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case.
With luggage case and folder, he went once more back out into the night and
down to the landing area before the Residence. The colo-nist on duty there did
not see him pass, and a few moments later Mark quietly activated the outside
controls for the air-lock entrance to one of the heavy scout ships and went
in, closing the air lock behind him.
The scouts, like all the Abruzzi Fourteen ships, were currently on standby
ready. He needed only to run the check list and heat the engine and operating
equipment. Then the scout was ready to lift, except for a final ob-struction
check of its takeoff area.
Quietly, with the lights in the scout off be-hind him, Mark opened the lock
and stepped out. He made one circuit of the ship, confirm-ing the fact that
there was nothing in the way of her lift-off, and he was just about to
re-enter the lock when a voice spoke behind him.
"To Earth?"
Mark turned. Brot floated in his power chair a few feet away, his face
obscured in the shadow of the scout's hull.
"Yes," said Mark.
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For a moment Brot said nothing.
"It's a damn thing," he said then, "a damn thing, you throwing your life away
like this."
Mark took a step toward him.
"Dad," he said, "you've got to understand. Earth's going to have to save
face. We've got to throw them some kind of bone."
"The hell we do," said Brot. "You said it yourself they're better off without
the Colo-nies and without supporting a Navy out here. What more do they have
to have, icing on their cake?"
"Yes," said Mark. "Common sense only takes care of part of it. There's
another part the fact that specific people in Earth-City government have been
wrong about the Meda V'Dan all these years, putting up with the aliens raiding
and stealing when now it turns out any kind of firm action would have put an
end to that. They're going to get jumped on by the mass of voters back on
Earth, and they'll want a scapegoat, someone to divert atten-tion. If I don't
give them one on their front doorstep, they'll come out here to dig one up
before they give in, and that could end up wrecking everything. In five years,
even, we'll be able to handle the Navy ships, and we'll probably have made
contact with the Unknown Races, to say nothing of having got-ten all our
Colonies self-supporting. But right now none of that's done, yet. We need time
to train spacemen, we need the stored food at Navy Base and Earth government
needs an excuse to give in gracefully. They can blame me for everything
everyone back there doesn't like, and take credit themselves for the good
points. They have to have that."
"No," said Brot. He was hunched in the power chair like an old bear growling
in a cave mouth.
"I'm sorry," said Mark. He backed up against the air-lock door and reached
for its outside control without taking his eyes off Brot.
"I'll go with you," said Brot.
"Now, that would be a waste," said Mark. He felt the outer air-lock door move
in away from his fingers, opening.
"They'd make a scapegoat out of anyone who was with me, too, and one's all
they need." He shook his head. "No, I'll go alone."
"Fake it," said Brot. "There are mountains back a few hundred miles from here
where you could hide a scout like that for a hundred years. Remember that
canyon with the water-fall where I took you hunting on your twelfth birthday?
Ditch that ship there, and I'll come get you two nights from now."
Mark shook his head.
"No," he said. "Brot ... Dad, I'm sorry. But I've got to do this. I'm right
about the way they'd act back on Earth if I didn't."
"You're damn wrong," said Brot. "You think ordinary men've got guts like you?
You've already knocked them down. They're not going to get up just to be
knocked down again."
"I'm sorry," said Mark. "I'm sorry, but there's only one way to do this so
nobody but me gets hurt. Good-bye ..."
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He stepped quickly back into the air-lock, punching the button that opened
the inner lock door and closed the outer one. He had been afraid for his
strength of will if Brot had talked even a little more, but the door closed
without the older man saying another word.
He turned on the lights inside the scout and went quickly to the control
area. He was eager now to get on his way. He sat down in the command chair and
initiated the lift-off procedure. For a moment he had a fleeting worry about
the closeness of Brot to the ship. But Brot was too old a hand not to have
moved back a safe distance.
To make sure, however, he flipped his view-ing screens on heat response and
made a quick scan of the immediate area. There was no human body within fifty
yards of him. He lifted ship.
The scout went up with a smooth roar, which whispered out into silence as he
left the atmosphere behind and the engines switched automatically to tail
chambers. His viewing screens now showed the night side of Garnera VI, black
below him. He drove out to a safe distance, switched drive units, and
pro-grammed for the first shift toward Earth, work-ing from the figures in
Maura Vols's folder.
He shifted.
Abruptly the screens were bright with a dif-ferent view of stars. He sat for
a moment, watching them, then reached for the folder a little wearily and
began to compare the figures in it for the second shift with the auto-matic
position reckoning as the ship's com-puters were already building it in on the
plot screen before him. It was a purely reflexive reaction, born of the old
familiar habit he had cultivated to guardhimself at all times against the
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