with you,” he said. “I’ll help with the food.”
It was nearly 8:00 in the dark morning before they reached the Free Zone Colony in the mountains. Their pressure suits were bulky and uncomfortable and Frost had never been outside the dome for such an extended period of time. He thought, in the moment that the alien dome came into view, I have come a long way from the frosty fields of Manitoba. A very long way indeed.
He was an outsider now, an outsider on an alien world.
The colony in the Free Zone was small but well organized. There were sixteen people living beneath the dome, and Frost quickly discovered that the majority of them had come from the Russo-Chinese Colony. All was not the paradise there, it seemed, with food shortages, repression of dissent, internal bickering, and the ever-present computer to rule their lives. Though the people of the Russo-Chinese Colony were not technically exiles, they all knew that a return to Earth would be next to impossible for them—at least until they’d served out their five-year tours of duty. And so a few of their number had taken to the hills. Certainly the number was a few—eleven men and women from a colony of ninety thousand—but even this number had been a surprise to Frost and the other exiles.
Those from the USAC Colony, now including Frost and Folger, were all males, and so it was natural at his age that Frost should be attracted to a young Russo-Chinese beauty named Fergana. She seemed at first to be in the care of a towering Oriental called the Bull, but it soon developed that this was only the remains of a childhood friendship dating from her days on Earth. Fergana was a delicate Eurasian girl who’d grown up in the southern district of Uzbek SSR, not far from the former Russo-Chinese border. The Bull had taken and protected her after the death of her parents in a cyclone, and they had volunteered for the Venus Colony together. They had been disillusioned together too, when the authorities tried to place Fergana in a colonization clinic whose sole purpose was the production of babies for the new planet. The Bull had taken her and fled from the domed city into the mountains with the others.
The thing between Euler Frost and the girl Fergana quickly blossomed into a sort of love. There was little privacy in the mountain colony, and all tasks had to be shared, but they found a way of working together that seemed to matter to them both, and at night he took her into his bed. It was Folger who brought the news one dark morning that was to mean the end of their idyll.
“There’s something new happening at the USAC Colony,” he told them grimly. He’d been out on one of his food-gathering missions the night before, slipping through the electronic sentry posts that guarded the colony. It was not as difficult as it might have sounded, since Folger’s job at the colony had been the maintenance of the sentry system. He knew exactly how to disconnect and bypass its intricate proximity device by making use of a blind spot, and in fact had once shown the technique to Frost, who was always interested in ways to defeat the machine.
“What is it?” Frost asked him. “What have you learned?”
“They’re installing a new invention from Earth. It’s called a transvection machine, and the man who developed it has been made secretary of extra-terrestrial defense in the president’s cabinet.”
“What sort of machine is it?” Fergana wanted to know. “What does it do?” They’d learned long ago that all machines must have a purpose, and they almost feared to learn what this one was.
“It’s a device for transporting people between here and Earth at the speed of light. They step into the machine, the dials are set, and they are transvected through space to their goal—at a speed so fast they’re invisible. They emerge from a machine on the other end.”
“Fantastic! You mean to say such a thing works?”
“They’ve tested it on Earth. But they
It was nearly 8:00 in the dark morning before they reached the Free Zone Colony in the mountains. Their pressure suits were bulky and uncomfortable and Frost had never been outside the dome for such an extended period of time. He thought, in the moment that the alien dome came into view, I have come a long way from the frosty fields of Manitoba. A very long way indeed.
He was an outsider now, an outsider on an alien world.
The colony in the Free Zone was small but well organized. There were sixteen people living beneath the dome, and Frost quickly discovered that the majority of them had come from the Russo-Chinese Colony. All was not the paradise there, it seemed, with food shortages, repression of dissent, internal bickering, and the ever-present computer to rule their lives. Though the people of the Russo-Chinese Colony were not technically exiles, they all knew that a return to Earth would be next to impossible for them—at least until they’d served out their five-year tours of duty. And so a few of their number had taken to the hills. Certainly the number was a few—eleven men and women from a colony of ninety thousand—but even this number had been a surprise to Frost and the other exiles.
Those from the USAC Colony, now including Frost and Folger, were all males, and so it was natural at his age that Frost should be attracted to a young Russo-Chinese beauty named Fergana. She seemed at first to be in the care of a towering Oriental called the Bull, but it soon developed that this was only the remains of a childhood friendship dating from her days on Earth. Fergana was a delicate Eurasian girl who’d grown up in the southern district of Uzbek SSR, not far from the former Russo-Chinese border. The Bull had taken and protected her after the death of her parents in a cyclone, and they had volunteered for the Venus Colony together. They had been disillusioned together too, when the authorities tried to place Fergana in a colonization clinic whose sole purpose was the production of babies for the new planet. The Bull had taken her and fled from the domed city into the mountains with the others.
The thing between Euler Frost and the girl Fergana quickly blossomed into a sort of love. There was little privacy in the mountain colony, and all tasks had to be shared, but they found a way of working together that seemed to matter to them both, and at night he took her into his bed. It was Folger who brought the news one dark morning that was to mean the end of their idyll.
“There’s something new happening at the USAC Colony,” he told them grimly. He’d been out on one of his food-gathering missions the night before, slipping through the electronic sentry posts that guarded the colony. It was not as difficult as it might have sounded, since Folger’s job at the colony had been the maintenance of the sentry system. He knew exactly how to disconnect and bypass its intricate proximity device by making use of a blind spot, and in fact had once shown the technique to Frost, who was always interested in ways to defeat the machine.
“What is it?” Frost asked him. “What have you learned?”
“They’re installing a new invention from Earth. It’s called a transvection machine, and the man who developed it has been made secretary of extra-terrestrial defense in the president’s cabinet.”
“What sort of machine is it?” Fergana wanted to know. “What does it do?” They’d learned long ago that all machines must have a purpose, and they almost feared to learn what this one was.
“It’s a device for transporting people between here and Earth at the speed of light. They step into the machine, the dials are set, and they are transvected through space to their goal—at a speed so fast they’re invisible. They emerge from a machine on the other end.”
“Fantastic! You mean to say such a thing works?”
“They’ve tested it on Earth. But they
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