Orbitsville

fifteen

On his way to the airstrip Garamond was surprised to notice one of his crewmen wearing what could only be described as a coolie hat. He eyed the young man curiously, received a halfhearted salute, and decided the unusual headgear must be a personal souvenir of a tourist trip to the Orient. A minute later, while passing the workshop area, he saw two more men wearing similar hats, which he now realized were woven from fresh silver-green straw. The ancient peasant-styling, with all that it symbolized in Earth’s history, was repugnant to Garamond and he hoped it would not become a full-blown fad such as occasionally swept through the crew levels. When he reached the test site, the glinting of flat green triangles in the distance told him that coolie hats were being worn by at least half the men who were clearing grass at the far end of the airstrip.

Cliff Napier was waiting for him at the door to the operations shed, his shoulder-heavy bulk filling the entrance. “Morning, Vance. We’re nearly ready to fly.”

“Good.” Garamond eyed the first aircraft appraisingly then turned his gaze back along the strip. “It looks like a paddy field down there — why are the men wearing those sunhats?”

“Would you believe,” Napier said impassively, “to protect them from the sun?”

“But why that sort of hat?” Garamond ignored the sarcasm.

“I guess it’s because they’re light and easy to make. And it’s a good shape if the sun’s directly above you and you’re working in the dirt all day.”

“I still don’t like them.”

“You’re not working in the dirt all day.” This time there was no mistaking the coldness in the big man’s manner.

Garamond locked eyes with Napier and was shaken to feel a momentary surge of anger and dislike. This can’t be, he thought. Aloud he said, “Do you expect me to? Do you think I’m not making the most efficient use of human resources?”

“From your point of view, you are.”

“And from their point of view?”

“The cold season’s coming down soon. Most of the crew are staying here, remember. They’d rather be building houses and processing grass into protein cakes.”

Garamond decided against answering immediately in case he damaged a working relationship. He glanced up at the sky and saw that, behind the shield of brilliance, the broadest ribs of light blue were well in the ascendant in the west. They signified that summer was approaching the diametrically opposite point on Orbitsville’s shell, that Autumn was ending on the near side.

“This Orbitsville syndrome of yours,” he said after a pause. “An early symptom is that a man develops an aversion to taking orders, right?”

“That seems to come into it.”

“Then let’s sit down together and agree a common set of goals. That way…”

“That way we’d do everything you want and you wouldn’t even have to give the orders,” Napier said sharply, but this time he was smiling.

Garamond smiled in return. “Why do you think I suggested it?” Although the little crisis had passed, he had a feeling it carried significance for the future and he was determined to take appropriate action. “We’ll open a bottle tonight and get our ideas straightened out.”

“I thought we were out of whisky.”

“No. There’s plenty.”

“You’re on the stuff that Burton makes?”

“Why not?”

An incongruous primness appeared briefly on Napier’s dark features. “Maybe we can fix something up later. How about looking at this airplane?” “Certainly.” They walked out towards the waiting machine which was the biscuit colour of unpainted plastic. It was a high-wing monoplane, sitting nose-high on its skids and looking like something from a museum of aeronautics, but Garamond had no doubts about its capabilities. The ungainly ship would carry a crew of five at a maximum cruise of five hundred kilometres an hour for fifty days at a stretch, landing after that time to replenish food and water. Even this limitation was forced on it by the fact that more than two-thirds of the payload would be taken up by spares, an iron cow and other supplies.

Garamond glanced from the newly completed machine to the others of its kind further back on the open-air production line, and from them up to the black rectangular screen of the delton detector on the hillside. He felt a vague spasm of alarm over the extent to which his future was dependent on complex artifacts, but this was obliterated by the yearning hunger which kept him alive and was the motive force behind all his actions. It was ironic, he had often thought in the hours before sleep, how — in depriving him of all that was worth living for in his previous life — Elizabeth Lindstrom had provided, in herself, the single goal of his new existence. She had also given him the means of escaping from it, for he could foresee no way of long surviving the act of pulling the President’s ribcage apart with his bare hands and gripping the heaving redness within and…

“I know what you’re thinking, Vance.”

