XV
Decision
Two days was never enough time for a miracle. Doc decided as he packedhis notes into a small bag and put it beside his bundle of personalbelongings. He glanced around the room for the last time, and managed agrin at Jake's gloomy expression.
"Maybe I can bluff them, or maybe they'll string along for a while," hesaid. "Anyhow, now that they've agreed to take me and my notes in placeof the cure we're fresh out of, I've got to be on that shuttle when itgoes back to their men at orbital station."
Jake nodded. "I don't like selling friends down the river, Doc. But itwouldn't do you any more good to blow up with the planet, I reckon. Theywon't call off the war rockets when they do get you, of course. Butmaybe they won't use them, except as a threat to put the Lobbies backin, stronger than ever."
He stuck out one of his awkwardly shaped hands, clapped the aspiratorover his face and hurried out. Doc picked up his bags and went towardthe little tractor where Lou was waiting to drive him and Chris backtoward Southport and the shuttle rocket that would be landing for them.They hadn't mentioned Chris in their demands, but her father must expecther to return.
After they had him, he'd be on his own. His best course was probably toinsist on talking only to Ryan at Medical Lobby, and then beingcompletely honest. The room here would be kept sealed, in case theLobby wanted to investigate where he had failed. And his notes werehonest, which was something that could usually be determined. Chriscould testify to that, anyhow, since she'd kept a lot of them for him.
At best, there would be a chance for some compromise and perhaps someclue for them that might eventually end the plague. They had enough mento work on it, and billions in equipment. At worst, he should gain alittle time.
"Cheer up, Chris," he told her as he climbed through the little airlock."Maybe Harkness will turn up the cure before our negotiations breakdown. He has the whole of Northport Hospital to play with. They haven'ttried to chase him out of there yet. After all, we almost foundsomething with no equipment except wild imaginations."
She shook her head as the tractor began moving. "Shut up! I've gotenough trouble without your coming down with logorrhea. Don't be afool."
"Why change now?" he asked her. "Everything I've done has been because Iam a fool. I guess my luck lasted longer than I could expect. And I'mstill fool enough to think that the solution has to turn up eventually.We know it has to be in that room. Damn it, we must know it--if we couldonly think straight now."
She reached over and touched his hand, but made no comment. They hadbeen over that statement of desperation too many times already. But itkept nagging at him--something in the room, something in the room!Something so common that nobody noticed it!
They passed a crowd chasing down a runner. Something in that room couldhave saved the unlucky man. It could have saved Mars, perhaps.
He growled for the hundredth time, cursing his fatigue-numbed mind. Toolittle sleep, too much coffee and bracky....
He reached for the package of weed, realizing that he would miss it onEarth, if he ever got there. Like everything here on the planet, he'dbegun by detesting it and wound up finding it the thing he wanted tokeep forever. He lighted the bracky and sat smoking, watching Lou drive.When the first was finished, he lighted another from the butt.
She put out a hand and took it away. "Please, Dan. I can stand thestuff, but I'll never like it, and the tractor's stuffy enough already.I've taken enough of it. And it keeps reminding me of our test--thethree of you stinking up the place, puffing and blowing that out, whileI couldn't even get a breath of air...."
She was getting logorrhea herself now and--
The answer finally hit him! He jerked around, making a grab for Lou'sshoulder, motioning for the man to head back.
"Bracky--it has to be! Chris, that's it. Jake picked out the secondgroup of men from his friends--and they are all cronies because theyhang around so much in their so-called smoking room. The first time, itkilled the bugs for all of us who smoked--and it didn't work for youbecause you never learned the habit."
Lou had the tractor turned and the rheostat all the way to the floor.
She was sitting up now, but she wasn't fully satisfied. "The percentageof immunes seems about right. But why do some of the smokers get thedisease while some don't?"
"Why not? It depends on whether they pick up the habit before or afterthe disease gets started. Tom must have got his while he was inNorthport. They wouldn't let him smoke there--if he had the habitbefore, for that matter."
She found no fault with that. He twisted it back and forth in his mind,trying to find a fault. There seemed to be none. The only trouble wasthat they couldn't send a message that bracky was the cure and hope thatEarth would prove it true. No polite note of apology would do afterthat. They had to be sure. Too many other ideas had proved wrongalready.
