Tunnel in the Sky (20 page)

   
“Huh? Everybody got to talk. Everybody got to vote.”

  
 
“Yes,” agreed Baxter. “Yes . . . and no.”

   
“It was all proper. I have no kick.”

   
“I didn't expect you to kick, Rod. Nevertheless well, I don't know how much politicking you've seen, Rod. I haven't seen much myself, except in church matters and we Quakers don't do things that way; we wait until the Spirit moves. But, despite all the rigamarole, that was a slick piece of railroading. This morning you would have been elected overwhelmingly; tonight you did not stand a chance.”

   
“The point is,” Jimmy put in, “do we stand for it?”

   
“What can we do?”

   
“What can we do? We don't have to stay here. We've still got our own group; we can walk out and find another place . . . a bigger cave maybe.”

   
'Yes, sir!” agreed Caroline. “Right tonight.”

   
Rod thought about it. The idea was tempting; they didn't need the others . . . guys like Nielsen- and Cowper. The discovery that his friends were loyal to him, loyal to the extent that they would consider exile rather than let him down choked him up. He turned to Jacqueline. “How about you, Jackie?”

   
“We're partners, Rod. Always.”

   
“Bob- do you want to do this? You and Carmen?”

   
“Yes. Well . .

   
“'Well' what?”

   
“Rod, we're sticking with you. This election is all very well- but you took us in when we needed it and teamed with us. We'll never forget it. Furthermore I think that you make a sounder team captain than Cowper is likely to make. But there is one thing.”

   
“Yes.”

   
“If you decide that we leave, Carmen and I will appreciate it if you put it off a day.”

   
“Why?” demanded Caroline. “Now is the time.”

   
“Well- they've set this up as a formal colony, a village with a mayor. Everybody knows that a regularly elected mayor can perform weddings.”

   
“Oh!” said Caroline. “Pardon my big mouth.”

   
“Carmen and I can take care of the religious end- it's not very complicated in our church. But, just in case we ever are rescued, we would like it better and our folks would like it if the civil requirements were all perfectly regular and legal. You see?”

   
Rod nodded. “I see.”

   
“But if you say to leave tonight . . .”

   
“I don't,” Rod answered with sudden decision. “We'll stay and get you two properly married. Then-”

   
“Then we all shove off in a shower of rice,” Caroline finished.

   
“Then we'll see. Cowper may turn out to be a good mayor. We won't leave just because I lost an election.” He looked around at their faces. “But . . . but I certainly do thank you. I-”

   
He could not go on. Carmen stepped forward and kissed him quickly. “Goodnight, Rod. Thanks.”

   
Mayor Cowper got off to a good start. He approved, took over, and embellished a suggestion that Carmen and Bob should have their own quarters. He suspended work on the wall and set the whole village to constructing a honeymoon cottage. Not until his deputy, Roy Kilroy, reminded him did he send out hunting parties.

   
He worked hard himself, having set the wedding for that evening and having decreed that the building must be finished by sundown. Finished it was by vandalizing part of the wall to supply building stone when the supply ran short Construction was necessarily simple since they had no tools, no mortar but clay mud, no way to cut timbers. It was a stone box as tall as a man and a couple of meters square, with a hole for a door. The roof was laid up from the heaviest poles that could be cut from a growth upstream of giant grass much like bamboo- the colonists simply called it “bamboo.” This was thatched and plastered with mud; it sagged badly.

   
But it was a house and even had a door which could be closed- a woven grass mat stiffened with bamboo. It neither hinged nor locked but it filled the hole and could be held in place with a stone and a pole. The floor was clean sand covered with fresh broad leaves.

   
As a doghouse for a St. Bernard it would have been about right; as a dwelling for humans it was not much. But it was better than that which most human beings had enjoyed through the history and prehistory of the race. Bob and Carmen did not look at it critically.

   
When work was knocked off for lunch Rod selfconsciously sat down near a group around Cowper. He had wrestled with his conscience for a long time in the night and had decided that the only thing to do was to eat sour grapes and pretend to like them. He could start by not avoiding Cowper.

   
Margery Chung was cook for the day; she cut Rod a chunk of scorched meat. He thanked her and started to gnaw it. Cowper was talking. Rod was not trying to overhear but there seemed to be no reason not to listen.

   
“-which is the only way we will get the necessary discipline into the group. I'm sure you agree. Cowper glanced up, caught Rod's eye, looked annoyed, then grinned. “Hello, Rod.”

   
“Hi, Grant.”

   
“Look, old man, we're having an executive committee meeting. Would you mind finding somewhere else to eat lunch?”

   
Rod stood up blushing. “Oh! Sure.”

   
Cowper seemed to consider it. “Nothing private, of course- just getting things done. On second thought maybe you should sit in and give us your advice.”

   
“Huh? Oh, no! I didn't know anything was going on.” Rod started to move away.

   
Cowper did not insist. “Got to keep working, lots to do. See you later, then. Any time.” He grinned and turned away.

   
Rod wandered off, feeling conspicuous. He heard himself hailed and turned gratefully, joined Jimmy Throxton. “Come outside the wall,” Jimmy said quietly. “The Secret Six are having a picnic. Seen the happy couple?”

   
“You mean Carmen and Bob?”

   
“Know any other happy couples? Oh, there they are- staring hungrily at their future mansion. See you outside.”

