Tunnel in the Sky (35 page)

   
“Yes. The Board and I don't see eye to eye on policy. Secondly, I'm leading a party out . . . and this time your sister and I are going to settle down and prove a farm.” Matson looked at him. “Wouldn't be interested, would you? I need a salted lieutenant.”

   
“Huh? Thanks, but as I told you, this is my place. Uh, where are you going?”

   
“Territa, out toward the Hyades. Nice place- they are charging a stiff premium.”

   
Rod shrugged. “Then I couldn't afford it.”

   
“As my lieutenant, you'd be exempt. But I wasn't twisting your arm; I just thought you ought to have a chance to turn it down. I have to get along with your sister, you know.”

   
Rod glanced at Helen. “Sorry, Sis.”

   
“It's all right, Buddy. We're not trying to live your life.”

   
“Mmm . . . no. Matson puffed hard; then went on. “However, as your putative brother and former teacher I feel obligated to mention a couple of things. I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I'll appreciate it if you'll listen. Okay?”

   
“Well . . . go ahead.”

   
“This is a good spot. but you might go back to school, you know. Acquire recognized professional status. If you refuse recall, here you stay . . . forever. You won't see the rest of the Outlands. They won't give you free passage back later. But a professional gets around, he sees the world. Your sister and I have been on some fifty planets. School does not look attractive now- you're a man and it will be hard to wear boy's shoes. But-” Matson swept an arm, encompassed all of Cowpertown, “-this counts. You can skip courses, get field credit. I have some drag with the Chancellor of Central Tech. Hmmm?”

   
Rod sat with stony face, then shook his head. “Okay,” said Matson briskly. “No harm done.”

   
“Wait. Let me tell you.” Rod tried to think how to explain how he felt . . . “Nothing, I guess,” he said gruffly.

   
Matson smoked in silence. “You were leader here,” he said at last.

   
“Mayor,” Rod corrected. “Mayor of Cowpertown. I was the Mayor, I mean.”

   
“You are the Mayor. Population one, but you are still boss. And even those bureaucrats in the control service wouldn't dispute that you've proved the land. Technically you are an autonomous colony- I hear you told Sansom that.” Matson grinned. “You're alone, however. You can't live alone, Rod . . . not and stay human.”

   
“Well, yes- but aren't they going to settle this planet?”

   
“Sure. Probably fifty thousand this year, four times that many in two years. But, Rod, you would be part of the mob. Theyll bring their own leaders.”

   
“I don't have to be boss! I just- well, I don't want to give up Cowpertown.”

   
“Rod, Cowpertown is safe in history, along with Plymouth Rock, Botany Bay, and Dakin's Colony. The citizens of Tangaroa will undoubtedly preserve it as a historical shrine. Whether you stay is another matter. Nor am I trying to persuade you. I was simply pointing out alternatives.” He stood up. “About time we started, Helen.”

   
“Yes, dear.” She accepted his hand and stood up.

   
“Wait a minute!” insisted Rod. “Deacon . . . Sis! I know I sound like a fool. I know this is gone . . . the town, and the kids, and everything. But I can't go back.” He added, “It's not that I don't want to.”

  
 
Matson nodded. “I understand you.”

   
“I don't see how. I don't.”

   
“Maybe I've been there. Rod, everyone of us is beset by two things: a need to go home, and the impossibility of doing it. You are at the age when these hurt worst. You've been thrown into a situation that makes the crisis doubly acute. You- don't interrupt me- you've been a man here, the old man of the tribe, the bull of the herd. That is why the others could go back but you can't. Wait, please! I suggested that you might find it well to go back and be an adolescent for a while . . . and it seems unbearable. I'm not surprised. It would be easier to be a small child. Children are another race and adults deal with them as such. But adolescents are neither adult nor child. They have the impossible, unsolvable, tragic problems of all fringe cultures. They don't belong, they are second-class citizens, economically and socially insecure. It is a difficult period and I don't blame you for not wanting to return to it. I simply think it might pay. But you have been king of a whole world; I imagine that term papers and being told to wipe your feet and such are out of the question. So good luck. Coming, dear?”

   
“Deacon,” his wife said, “Aren't you going to tell him?”

   
“It has no bearing. It would be an unfair way to influence his judgment.”

   
“You men! I'm glad I'm not male!”

   
“So am I,” Matson agreed pleasantly.

   
“I didn't mean that. Men behave as if logic were stepping on crack in a sidewalk. I'm going to tell him.”

   
“On your head be it.”

   
“Tell me what?” demanded Rod.

   
“She means,” said Matson, “that your parents are back.”

   
“What?”

   
“Yes, Buddy. They left stasis a week ago and Daddy came out of the hospital today. He's well. But we haven't told him all about you- we haven't known what to say.”

   
The facts were simple, although Rod found them hard to soak up. Medical techniques had developed in two years, not a pessimistic twenty; it had been possible to relax the stasis, operate, and restore Mr. Walker to the world. Helen had known for months that such outcome was likely, but their father's physician had not approved until he was sure. It had been mere coincidence that Tangaroa had been located at almost the same time. To Rod one event was as startling as the other; his parents had been dead to him for a long time.

   
“My dear,” Matson said sternly, “now that you have thrown him into a whingding, shall we go?”

   
“Yes. But I had to tell him.” Helen kissed Rod quickly, turned to her husband. They started to walk away.

 
  
Rod watched them, his face contorted in an agony of indecision.

