Alec felt his heart turn to ice.
“Strange,” she said, still smiling but with puzzlement in her voice now. “It’s kind of hard for me to call him Dad now... knowing he’s your father.”
“He never told you about the settlement?” Alec asked, his voice sounding cold and distant, even to himself.
Angela shook her head. “He’d always change the subject when I’d ask about that. After a while, I guess I just stopped asking.”
Alec got to his feet. “I’ve got to check my men now. Good-night, Angela.”
“Oh.” She sat there in surprised silence for a moment, then stood up beside him. “Well, goodnight, Alec.” She turned and walked swiftly back toward the campfire.
He didn’t trust himself to say anything more, to call after her. So he tramped in the opposite direction, to the trucks. Disregarding his own orders, he slept out in the open on a stretch of mossy ground near the trucks. He wrapped himself in a plastic tarpaulin and laid his machine pistol by his side. It seemed to take hours for his eyes to close, and when he finally did sleep, he dreamed of his mother.
Ferret slid off the back of the truck and tested his injured leg. It was all right. He could stand on it and walk. The food they had given him had made him strong again, and the leg would heal soon enough.
He limped around the truck and saw Alec stretched out on the ground, the shiny pistol at his side. Ferret crouched so that the guard inside the next truck could not see him, and stared at the pistol. He could snatch it and be off into the woods. They would never find him, and he’d have a wonderful gun for himself.
Dimly he remembered Billy-Joe and the others of the band who had been killed. And his mother, feeding him, crooning him to sleep when he’s a baby. They coulda killed me, Ferret said to himself. He coulda killed me. But he didn’t.
The gun was an enormous temptation. But so was the food and medical care and wary but kind treatment these people had given him. I’ll stay with them for a while, Ferret decided. This looks like a good gang to stay with. For now.
Stealthily he climbed back onto the truck and went back to sleep.
The Sun awoke Alec after what seemed like a mere few minutes of dozing. After checking with Jameson to see that everything was all right with the men, Alec walked stiff-jointed and aching to the embers of the campfire. It was smoldering low, but one of the women was putting fresh logs onto it.
“Well, you’re up at last,” Will Russo called to him jovially. He was standing a short distance from the fire, holding a steaming cup in one big hand. Walking around the fire to confront Alec, he said, “Here, have some herb tea. It isn’t terribly good, but it’ll help to start your engines running. If you’d like to shave...”
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.”
“I 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.”