   
Rod went beyond the wall, found Jacqueline and Caroline sitting near the water and eating. From habit he glanced around, sizing up possible cover for carnivores and figuring escape routes back into the kraal, but his alertness was not conscious as there seemed no danger in the open so near other people. He joined the girls and sat down on a rock. “Hi, kids.”

   
“Hello, Rod.”

   
“H'lo, Roddie,” Caroline seconded. “'What news on the Rialto?'“

   
“None, I guess. Say, did Grant appoint an executive committee last night?”

   
“He appointed about a thousand committees but no executive committee unless he did it after we adjourned. Why an executive committee? This gang needs one the way I need a bicycle.”

   
“Who is on it, Rod?” asked Jacqueline.

   
Rod thought back and named the faces he had seen around Cowper. She looked thoughtful. “Those are his own special buddies from Teller U.”

   
“Yes, I guess so.

   
“I don't like it,” she answered.

   
“What's the harm?”

   
“Maybe none . . . maybe. It is about what we could expect. But I'd feel better if all the classes were on it, not just that older bunch. You know.”

   
“Shucks, Jack, you've got to give him some leeway.”

   
“I don't see why, put in Caroline. “That bunch you named are the same ones Hizzonor appointed as chairmen of the other committees. It's a tight little clique. You notice none of us unsavory characters got named to any important cominittee- I'm on waste disposal and camp sanitation, Jackie is on food preparation, and you aren't on any. You should have been on the constitution, codification, and organization committee, but he made himself chairman and left you out. Add it up.”

   
Rod did not answer. Caroline went on, “I'll add it if you won't. First thing you know there will be a nominating committee. Then we'll find that only those of a certain age, say twenty-one, can hold office. Pretty soon that executive committee will turn into a senate (called something else, probably) with a veto that can be upset only by a three-quarters majority that we will never get. That's the way my Uncle Phil would have rigged it.”

   
“Your Uncle Phil?”

   
“Boy, there was a politician! I never liked him- he had kissed so many babies his lips were puckered. I used to hide when he came into our house. But I'd like to put him up against Hizzonor. It'ud be a battle of dinosaurs. Look, Rod, they've got us roped and tied; I say we should fade out right after the wedding.” She turned to Jacqueline. “Right. . . pardner?”

   
“Sure . . . if Rod says so.”

   
“Well, I don't say so. Look, Carol, I don't like the situation. To tell the truth . . . well, I was pretty sour at being kicked out of the captaincy. But I can't let the rest of you pull out on that account. There aren't enough of us to form another colony, not safely.”

   
“Why, Roddie, there are three times as many people still back in those trees as there are here in camp. This time we'll build up slowly and be choosy about whom we take. Six is a good start. We'll get by.”

   
“Not six, Carol. Four.”

   
“Huh? Six! We shook on it last night before Jimmy woke you.”

   
Rod shook his head. “Carol, how can we expect Bob and Carmen to walk out . . . right after the rest have made them a wedding present of a house of their own?”

   
“Well . . . darn it, we'd build them another house!”

   
“They would go with us, Carol- but it's too much to ask.”

   
“I think,” Jacqueline said grudgingly, “that Rod has something, Carol.”

   
The argument was ended by the appearance of Bob, Carmen, and Jimmy. They had been delayed, explained Jimmy, by the necessity of inspecting the house. “As if I didn't know every rock in it. Oh, my back!”

   
“I appreciate it, Jim,” Carmen said softly. “I'll rub your back.”

   
“Sold!” Jimmy lay face down.

   
“Hey!” protested Caroline. “I carried more rocks than he did. Mostly he stood aromid and bossed.”

   
“Supervisory work is exceptionally tiring,” Jimmy said smugly. “You get Bob to rub your back.”

   
Neither got a back rub as Roy Kilroy called to them from the wall. “Hey! You down there- lunch hour is over. Let's get back to work.”

   
“Sorry, Jimmy. Later.” Carmen turned away.

   
Jimmy scrambled to his feet. “Bob, Carmen- don't go 'way yet. I want to say something.”

   
They stopped. Rod waved to Kilroy. “With you in a moment!” He turned back to the others.

   
Jimmy seemed to have difficulty in choosing words. “Uh, Carmen . . . Bob. The future Baxters. You know we think a lot of you. We think it's swell that you are going to get married- every family ought to have a marriage. But . . . well, shopping isn't what it might be around here and we didn't know what to get you. So we talked it over and decided to give you this. It's from all of us. A wedding present.” Jimmy jammed a hand in his pocket, hauled out his dirty, dog-eared playing cards and handed them to Carmen.

   
Bob Baxter looked startled. “Gosh, Jimmy, we can't take your cards-your only cards.”

   
“I- we want you to have them.”

   
“But-”

   
“Be quiet, Bob!” Carmen said and took the cards. “Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you very much. Thank you all.” She looked around. “Our getting married isn't going to make any difference, you know. It's still one family. We'll expect you all . . . to come play cards . . . at our house just as-” She stopped suddenly and started to cry, buried her head on Bob's shoulder. He patted it. Jimmy looked as if he wanted to cry and Rod felt nakedly embarrassed.

   
They started back, Carmen with an arm around Jimmy and the other around her bethrothed. Rod hung back with the other two. “Did Jimmy,” he whispered, “say anything to either of you about this?”