The Space Pioneers, Carey Rockwell [best android ereader TXT] 📗

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There were houses, stores, and off the central square a magnificent assembly hall that could be transformed into a gymnasium. There were smaller community buildings for sanitation, water, power, and all vital services necessary to a community. Along the wide spacious streets, still being paved, converted jet boats hummed. Women began to shop. Men who had helped build the city the day before, now appeared in aprons and began keeping account books until a monetary system could be devised. A medical exchange that also happened to sell spaceburgers and Martian water was dubbed the "Space Dump" and crowds of teen-agers were already flocking in to dance and frolic. A pattern of living began to take form out of the dead dust of the star satellite. Several of the colonists who had lost everything aboard the crashed ships were made civilian officials in charge of the water, sanitation, and power departments.

The three cadets worked harder than they had ever worked before. Once, when the jet barge needed to be refueled, Vidac had ordered them to salvage the remaining reactant from the crashed ships and they worked forty-eight hours in lead-lined suits transferring the reactant fuel to the jet barge.

In addition, Roger was now hard at work building a communications center and a network all over the satellite. Communicators were placed at intervals of ten miles, so that any stranded colonist was within walking distance of help.

The four hundred ships that had crashed had been loaded mostly with farming equipment, and the seriousness of the situation was discussed at great length by Logan and other farmer colonists. Vidac had tried to salvage some of the more basic tools needed in farming the dusty satellite soil, but nothing had come of it. Three to five years had to pass before the radioactivity would be harmless.

"We'll have to farm with chemicals," announced Vidac finally to a meeting of the farmers. "I know that chemical crops are not as tasteful as naturals, but they are larger, more abundant, and nourishing." He paused and looked at the men. "However, even chemicals are not the whole answer."

"Well," said Hyram Logan, who had become the unofficial spokesman for the farmers, "give us the chemicals and let's get to work. Everyone here knows how to grow crops out of a test tube!"

"I'm afraid it won't be as simple as that," said Vidac. "Perhaps you remember that you paid over part of your future profits during the trip out from Atom City?"

There was a murmur from the group of men as the outrageous incident was brought up. Most of the men felt that Vidac had been directly responsible. Vidac held up his hand.

"Quiet, please!"

The men became silent.

"You will have to purchase the necessary material for farming from me. You will sign over one-half of your future profits to the treasurer of the Roald City Fund, or you don't farm."

"What's the Roald City Fund?" demanded Isaac Tupin, a short, thin man with an uncanny knack for farming. He had been very successful on Mars and had been asked to institute his methods of desert farming on the dusty satellite.

"The Roald City Fund," said Vidac coldly, "is an organization dedicated to the good and welfare of the citizens of Roald."

"Who's the treasurer?" asked Logan.

"I am," said Vidac. "Governor Hardy is now in the process of setting up Roald currency. Each of you will be allowed to borrow against future yields, a maximum amount of five thousand Roald credits. This will be your beginning. If your crops fail"—Vidac shrugged his shoulders—"you will forfeit your land holdings!"

There was a storm of protest from the assembled farmers. They stood up in their chairs and hooted and howled. Vidac faced them coldly. At last they fell silent and Vidac was able to speak again.

"I would advise you to consider carefully the proposal I've made here. Your equipment—the equipment given to you by the Solar Alliance—has been lost. The chemicals which you are now being offered are the property of the official governing body of Roald. We cannot give you the material. We can loan it to you, providing that you guarantee the loan with your future profits. All those interested may draw the necessary supplies from Tad Winters and Ed Bush in the morning."

He turned and walked out of the hall.

"We'll go to the governor!" shouted Logan. "We won't be treated like this. We're free citizens of the Solar Alliance and under their jurisdiction. We know our rights!"

Suddenly Tad Winters and Ed Bush appeared, seemingly from nowhere. A sneering smile on his face, Winters held two paralo-ray guns and covered the group of farmers while Bush slipped up behind Logan and hit him on the back of the neck. The elderly man sank to the floor.

"Now get this!" snarled Winters to the colonists. "The joy ride is over! You take orders, or else!"

CHAPTER 12

"What do you want?" growled Ed Bush. He stood at the air lock of the Polaris, a brace of paralo-ray guns strapped to his side. "Why ain't you out growing corn?"

Hyram Logan smiled. He held out the books and study spools the cadets had given him on the trip out. "I wanted to return these to the cadets. They lent them to my son. He wants to be a Space Cadet when he's old enough."

"I can think of a lot better things he could be," sneered Bush. He jerked his thumb toward the entrance port of the giant spaceship. "All right, get aboard. You got a half-hour."

Logan entered the cruiser quickly and made his way to the cadets' quarters. Tom was asleep. Roger and Astro were playing a game of checkers. When Logan entered, the two cadets quickly forgot their game and turned to greet the farmer.