   
Suddenly he called out, “Wait! I'm coming with you.”

   
“All right,” Matson answered. He turned his good eye toward his wife and drooped the lid in a look of satisfaction that was not quite a wink. “If you are sure that is what you want to do, I'll help you get your gear together.”

   
“Oh, I haven't any baggage. Let's go.”

   
Rod stopped only long enough to free the penned animals.

   
Matson chaperoned him through Emigrants' Gap, saved from possible injury a functionary who wanted to give Rod psychological tests, and saw to it that he signed no waivers. He had him bathed, shaved, and barbered, then fetched him clothes, before he let him be exposed to the Terran world. Matson accompanied them only to Kaibab Gate. “I'm supposed to have a lodge dinner, or something, so that you four can be alone as a family. About nine, dear. See you, Rod.” He kissed his wife and left.

   
“Sis? Dad doesn't know I'm coming?”

   
Helen hesitated. “He knows. I screened him while Deacon was primping you.” She added, “Remember, Rod, Dad has been ill . . . and the time has been only a couple of weeks to him.”

   
“Oh, that's so, isn't it?” Used all his life to Ramsbotham anomalies, Rod nevertheless found those concerned with time confusing- planet-hopping via the gates did not seem odd. Besides, he was extremely edgy without knowing why, the truth being that he was having an attack of fear of crowds. The Matsons had anticipated it but had not warned him lest they make him worse.

   
The walk through tall trees just before reaching home calmed him. The necessity for checking all cover for dangerous animals and keeping a tree near him always in mind gave his subconscious something familiar to chew on. He arrived home almost cheerful without being aware either that he had been frightened by crowds or soothed by non-existent dangers of an urban forest.

   
His father looked browned and healthy- but shorter and smaller. He embraced his son and his mother kissed him and wept. “It's good to have you home, son. I understand you had quite a trip.”

   
“It's good to be home, Dad.”

   
“I think these tests are much too strenuous, I really do.”

   
Rod started to explain that it really had not been a test, that it had not been strenuous, and that Cowpertown- Tangaroa, rather- had been a soft touch. But he got mixed up and was disturbed by the presence of “Aunt” Nora Peascoat- no relation but a childhood friend of his mother. Besides, his father was not listening.

   
But Mrs. Peascoat was listening, and looking-peering with little eyes through folds of flesh. “Why, Roderick Walker, I knew that couldn't have been a picture of you.”

   
“Eh?” asked his father. “What picture?”

   
“Why, that wild-man picture that had Roddie's name on it. You must have seen it; it was on facsimile and Empire Hour both. I knew it wasn't him. I said to Joseph, 'Joseph,' I said, 'that's not a picture of Rod Walker-its a fake.'“

   
“I must have missed it. As you know, I-”

   
“I'll send it to you; I clipped it. I knew it was a fake. It's a horrible thing, a great naked savage with pointed teeth and a fiendish grin and a long spear and war paint all over its ugly face. I said to Joseph-”

   
“As you know, I returned from hospital just this morning, Nora. Rod, there was no picture of you on the news services, surely?”

   
“Uh, yes and no. Maybe.”

   
“I don't follow you. Why should there be a picture of you?”

   
“There wasn't any reason. This bloke just took it.”

   
“Then there was a picture?”

   
“Yes.” Rod saw that “Aunt” Nora was eyeing him avidly: “But it was a fake- sort of.”

   
“I still don't follow you.

   
“Please, Pater,” Helen intervened. “Rod had a tiring trip. This can wait.”

   
“Oh, surely. I don't see how a picture can be 'a sort of a fake.'“

   
“Well, Dad, this man painted my face when I wasn't looking. I-” Rod stopped, realizing that it sounded ridiculous.

   
“Then it was your picture?” “Aunt” Nora insisted.

   
“I'm not going to say any more.

   
Mr. Walker blinked. “Perhaps that is best.”

   
“Aunt” Nora looked ruffled. “Well, I suppose anything can happen 'way off in those odd places. From the teaser on Empire Hour I understand some very strange things did happen . . . not all of them nice.”

   
She looked as if daring Rod to deny it. Rod said nothing. She went on, “I don't know what you were thinking of, letting a boy do such things. My father always said that if the Almighty had intended us to use those gate things instead of rocket ships He would have provided His own holes in the sky.”

   
Helen said sharply, “Mrs. Peascoat, in what way is a rocket ship more natural than a gate?”

   
“Why, Helen Walker! I've been 'Aunt Nora' all your life. 'Mrs. Peascoat' indeed!”

   
Helen shrugged. “And my name is Matson, not Walker- as you know.”

   
Mrs. Walker, distressed and quite innocent, broke in to ask Mrs. Peascoat to stay for dinner. Mr. Walker added, “Yes, Nora, join us Under the Lamp.”

   
Rod counted to ten. But Mrs. Peascoat said she was sure they wanted to be alone, they had so much to talk about . . . and his father did not insist.

   
Rod quieted during ritual, although he stumbled in responses and once left an awkward silence. Dinner was wonderfully good, but he was astonished by the small portions; Terra must be under severe rationing. But everyone seemed happy and so he was.

   
“I'm sorry about this mix-up,” his father told him. “I suppose it means that you will have to repeat a semester at Patrick Henry.”

   
“On the contrary, Pater,” Helen answered, “Deacon is sure that Rod can enter Central Tech with advanced standing.”