The Colonel’s face was grave. “Oh, not had news, exactly. Maybe you’d call it disappointing news, is all. I’m not home to stay, son. Not even for a week or so. And I can’t take in the Exhibition with you. I’m leaving on assignment day after tomorrow, and I may not be back for a long, long time—”
Tuck’s eyes grew wide. “But, Dad! They promised you a rest when you got through on Mars! You know they did—”
“I know, but trouble doesn’t wait for people to rest. If trouble comes up, someone has to take care of it, and the Security Commission thinks I’m the one to handle this. For that matter, that’s why the Mars job was finished so quickly. Major Cormack came out to relieve me. There’s more important trouble elsewhere that needs attention.”
Tucks face was stricken. “But where?”
The Colonel hesitated for a moment. Then he said: “On Titan.”
Tuck let his spoon drop, staring at his father in disbelief. “On Titan! Why, that’s clear out to Saturn! Dad, you can’t let them send you clear out there—there’s nothing out there but one little colony and a half a dozen mines—”
“They’re important mines, son.”
“How could six lousy mines be so important?”
Colonel Benedict looked at his son for a moment without answering. Then he took a small instrument from his pocket, an old, beaten-up pocket flashlight, pencil-thin, with the bulb shining bravely across the table. “See this? Just a pocket flashlight, the sort that everyone has. As simple a mechanism as you could hope to find, a single bulb and a converter unit. And those lights up there in the ceiling, the bright lights that light the streets—all of them have converter units like this flashlight, drawing their power from the Solar Energy Converters out on Long Island, All the electrical power on the globe, all the heat, all the machinery, all the cars—they all depend on their converter units. Simple power, practically cost-free, power so abundant that the people on Earth can live in luxury. And it’s all possible because someone found a way to convert the heat and light of the sun into power to make the world go around—”
“But what does that have to do with your going to Titan?” Tuck protested.
The Colonel pointed to the flashlight again. “In that converter unit there’s a tiny piece of ruthenium—element number 44, just a little dab of gray metal of the same family as iron and osmium—but an important little dab of metal. It catalyzes the conversion reaction that feeds power to the light. Destroy the ruthenium, and there’s no longer any light, no power, no heat. Our whole power supply, our whole civilized world depends on a steady supply of ruthenium.” The Colonel looked up at Tuck. “That’s what those mines on Titan supply—ruthenium. They take huge quantities of the ore from those mines, and drag out of it tiny amounts of ruthenium. If anything happened to those mines, our entire power supply would collapse. And there’s trouble on Titan, trouble in the mines. There’s been a great deal of bitterness out there, nasty talk about revolt—oh, nothing that can’t be straightened out with a little diplomacy, but it can’t wait. It must be done at once, before something really bad breaks loose. That’s why the Commission relieved me on Mars.”
Tuck’s eyes were wide. “But the people who run those mines, Dad—they’re convicts, rebels. They can’t expect you to go out to such a hole!”
“But they do. I’m to leave in two days. I may not be back for years—” The Colonel fumbled for his pipe, his face very tired.
Tuck watched him for a moment. Then he said, “There was something else—in the taxi, something about the letter.”
The Colonel nodded. Carefully, he opened Tuck’s acceptance letter, flattened it out on the table. “Yes, I hadn’t known about this. When they told me about this mission, I didn’t mind the idea of going so very far away, at least not too much—” His eyes caught Tuck’s, held them fast. Somewhere a waiter dropped a glass, and the silence clung like a thick, depressing fog. “You see, I was counting on you to go with me.”
Chapter 2
The Letter
There was utter silence for the length of a long breath. The Colonel quietly lighted his pipe with trembling fingers, his eyes avoiding Tucks. Tuck sat motionless, staring at the sheet of paper on the table top. When he finally spoke, his words caught in his throat. “I—I can’t go, Dad. I just can’t.”
“I know. I couldn’t expect you to, not with a chance like this before you.”
“Oh, they might give me a leave of absence, but—” Tuck shook his head miserably. “If there were anything out there, I could see going—if there were anything at all. But there’s nothing—”
“That’s right. Nothing but a cramped, dirty, sealed-in colony, and a few dozen mining tunnels.”
“And the colonists—I’ve heard about them, Dad. There isn’t a soul on Titan worth paying a credit for. They’re troublemakers and traitors, the scum of the Solar System. Why, every other year they have to send a patrol ship out there to put down some sort of trouble. They’re not worth it, Dad, living like animals out there—why, they’re hardly human any more. They can’t be trusted, they’re selfish and treacherous—”
“But they keep the mines going,” the Colonel interposed quietly, “and I have to see that nothing interferes with the mining. If they want to brawl among themselves, that’s up to them. But the mines must keep going.”
“Just what kind of ‘trouble’ is there?”
“Nothing that could be very dangerous. A few missing supplies to trace down, a few unpleasant rumors to confirm or disprove. I might not have to stay more than a few weeks, just long enough to get a good picture of conditions out there to report to the Commission.
Tuck frowned in exasperation. “But aren’t there troops out there who can make such a report?”
The Colonel spread his hands. “Not any more. The colonists made it impossible for troops to stay. The last garrison was recalled five years ago.”
Tuck lapsed into silence. Somehow, he had known all along that it had been too much to hope for. So much happiness and excitement—something had to be wrong. And he knew that his dream of the old life with dad was only a dream. Slowly he looked up at his fathers grave face. “I know you want me to go, Dad. But I can’t. It would mean postponing the scholarship, maybe losing the chance. I just can’t do it. Can you see that?”
“Yes, I can see it.” The Colonel knocked out his pipe, a smile crossing his tired face. “I wouldn’t expect you to feel otherwise. And after all, I’ll be home again—sometime.”
Quite suddenly a waitress appeared at the table with a telephone.
“Call for you, Colonel. Will you take it here?”
Colonel Benedict nodded gloomily, and took the receiver. “Benedict speaking—oh, yes, Mac—yes—tonight! No, that’s impossible. My boy just arrived from L.A.—yes, yes, I know, they should have had the figures this morning—” The Colonel’s face went white, and he slowly set his pipe down on the table. “They couldn’t be right—but it’s idiotic—” He waited a long moment as the voice on the line talked rapidly. Then he said, “All right, I’ll be right over. Get the figures together, and get the man who analyzed them down there. See you.”
He slapped the receiver down with a bang. “Looks like I can’t even have an evening off. Funny figures came in on the Titan supply study, and I’ll have to be down at the Commission for a couple of hours.” He rose and pulled on his jacket, his face heavy with worry. “Come on, son—I’ll put you on a car.”