"Hiya, Mr. Logan!" said Astro. "You saved me from doing a wicked deed."

Logan stared at the big cadet, puzzled. "How's that again, Astro?"

Roger laughed. "He's joking, sir. I was about to clean him out in a game of checkers."

Logan sat wearily on the side of the nearest bunk. "I wish all I had to lose was a game of checkers."

He quickly filled in the details of the meeting between Vidac and the farmers. Tom had awakened by this time and heard the last of the older man's story. He turned to his unit mates.

"Well, it looks as though we're right back where we started," he said. "And here I thought Vidac was O.K. after the way he worked during the past ten days setting up Roald City."

"I've been talking to some of the other men," said Logan bitterly. "They feel the same way I do. Something's got to be done about this!"

"But what?" asked Roger.

"And how?" chimed in Astro.

"Force, by the stars!" yelled Logan. "And when I say force, I mean throwing Vidac and Hardy and his crew out!"

"You can't do a thing like that, sir," said Tom. "It would be playing right into their hands. Remember, Vidac and Hardy represent the Solar Alliance here on Roald. If you tried force, you would be charged with rebellion against the Solar Alliance!"

"Well," snorted Logan, "what have you got in mind?"

"When the enemy is in full control, Mr. Logan," said Tom quietly, "the best thing to do is draw back and regroup, then wait for the right moment to attack. Vidac wants you to revolt now. He's expecting it, I'm sure. But if we wait, he can't get away with making you mortgage your land holdings or your profits. Somewhere along the line he'll slip up, and when he does, that's when we start operating!"

Meanwhile, in his luxurious office in the Administration Building, Vidac sat behind a massive desk, talking to Tad Winters.

"Now that the land boundaries have been established, and the colonists have their little pieces of dirt," he said, "we can go right to work. I've told the farmers that they'll have to sign over half of their profits to get chemicals to farm with. They're already talking about revolt, which is just what I want them to do. Let them rebel. We can throw them into the brig, send them back to Earth, and take over their property in the name of the City of Roald!"

"Which is you," said Tad Winters with a smile. "That's the smartest idea you've ever had, boss!"

"In a short while," continued Vidac, "the entire satellite will be mine. Ships, houses—and—"

Suddenly the door opened and Ed Bush hurried into the room. "Boss!—boss!" he shouted breathlessly. "Logan is spilling everything to the Space Cadets!"

"What?" cried Vidac. "How did that happen?"

"He came to the Polaris," whined Bush. "Said he had some books and stuff he wanted to return, so I let him aboard. Luckily I followed him and listened outside the door."

"What did they talk about?" demanded Vidac.

"Logan told them about the meeting with the farmers the other night. He wanted to get the colonists together to start a rebellion, but Corbett convinced him it would be the wrong thing to do."

"What?" yelled Vidac. He rose and grabbed Bush around the throat. "You dirty space crawler! You've ruined everything. All my plans messed up, because you let a hick and a kid outsmart you!"

"I'm sorry, boss," Bush whined. "I didn't know."

"Get out of here!" Vidac snarled. "I should have known better than to jeopardize the whole operation by signing on a couple of space jerks like you two! Get out!"

The two men left hurriedly and Vidac began to pace the floor. He was acutely aware that his scheme was out in the open. All of the careful planning to keep the cadets off balance and unsure of him until he could make his move was lost. He regretted not having gotten rid of them before, out in space, where unexplained accidents would be accepted. He had placed too much confidence in Bush and Winters and had underestimated the cadets. Something had to be done—and fast! But it couldn't be anything obvious, or his plans of taking over Roald would fail.

The buzz of the teleceiver on his desk interrupted his train of thought and he flipped open the small scanner.

"Professor Sykes to see you, sir," reported his aide in the outer office.

"Tell him to come back later," said Vidac. "I'm busy."

"He says it's very important," replied the aide.

"All right—all right, send him in," snapped Vidac and closed the key on the teleceiver irritably. A second later the door opened and Professor Sykes entered hurriedly. He was dirty and dusty from his ten-day stay in the desert wastes of the satellite.

"Vidac!" cried Sykes excitedly. "I've just made the most tremendous discovery in the history of the Solar Alliance!"

Vidac eyed the professor calculatingly. He had never seen the old man excited before. "Sit down, Professor," he said. "You look as if you just walked through the New Sahara on Mars. Here, drink this!" Vidac offered the professor a glass of water and waited expectantly.

Sykes drank the water in one gulp and poured another glass before taking his seat. He began digging into his pouch and pulling out sheets of what appeared to be exposed film. He rummaged around for his glasses, and after adjusting them on his hawklike nose, began to sort the sheets of film.