Defiance

by Kenneth Bulmer

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

This is the story of one member of the Terran Survey Corps. His name is Loftus Tait. There are many men of his stamp in the Corps; men who possess a deep and unshakable conviction that what they are doing has a meaning in face of the great unknowns, men who, recognising the transience and minuteness of humankind, yet believe that Man has a destiny among the stars. Not for him or his crew was there the refinement and luxury of a base ship equipped like a small world; they took their frail craft across the parsecs and set down as and when they could, and worked at their jobs, and came back - if they were lucky. Some were not so lucky.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 156

Sample

THIS is the story of one member of the Terran Survey Corps. His name is Loftus Tait. There are many men of his stamp in the Corps; men who possess a deep and unshakable conviction that what they are doing has a meaning in face of the great unknowns, men who, recognising the transience and minuteness of humankind, yet believe that Man has a destiny among the stars.

Tait would never admit these things. However close he may draw to another person—and whilst recognising his own reserve and shy diffidence he is still a warm and sympathetic human being—he could never bring himself to a declaration of the values that guide his life. Inarticulate in the hidden realms of human relationships he has the power to arouse and hold instinctive affection, and the unmistakable aura of comradeship and leadership is plainly visible to all who meet and serve him.

But no man-made service is perfect and in the most stringently supervised organisation the small, odd but terrifyingly potent spanner drops all too often among the smoothly oiled machinery. Strange and alien planets can warp a man’s mind and debauch him of his manhood even after years of loyal and psycho-cleared service among the stars. Carelessness can smash a ship down on a rocky world as easily as any Cerberus-like monstrosity spawned of children’s fiction. Baulked ambition, thwarted love, fanatical belief in too narrow a field of vision—all these can bedevil and destroy a survey scout picking her way through the dust of the Galaxy among alien stars and alien planets.

To the men like Tait quietly being briefed in Central Planning aboard base ship Saumarez, all these possible tragic emergencies form a sort of background noise effect to their immediate and pressing thoughts; they are aware of their responsibilities, have assessed them, filed them, and now give all their brains over to the next assignment.

They have the sustaining strength of tradition. The Terran Survey Corps has worked among the stars for generations. Men like Tait have served the Corps faithfully for years. Tait’s great grandfather voyaged in a small ship directly from Earth seeking new planets. Not for him or his crew was there the refinement and luxury of a base ship equipped like a small world; these six men took their frail craft across the parsecs and set down as and when they could, and worked at their jobs, and came back—if they were lucky.

Some were not so lucky. …

Never mind what star it was—that isn’t important. Don’t bother to seek a name for the planet—that doesn’t matter. Admit that the planet was Earth-sized, with safe terrestrial type air and continents and seas and a Go type star shining happily down; but this pleasing catalogue does not signify. The world was about as like Earth as you’d expect to find in a few parsec’s flight among the sifting dust of the Galaxy; about how a wooden leg resembles and does duty for a man’s own flesh and sinew and bone and muscle. But none of that’s important.

A spaceship dropped on stilts of fire to the surface. That was about as important as a tin can landing on a rubbish dump.

Six men descended from the airlock and stood on space-weary legs and surveyed the alien landscape.

They were important.

Six men who had lived, eaten, slept, breathed, worked together. Six human beings who had been cooped up in a metal shell skyrocketting across nothingness from one lump of mud to another.

Metal and plastic and glass and earth and trees and all the clever-clever tricks of science, meeting for the one and only end of putting six very ordinary but very important men upon the surface of a world different from that of their birth.

Not because they had crossed the millions of miles of dust-strewn journeyings were they important; they were important because they were men.

The first of these men to set foot upon the alien planet was the captain. He stood there quite still, quite silently, breathing long and slow, looking about, and the creases beside his eyes puckered against the alien sun.

Silently, the other five men dropped down the ladder to stand beside him.

Away off to the north the hills rose, slumbrous, purple, hazy across the great plain. Dust puffed across the plain, sere brown whirlpools rising and falling; a breeze tufted the men’s hair and rustled past them to stir and set talking the myriad leaves of the forests at their backs.

“Well, skip, we made it,” said McGarrity, the engineer, ugly-faced, carroty-haired and smiling. “But twill be a miracle if we see old Earth again.”

