“Yes. I saw you here. I saw this dome.” Lord’s soft voice was agitated, shaking. “I think I must have gone a little mad, back then. You have no idea... no conception... everyone dying...”

“But we found you,” Alec soothed. “You’re all right now.”

“It all burned. The sky burned. There was no place to turn to. Nowhere to go.”

Very gently, Alec led the old man away from the window. “Come on, let’s get you down to your quarters. You’re tired.”

Dr. Lord let Alec lead him to the powerlift. Usually it stayed unpowered and people clambered up and down using their own muscles. But for the old man, Alec touched the ON switch. A strong whiff of machine oil puffed up from the recess beside the ladder, and a motor whined to life, complainingly. The ladder rungs began creaking past them. Alec helped the aged astronomer onto one of the steps and hopped onto it beside him. Wordlessly they descended five levels, to the living quarters.

He left the old man at his door, then followed the rough-hewn corridor toward the settlement’s central plaza, where the Council’s meeting room was. The rock walls of the corridor were lined with pipes carrying water, electricity and heat: the settlement’s three necessities. Light tubes shone overhead, not so much for the aid of the pedestrians as for the benefit of the grass that carpeted the corridor floor.

As he padded on slippered feet through the meager, oxygen-producing growth, Alec wondered what it would be like on Earth. To be outside without a suit. Would he be frightened? There were stories about men going crazy, out in the open with nothing to protect them. And the gravity...

With a shake of his head, he dismissed all fears and strode doggedly toward the central plaza and the Council meeting room.

Chapter 9

There was a crowd in the central plaza. Alec knew there would be, but still it shocked him to see so many people in one place, milling around, not working, almost touching each other at random. The big high-domed cavern was buzzing with a hundred muted conversations.

The elaborately carved doors of the Council chamber were still closed. No one was allowed in or out while the Council was in debate. The doors had been lovingly designed and produced by one of the original members of the Council, after he had retired from active duty. He had died not long ago, and willed his remains to the food reprocessors.

Alec drifted through the crowd aimlessly, careful not to touch or be touched by any stranger. He was too nervous to wait in his quarters for word of the Council’s decision. But this crowd was making him even jumpier. He could see that everyone was reacting the same way: the more people who poured into the plaza, the more excited everyone became. The noise level was growing steadily.

“You look like a man in need of refreshment.”

The voice startled Alec. He turned to see Bill Lawrence, one of the settlement’s bright young engineers and one of his lifelong friends. Thick dark hair cropped short, beard neatly trimmed, Lawrence approached the world with a kind of stiff formality that melted into playfulness with his friends.

“Do I look that uptight?” Alec asked him, forcing a grin.

“Everybody’s that uptight,” Lawrence answered. “Why do you think they’re clustering here?”

Lawrence took him by the arm—a privilege granted only to friends—and guided Alec through the shuffling, chattering crowd back toward the stone benches that circled the dwarf trees at the far end of the plaza. Several more of Alec’s closest friends were there, sipping from plastic cups.

Alec sat in their midst, wishing that Lawrence’s brittle bones hadn’t ruled him out of the Earth mission.

Handing him a cup, Lawrence explained, “Deitz brewed this stuff in his chem lab, in between experiments on rat poison and rocket fuel. It’s strictly illegal, but sells for twenty-five units a liter.”

Alec took a cautious sip. The liquid burned his tongue and almost gagged him. “Yugh... who would buy a liter of that?”

“Nobody.”

They all laughed.

Zeke, a roundish golden-haired young man who was called “the Bumblebee” because of his constant air of busy-ness, said, “We’re going to turn Deitz in to the Council... as soon as we’ve finished drinking up the evidence.”

Alec shook his head. “You’ll be dead long before then.” He placed his cup down on the bench beside him.

“It’s sort of scary seeing everybody hovering around here,” Joanna said in her throaty voice. She was tall, dark, leggy.

Alec nodded agreement. “Isn’t anybody at work today?”

Lawrence, still standing, eyed the crowd. “Only those with really essential duties. Everyone else just walked off and came here.”

“I don’t understand it,” Alec said. It was frightening.

“Kobol’s people had a little parade just before you arrived,” said Zeke the Bumblebee. “All the miners and techs... they said it was a spontaneous demonstration.”

“A parade! Without permission?”

Lawrence nodded grimly.

“First they leave their jobs and then they parade without the Council’s permission.” Alec’s voice sounded shocked, even to himself.

“Kobol wants to head the Earth mission,” Joanna said.

“It’s not just the Earth mission,” Lawrence corrected. “It’s control of the Council. If Kobol can get his way, he’ll head the mission and then return to take over the Council. Your mother’s fighting for her Chairmanship in there.”

“Kobol can’t defeat her,” Alec snapped.

“If he comes back from Earth with the fissionables,” Lawrence said, “he’ll demand an election and Lisa will be forced to step down.”

“Which is why it’s important that you head up the mission,” Zeke took over. “I sure as hell don’t want to see the miners and techs taking over. We’ll be overpopulated and run into the ground inside of a few years. Kobol’s followers never seem to understand that you can grow people a lot faster than you can carve out new farmlands.”

“Kobol won’t head the mission,” Alec said tightly. “And he won’t take over the Council.”

“Says who?” a new voice shouted at him.

A man in his mid-thirties was standing between the bench on which Alec sat and the next one. He was big, shaggy-haired, and wore the fire-red coverall of a miner.

“It’s impolite to break into a private conversation,” Alec replied carefully, noticing that several other miners and techs stood behind the speaker.

“Oohhh.” The miner pursed his lips. “Now we mustn’t be impolite, must we? Wouldn’t want to make the frail little scientists’ darlings break into a rash.”

Lawrence put a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “Pay no attention to them.”

Alec forced himself to turn back to his friends.

“Kobol’s gonna set things straight around here,” the miner continued loudly. “Put you brittle-boned sweethearts in your place. The settlement’s gotta be ruled by the strong! You eggshells push buttons all day while we break our asses for you. Gonna be a lot of changes.”

Struggling to control himself, Alec got to his feet. “Let’s get out of here,” he said quietly to his friends. “There are limits even to politeness.”

But the miner stepped lithely around the bench and planted himself squarely in front of Alec. Grinning, he rested his fists on his hips. He was a head taller than Alec, and bulged with strength and self-confidence.

“Hey, don’t get upset. I didn’t mean to make you cry!”