Leigh Brackett

“ Then he saw the valley, with the copper cables fallen, and the wheat already on fire in several places.
Flying with every bit of his skill, he sought the narrowest part of the valley and flipped over in a racking loop. The stern tubes hit rock. The nose slammed down on the opposite wall, wedging the ship by sheer weight.
Lightning gathered in a vast javelin and flamed down upon them. Jill flinched and caught her breath. The flame hissed along the hull and vanished into seared and blackened rock.
"Still willing to die for principle?" asked Gray brutally. ”

“ Lightning burst overhead, streaking down to be caught and grounded by the copper cables. The livid flare showed Dio's face, hard with worry and determination. Gray nodded.
"Tonight, then," whispered Ward. "In the barracks."
Out from the cleft where Mel Gray worked, across the flat plain of rock stripped naked by the wind that raved across it, lay the deep valley that sheltered the heart of the Moulton Project.
Hot springs joined to form a steaming river. Vegetation grew savagely under the huge sun. ”

“ Jill's fingers caught his arm. "Don't, Gray! The Project...."
Caron faced her. "The Project is doomed in any case. My men carried out my secondary instructions. All the cables in your valley have been cut. There is a storm now ready to break.
"In fifteen minutes or so, everything will be destroyed, except the domes. Regrettable, but...." He shrugged.
Jill's temper blazed, choking her so that she could hardly speak.
"Look at him, Gray," she whispered. "That's what you're so proud of being. A cynic, who believes in nothing but himself. Look at him!" ”

“ There are mines rich in copper and pitchblende. The men have a chance for a home and a job, a part in building a new world. We hope to make Mercury an independent, self-governing member of the League of Worlds."
"With the Moultons as rulers, of course," Gray murmured.
"If they want us," answered Jill, deliberately missing the point. "Do you think you have the right to destroy all we've worked for?"
Gray was silent. Rather grimly, she went on.
"Caron of Mars would like to see us defeated. He didn't care about Mercury before radium was discovered. ”

“ Caron, at least, couldn't follow him in the dark without exhaust flares as guides.
They swept across the wind-torn plain, into the mouth of the valley where Gray had worked, braking hard to a stop under the cables.
"You might have got past them," said Jill.
"One chance in a hundred."
Her mouth twisted. "Afraid to take it?"
He smiled harshly. "I haven't yet reached the stage where I kill women. You'll be safe here—the men will find you in the morning. I'm going back, alone."
"Safe!" she said bitterly. "For what? No matter what happens, the Project is ruined." ”

“ She looked at the copper cables, burning with the electricity running along them, and thought of the one hundred and twenty-two souls in that narrow Twilight Belt—with the fierce heat of the Sunside before them and the spatial cold of the Shadow side at their backs, fighting against wind and storm and heat to build a world to replace the ones the War had taken from them. ”

“ Her eyes stopped him. He remembered Moulton, pleading for her life. He remembered how she had looked back there at the tunnel, when they had been sure of death. Some of his assurance was shaken.
"Listen," he said harshly. "I can save your valley. There's a chance in a million of coming out alive. Will you die for what you believe in?"
She hesitated, just for a second. Then she looked at Dio and said, "Yes."
Gray turned. Almost lazily, his fist snapped up and took Caron on his flabby jaw.
"Take care of him, Dio," he grunted. Then he entered the ship, herding the white-faced girl before him. ”

“ They came from off to the right, a confused shout of men under fearful strain, growing louder and louder, underscored with the tramp of footsteps. Lights blazed suddenly in the cathedral dark, and from the mouth of a great tunnel some hundred yards away, the men of the Project poured into the cave.
And then, sharp and high and unexpected, a man screamed.
The lumps of blue light were moving. And a man had died. He lay on the rock, his flesh blackened jelly, with a rope of glowing light running from the metal of his gun butt to the metal buttons on his cap. ”