The captain did not reply. Lenson, the geologist, taut and pimply and soured by too much space, did that for him.

“Why keep yapping about Earth, McGarrity? We’ve three more planets to survey yet. If you can’t keep your stinking engines running we’ll all—”

“Sure ye will! And when you’re screaming your guts out in the wreck you’ll all still be blaming McGarrity.”

The other crewmen were spreading out, going about their prepared tasks on this alien world. The doctor and Shepkin, the biophysicist, were trundling out instruments and Sam, the flier pilot, was cooing over his craft. The three men—captain, McGarrity and Lenson—were left standing beneath the fin of the rocket. The captain stood between the other two, dark, unsmiling, feeling the flow of strength from his body into the needs and weaknesses of the five men he commanded and for whom he was responsible.

Lenson said Savagely : “We should have been given first rate engineer.”

“And who’re ye to pick on me?” demanded McGarrity. “I’m a first class engineer and you darn well know it.”

“This crate’s been shaking like a child with Venusian rot-fever.”

The captain—critically—let them spew it out, allowed each to lance the other’s boil of frustration and fear and pent up fury. When the time was ripe, he would step in with soothing medicaments and the harsh back to work orders.

“I tell you this, Lenson, so help me. The engines’ll take five more periods of maximum thrust. I’ll not guarantee one more.”

“Three planets left—” Lenson was starting to say.

“And,” said the captain, moving forward so that his bulk filled the others’ eyes. “We’d all like one of those five periods to be during our planetfall on Earth.” He motioned with his hand. “There’s all this world to be looked at. You’re part of the team to do that, Lenson. And you, McGarrity, have your engines to look at. Suppose we all think about our jobs, huh?”

“Sure, skip,” said Lenson at once. He began to collect his gear from the stack at the foot of the ladder.

“Work,” McGarrity said, both hands on his hips. “Always work. It’s just a job, sure it is. Hopping from one planet to the next, measuring, ruling, collecting, writing reports. This job is one for the suckers, all right.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” remarked the captain, easily.

McGarrity swung towards the ladder. “What you say goes, skip. But I still think the job’s just a job, surely; not like that maniac Lenson. He’ll do himself an injury one day, if someone else doesn’t do it first,” he finished darkly as he went up the rungs.

Work went on. The T.S.C. worked until an assigned task was completed; then they tackled the next. On their second morning on the planet the doctor cornered the captain under one of the branching fins of the rocket. The pitted metal gouged the red dust that had sifted over the calcined areas. The sun threw strong shadows. Dust blew finely. The feeling of being terrestrials on a planet that wanted nothing of them was thick in the air.

“Results show promise, skip?” The doctor had the professional slickness of his tribe; but beneath that veneer smouldered a fierce resentment against undead tribal gods that had survived ten years of Terran Survey Corps service.

“Sure.” The captain described small circles with his toe in the dust. “Sure. Those forests back there are full of wildlife and timber. The plains ahead full of minerals and with a little landscaping can fill with corn. Oh, sure, this is a number one planet, fair enough.”

“I just gave Lenson a checkup,” said the doctor, not inconsequentially. “Physically he’s as sound as a Venturi fresh from the Lunar yards.”

“But …?”

“Bee in his bonnet about our assignment. Wants to fight McGarrity, personally, so’s we carry on.”

“I see.”

“Can we, skip? I mean, is McGarrity right? Must we return to Earth prematurely?”

“Sam’s taking his flier eastwards today, Doc. I’d rather like you to go along with him.” The captain pushed himself upright from the rocket’s fin. He allowed a small friendly smile to form on his face. “Trip out in the fresh air do you good.”

“Wilco, skip,” said the doctor. He walked away. Watching him go, the captain allowed his little smile to fall to pieces.

When Sam’s flier, bearing the doctor, had vanished high in the serene and ominous blue, the captain went looking for the one man who did not ask questions that had no answer this side of sanity.

“Hi, Shep,” he said, walking up and squatting on an upturned sample case. “How’s it coming?”

“Figure we ought to set down somewhere in that forest. Find us a nice clearing.”

“Tricky, Shep. Landing into a forest—you never know what’s underneath till you touchdown. Then it might not be what you expect.”