“Do you?” Garamond stared into the face of the stranger who had spoken to him, and he made the effort which allowed him to associate it with Cliff Napier. There was a psychic wrench and once again he was back into the sane world, walking towards the aircraft with his senior officer.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” he heard himself saying.

“I think you’re secretly pleased the electronics lab isn’t able to build autopilots. If we’re going to fly that distance we want to fly it. We want to be able to tell people we did it with our hands.”

Garamond nodded. With our hands, he thought. One of the group standing at the plane was wearing a coolie hat and when its owner turned to greet him Garamond was startled to see the sweat-beaded features of Troy Litman, the senior production executive. Litman was a short pudgy man who had always compensated for the natural untidiness of his physique by paying strict attention to his uniform and off-duty dress, and he was one of the last Garamond would have expected to favour a badly-woven grass hat. Garamond began to doubt his earlier conviction that the design of the grass headgear was symbolic rather than utilitarian.

“The ship looks good,” Garamond said. “Is she ready to fly?”

“As near as she’ll ever be.”

Like the hat, the answer was not what Garamond would have expected of Litman. “How near is that?”

“Relax, Vance.” Litman grinned within the column of shadow projected by the brim of his hat. “That ship will take you as far as you want to go.”

“I’m ready to take her up now, sir,” Braunek said opportunely, from the opposite side of the group.

“You’re happy enough about it?”

“If the computer’s happy I’m happy, sir. Anyway I did a few fast taxis yesterday and she felt fine.”

“Go ahead, then.” Garamond watched the young man climb into the plane’s glasshouse and strap himself into his seat. A few seconds later the propellers started to turn, silently driven by the magnetic resonance engines, and the control surfaces flicked in anticipation. As the propeller revolutions built up the group moved out of the backwash and a similar scattering took place among the work gangs at the far end of the runway. The plane began to move and several excited shouts went up, signifying that, despite the computer predictions and tape-controlled machines, there had remained some areas of human participation.

In its unloaded condition the aircraft used very little of the runway before lifting cleanly into the air. It continued in a straight line for about a kilometre, rising steadily, shadow flitting over the grass directly below, then banked into a lazy turn and circled the encampment. The soundless flight seemed effortless, like that of a gull riding on a fresh breeze, but on the third pass Garamond thought he saw a small object detach itself from the aircraft and go fluttering to the ground.

“What was that?” Napier said, screening his eyes. “I saw something fall.”

“Nothing fell,” Litman asserted very quickly.

“I saw something too,” Garamond put in. “You’d better get a medic on to the truck, just in case.”

“It wouldn’t do any good — we had to pull the transmission out.”

“What?” Garamond stared in disbelief at Litman’s uneasy but defiant face. “One of the first basic procedures we agreed was that the truck would be kept at readiness during flight testing.”

“I guess I forgot.”

Garamond flicked a hand upwards, sending Litman’s hat tumbling behind him. “You are not a peasant,” he said harshly. “You are not a coolie. You are a Starflight executive officer and I’m going to see that you…”

“Braunek’s coming back,” someone said and Garamond returned his attention to the aircraft. The pilot had not tried, or had been unable, to line up on the runway but was coming in parallel to it, his ship rising and sinking noticeably as it breasted the wind. Garamond estimated the touchdown point and relaxed slightly as he saw it would be well to the north of the buildings and tents which were clustered around the hulk of the Bissendorf. The plane continued its descent, side-slipping a little but holding fairly well to its course.

“I told you there was nothing to worry about,” Litman said in a reproachful voice.

“You’d better be right.” Garamond kept his eyes on Braunek’s ship. The side-slipping was more noticeable now, but each skid brought the plane a little closer to the centreline of the cleared strip and Garamond hoped that Braunek was good enough at his trade to be doing it on purpose. He knew, however, that there had to come a moment, a precise moment, in every air crash when the spectator on the ground was forced to accept that the pilot had lost his struggle against the law of aerial physics, that a disaster had to occur. For Garamond, the moment came when he saw that the starboard propeller was ceasing to spin. The plane pulled to the right, as though the wing on that side had hit an invisible pylon, and it staggered down the perilous sky towards the hillside. Towards, Garamond suddenly realized, the black rectangle of the delton detector. He was unable to breathe during the final few seconds of flight as the doomed ship, see-sawing its wings, became silhouetted against land instead of sky and then flailed its way through the delton screen. And it was not until the sound of the crash reached him that he was freed from his stasis and began to run.