“ It was white and oddly still.
"Our guards saw your ship cross the plain," said Moulton quietly. "The men of the Project, led by Dio, are coming for you. I sent them, because I have decided that the life of my daughter is less important than the lives of many thousands of people.
"I appeal to you, Gray, to let her go. Her life won't save you. And it's very precious to me."
Caron's ship swept over, low above the cables, and the grinding concussion of a bomb lifted the ship, hurled it down with the stern end twisted to uselessness. The screen went dead. ”

“ Ward stopped. Gray could see his face, dark and hard and calculating. He studied Gray and Dio, and the dead men. He turned and looked back at Caron. Then, deliberately, he stripped off his gun belt, threw down his gun, and waded into the river.
Gray remembered, then, that Ward too wore rubber boots, and had no metal on him.
Ward came on, the glowing ropes sliding surf-like around his boots. Very carefully. Gray handed Jill to Dio.
"If I die too," he said, "there's only Caron down there. He's too fat to stop you." ”

“ No matter how much Caron of Mars would like to get his claws on this radium."
He took Jill by the shoulders and shook her, laughing.
"Three weeks, girl, that's all. First crops ready for harvest, first pay-ore coming out of the mines. In three weeks my permanent charter will have to be granted, according to agreement, and then....
"Jill," he added solemnly, "we're seeing the birth of a world."
"That's what frightens me." Jill glanced upward as the first flare of lightning struck down, followed by a crash of thunder that shook the dome.
"So much can happen at a birth. ”

“ But now he'd like to turn it into a prison mining community, with convict labor, leasing mine grants to corporations and cleaning up big fortunes for himself and his associates.
"Any trouble here will give him an excuse to say that we've failed, that the Project is a menace to the Solar System. If you try to escape, you wreck everything we've done. If you don't tell the truth, you may cost thousands of men their futures.
"Do you understand? Will you cooperate?"
Gray said evenly, "I'm my own keeper, now. My brother will have to take care of himself." ”

“ Wade spat in the damp black earth. "You ought to be glad—helping the unfortunate, building a haven for the derelict...."
"Shut up!" Fury rose in Gray, hotter than the boiling springs that ran p. 57 from the Sunside to water the valleys. He hated Mercury. He hated John Moulton and his daughter Jill, who had conceived this plan of building a new world for the destitute and desperate veterans of the Second Interplanetary War. ”

“ Instead, for a reason even he couldn't understand, he ran for Jill Moulton.
The first ripples of blue fire touched the ranks of Dio's men. Bolts of it leaped upward to fasten upon gun-butts and the buckles of the cartridge belts. Men screamed, fell, and died.
An arm of the fire licked out, driving in behind Dio and the girl. The guns of Caron's four remaining men were silent, now.
Gray leaped over that hissing electric surf, running toward Jill. A hungry worm of light reared up, searching for Dio's gun. Gray's hand swept it down, to be instantly buried p. 67 in a mass of glowing ropes. ”

“ Dio's green eyes were slitted and ugly. "You've only been here a month. The rest of us came nearly a year ago—because we wanted to. We've worked like slaves, because we wanted to. In three weeks the crops will be in. The Moulton Project will be self-supporting. Moulton will get his permanent charter, and we'll be on our way.
"There are ninety-nine of us, Gray, who want the Moulton Project to succeed. We know that that louse Caron of Mars doesn't want it to, since pitchblende was discovered. We don't know whether you're working for him or not, but you're a troublemaker. ”

“ The scattered lumps melted and flowed together, converging in wavelets of blue flame upon the men.
The answer came to Gray. Those things were some form of energy-life, born of the tremendous electric tensions on Mercury. Like all electricity, they were attracted to metal. ”

“ But she was with him when he set out down the valley, making for the cliff caves, up where the copper cables were anchored.
Caron's ship, a fast, small fighter, wheeled between the cliffs and turned back. Gray dropped flat, holding the girl down. Bombs pelted them with dirt and uprooted vegetables, started fires in the wheat. ”

“ Her eyes narrowed, but she held her temper.
"You must know what that would mean, Gray. There are thousands of veterans in the prisons now. Their offenses are mostly trivial, but the Prison Authority can't let them go, because they have no jobs, no homes, no money. ”