. “That’s my son’s ship. An old lifeboat he begged off one of the supply ships and rebuilt for an exploring scooter. But I don’t know what he’s trying to do—”
The ship was indeed behaving most oddly. It swooped down swiftly, coming so close that the men in the half-track gripped their supports, half-expecting it to crash into their top; then it whizzed over and sped for a hundred yards or so down along the valley floor before them, zigzagging across their path as before. The huge cleft between the cliffs ahead was closer now, and the half-track lumbered along the path, with the little jet doing its strange maneuverings ahead of them as they went.
“What is he trying to do—signal us?” The Colonel was half out of his seat as the plane zoomed overhead again.
Torm shook his head. “I—I don’t think so. He’d drop a flare if he wanted us to stop—”
“Well, he’s going to kill us—look at that!” The plane almost struck the valley floor that time. Torm’s breath hissed between his teeth, and his foot slammed down on the brake as the little jet plunged down to what appeared almost certain disaster; then, quite suddenly, it lifted itself again, and zipped up high through the gorge ahead. Torm muttered something under his breath, his face dark. “He’s crazy!” the Colonel breathed. “He’s up to something.” Torm shook his head again as the half-track skidded down a bank toward the gorge. “He’s a skillful flier, but he knows better than that.”
“But what—” The plane had circled around and made another run through the cleft, somewhat lower, and on less of an angle than the first.
Tuck had been staring at the plane silently for several minutes. “Looks to me like he’s scouting the path for us!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Didn’t you see that? He’s cutting in as low as he dares, and zigzagging along the floor—”
“But that’s ridiculous. There’s nothing—”
The Colonel leaned forward sharply. “Tuck’s right,” he said. “He is scouting—”
The little jet had just made another run through the cleft, not a hundred yards ahead of them, and started down into the valley below. Then, almost as an afterthought, David brought the ship up high, and raced over behind the half-track. With a whine the ship skimmed along the ravine, quite low, and then zoomed down until it almost touched the ground; suddenly it swung directly into the half-track’s path, and buzzed through the gorge ahead of them, not four feet off the ground—
And on the tail of the jet there was a blinding, purple flash, and a huge roar, and the entire gorge went up in a fury of purple fire and gray-white smoke. In horrible slow-motion, the cliffs on either side of the gorge crumbled from the concussion, heaping tons of rock down into the pathway, in the exact spot where the half-track would have been just a few minutes later. The concussion wave caught the jet as it zipped through, and the little plane went into a series of sickening rolls, then panned out and slid into a crash landing somewhere behind the pillar of fire and smoke that was rising from the gorge—