Braunek’s life was saved by the fact that the lightweight frames of the detector screens served as efficient absorbers of kinetic energy. They had accepted the impact, folding almost gently around the ship, stretching and twisting, and then trailing out behind it like vines. By the time Garamond reached the location of the crash Braunek had been helped out of the wreckage and was sitting on the grass. He was surrounded by technicians who had been working in and had run out of the small hut linked to the screens, and one of them was spraying tissue sealant over a gash on his leg.

“I’m glad you made it,” Garamond said, feeling inadequate. “How do you feel?”

Braunek shook his head. “I’m all right, but everything else is screwed up.” He tried to raise himself from the ground.

Garamond pushed him back. “Don’t move. I want the medics to have a proper look at you. What happened anyway?”

“Starboard wing centre panel dropped off.”

“It just dropped off?”

Braunek nodded. “It took the engine control runs with it, otherwise I could have brought the ship in okay.”

Garamond jumped to his feet “Litman! Find that panel and bring it here. Fast!”

Litman, who was just arriving on the scene, looked exasperated but he turned without a word and ran back down the hillside. Garamond stayed talking with Braunek until a medic arrived to check him over, then he surveyed the ruins of the delton screen. Somewhere in the middle of the wreckage a damaged aircraft engine was still releasing gyromagnetic impulses which sent harmless flickers of detuned energy racing over the metalwork like St Elmo’s fire. Where accidental resonances occurred a feeble motive force was conjured up and the broken struts of the framework twitched like the legs of a dying insect. The destruction looked final to Garamond but he checked with O’Hagan and confirmed that the screen had been rendered useless except as a source of raw materials.

“How long till you have another one operational?”

“A week perhaps,” O’Hagan said. “We’ll go for modular construction this time. That means we could have small areas operational in a couple of days, and we could build up to a useful size before your airplanes are ready to take off.”

“Do that.” Garamond left his Chief Science Officer staring gloomily into the wreckage and went down the hillside to meet the group which had retrieved the lost wing section. The men set the plastic panel down in front of him and stood back without speaking. Garamond ran his gaze over it and saw at once that the two longitudinal edges which should have been ridged with welding overlays were square and clean except for small positioning welds which had broken.

Garamond turned to face Litman. “All right — who was responsible for the welding of this panel, and who was supposed to inspect?”

“It’s hard to say,” Litman replied.

“Hard to say?” “That’s what I said.”

“Then check it out on the work cards.” Garamond spoke with insulting gentleness.

“What work cards?” Litman, suddenly tired of being pushed, turned a red, resentful face up to Garamond’s. “Where have you been, Mister Garamond? Did nobody tell you we’ve only got bits of a workshop left? Did nobody tell you that winter’s coming and we just can’t afford all the time and material that’s going into these flying toys of yours?”

“That isn’t in your area of competence.”

“Of course not!” The redness had spread into Litman’s eyes as he glanced around the gathering crowd. “I’m only a production man. I’m just one of the slobs who has to meet your airy-fairy target dates with no bloody equipment. But there’s something you seem to forget, Mister Garamond. Out here a man who knows how to use his hands is worth twenty Starflight commanders who have nothing left to command.”

“What’ll you do if we decide not to finish your planes?” A low, interested murmur arose from the men behind Litman.

Cliff Napier stepped into the arena. “For a so-called production man,” he said, “you seem to do a lot of work with your mouth, Litman. I suggest that you…”

“It’s all right,” Garamond cut in, placing a restraining hand on Napier’s arm. He raised his voice so that he could be heard by everybody in the vicinity. “I know how most of you feel about settling down here and making the best of things. And I know you want to get on with survival work before the weather turns. Furthermore, I can sympathize with your point of view about obsolescent Starflight commanders — but let me assure you of one thing. I’m leaving here with a fleet of airplanes, and the airplanes are going to be built properly, to the very highest standards of which we are capable. If I find they don’t work as well as they ought to I’ll simply turn them around and fly them right back to you.

