David Torm looked at him, and burst out laughing. “You look like you’ve swallowed a frog. What’s—
Tuck shook his head. “It’s—so different from what I expected—”
There was mischief in David’s eyes. “Not even one murder on the street so far, eh? No two-headed monsters—why, we didn’t even have our best family daggers out to eat breakfast with—”
Tuck flushed hotly and started to reply, then closed his mouth. “I don’t see what’s so funny,” he said. “But you’re surprised. What did you expect?”
“I—I don’t know. But not this” David Torm grinned. “Of course, we’re on our good behavior while you’re here. Normally we go around clawing at each other, and gnawing our food uncooked. And every night or so we have war dances and blood orgies, and plot attacks on Earth, and plan the huge massacres we’ll have when we get power enough to start a war with Earth—oh, don’t look so surprised! I know all about the stories they tell you. They sound a little silly to us, but we know about them—”
Tuck stared at him. “But—everybody on Earth knows those things are true. I’ve always heard them, since I was a very little boy—I never even thought about it—why should I have? If everybody accepted it—”
David’s face was heavy with disgust. “Well, I hate to upset all these years of nice careful teaching, but it just isn’t true. It’s a lie. And probably everything you’ve ever heard about us is a lie.”
“But why?”
“Fear. Figure it out for yourself. And then forget what you’ve been told about us, and give us a break, just once.”
Tuck’s face was horrified. “But they’ve done it so thoroughly—”
“I know. But they’ve forgotten one thing. We are human beings. And the result is an account of hatred among the colonists that goes four generations deep into our grain. Dad has been trying to cure that hatred before it’s too late. But dad can’t hold out much longer. If something doesn’t stop it, the Big Secret will be out of the bag—” David stopped short, hand to his lips, looking away quickly. “The Big Secret?”
David squirmed uncomfortably. “Nothing. Just an old colony folk tale about a last-ditch stand against Earthmen, if things ever came to a showdown.” Tuck’s eyes widened. “What kind of a showdown?” But David was no longer paying attention. His eyes were fixed down the road, watching something intently. “Hey!” said Tuck. “I said—”
“Quiet!” The word was a whispered command. David slid back against the wall of the building, motioning Tuck back—“What’s wrong?”
“Take a look—see the man in the green shirt?”
Tuck saw him. He was making his way stealthily along the road, looking to the right and left as he moved, like a cat, out from the protection of one cabin wall, quickly across to the next. He paused at a cabin door, rapped on it, and the boys could see him talking to the man inside, gesticulating rapidly. Then he was on to the cabin across the road—
“Who is it?”
“Johnny Taggart. The man who probably set the mine in Carter’s gorge. One of Cortell’s first lieutenants. He’s supposed to be confined to quarters, just like Cortell—”
“But what’s he doing out?”
“I don’t know. Something’s up—”
Several of the colonists were gathering at their doors, whispering, watching as the man hurried along. David touched Tuck’s arm. “Come on. There’s trouble—I’m sure of it. We’d better find dad and let him know. Follow me.”
The boys darted behind the building where they were standing, and then broke into a run into another street, back like the wind toward the barracks building. And then, suddenly, a siren sounded, high and biting in the quiet air of the dome. David’s eyes widened. “I told you something was up,” he panted. They ran pell-mell down a narrow alley-like road, then slowed up, making their way through the excited crowd that was gathered around the trading post. There was a buzz of conversation, and the boys broke through the crowd just as Anson Torm and the Colonel were coming out.
“What’s the trouble, Dad?” David panted. “A leak in the tunnels?”
Anson Torm’s face was gray. “Worse, I’m afraid. Come on over to the house.” The colony leader nodded to Ned Miller, who started shouting for order, standing up on the porch of the trading post as Torm and the Colonel and the two boys crossed the road to the Torm cabin. “John Cortell’s broken prison with his two top men. They’re at large somewhere in the colony, and they’ve got to be found, and fast,” Anson Torm said.
“But—why the alarm? The siren—”
“Because the word is around that Cortell is calling a showdown on me, because of the Colonel’s presence here. He thinks he’s strong enough to get a wholesale revolt organized, and to blow up the mines.” Torm’s voice was hollow, and his hands were trembling as he sank down in the chair by the table. “And I’m just afraid he might be able to swing it—”
Chapter 8
“That Man Is Dangerous—”
There were a dozen men gathered in the underground meeting room when Anson Torm and the Colonel arrived there with the two boys. Many of the men were blackened with the thick dust of the mining tunnels; apparently they had stopped work and come up to the hall as soon as the alarm was sounded. Torm nodded to the group, and sat down at the desk, his face drawn and white. “Now, then. Exactly what happened?” He looked at one of the men.
“Cortell’s a magician,” the man growled. “I can’t tell you what happened, Anson. I don’t know. I was on duty with Klane, guarding him in his cabin. I was inside and Klane was outside. Nobody had been near him, and he’d been at me all night with his abuse—he’s got a nasty tongue—and then, out of a clear blue sky, he had a gun on me. Forced me to distract Klane’s attention outside, and two others piled on him—and then they were gone.”
“He didn’t have a gun when you searched him before?”
“No, sir. He was clean as a whistle.”
Torm’s cold blue eyes flashed to another man. “The arsenal,” he said. “Did you check the arsenal?”
“Just got back. It’s been broken into.”
“How many guns gone?”
“Less than a dozen.”
“Good. Get the rest of the guns, and lock them in the safe down here, so there won’t be any more stolen. If we can keep weapons out of their hands—”
The arsenal guard was shaking his head. “You’d better let me have a couple of men to go with me,” he said dubiously.
Torm frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a nasty crowd at the arsenal. Rog Strang’s with them. They aren’t doing anything, but they’re with Cortell all the way. They could put up a fight—”
Torm stripped a small, unpleasant-looking automatic from his belt and tossed it to the guard. “Take Klane and Simpson with you, and get those guns down here!”