Jake saw them coming and came running toward the laboratory, but Loustopped the tractor before it reached the building and let the older manin.
"Get me a dozen men who have the plague. I want the worst cases youhave, and ones that Harkness tested himself," Doc ordered. "And thenstart praying that the cure we've got works fast."
Chris was at the electron mike at once, but one of her hands reached outfor the weed. She began puffing valiantly, making sick faces. Now othermen began coming in, their faces struggling to find hope, but not daringto believe yet. Jake followed them.
"We'll test at ten-minute intervals. That will be about two hours forthe last from the group," Doc decided. One of the doctors Harkness hadbrought to the villages was busy cutting tiny sections from the lumps onthe men's necks, while Chris ran them through the microscope to makesure the bugs were still alive. The regular optical mike was strongenough for that.
Doc handed each man a bracky weed, with instructions to keep smoking, nomatter how sick it made him.
There were no results at the end of ten minutes when the first test wasmade. The second, at the end of twenty minutes, was still infected withlive bugs. At the half-hour, Chris frowned.
"I can't be sure--take a look, Dan."
He bent over, moving the slide to examine another spot. "I think so. Thenext one should tell."
There was no doubt about the fourth test. The bugs were dead, without asingle exception that they could find.
One by one, the men were tested and went storming out, shouting thenews. For a minute, the gathering crowd was skeptical, remembering theother failures. Then, abruptly, men were screaming, crying and fightingfor the precious bracky, like the legions of the damned grabbing forlottery tickets when the prize was a passport to paradise.
Jake swore as he moved toward the door. "We're low on bracky here. Haveto get a supply from Edison, I guess, and cart it to the shuttle. Enoughfor a sample, and to make them want more. It'll be tough, but we'll getit there in time--by the time the shuttle should be picking you up. Doc,you've won our war! From now on, if Earth wants to keep her populationup, we'll be a free planet!"
Chris turned slowly from the microscope, holding a slide in her hands."My bugs," she said unbelievingly. "Dan, they're dead!"
Jake patted her shoulder. "That makes it perfect, girl. Now come on.We've got to start celebrating a victory!"
* * * * *
It was the general feeling of most of the heads of the villages whenthey met the next day in Southport, using the courtroom that had beenpresided over so long by Judge Ben Wilson. It was victory, and to thevictor belonged the spoils. The bracky had gone out to Earth on aconverted war rocket that could make the trip in less than two weeks,and one packet had been specially labeled for Captain Everts. But Earthhad already confirmed the cure. The small amounts of the herb found inthe botanical collections had been enough to satisfy all doubts.
Harkness, Chris and Doc had been fighting against the desire to robEarth blind that filled most of the men here for hours now. Now they hadthe backing of Jake and Ben Wilson. And now finally they leaned back,sensing that t
he argument had been won.
Bargaining was all right in its place, but it had no place in affairs oflife and death such as this. They had to see that Earth received all thebracky she needed. It was only right to charge a fair price for it, butthey couldn't restrict it by withholding or overcharging. And they couldstill gain their ends without blackmail.
Martian alkaloids were tricky things, and bracky smoke contained anumber of them. It would take Earth at least ten years to discover andsynthesize the right one--and it would still probably cost more than itwould to import the weed from Mars. As long as the source of that weedwas here, and in the hands of the colonials, there would be no danger ofEarth's bombing the planet.
Harkness got up to underscore a point Wilson had made. "The plague liveda million years, and it won't disappear now. The jumping headache, orSelznick's migraine, is unpleasant enough to make us reasonably surethat there will be a steady consumption of the weed. Our problem will beto keep the children from using too much of it, probably." He pulled aweed out and lighted it, puckering his face as the smoke bit histongue. "I'm told that this gets to be an enjoyable habit. If I canbelieve that, surely you can believe me when I say we don't have tobargain with lives."
The village men were human, and most of them could remember the strainthey had been under when they expected those they loved to die at anyhour. It had made them crave vengeance, but now as they had a chance toreexamine it, they began to find it harder to impose the horror of anysuch threat on others. The final vote was almost unanimous.
