Nemesis Read online

Chapter 11. Orbit

  19

  Pitt's quiet time was over, but he did not wish it to be over. Quite arbitrarily, he canceled his afternoon appointments. He wanted more thinking time.

  Specifically, he wanted to think about Marlene.

  Her mother, Eugenia Insigna Fisher, was a problem, and had, in fact, grown to be more of one over the last dozen years. She was emotional and jumped far ahead of anything reason would allow. Yet she was a human being; she could be led and controlled; she could be pent-up within the comfortable walls of logic; and though she might be restless at times, she could be made to remain there.

  Not so with this Marlene. Pitt had no doubt that she was a monster, and he could only be grateful that she had foolishly revealed herself in order to help her mother on so trivial an occasion. But then she was inexperienced and lacked the wisdom to have kept her abilities hidden until she could use them in a truly devastating fashion.

  But she would only grow more dangerous as she grew older, so she would have to be stopped now. And she would be stopped by that other monster, Erythro.

  Pitt gave himself credit. He had recognized Erythro as a monster from the start. It had its own expression to read - the reflection of the bloody light of its star, an expression that was ominous and menacing.

  When they had reached the asteroid belt, a hundred million miles outside the orbit in which Megas and Erythro circled Nemesis, Pitt had said, with full confidence, 'This is the place. '

  He had expected no difficulty. The rational view admitted nothing else. Among the asteroids, Nemesis cast little heat and light. The loss of natural heat and light was nothing, since Rotor had fully functional micro-fusion. In fact, it was actually a benefit. With its red light dimmed to almost nothing, it did not weigh down the heart, darken the mind, and shiver the soul.

  Then, too, a base in the asteroidal belt would place them in an area where the gravitational effects of Nemesis and Megas would be weak, and where maneuverability would, in consequence, be less energy-expensive. The asteroids would be more easily mined, and considering the feeble light of Nemesis, there should be plenty of volatiles on those little bodies.

  Ideal!

  And yet the people of Rotor made it clear that, by an overwhelming majority, they wanted to move the Settlement into orbit around Erythro. Pitt labored to point out that they would be bathed in angrily depressing red light, that they would be held firmly in the grip of Megas as well as Erythro, and that they might still have to go to the asteroids for raw materials.

  Pitt discussed it angrily with Tambor Brossen, the ex-Commissioner, to whose post he had succeeded. The rather weary Brossen openly enjoyed his new role as elder statesman far more than he had ever enjoyed being Commissioner. (He had been known to say that he lacked Pitt's pleasure in making decisions. )

  Brossen had laughed at Pitt's concern over the matter of Settlement location - not outright, to be sure, but gently, with his eyes. He said, 'There's no need, Janus, to feel that you must educate Rotor into absolute agreement with you. Let the Settlement have its own way once in a while; they will be all the readier to let you have your way at other times. If they want to orbit Erythro, let them orbit Erythro. '

  'But it makes no sense, Tambor. Don't you understand that?'

  'Of course I understand that. I also understand that Rotor has been in orbit around a sizable world all its existence. That's what seems right to Rotorians and that's what they want to have again. '

  'We were in orbit about Earth. Erythro is not Earth; it is nothing like Earth. '

  'It is a world and is about the same size as Earth. It has land and sea. It has an atmosphere with oxygen in it. We could travel thousands of light-years before finding a world this much like Earth. I tell you again. Let the people have it. '

  Pitt had followed Brossen's advice, though something within him muttered dissension every step of the way. New Rotor was also in orbit around Erythro and so were the two others in process of construction. Of course, Settlements in the asteroid belt were on the drawing boards, but the public clearly lacked eagerness to put them through.

  Of all that had happened since the discovery of Nemesis, it was this orbiting of Erythro that Pitt considered Rotor's greatest mistake. It should not have happened. And yet - and yet - could even he have forced it on Rotor? Might he have tried harder? And would that merely have led to a new election and his displacement?

  It was nostalgia that was the great problem. People tended to look back and Pitt could not always make them turn their head and look forward. Consider Brossen-

  He had died seven years ago and Pitt had been at his deathbed. Pitt alone had happened to catch the old man's dying words. Brossen had beckoned to Pitt, who had leaned close to him. Brossen had reached out a feeble hand, the skin dry as paper. Clutching feebly at Pitt, he had whispered, 'How bright the Sun of Earth was,' and had died.

  So because Rotorians could not forget how bright the Sun had once been, and how green the Earth had once been, they cried out in exasperation against Pitt's logic and demanded that Rotor orbit a world that was not green, and that circled a sun that was not bright.

  It meant the loss of ten years in the rate of progress. They would have been ten years farther ahead had they been located in the asteroid belt from the start. Pitt was convinced of that.

  That alone was enough to poison Pitt's feelings toward Erythro, but there was, in connection with it, matters that were worse - much worse.