“Yes, theoretically. But conditions were satisfactory today. There is no communication with Mars.”
“But tomorrow?”
“I haven’t made myself clear. We tried to signal Mars; we got no answer. So we used the radar check. The bounce came back right on schedule—two thousand two hundred and thirty-eight seconds, no chance of a ghost blip. So we know that the channel was satisfactory and that our signal was getting through. But Schiaparelli Station fails to answer—no communication.”
“Out of order, maybe?”
“Most unlikely. It’s a dual station. They depend on it for astrogation, you know. No, I’m afraid the answer is obvious.”
“Yes?”
“The Federation forces have taken the station over for their own uses. We won’t be able to communicate with Mars until they let us.”
Don left the manager’s office looking as glum as he felt. He ran into Isobel just coming into the building. “Don!”
“Oh—hi, Grandma.”
She was excited and failed to notice his mood. “Don—I’m just back from Governor’s Island. You know what? They’re going to form a women’s corps!”
“They are?”
“The bill is in committee now. I can’t wait—I’ll be in it, of course. I’ve already put my name in.”
“You will be? Yes, I guess you would be.” He thought about it and added, “I tried to join up this morning.”
She threw her arms around his neck, much to the interest of customers in the lobby. “Don!” She untangled herself, to his blushing relief, and added, “Nobody really expected that of you, Don. After all, it’s not your fight; your home is on Mars.”
“Well, I don’t know. Mars isn’t exactly my home, either: And they didn’t take me—they told me to wait for my draft call.”
“Well—anyway, I’m proud of you.”
He went back to the restaurant, feeling ashamed that he had not had the courage to tell her why he had tried to enlist and why he had been turned down. By the time he reached Charlie’s place he had about decided to go again to the recruiting office the next day and let them swear him in as a duckfoot. He told himself that the severance of communication with Mars had cut off his last connection with his old life; he might as well accept this new life with both arms. It was better to volunteer than to be dragged.
On second thought he decided to go over to Governor’s Island first and send some sort of message to “Sir Isaac”—no use staying in the Ground Forces if his friend could wangle a transfer to the High Guard. It was a dead cinch now that the High Guard would eventually send an expedition to Mars; he might as well be in it. He’d get to Mars yet!
On third thought he decided that it might be well to wait a day or two to hear from “Sir Isaac”; it would certainly be easier to get assigned to the Guard in the first place than to get a transfer later.
Yes, that was the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately it did not make him feel pleased with himself.
That night the Federation attacked.
The attack should not have happened, of course. The rice farmer sergeant had been perfectly right; the Federation could not afford to risk its own great cities to punish the villagers of Venus. He was right—from his viewpoint.
A rice farmer has one logic, men who live by and for power have another and entirely different logic. Their lives are built on tenuous assumptions, fragile as reputation; they cannot afford to ignore a challenge to their power—the Federation could not afford not to punish the insolent colonists.
The Valkyrie, orbiting Venus in free fall, flashed into radioactive gas without warning. The Adonis, in the same orbit a thousand miles astern, saw the explosion and reported it to PHQ at New London; then she, too, became an expanding ball of fire.
Don was awakened from work-drugged sleep by the ululation of sirens. He sat up in the dark, shook his head to clear it, and realized with leaping excitement what the sound was and what it meant. Then he told himself not to be silly; there had been talk lately of holding a night alert—that’s what it was: practice.