Doc listened as they wrangled over the wording of the message to Earth,feeling disconnected from it. He passed Chris a bracky and lighted itfor her. She took it automatically, smiling as the smoke hit her lungs.It was one thing they had in common now, at least.
Ben Wilson finally read the message.
"To the people of Earth, greetings!
"On behalf of the free people of Mars, I have the honor to announce thatthis planet hereby declares itself a sovereign and independent world. Weshall continue to regard Earth as our mother, and to consider the healthand welfare of her people in no way second to our own in matters whichaffect both planets. We trust that Earth will share this feeling ofmutual friendship. We trust that all strains of hostility will be ended.The advantages to each from peaceful commerce make any course other thanthe most cordial of relations unthinkable.
"We shall consider proof of such friendship an order by Earth to allrockets circling this planet that they shall deliver themselves safelyinto our hands, in order that we may begin converting them to peacefulpurposes for the trade that is to come. In turn, we pledge that allefforts will be made to ensure a prompt delivery of those products mostin demand, including the curative bracky plant."
He turned to Doc then. "You want to sign it, Dr. Feldman? Make it asacting president or something, until we can get around to voting youinto permanent office."
"You and Jake fight over the job," Doc told him. "No, Ben, I mean it."
He got up and moved out into the outer room, where he could avoid thestares of amazement that were turned to him. He'd never asked for thehonor, and he didn't want it.
Chris came with him. Her face was shocked and something was slowlydraining out of it as he looked at her.
"Forget it, Chris," he said. "You're going back to Earth. There isnothing for you here."
She hadn't quite given up. "There could be, Dan. You know that."
"No. No, Chris, I don't think there ever can be. You can't find a manstrong enough to rule who'll be weak enough to let you rule in hisplace. It didn't work on Earth, and it won't work here. Forget thedreams you had of what could be done with a new planet. Those are thedreams that made a mess of the old one."
"I'll be back," she told him. "Some day I'll be back."
He shook his head again. "No. You wouldn't like what you find here.Freedom is heady stuff, but you have to have a taste for it. You can'tacquire a fondness for it secondhand. And for a while, there's going tobe freedom here. Besides, once you get back to Earth, you'll forget whathappened here."
She sighed at last. For the first time since he had known her, sheseemed to give in completely. And for that brief moment, he loved whatshe could have been, but never would be.
"All right, Dan," she said quietly. "I can't fight you. I never could, Isee now. I'll take the rocket back. What are you going to do?"
He hadn't bothered to think, but he knew the answer. "Research. Whatelse?"
There would be a lot of research done here. It had been suppressed toolong, and had piled up a back-pressure that would have to be relieved.And from that research, he suspected, would come the end of the stableoligarchy of Earth. It could never stand against the changes that wouldbe pouring out of Mars.
She put her hands on his shoulders and moved forward to kiss him. Hebent down to meet her, and found her eyes were wet. Maybe his were, too.Then she broke free.
"You're a fool, Dan Feldman," she whispered, and began moving down thehallway and out of the council hall of Mars.
Doc Feldman nodded slowly as he let her go. He was a fool. He had alwaysbeen a fool, and always would be. And that was why he could never takeover leadership here. Fools and idealists should never govern a world.It took practical men such as Jake to do that.
But the practical men needed the foolish idealists, too. And maybe for atime here on Mars their kind of men and his kind of fools could make onemore stab at the ancient puzzle of freedom.
Outside the war rockets of Earth began landing quietly on the free soilof Mars.
[Transcriber's Note: The following errors in the original have beencorrected in this version:
Page 5: 'and there was' to 'and there were'
Page 9: 'ideopathic gastroentiritis' to 'idiopathic gastroenteritis'
Page 29: 'The cheapness of snythetics' to 'The cheapness of synthetics'
Page 42: 'huband's' to 'husband's'
Page 43: 'Southpost' to 'Southport'
Page 47: 'laywer' to 'lawyer'
Page 50: 'in a can' to 'to a can'
Page 118: 'Selnick's' to 'Selznick's'
]
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