“So the only way — the only way — you’ll get me out of your hair permanently is by building good airplanes. And don’t come sniffling to me about target dates or shortage of equipment. Don’t forget — I’ve seen how you can work when you feel like it. What sort of a target date did we have when we were getting ready to punch a hole right through the middle of Beachhead City?” Garamond paused and out-stared the man nearest to him.

“A nice finishing touch,” Napier whispered. “If they still have pride.”

“Ah, hell,” somebody growled from several rows back. “We might as well finish the job now we’ve done most of the work.” There was a general rumble of assent and the crowd, after a moment’s hesitation, began to disperse. The response was not as wholehearted as Garamond could have wished for, but he felt a sense of relief at having secured any kind of decision over Litman. The production executive, his face expressionless, was turning away with the others.

“Troy,” Garamond said to him, “we could have talked that one out in private.”

Litman shrugged. “I’m satisfied with the way things went.”

“Are you? You used to be known as the best production controller in the S.E.A. fleet.”

“That’s all in the past, Vance. I’ve got bigger things on my mind now.”

“Bigger than a man’s life? Braunek could have been killed over that sloppy workmanship.” “I’m sorry about young Braunek getting hurt, and I’m glad he’s all right.” Litman paused and retraced his steps towards Garamond. The reason the men went along with you a moment ago is that you gave them Orbitsville — and that’s important to them. They’re going to spread out through Orbitsville, Vance. This camp won’t hold together more than a year or two, and then most likely it will be left empty.“

“We were talking about the plane crash.”

“We don’t stand united any more. Any man who trusts his life to a machine he hasn’t made by himself and personally checked out by himself is a fool. You should remember that.” Litman turned and plodded away down the hillside, probably intent on retrieving his coolie hat. Garamond stared after the compact figure, filled with the uneasy dislike that a man always feels for another who seems in closer touch with the realities of a situation. He thought hard about Litman’s words during the midday meal and as a result decided to turn himself into a one-man inspection and quality assurance team, with entire responsibility for the airworthiness of his aircraft.

The self-imposed task — with its round of visual and physical checking of every aspect of the fleet production — occupied nine-tenths of Garamond’s working hours, and brought the discovery that he still retained the ability to sleep without stunning his system with alcohol.

Garamond was spreadeagled across the tailplane of the seventh aircraft, examining the elevator hinges, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was late in the day and therefore hot — temperatures on Orbitsville built up steadily throughout each daylight period, before dropping abruptly at nightfall — and he had been hoping to finish the particular job without interruption. He kept his head inside the resinous darkness of the inspection hatch, hoping the interloper would take the hint and go away, but there came another and more insistent tap. Garamond twisted into a sitting position and found himself looking into the creased dry face of O’Hagan. The scientist had never been a happy-looking man but on this occasion his expression was more bleak than usual, and Garamond felt a stab of concern.

He switched off his inspection light and slid to the ground. “Has anything happened, Dennis?”

O’Hagan gave a reluctant nod. “We’ve recorded a delta particle.”

“You’ve recorded a…” Garamond pressed the back of his hand to his forehead and fought to control his elation. “Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do? What’s your worry?”

“We’ve only got about eighty per cent of the original screen rebuilt.”

“So?”

“It’s too soon, Vance. I’ve been through Mike Moncaster’s math a couple of times and I can’t fault him. With two complete screens — which is what we planned for — giving a receiving area of five hundred square metres, we should have had to wait eighty or ninety days even to…”

“We were lucky,” Garamond interrupted, laughing and astonished to realize he still remembered how. “It just shows that the laws of probability are bound to give you a break eventually. Come on, Dennis, admit it.”

O’Hagan shook his head with sombre conviction. “The laws of probability are not bound to give you anything, my friend.”

The eight aircraft took off at first light, while the air was cool and thick, and climbed steadily against the seriate blue archways of the Orbitsville sky. At the agreed cruising height of five hundred metres the ungainly, stiff-winged birds levelled off, exchanging brief communications through pulses of modulated light. They assumed a V-formation, and circled once around the base camp, their shadows falling vertically on to the remains of the Bissendorf, the metallic egg which had brought about their slow and painful birth. And then, without lingering further, they set course towards the prismatic mists which lay to the east.