New America Read Free

Freedom needs elbow room. We’ve got to start expanding our frontiers right away.”
    “I’m not convinced that a political theory is worth a single human life,” Coffin said. His tone softened. “However, the practical necessities you mention, you’re right about those. Why do you need Danny?”
    “Isn’t it obvious? Well, maybe it isn’t unless you’ve seen the territory. Take my word for it, men who have to wear reduction helmets are too handicapped to accomplish much in that wilderness. I told you, Phil and I barely made it to rendezvous with our rescue craft, and we had nothing more to do than hike. Salvagers will have to work harder.”
    “Who’ll accompany him?”
    “Me. We haven’t got anybody else who can be spared before weather ruins the stuff. I figure my experience and Danny’s capabilities will mesh together pretty well.
    “I’ve arranged about the wage, plus a nice payment for whatever we bring back. The College will be delighted to fill his pockets with gold. That equipment, that information represents too many manhours invested, maybe so many lives saved in future, that anybody would want to write it off.”
    Coffin was quiet for another space, until he said, “Let’s go inside,” squared his shoulders and trudged toward the house.
    Within lay firelit cheeriness, books and pictures, more room than any but the mightiest enjoyed on Earth. Teresa had tea and snacks ready; this household did not use alcohol or tobacco. (The latter was no loss, O’Malley reflected wryly. Grown in local soil, it got fierce!) Seven well-mannered youngsters greeted the visitor and settled back to listen to adult talk. (On Earth, they’d probably have been out in street gangs—or enslaved, unless barracked on some commune.) Six of them were slender, brown-haired, and fair-skinned where the sun had not scorched.
    Danny differed in more than being the oldest. He was stocky, of medium height. Though his features were essentially caucasoid — straight nose, wide narrow mouth, rust-colored eyes—still, the high cheekbones, blue-black hair, and dark complexion bespoke more than a touch of Oriental. O’Malley wondered briefly, uselessly, what his gene-parents had been like, and what induced them to give cells for storage on a spaceship they would never board, and whether or not they had ever met. By now they were almost certainly dead.
    Small talk bounced around the room. There was no lack of material. Three thousand pioneers didn’t constitute a hamlet where everybody knew day by day what everybody else was doing, especially when they were scattered across an area the size of Mindanao. To be sure, some were concentrated in Anchor; but on the whole, High American agriculture could not yet support a denser settlement.
    Nonetheless, an underlying tension was undisguisable. O’Malley felt grateful when Teresa suddenly asked him why he had come. He told them. Their eyes swung about and locked upon Danny.
    The boy did not cringe, he grew rigid, in the manner of his stepfather. But his answer could scarcely be heard: “I’d rather not.”
    “I admit we’ll face a bit of risk,” O’Malley said. “However”—he grinned—”you tell me what isn’t risky. I’m mighty fond of this battered hide of mine, son, and I’ll be right beside you.”
    Teresa strained her fingers together.
    Danny’s voice lifted and cracked. “I don’t like it down there!”
    Coffin hardened his lips. “Is that all?” he demanded. “When you can carry out a duty?”
    The boy stared at him, and away, and hunched in his chair. Finally he whispered, “If you insist, Father.”
     

    Hours passed before O’Malley left the house, to go home and prepare himself. Meanwhile full night had come upon the highland. The air was cold, silent, and altogether clear. Raksh, visibly grown in both size and phase, stood low above the cloud-sea, while tiny Sohrab hastened in pursuit; both moons crossed the sky widdershins. Elsewhere, darkness was