“I have always fancied myself as a king,” André Parsons said. “I see no reason why we cannot all become kings—or at least dukes and barons. Presuming we succeed, of course.”
“We have to get out of here,” someone shouted.
Babble broke out.
“Where to?”
“I’ve got a wife and two kids—I got to get back home!”
“Ten—hut!” Elliot’s command quieted them for a moment.
Before they could speak again, Rick said, “We aren’t going home. They made that clear, and I don’t see any way to get there. They can let the pressure out of here anytime they want to. Anybody know how to breathe vacuum?”
“So what do we do, Captain?” Campbell asked.
“Stick together. Do what they want,” Rick said. “Lieutenant Parsons is right. We can all get rich out of this. We can’t go home, but we can be rich. If we stick together.”
“Fight a whole planet?” Campbell asked.
“Not quite,” Rick said. “But we could. We have the edge in weapons and tactics. There’ll be a lot of people down there, though. A lot. If we don’t stay together—well, when does anyone sleep?”
“First we need a new contract,” Warner said. His voice had a smug quality that instantly irritated Rick. “A new contract. We can begin by electing a chairman—”
Sergeant Elliot looked as if he were having a stroke. “Elect! We’ve got officers—”
“Who have no authority over us under the circumstances,” Warner said. “Their commissions are from the United States, and we don’t live there any longer. Why do we take orders from them?”
“Warner, one more goddamn word out of you and I’ll break your neck.” Elliot moved to stand near Private Warner.
“He has a point,” André Parsons said. “Those who volunteer to go are also volunteering to accept Captain Galloway and myself as leaders.” He turned to Rick and said, very formally, “Sir, I accept you as leader and captain of this expedition.” Then he saluted.
Parsons had turned away from the troops, so that only Rick could see his face. His eyes showed sly amusement, and as Rick returned the salute, Parsons gave an exaggerated wink.
Rick had told Parsons that the aliens—and the human “police,” who in some ways seemed as alien as the Shalnuksis —were. probably listening to all their conversations; after that they were guarded, saying nothing they did not want their employers to hear. It made Rick lonelier than ever. He was losing Earth and everyone he knew, and he couldn’t talk about it without risk of being overheard.
And yet, he thought, it might be fun. As Parsons had said, everyone at one time or another dreams of getting a chance to become a knight or baron or duke. Even a king. That didn’t happen on Earth anymore, but it might happen to Rick Galloway on Paradise.
He had other fantasies. He knew enough of Earth’s history to know of the mistakes made in going from the Middle Ages to an industrial society. He had seen pictures of Bombay and Calcutta. Perhaps, he told himself, he could help this new world avoid some of the mistakes. For Karreeel and his merchant-adventurers, this was a routine operation to make some money—or whatever passed for money in their culture—but for Rick it was a chance at adventure.
It was also inevitable, and he was uncomfortably aware that many of the arguments he used with himself and the men were born of necessity. They had no other choices.
The first task was preparation. They would need supplies and equipment. Agzaral had told him that a reasonable amount of equipment could be obtained from Earth. He hadn’t said what would be reasonable.
Rick set the troops to making lists. Weapons, ammunition, special equipment, communications, survival gear, medical supplies, soap; luxuries and conveniences that couldn’t be manufactured on Tran even with all the help Rick and his people could supply. The lists became endless, and they began to cut them back.
They had very little information about Tran. Karreeel was certain there was no petroleum industry there, but neither knew nor cared whether there was petroleum at all: thus no internal-combustion gear. The other decision information was just as sketchy.
Rick asked the television set for an interview. Eventually Karreeel came on the screen.
“We need more data,” Rick said. “How big is this planet? How much water? Are there hurricanes? How can I prepare when I don’t know what to prepare for?”
“Your questions are reasonable. Unfortunately, we have not translated the data you require. That will be done later.”
“Can you get the equipment I’ve asked for?”
“Some. Most.”
“How?” Rick asked.
“It can be bought. Or stolen,” Karreeel said. “I have little time for you. You will later meet someone who does. Until then, please do not annoy me further.”
“Who is this—”
“A human. If you give me your list, I will see what can be obtained.”
The screen went blank. Rick and André looked at each other. “They must have agents on Earth,” Parsons said. “They spoke of purchases—”
“Yeah.” Rick thought about that for a moment, then laughed. “Aliens among us. Agents of the Galactic Confederacy move about studying us. We read about it for years, and it’s all true.”
André Parsons laughed also, but neither of them thought it was really very funny.
PART TWO:
THE SHIP
1
Gwen Tremaine was in love. Given that she was twenty years old and not at all unattractive, this shouldn’t have been astonishing; but in point of fact she was more than astonished. She couldn’t really believe it.
She had resigned herself to a lonely life. Not lonely in the sense of having no friends, although she had few enough; but she was convinced that she would never be in love, and even doubted whether anyone else ever had been. She had strongly suspected that all the poetic passages, all the lyric descriptions of how one felt when one was in love, had been invented by poets and writers who felt there ought to be such feelings but who had never experienced them.
Physical attraction she understood. She’d had several affairs and enjoyed them all. But what she couldn’t seem to arouse, in herself or others, was whatever the poets felt when they spoke of love.
She had tried, and a few times she thought it was happening to her, but it never developed into anything more. The strong affection, the need for someone else’s company that she saw in the few girls she got along with, sometimes she felt stirrings of it, but it never lasted. Generally what few stirrings she did experience happened after physical encounters, and usually hadn’t lasted past the cold light of morning. For a while she had blamed her inability to fall in love on the men in her life, and indeed there was some justice in that. She’d been attracted to as thoroughgoing a collection of cynics, bounders, and just plain cads as it was possible for her to imagine. Even her friends said so. Not that it was so obvious when she met them. She didn’t seek out the most popular boy in her high-school class, or lust after the jocks who could and did have every girl in the school. She was more likely to date the quiet ones with glasses who read a lot. Some had never had a date before her. Yet they invariably left her for her friends as soon as she’d built up their confidence to a level where they dared ask someone else for a date.
In truth, she scared hell out of everyone who tried to take her seriously. She was intelligent, she talked a lot, and she was interested in everything. She wrote for the school paper. She did so much extra classwork that she could get’ an A in any subject even if she turned in a blank final exam. She earned real money at such unfeminine activities as buying stale bread and reselling it to chicken farmers. In short, she was real competition for any boy she met, and the ones she liked were never secure enough to survive that threat.
When she was sixteen and a senior at John Marshall High, she met Fred Linker in the school library. Fred had never had a date in his life and was terrified of girls. Gwen was a bit cynical about men by that time, but she was enough of a product of her culture to wish she had someone to take her on dates. Fred seemed perfect. He wasn’t at all bad looking, just shy. He liked to read and knew of works like Silverlock that she adored as soon as he told her about them. He was a good listener, and they shared many opinions. So she worked on him until he asked her out, and three dates later, he got the nerve to kiss her goodnight. He didn’t know how to do that very well, but Gwen was a good teacher. She’d found books that told how.