Tunnel in the Sky (18 page)

   
“Huh? We didn't work out a plan; we both just did what we could and did it fast.” She turned to Jacqueline and gave her a clap on the shoulder that nearly knocked her over. “This kid is solid, Roddie, solid!”

   
Jacqueline recovered, looked pleased and tried not to show it. “Aw, Carol!”

   
“Anyway I thank you both.”

   
“A pleasure. I wish that pea shooter had been loaded. Rod, what are you going to do with them?”

   
“Well . . . ummph!”

   
“Whoops!” said Baxter, behind him. “I said it was going to hurt. I had better put one more clip in. I'd like to put a dressing on that, but we can't, so you lay off heavy work for a while and sleep on your stomach.”

  
 
“Unh!” said Rod.

   
“That's the last. You can get up now. Take it easy and give it a chance to scab.”

   
“I still think,” Caroline insisted, “that we ought to make them swim the creek. We could make bets on whether or not any of 'em make it across.”

  
 
“Carol, you're uncivilized.”

   
“I never claimed to be civilized. But I know which end wags and which end bites.”

   
Rod ignored her and went to look at the prisoners. Roy Kilroy had caused them to lie down one on top of the other; it rendered them undignified and helpless. “Let them sit up.”

   
Kilroy and Grant Cowper had been guarding them. Cowper said, “You heard the Captain. Sit up.” They unsnarled and sat up, looking glum.

   
Rod looked at Jock McGowan. “What do you think we ought to do with you?”

   
McGowan said nothing. The puncture in his side was oozing blood and he was pale. Rod said slowly, “Some think we ought to chuck you in the stream. That's the same as condemning you to death- but if we are going to, we ought to shoot you or hang you. I don't favor letting anybody be eaten alive. Should we hang you?”

   
Bruce McGowan blurted out, “We haven't done anything.”

   
“No. But you sure tried. You aren't safe to have around other people.”

   
Somebody called out, “Oh, let's shoot them and get it over with!” Rod ignored it. Grant Cowper came close to
    
Rod and said, “We ought to vote on this. They ought to
    
have a trial.”

   
Rod shook his head. “No.” He went on to the prisoners,

   
I don't favor punishing you- this is personal. But we can't risk having you around either.” He turned to Cowper. “Give them their knives.”

   
“Rod? You're not going to fight them?”

   
“Of course not.” He turned back. “You can have your knives; we're keeping your guns. When we turn you loose, head downstream and keep going. Keep going for at least a week. If you ever show your faces again, you won't get a chance to explain. Understand me?'

   
Jock McGowan nodded. Dick Burke gulped and said, “But turning us out with just knives is the same as killing us.

   
“Nonsense! No guns. And remember, if you turn back this way, even to hunt, it's once too many. There may be somebody trailing you- with a gun.

   
“Loaded this time!” added Caroline. “Hey, Roddie, I want that job. Can I? Please?”

   
“Shut up, Carol. Roy, you and Grant start them on their way.”

   
As exiles and guards, plus sightseers, moved off they ran into Jimmy Throxton coming back into camp. He stopped and stared. “What's the procession? Rod what have you done to your ribs, boy? Scratching yourself again?”

   
Several people tried to tell him at once. He got the gist of it and shook his head mournfully. “And there I was, good as gold, looking for pretty rocks for our garden wall. Every time there's a party people forget to ask me. Discrimination.”

   
“Stow it, Jim. It's not funny.”

   
“That's what I said. It's discrimination.”

   
Rod got the group started on the wall with an hour or more of daylight wasted. He tried to work on the wall despite Bob Baxter's medical orders, but found that he was not up to it; not only was his wound painful but also he felt shaky with reaction.

   
Grant Cowper looked him up during the noon break. “Skipper, can I talk with you? Privately?”

   
Rod moved aside with him. “What's on your mind?”

   
“Mmm . . . Rod, you were lucky this morning. You know that, don't you? No offense intended.”

   
“Sure, I know. What about it?”

   
“Uh, do you know why you had trouble?”

   
“What? Of course I know- now. I trusted somebody when I should not have.”

   
Cowper shook his head. “Not at all. Rod, what do you know about theory of government?”

   
Rod looked surprised. “I've had the usual civics courses. Why?”

   
“I doubt if I've mentioned it, but the course I'm majoring in at Teller U. is colonial administration. One thing we study is how authority comes about in human society and how it is maintained. I'm not criticizing but to be blunt, you almost lost your life because you've never studied such things.”

   
Rod felt annoyed. “What are you driving at?”

   
“Take it easy. But the fact remains that you didn't have any authority. McGowan knew it and wouldn't take orders. Everybody else knew it, too. When it came to a showdown, nobody knew whether to back you up or not. Because you don't have a milligram of real authority.”

   
“Just a moment! Are you saying I'm not leader of this team?”

   
“You are de facto leader, no doubt about it. But you've never been elected to the job. That's your weakness.”

   
Rod chewed this over. “I know,” he said slowly. “It's just that we have been so confounded busy.”

   
“Sure, I know. I'd be the last person to criticize. But a captain ought to be properly elected.”

   
Rod sighed. “I meant to hold an election but I thought getting the wall built was more urgent. All right, let's call them together.”

   
“Oh, you don't need to do it this minute.”

   
“Why not? The sooner the better, apparently.”

