Ben Bova - Test of Fire

Alec shook his head blearily. He got the cup almost to his lips, then remembered the searing pain of the previous night’s stew. His mouth still felt raw.

“Um… thanks.” He handed the cup back to Will. “I’ll just take some water.”

Will shrugged. “Have you made contact with the satellite yet? Are they coming to pick you up?”

“Not yet,” Alec said, going for the water canteen by the fire. “We’ve got someone on the radio now, but no luck so far.”

He drank from the canteen, and again worried about catching some local disease.

“Well,” Russo said, “I’d hate to leave you out here in the woods by yourselves, but we can’t hang around here much longer.”

“1 understand,” Alec said.

He left Will by the campfire and strode quickly back to the trucks. Going to the cab of the first one he came to, Alec pulled the medical kit from its niche behind the driver’s seat. The pills were all in neatly labelled vials, but the labels were not very specific. More than half the pills were already missing, besides. Trying to remember his medical briefings, Alec took three different pills and swallowed them dry.

“Oh, there you are.” It was Ron Jameson.

Alec swung down from the cab. “What is it?”

“Radio contact.”

Alec followed Jameson to the third truck.

Gianelli was in the cab, a huge pair of earphones clamped around his head, squinting with concentration.

“Yeah… yeah… still coming through weak but clear. Okay, here he is now. Hold on…”

He took off the earphones and held them out for Alec. “The satellite’s relaying a call from home. Kobol’s back at the settlement already.”

Fitting the earphones over his head and adjusting the lip mike that swung out from the right ’phone, Alec thought rapidly, Kobol! He’d pushed straight on to the settlement on the highest-gee boost he could get. Must have burned every gram of propellant between the satellite and the Imbrium mines.

The big, cumbersome earphones blotted out all sounds except for the hissing, crackling static of the radio. Alec could see that Gianelli was saying something to Jameson, but he could not hear their voices.

“Hello… hello… Alec Morgan?” The communications tech was a girl, that much Alec could tell. But her voice was faint and streaked with interference.

“Yes. Go ahead.”

A pause, then, “Alec, this is Martin Kobol. Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

It took about two and a half seconds for Alec’s words to get to the Moon and Kobol’s response to reach back to Earth. A discernable pause.

“Good. Now listen. I’ve just arrived back at the settlement. The Council’s going to meet in an hour. Everything’s completely upset here—all our plans, everything. There’s a threat of real panic through the entire settlement if we don’t act carefully and reassure the people. They were all depending on getting those fissionables.”

“I know that.” Spare the political speeches!

Pause. Then, “We’ve got to work out another plan. Can you hold out down there on the surface for a few more days?”

Or a few weeks? Or months? “Yes, I think so.”

“Good. Now listen. Stay where you are. Hold tight while we figure out the next move.”

“No.”

A long pause. Not merely because of the distance this time.

“What was that?”

“I said no,” Alec repeated. “I know where the fissionables are. We’re going to get them.”

“You can’t… I mean…”

“I can and I’m going to. We’ll keep in touch with the satellite,” Alec said. He counted, waiting for the response: one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, th…

“This is psychotic! You’re going to force us to pull another shuttle out of mothballs, track your movements…”

“Stow it, Martin. We came here for the fissionables and we’re going to get them. Everything else is a detail.”

Kobol’s voice, when it came, was almost a woman’s screech. “You can’t travel across the continent and find him, you fool! You’ll kill yourself and your men with you!”

“You’d hate that, wouldn’t you?” Alec shot back. “Listen to me, Martin. We can travel across country. And we can live off the country, too. There’s plenty of food here.”

But Kobol was already saying, “I don’t care what you do to yourself, your personal grudges are your business, not mine. But to risk the rest of those men without even giving them a chance…”

“Save your speeches for the Council, Martin. Tell them I’m following their prime directive: I’m going to get the fissionables.”

The time lag between their statements was turning the conversation into two separate monologues. “And there’s medicine,” Kobol was saying, but more calmly now. He was more in charge of himself, obviously thinking fast while he spoke, “You’ll be exposing those men to all the diseases of Earth…”

“I want to talk to my mother now,” Alec said.

“Please put her on.”

“Your inoculations won’t keep you protected…” Kobol stopped, then answered, “Your mother’s busy preparing for the Council meeting. By the time we could get her here to the communications center the satellite would be below your horizon and out of range.”

“Very well. Arrange for her to call me tomorrow.”

The pause again. Alec could sense Kobol’s mind churning furiously during the hiatus. “I’ll tell her. In the meantime, I must warn you again that you should not endanger your men foolishly. The Council won’t look favorably on any rash action. You should stay where you are until we’ve decided on the next step.”

“Too dangerous,” Alec countered. “We’ve already been trapped here once. I don’t want to allow that to happen again.”

Kobol’s voice was starting to fade. “Your orders are to stay where you are.”

Smiling tightly, “No good, Martin. We’re in much greater danger here than we will be on the move. I’ll expect a call tomorrow. From my mother. Now I’m going to put Gianelli back on. Give him the ephemerides for the satellite, so we’ll know when you’re in contact range.”

Alec pulled the earphones off his head and handed them to Gianelli. “Quick, before the satellite gets out of range.”

Gianelli took the earphones with a slight, quizzical grin. “Gonna make heroes out of us,” he muttered.

Jameson said nothing. Alec left the truck and went searching for Will Russo. Halfway back to the campfire he spotted the big redhead striding toward him.

“Looking for you,” Will said.

There was something about the man, his big gangling gait, the way his arms swung loosely at his sides, the innocent grin on his face—Alec found it impossible to distrust him.

“I’ve been looking for you, too,” Alec said.

“Have you been in touch with your people?”

Will hiked a thumb skyward.

“Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d like to travel north with you. I want to find my father.”

Will’s grin broadened. “Good. Good. I just got a message from him. He’s only a few klicks—eh, kilometers—from here, in a town named Coalfield.”

“Here?” Alec suddenly felt weightless, all the breath knocked out of him.

“Yep.” Will nodded happily. “We can be there in a couple of hours.”

Alec scarcely noticed the countryside rolling past as he sat on the fender of the lead truck, heading for the town where his father waited for him.

They came down out of the ridges and woods, all of his own men and all Russo’s people riding on the trucks. They bumped onto a paved road; not a wide concrete highway like the one between Oak Ridge and the airport, but a narrow, twisting blacktopped road, cracked and potted beyond description.