Poul Anderson: New America

“Wh-what do you expect we’ll be able to carry on the wagon?”

“Probably no more than the scientific stuff. Damn! I really did hope we could at least cut the jets and powerplant free, and block-and-tackle them onto the cart. They’re in perfectly good shape.”

Danny felt puzzled. “Why didn’t we bring more men? Or a small tractor, or a team of mules?”

“The College couldn’t afford that, especially now in planting season. Besides, a big enough bus would cost more to rent than the salvage is worth, there’s such a shortage of that kind and such a demand elsewhere. What we have here is valuable, all right, but not that valuable.” O’Malley paused. “Anyway, I doubt the owner of a really big vehicle would agree to risk it down here for any price.”

“It’s only okay to risk us,” Danny muttered. I’m not afraid , he told himself, I’m not! However… all the reward I could win doesn’t counterbalance the chance of my dying this young in this hell.

O’Malley heard and, unexpectedly, laughed. “That’s right. You and I are the most society can afford to gamble for these stakes. God never promised man a free ride.”

And Father always says, “The laborer is worthy of his hire ,” came to Danny. In his mind, it means the laborer must be.

Day crept onward. The work was harsh—with machete, ax, cutting and welding torches, drill, wrench, hammer, saw, and tools less familiar to the boy. Nevertheless he found himself quite fascinated. O’Malley was a good instructor. More: the fact that they were moving ahead, that they were on their way to winning even a partial victory over the low country, was heart-lifting, healing.

Danny did object to being stuck with trail clearance while the other went off to bag them some meat. He kept quiet, but O’Malley read it on his face and said, “Hunting hereabouts isn’t like on High America. Different species; whole different ecology, in fact. You’d learn the basic tricks fast, I suppose. But we don’t want to spend any extra time, do we?”

“No,” Danny replied, though it cost him an effort.

And yet the man was right. Wasn’t he? The more efficiently they organized, the sooner they’d be home. It was just that—well, a hunt would have been more fun than this toil. Anything would be.

Slash, chop, hew, haul the cut brush aside and attack what stood beyond, in a rain and mist of sweat, till knees grew shaky and every muscle yelled forth its separate aches. It was hard to believe that this involved less total effort than simply clearing a landing space for the cargo bus. That was true, however. A field safe to descend on, in so thick a forest, would have been impossible to make without a lot of heavy equipment, from a bulldozer onward. A roadway need not be more than passable. It could snake about to avoid trees, logs, boulders, any important obstacle. When it meant a major saving of labor, Danny allowed himself to set off a small charge of fulgurite.

Returning, O’Malley was gratified at the progress. “I couldn’t have gotten this far,” he said. “You couldn’t yourself, up in thinner air.” He estimated that in two days and nights they would link their path to the game trail. Then remained the slogging, brutal forcing of the loaded wagon upward to the bus.

At midday dinner, O’Malley called his superiors in Anchor. The communicator in that distant cargo carrier had been set to amplify and relay signals from his little transceiver. Atmospherics were bad; you couldn’t very well use FM across those reaches. But what words straggled through squeals, buzzes, and whines were like the touch of a friendly hand. Wherever we go on Rustum, Danny thought, we’ll belong, and was wearily surprised that he should think this.

Rain fell shortly after he and his companion awoke at midafternoon, one of the cataracting lowland rains which left them no choice but to relax in their tent, listen to the roar outside, snack off cold rations, and talk. O’Malley had endless yarns to spin about his years of exploration, not simply deeds and escapes but comedies and sudden, startling lovelinesses. Danny realized for the first time how he had avoided, practically deliberately, learning more than he must about this planet which was his.

The downpour ended toward evening and they crawled out of the shelter. Danny drew a breath of amazement. It was likewise a breath of coolness, and an overwhelming fragrance of flowers abruptly come to bloom. Everywhere the forest glistened with raindrops, which chimed as they fell onto wet grass and eastward splintered the light into diamond shards. For heaven had opened, lay clear and dizzyingly high save where a few cloudbanks like snowpeaks flung back the rays of the great golden sun. Under that radiance, leaf colors were no longer sober, they flamed and glowed. In treetops a million creatures jubilated.

O’Malley regarded the boy, started to say something but decided on a prosaic: “I’d better check the instruments.” They were still in the wreck and, though boxed, might have been soaked through rents in the fuselage.

He climbed up a sort of ladder he had made, a section of young treetrunk with lopped-off branches leaned against a door which gaped among the lower boughs. Foliage hid just what happened. Danny thought later that besides making things slippery, the torrent had by sheer force loosened them in their places. He heard a yell, saw the ladder twist and topple, saw O’Malley crash to the ground under the full power of weight upon Rustum.

Night deepened. The upper clouds had not yet returned; stars and small hurtling Sohrab glimmered yonder, less sharply than on High America but all the more remote-looking and incomprehensible. The tent was hot, and O’Malley wanted breezes on his sweating skin. So he lay outside in his bag, half propped against a backpack. Light from a pair of lanterns glared upon him, picked out leaves, boles, glimmer of metal, and vanished down the throat of croaking darkness.

“Yes.” Though his voice came hoarse, it had regained a measure of strength. “Let me rest till dawn, and I can hike to the bus.” He glanced down at his left arm, splinted, swathed, and slung. Fortune had guarded him. The fracture was a clean one, and his only serious injury; the rest were bruises and shock. Danny had done well in the paramedical training which was part of every education on Rustum, and surgical supplies went in every traveling kit.

“Are you sure?” the boy fretted. “If we called for help—a couple of stretcher bearers—”

“No, I tell you! Their work is needed elsewhere. It was harder for Phil Herskowitz to walk with those ribs of his, than it’ll be for me.” Pride as well as conscience stiffened O’Malley’s tone. Bitterness followed: “Bad enough that we’ve failed here.”

“Have we, sir? I can come back with somebody else and finish the job.”

“Sorry.” The man set his teeth against more than pain. “I didn’t mean you, my son. I’ve failed.” He turned his face away. “Lower me, will you? I’d like to try to sleep some more.”

“Sure.” Suddenly awkward, Danny hunkered down to help his chief. “Uh, please, what should I do? I can push our roadway further.”

“If you want. Do what you like.” O’Malley closed his eyes.

Danny rose. For a long while he gazed down at the stubbled, pale, exhausted countenance. Before, O’Malley could take off his helmet temporarily to wash, shave, comb his hair. Danny hadn’t dared allow that extra stress on the body. Dried perspiration made runnels across furrows which agony had plowed. It was terrible to see this big, genial, powerful man so beaten.

Was he asleep already, or hiding from his shame under a pretense of it?