David nodded, his eyes bright again. “It might work. It might at least clear the air. All we’ve got to do is make them sit across the table from each other and talk. And that’s all it would take. Just one hour of straight talk—” He glanced down at Tuck’s legs. “How are they feeling?”
“Warmed up now.”
“Good. Let’s give this buggy a trial.”
They climbed out in the dimming light, and worked feverishly. After interminable minutes, Tuck got the last wire in place. He looked at it critically, finding no fault, then waved at David. “I think it’s ready on this end.”
David drove the final rivet, and nodded, eying the narrow gully into which the ship was nosing. It was strewn with boulders and jagged rocks. Tuck jerked a thumb at the half-track. “Why don’t we bulldoze a take-off path?”
Together they searched for a large stone with a flat side, and brought the ’track over to it; in a few moments they had it chained securely to the front of the machine, and started the half-track moving down the gully with the rock as a bulldozer blade, shoving rocks and debris to either side with an incredible crashing and flying of rock and snow. The half-track engine whined and roared like a tormented thing, bucking and heaving against the load of rock, but finally they had left behind them a fairly level path, and David studied it, and nodded with satisfaction. “That should do it, if the jet holds, and doesn’t warp too much. You stay in the ’track and be ready to duck if I start to spin.”
Slowly David clambered into the cockpit of the Snooper, pulling the patched hood down over his head. Tuck moved back, suddenly tense. He watched with his heart in his throat as the whining sound of the priming engines suddenly began, muffled, as though far in the distance. For almost five minutes the whine remained steady, then suddenly revved up to the familiar earsplitting squeal of the jet motor. If only nothing went wrong! Deep in his heart, Tuck longed to sit at the controls of that little ship, to head out from the colony, flying low, with telescopic scanner searching out and exploring every crack and crevice. He would have to wait until David offered him the controls, but he could almost feel them in his hands, almost feel the nose of the ship lift, slick as a whistle, sliding up into the dark blue sky—
The jets coughed blue flame, then settled down to a steady pencil-thin streak, so hot Tuck could almost imagine it scorching his eyebrows. With a sudden thrust the little ship jerked, then began sliding down the bulldozed trough, riding the skids smoothly, faster and faster. And then, like magic, it rose in a burst of speed, the nose lifted, and the ship skimmed off the ground, up and up in a slightly weaving course; in an instant it was clear, skimming into the air like a graceful bird, moving up in a wide arc, curving back down overhead with a squeal of thunder, and off again like lightning in the direction of the colony.
Tuck waited, his heart pounding with excitement. It worked! A little unsteady, a lot that should be done before it was used for an extensive flight, but it was flying! He leaned back in the half-track seat, waiting impatiently for David to return. The minutes ticked by—five, ten. He shifted in the seat, peering anxiously at the rapidly darkening horizon, a flicker of fear in his mind. Fifteen minutes—and then the ship squealed back overhead again, and slid down in a long arc to land on a level stretch beyond the rocks, just as the sun fell beneath the horizon. The pale light of Saturn threw the rocks into weird relief; Tuck snapped on the emergency lamp, swung it along the dark ground until it picked up David hurrying across the jagged rocks on foot. But it wasn’t until David was actually climbing up into the ’track that Tuck saw the paleness of his face, the worried wrinkles around his eyes.
David slammed down the hood and sealed it without a word, revving the engine at the same time. Then he said, “Better hold on tight, my friend. We’re going to run for it—”
Alarm exploded in Tuck’s mind. “What’s wrong?”
“Something inside the dome. It looks like the whole colony is assembling in the main hall—”
“Cortell?”
David nodded grimly, and the half-track started with a jerk. “I don’t like it. I could see the people coming up to the hall—and they didn’t look very peaceful—”
Chapter 11
The Ultimatum
The trip back to the colony was a nightmare that Tuck was to remember as long as he lived. The darkness settled like a cloak, blacking out the sky more and more as the glowing, ringed planet that hung in the sky sank farther and farther toward the horizon, throwing a weird, deceptive gloom over the path. The emergency lamp flickered and blinked, hiding the deep crevices in a limbo of shadow and half-light, turning the rocks into indistinguishable black blobs that suddenly resolved into light and shadow only when the half-track was upon them. They tried to follow their tracks; David huddled grimly over the steering bar, panting and struggling, twisting it as the car lurched and shuddered. Once they struck a huge boulder with an earsplitting crash, and a shower of rocks and boulders hailed down on the plastic top. A little later the caterpillar tracks slipped on a steep, angled grade, and the ’track slid crashing down into a crevice, lodging tight at a ridiculous angle. David threw the engine into four-wheel drive; the soft pillow wheels in front spun as though embedded in thick jelly, until the ’track lurched, and lurched, and finally gave the caterpillars some traction, and the car lumbered out. Not a word was exchanged between the boys; David fought the bar in a frenzy of silent desperation, and Tuck gripped the safety bar for dear life, trying to protect his head from banging on the overhead or the front panel. He felt numb; he tried to think of what David had said, but his thoughts were incoherent. A meeting at the colony could mean a dozen things, a hundred things. What if Cortell had called a convention? The men were angry, excited—could there be a mob meeting to break Anson Torm’s power, for the last crushing blow? Or could it be an attack on the Colonel, turned upon him when he was helpless and alone in the colony? It didn’t make sense, nothing made sense as Tuck held on tightly in the lurching vehicle, and he just sat, praying that the half-track would not get stuck somewhere on the way—
It seemed hours before they mounted the final rise and started down the valley toward the colony. The lights were bright; the bubble gleamed like a magic thing in the blackness, but when they reached the lock, a single man was the only human being in sight. The man admitted them, thrusting his thumb over his shoulder. “Better step on it,” he shouted as the boys climbed out. “Down in the hall—there’s a general colony meeting going on—”
“Who called it?”
“Petition. Two hundred signatures. And it sounds like it’s hot as ore slag—”
“Who was pushing the petition?” David struggled out of his pressure suit, panting, his face white.
“Well, it wasn’t your father, you can bet on that. Cortell has been out of hiding, down in the mines—him and some of his men. Been going through the mines all day, whipping the men up until they re fighting mad.” The guard gave Tuck Benedict a black look from the corner of his eyes, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “He’s been telling them that Anson’s made a dirty deal with that Earthman—”
David’s face whitened, and he started at a run for the hall, Tuck close at his heels. The colony was deserted; every cabin was empty, the lights burning stark in the gloom; the porch of the trading post was empty. Down the road two children were wandering, hand in hand, whimpering, and somewhere far away, Tuck heard a baby squalling, a tiny, helpless, lonely voice shrilling in the darkness. The boys reached the stairs and plunged down, and then at the bottom they stopped and wormed their way into the crowd of excited people. The meeting was in progress.