Keith Laumer: Thunderhead

After the boy had gone, Carnaby went to the storage room at the rear of the small house, checked over the meager store of issue supplies. He examined the cold-suit, shook his head over the brittleness of the wiring. At least it had been a loose fit; he’d still be able to get into it.

He left the house then, walked alone up the steep, unpaved street, past the half-dozen ramshackle stores that made up the business district of the single surviving settlement on the frontier planet Longone.

At Maverik’s store, the evening’s card game had broken up, but half a dozen men still sat around the old hydrogen space heater. They looked up casually.

“I need a man,” Carnaby said without preamble. “I’ve got a climb to make in the morning. A Fleet unit in Deep Space has scared up a Djann blockade runner. My orders are to activate the beacon.”

“Orders, eh?” Sal Maverik spoke up. He was a big-faced man with quick, sly eyes. “I don’t reckon any promotion orders were included?” He was grinning openly at Carnaby.

“Not this time,” Carnaby said mildly.

“Twenty-one years in grade,” Sal said genially. “Must be some kind of record.” He took out a toothpick and plied it on a back tooth. “Twenty-one years, with no transfer, no replacement, not even a letter from home. I figured they’d forgot you’re out here, Carnaby.”

“Shut up, Sal.” The man named Harry frowned at Carnaby. “Orders, you said, Jim? You mean you picked up a Navy signal?”

Carnaby nodded. “I just need a man along to help me pack gear as far as Halliday’s Roost.”

“You gone nuts, Carnaby?” Sal Maverik growled. “Nobody in his right mind would tackle that damned rock after first snow, even if he had a reason.”

“Halliday’s hut ought to still be standing,” Carnaby said. “We can overnight there, and—”

“Jimmy, wait a minute,” Harry said. “All this about orders, and climbing old Thunderhead; it don’t make sense! You mean after all these years they pick you to pull a damn fool stunt like that?”

“It’s a general order to all Outer Line stations. They don’t know my flitter’s out of action.”

Harry shook his head. “Forget it, Jimmy. Nobody can make a climb like that at this time of year.”

“Fleet wants that beacon on the air,” Carnaby said. “I guess they’ve got a reason; maybe a good reason.”

Maverik spat loudly in the direction of a sand-filled can. “You been sporting that badge for the last twenty years around here,” he said. “It’s time you turned it in, Carnaby.” He riffled the cards in his hand. “I’ll play you a hand of showdown for it.”

Carnaby rubbed a thumb across the tiny jeweled comet in his lapel, smiled slightly. “Fleet property, Sal,” he said.

The big-faced man showed a glint of gold tooth in a sardonic smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I forgot.”

“Listen, Jim,” Harry said urgently. “I remember when you first came here, a young kid still in your twenties, fresh out of the Academy. Five years you was to be here; they’ve left you to rot for twenty! Now they come in with this piece of tomfoolery. Well, to hell with ’em! After five years, all bets were off. You got no call to risk your neck—”

“It’s still my job, Harry.”

Harry rose and came over to Carnaby. He put a hand on the big man’s shoulder. “Let’s quit pretending, Jim,” he said softly. “They’re never coming back for you, you know that. The high tide of the Concordiat dropped you here. For twenty years the traffic’s been getting sparser, the transmitters dropping off the air. Adobe’s deserted now, and Petreac. Another few years and Longone’ll be dead, too.”

“We’re not dead yet.”

“That message might have come from the other end of the Galaxy, Jim! For all you know, it’s been on the way for a hundred years!”

Carnaby faced him, a big, solidly-built man with a lined face. “You could be right on all counts,” he said. “It wouldn’t change anything.”

Harry sighed, turned away. “If I was twenty years younger, I might go along, just to keep you company, Jimmy. But I’m not. I’m old.” He turned back to face Carnaby. “Like you, Jim. Too old.”

“Thanks anyway, Harry,” Carnaby looked at the other men in the room, nodded slowly. “Sal’s right,” he said. “It’s my lookout, and nobody else’s.” He turned and pushed back out into the windy street, headed home to make his preparations for the climb.

Aboard the Armed Picket Malthusa , five million tons, nine months out of Fleet HQ at Van Diemen’s World on a routine Deep Space sweep, Signal Lieutenant Pryor, junior communications officer on message deck duty, listened to the playback of the brief transmission the duty NCOIC had called to his attention:

“ JN 37 Ace Trey to Cincsec One… Fleet TX… clarification ,” the voice came through with much crackling.

“That’s all I could get out of it, Lieutenant,” the signal-man said. “I wouldn’t have picked that up, if I hadn’t been filtering the Y band looking for AK’s on 104.”

The officer punched keys, scanned a listing that flashed onto the small screen on his panel.

“There’s no JN 37 Ace Trey listed, Charlie,” he said. He keyed the playback, listened to the garbled message again.

“Maybe it’s some outworld sheepherder amusing himself.”

“With WFP equipment? On Y channel?” the NCO furrowed his forehead.

“Yeah.” The lieutenant frowned. “See if you can get back to him with a station query, Charlie. See who this guy is.”

“I’ll try, sir; but he came in with six-millisec lag. That puts him halfway from here to Rim.”

The lieutenant crossed the room with the NCO, stood by as the latter sent the standard Confirm ID code. There was no reply.

“I guess we lost him, sir. You want me to log him?”

“No, don’t bother.”

The big repeater panel chattered then and the officer hurried back to his console, settled down to the tedious business of transmitting follow-up orders to the fifty-seven-hundred Fleet Stations of the Inner Line.

The orange sun of Longone was still below the eastern horizon when Carnaby came out the gate to the road. Terry Sickle was there, muffled to his ears in an oversized parka, waiting for him.

“You got to get up early to beat me out, Lieutenant,” he said in a tone of forced jocularity.

“What are you doing here, Terry?”

“I heard you still need a man,” the lad said, less cocky now.

Carnaby started to shake his head and Terry cut in with: “I can help pack some of the gear you’ll need to try the high slope.”

“Terry, go on back home, son. That mountain’s no place for you.”

“How’m I going to qualify for the Fleet when your ship comes, Lieutenant, if I don’t start getting some experience?”

“I appreciate it, Terry. It’s good to know I have a friend. But—”

“Lieutenant—what’s a friend, if he can’t help you when you need it?”

“I need you here when I get back, to have a hot meal waiting for me, Terry.”

“Lieutenant…” All the spring had gone from the boy’s stance. “I’ve known you all my life. All I ever wanted was to be with you, on Navy business. If you go up there, alone…”

Carnaby looked at the boy, the dejected slump of his thin shoulders.

“Your uncle know you’re here, Terry?”

“Sure. Uh, he thought it was a fine idea, me going with you.”

Carnaby looked at the boy’s anxious face.

“All right, then, Terry, if you want to,” he said at last. “As far as Halliday’s Roost.”

“Oh, boy, Lieutenant! We’ll have a swell time. I’m a good climber, you’ll see!” He grinned from ear to ear, squinting through the early gloom at Carnaby. “Hey, Lieutenant, you’re rigged out like a real…” he broke off. “I thought you’d, uh, wore out all your issue gear,” he finished lamely.