Birth Of Fire

"Sure. Want me to patch you in from here?"

"Please. And get some night traveling gear together. I have to walk across the Gap tonight."

"Tonight?" Erica demanded. "Why?"

"Only way to co

He was looking directly at me.

TEN

"It's not as crazy as it sounds," Sarge said. "We always knew the Skipper would be the first one arrested when the Feddies made their move, so we took some precautions. And they don't know we're coming. They still think everything's all right out here. Last report Ellsworth heard I was in custody, Windhome was a wreck, and they were off to ice Hill, moving on Sam at first light tomorrow, and him not knowing a thing about it. This is. the right time for it."

"Well, long as it's going to be a piece of cake, I'll come along," John Appleby said.

What could I do? "Me too."

"Only need one," Sarge said. "Rather have Garrett. No offense, Joh

Zeke brought in extra clothing. Sarge used the set to call Chris Martin and arrange for him to meet us on the other side of the Gap. Martin was an old grad, one of Commander Farr's first recruits. He'd come to Mars with his whole family, and now his children were out on their own.

I asked John to take Erica to lce Hill in the morning. The battle would be over before they could get there. "If things aren't right," I said, "let the Padre know where you've taken her-"

"Sure. Everything'll be okay. What with Sam's family and the friends he'll have coming, those Feddies won't know what hit 'em."

Sarge finished his radio call. "Won't take him long, he's got an auxilliary power trailer for night work. Carr, you about ready?"

"Just about." I felt like an Eskimo: p-suit, reflective coveralls, foam-insulated jacket and pants, another jacket, and more coveralls over the whole mess. I looked like a cartoon. I tried to hug Erica, and it was comical; with all the clothes I had on I could hardly feel her against me.

"Please come back-" She reached up through my open face plate and stroked my cheek. We could just touch lips through the face opening of my helmet.

"I'll be back."

It was cold out. The wind was up to 150 kilometers an hour, a hurricane on Earth. I'd been wrong about Martian winds. The air's too thin for the wind to have much force. It put no more pressure on us than a ten-mile-an-hour wind on Earth, but it was cold. I could feel it through all my clothes.

We didn't have far to go. Around the police tractor, then through the Gap. Zeke had blocked it good: there were three boulders the size of houses, and a lot of smaller rubble. We had to climb over.

We didn't dare show a light. Sarge didn't trust the cops. "Not that Larkin's such a bad sort," he said. "But he's scared. If he sees lights he may figure we're going to do him in no matter what you promised. Best not to take chances."

When we were through the Gap we had more light. Phobos was rising on the other side. The little moon moves so fast that it goes from west to east. I stumbled a few times, but we only had to walk about half a kilometer. The tractor wasn't there yet, and we walked on down the road. It was too cold to stand still.

Then we saw the lights, and the tractor drove up. We got in, and Sarge introduced me to Chris. He was a short, dark man who didn't talk much. There was nobody with him.

It had been a long day, and we had more to do before it was over. The motors hummed as we raced through the night. I figured Sarge would tell me when it was time, and there wasn't much to talk about. I crawled into the bunk behind the seat and tried to sleep.

"Okay, kid, we're here."

"I wasn't asleep, Sarge." I moved so I could see out the windscreen. There was a big man-made cylinder topped by a dome about a kilometer away. It looked enormous.

"Observatory," Sarge said. "Don't figure they'll be guarding it yet. It's run by some big-name scientists from all the best universities, and Ellsworth won't want the kind of trouble they can make for him if he gets in their way."

"I never knew there was an observatory," I said.

"Yep. And it's not all that far from the school. Larkin was joking about how they had the Skipper locked up in his own cells. Thought that was fu

"As fu

Now Chris stays with the tractor-"

"I could-"

"Chris, I don't need heroes! If two can't get Mr. Farr out, three can't either, and I may want you to move this heap in a hurry. You know tractors better than Garr, so you stay."

" A l l right.

"That's settled, then. Garr, we'll climb into the observatory: The scientists won't be looking for us, and if anyone does see us, act like you belong there. They come from so many different places they can't all know each other, and they've got no reason to be suspicious if we don't get in their way."

"Right." I was getting the shakes, but I wasn't going to show it. I began zipping and velcro-ing myself into all my layers of clothing.

Phobos was higher now, so it wasn't quite as dark as it had been in the Gap. The little moon gave enough light to help us pick our way across the badlands. The observatory was on a high peak behind Hellastown where there wasn't any blowing dust; they'd picked the location because there was seldom any wind in this spot.

Sarge had a length of nylon line with a hook on the end made from a bent jack handle. He threw the hook upward into the dark. It fell back soundlessly, and he threw it again. This time it caught. He tugged on the line, then put his weight on it and swung back and forth. Then he pressed his helmet against mine.

"I'll go first. Come up when I give three tugs. No need to put both our weights on this thing."

"Rog. "

He climbed upward and in seconds was only a dark shape against the stars. I waited for what seemed like hours. I'd worked up a sweat coming up the hill, and now, despite the still air, I felt the cold and began to shiver. Then the rope jerked three times. I began climbing.

It was easy. Despite all the gear, I weighed a lot less than I would on Earth. I pulled myself up, hand over hand, until I reached an open ironwork balcony that ran around the outside of the observatory. Sarge gave me a hand over the rail. Then he led the way around until we came to the big telescope opening, and we could look down inside.

Four or five people, bundled up the way we were, moved purposefully on the floor below. They didn't look up at all. The telescope was directly in front of us, looking as if it were staring at us, but of course it was peering at something billions of miles away. A silly thought popped into my head: what would happen if I stood on the rail and made faces into the tube?

There was another walkway around the inside of the dome, and we stepped through onto that, then climbed down an iron ladder to the floor below. One of the people down there glanced up at us, then went back to work. He may have reserved all his curiosity for the universe; I can't imagine what he thought we were doing up there. On the other hand, I haven't any idea of what he was doing either.

No one paid any attention to us as we went across to the air-lock entrance and cycled through. The corridor beyond was empty. When we'd dogged shut the door, we opened our faceplates. "Piece of cake," Sarge said.

"So far."

"Yeah. Watch for cops." He led the way along the corridor, then down another. It was steep downhill all the way. Eventually we came to a steel door set in the corridor wall. Sarge used a key to open it, showing a closet filled with janitor's gear.