“Semenov, exert your authority,” Jan called out loudly, turning his back on the two Proctors, well aware of the sidearms that both men wore, their hands close to the butts. There was a tightness between his shoulder blades that he tried to ignore. “You are Trainmaster. This is an emergency. The tanks are clearing the Road. Hem must be with them, he is in command. We can talk about his little problems when we get to Southtown.”
“The tanks can wait; this must be done first! You attacked me!”
Hem was shaking with rage, his gun half drawn. Jan turned sideways enough to watch both Proctors. Semenov finally spoke.
“A serious matter, this. Perhaps we had all better return to town and discuss it quietly.”
“There is no time for discussion — quiet!” Jan shouted the words, pretending anger to feed the other’s anger as well. “This fat fool is under my command. I never touched him. He’s lying. This is mutiny. If he does not instantly rejoin the tanks I shall charge him and disarm him and imprison him?’
The slash of the words was, of course, too great a burden for Hem to bear. He pawed at his holster, clutched his gun and drew it. As soon as the muzzle was clear, before it could be raised, Jan acted.
He turned and grabbed Hem’s wrist with his own right hand, his left hand slapping hard above the other’s elbow. Still turning, using speed and weight, he levered the man’s arm up beside his back so hard that Hem howled with pain. Uncontrollably the big man’s fingers went limp, the gun began to drop and Jan kept pushing. It was cruel, but he must do it. There was a cracking sound that shuddered Hem’s body as the arm broke, and only then did Jan let go. The gun clattered on the stone surface of the Road and Hem slid down slowly after it. Jan turned to the other armed man.
“I am in command here, Proctor. I order you to aid this wounded man and take him into the copter. Trainmaster Semenov concurs with this order.”
The young Proctor looked from one to the other of them in an agony of indecision. Semenov, confused, did not speak, and his silence gave the man no guide. Hem groaned loudly with pain and writhed on the unyielding rock. With this reminder the Proctor decided; he let his half-drawn gun drop back into the holster and knelt beside his wounded commander.
“You should not have done that, Jan.” Semenov shook his head unhappily. “It makes things difficult.”
Jan took him by the arm and drew him aside. “Things were already difficult. You must take my word that I never attacked Hem. I have a witness to back me up if you have any doubts. Yet he built this trouble up so large that one of us had to go. He is expendable. His second in command, Lajos, can take over. Hem will ride in the train, and his arm will knit, and he’ll cause more trouble at Southtown. But not now. We must move as planned.”
There was nothing for Semenov to say. The decision had been taken from him and he did not regret it. He took the medical bag from the copter and attempted to fit an airbag splint onto the broken arm. They could only do this after an injection had put the wailing Hem under. The return trip was made in silence.
Jan lay back on his bunk, his muscles too tired to relax, going over his lists just one more time. They were only hours away from departure. The last of the corn was being loaded now. As the silos were emptied the partitions were removed so that the heavy equipment could be rolled in. Coated with silicon grease and cocooned with spun plastic, they would sit out the 200 degree heat of the four-year long summer. All of them, trucks, copters, reapers, were duplicated and in storage at Southtown, so need not be carried with them on the trek. They had their stocks of frozen food, the chicks, lambs and calves to start anew the herds and flocks, home furnishings — now painfully reduced — and the corn filling most of all the cars. The water tanks were full; he wrote and underlined. Water. First thing in the morning he must hook into the computer relay and put the Northpoint desalination plant on standby. It had already stopped all secondary functions, chemical and mineral extraction, fertilizer production, and was operating at minimum to keep the 1300-kilometer-long canal and tunnel complex filled with water. He could stop that now; the farming was over for this season. There was a knock on the door, so soft at first that he wasn’t sure he had heard it. It was repeated.
“Just a moment.”
He pushed the sheets of paper together into a rough heap and dropped them onto the table. His legs were stiff as he shuffled across the plastic floor in his bare feet and opened the door. Lee Ciou, the radio technician, stood outside.
“Am I bothering you, Jan?” He seemed worried.
“Not really. Just rattling papers when I should be sleeping.”
“Perhaps another time.
“Come in, now you’re here. Have a cup of tea and then maybe we’ll both get some sleep.”