   
“Tonight, when it's too dark to work, is soon enough.”

   
“Well . . . okay.”

   
When they stopped for supper Rod announced that there would be an organization and planning meeting. No one seemed surprised, although he himself had mentioned it to no one. He felt annoyed and had to remind himself that there was nothing secret about it; Grant had been under no obligation to keep it quiet. He set guards and fire tenders, then came back into the circle of firelight and called out, “Quiet, everybody! Let's get started. If you guys on watch can't hear, be sure to speak up” He hesitated. “We're going to hold an election. Somebody pointed out that I never have been elected captain of this survival team. Well, if any of you have your noses out of joint, I'm sorry. I was doing the best I could. But you are entitled to elect a captain. All right, any nominations?”

   
Jiminy Throxton shouted, “I nominate Rod Walker!” Caroline's voice answered, “I second it! Move the nominations be closed.”

   
Rod said hastily, “Carol, your motion is out of order.”

   
“Why?”

   
Before he could answer Roy Kilroy spoke up. “Rod, can I have the floor a moment? Privileged question.”

   
Rod turned, saw that Roy was squatting beside Grant Cowper. “Sure. State your question.”

   
“Matter of procedure. The first thing is to elect a temporary chairman.”

   
Rod thought quickly. “I guess you're right. Jimmy, your nomination is thrown out. Nominations for temporary chairman are in order.”

   
“Rod Walker for temporary chairman!”

   
“Oh, shut up, Jimmy! I don't want to be temporary chairman.”

   
Roy Kilroy was elected. He took the imaginary gavel and announced, “The chair recognizes Brother Cowper for a statement of aims and purposes of this meeting.”

   
Jimmy Throxton called out, “What do we want any speeches for? Let's elect Rod and go to bed. I'm tired- and I've got a two-hour watch coming up.”

   
“Out of order. The chair recognizes Grant Cowper.” Cowper stood up. The firelight caught his handsome features and curly, short beard. Rod rubbed the scraggly
 
growth on his own chin and wished that he looked like Cowper. The young man was dressed only in walking shorts and soft bush shoes but he carried himself with the easy dignity of a distinguished speaker before some important body. “Friends,” he said, “brothers and sisters, we are gathered here tonight not to elect a survival-team captain, but to found a new nation.”

   
He paused to let the idea sink in. “You know the situation we are in. We fervently hope to be rescued, none more so than I. I will even go so far as to say that I think we will be rescued . . . eventually. But we have no way of knowing, we have no data on which to base an intelligent guess, as to when we will be rescued.

   
“It might be tomorrow . . . it might be our descendants a thousand years from now.” He said the last very solemnly.

   
“But when the main body of our great race re-establishes contact with us, it is up to us, this little group here tonight, whether they find a civilized society
 
or flea-bitten animals without language, without arts, with the light of reason grown dim . . . or no survivors at all, nothing but bones picked clean.”

   
“Not mine!” called out Caroline. Kilroy gave her a dirty look and called for order.

   
“Not yours, Caroline,” Cowper agreed gravely. “Nor mine. Not any of us. Because tonight we will take the step that will keep this colony alive. We are poor in things; we will make what we need. We are rich in knowledge; among us we hold the basic knowledge of our great race. We must preserve it . . . we will!”

   
Caroline cut through Cowper's dramatic pause with a stage whisper. “Talks pretty, doesn't he? Maybe I'll marry him.”

   
He did not try to fit this heckling into his speech. “What is the prime knowledge acquired by our race? That without which the rest is useless? What flame must we guard like vestal virgins?”

   
Some one called out, “Fire.” Cowper shook his head.

   
“Writing!”

   
“The decimal system.”

   
“Atomics!”

   
“The wheel, of course.

   
“No, none of those. They are all important, but they are not the keystone. The greatest invention of mankind is government. It is also the hardest of all. More individualistic than cats, nevertheless we have learned to cooperate more efficiently than ants or bees or termites. Wilder, bloodier, and more deadly than sharks, we have learned to live together as peacefully as lambs. But these things are not easy. That is why that which we do tonight will decide our future . . . and perhaps the future of our children, our children's children, our descendants far into the womb of time. We are not picking a temporary survival leader; we are setting up a government. We must do it with care. We must pick a chief executive for our new nation, a mayor of our city-state. But we must draw up a constitution, sign articles binding us together. We must organize and plan.”

   
“Hear, hear!”

   
“Bravo!”

   
“We must establish law, appoint judges, arrange for orderly administration of our code. Take for example, this morning-” Cowper turned to Rod and gave him a
 
friendly smile. “Nothing personal, Rod, you understand that. I think you acted with wisdom and I was happy that you tempered justice with mercy. Yet no one could have criticized if you had yielded to your impulse and killed all four of those, uh . . . anti-social individuals. But justice should not be subject to the whims of a dictator. We can't stake our lives on your temper . . . good or bad. You see that, don't you?”

   
Rod did not answer He felt that he was being accused of bad temper, of being a tyrant and dictator, of being a danger to the group. But he could not put his finger on it. Grant Cowper's remarks had been friendly . . . yet they felt intensely personal and critical.

   
Cowper insisted on an answer. “You do see that, Rod? Don't you? You don't want to continue to have absolute power over the lives and persons of our community? You don't want that? Do you?” He waited.