“The ground car ventilation blew out yesterday. I got roasted coming back.” Shepkin stretched, leaning back, revealing on his makeshift dissecting table the small naked body on which he had been working. “Still—I found this’n.”

The captain looked with compassion at the tiny body. “I know you always like to dissect one specimen right down to check on anything—unusual—right away,” he said, “but I always prefer it when you just slip ’em into bottles.”

Shepkin shook his overlarge head, bending back to continue his deft butchery. “Gotta find out what we might be up against right away. Nothing particularly odd about this little fellow physically—four legs, a head, two eyes and a mouth and breathing slits. I’ll be working on his bugs and fellow-passengers this afternoon to learn the fuller story. Nothing too odd—except this. Here, look.”

The captain stretched to take the proffered tail. He started at Shepkin’s quick : “Steady! That’s as sharp as my scalpel.”

He held the object gingerly. The tail was browny-red, flat and long, a central boney ridge flattening out on either side into a double-bladed knife of bone.

Shepkin took it back, produced a paper handkerchief, sliced the tissue with the tail. “See skip? Razor-sharp.”

“Why?”

The biophysicist blew out his cheeks. “Don’t know. Yet. Weapon, of course. Look at the feet—curved claws with nails like grappling hooks.”

“Tree climber?”

“Looks like it.”

“Well, when you’ve captured a few more specimens you’ll probably have the fellow this tail is meant to decapitate.”

Shepkin laughed shortly. “Decapitate. Sure. Why don’t Lenson belt up? He’s souring the whole mob.”

“He believes in the job, Shep. He really lives it. Every minute of every day he’s carving out new frontiers for Earth. He’s the rugged frontiersman. He never lets up.”

“Well, if McGarrity don’t push his face in soon—and you know I’m a lazy good-natured bum, skip—I’ll line up for that assignment.”

“Take it easy, Shep.” The captain rose. “Lenson knows his job. We’re all touched a little, in some way. Wouldn’t be here if we weren’t.”

“Yeah. Good old Survey Corps. The job goes on regardless. Stick your insides up, lose your arms and legs, go blind, deaf, dumb, crawl on stumps and drink dust; but the job must be done. Hurrah for the Terran Survey Corps.” He thrust his scalpel with vicious humour into the work bench. “Hell! And that’s all emotion and glory ever do get you—just more work, resharpening scalpels. What a life.”

“We’ve another three planets after this one, Shep,” the captain said, and left the lab quickly. He climbed up into the control room. Another three, with five more guaranteed periods of thrust. No slide rule could add that up and make sense. There was an odd air of pathetic loss about the empty control positions. He checked the clock and switched on the planetary radio. After a time Sam’s voice rode in strongly and he exchanged a ten-minute check with him and the doctor. As he spoke into the microphone his eyes looked steadily through the control ports off towards the forests beckoning like ranked lances along the edge of the plain.

Lenson entered the control room. The captain said : “Cheerio for now, Doc, Sam,” and cut the radio connection. He said : “Hullo, Lenson. How’s it coming?”

“Fine. Just fine. Enough ores out there to last a new colony for centuries. We ought to be able to build up this planet into a really big thing; an important unit in the Terran Commonwealth.”

The captain looked at the geologist, masking the intensity of his scrutiny. “Ever think of settling down on one of the new worlds you open up, Lenson?”

Lenson laughed. “Settle down? Me? With all the Galaxy waiting to be opened up?”

“Over a hundred thousand habitable planets, at least,” said the captain as though musing. “No man has that many lifetimes, Lenson.”

“I’ll get by, I’ll get by,” Lenson said quickly. He hadn’t even understood the captain’s remark. “Wanted you to take a look at this sample. I figure if we moved off a little and set down nearer those mountains we could—”

“Always tricky setting down near mountains. Never know what’s under you.”

“I suppose you’re going to set down in that damned forest? You and Shepkin always—”

“Think I’ll take a shower,” the captain said, rising and turning to face Lenson squarely. “Get’s kinda hot in this tin can.”

He shaved and showered and changed. His mind was fixed upon the problem of Lenson. The geologist’s frame of mind was not unknown and probably had been labelled by a polysyllabic extravaganza that the doctor had been too wise to parade before his skipper.. . .