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by mankind, the cost in lives and money. They have rebelled against our gentle hand of rule. We shall now clench this hand into a fist and they shall be punished. They started this rebellion, this war -- but we will finish it." leave. But there were no alternatives. He was the only one here who would fight for the rights of the people of this agricultural world, who might possibly see to it that some day a complete and decent society might grow on this planet. Because he was the only one on Halvmork who had been born on Earth and who knew the reality of existence there and in the rest of the Earth Commonwealth. Halvmork was a dead-end world now, where the inhabitants were agricultural slaves, working to feed the other planets for no return other than their bare existence. In the present emergency the rebel planets would expect them to keep on working as they always had. Well they would farm still -- but only if they could be free of their planetary prison. Free to be part of the Commonwealth culture, free to have their children educated -- and finally free to change the stunted and artificial society forced upon them by Earth. Jan knew that he would not be thanked, or even liked, for what he was going to do. He would do it still. He owed it to the generations to come. To his own child among others. "Yes, we must leave now," he said. "You are needed here." She did not want to plead with him, but it was in her voice. "Try to understand. This planet, big as it is to us, it's really only a very small part of the galaxy. A long time ago I lived on Earth, worked there very successfully, and was happy enough until I discovered what life was really like for most of the people. I tried to help them -- but that is illegal on Earth. I was arrested for this, stripped of everything, then shipped out here as a common laborer. It was that or death. Not too hard a choice. But while the slow years passed here, the rebellion that I was a part of has succeeded. Everywhere but on Earth. For the moment my work here is done, the corn has been saved and will go out to the hungry was a war being fought among the alien stars and he was going to it. But he would come back; that was the only thought she would let her brain hold on to. "Come back to me," she whispered aloud, then pulled away from him, running toward their home. Not wanting to look at him again, afraid that she would break down and make him ashamed. "Ten minutes," Debhu called out from the foot of the boarding ladder. "Let's get aboard and strap in." Jan turned and climbed up the ladder. One of the crewmen was waiting in the airlock and he sealed the outer hatch as soon as they had passed through. "I'm going to the bridge," Debhu said. "Since you've never been in space you'll strap in on deck." "I've worked in free fall," Jan said. The question was on Debhu's lips, but he never spoke it. Halvmork was a prison planet. It no longer mattered why anyone should have been sent here. "Good," he finally said. "I can use you. We have lost a lot of trained men. Most of the crew have never been in space before. Come with me to the bridge." Page 133 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Jan found the operation a fascinating one. He must have arrived on Halvmork in a ship very much like this one -- but he had no memory of it. All he remembered was a windowless prison cell on a spacer. And drugged food that kept him docile and easily controlled. Then unconsciousness, to waken to find the ships gone and himself a castaway. It had all happened far too many years ago. had brought. Then it would be the time to use the tugs. When the crews changed over the dormant, orbiting ships would glow with life, light and warmth as their power would be turned on, their stored air released and warmed. They in their turn would lock to the empty bulk carriers and carefully pull them from orbit, killing their velocity until they dropped into the atmosphere below, easing them gently down to the surface: The carriers were loaded now, with food to feed the hungry rebel planets. Their blasting ascent was smooth, computer controlled, perfect. Rising up, faster and faster through the atmosphere, out of the atmosphere, into the eternal blinding sunlight of space. The computer program that controlled this operation had been written by comptechs now centuries dead. Their work lived after them. Radar determined proximity. Orbits were matched, gasjets flared, great bulks of metal weighing thousands of tonnes drifted slowly together with micrometric precision. They closed, touched, engaged, sealed one to the other. "All connections completed," the computer said, while displaying the same information on the screen. "Ready to unlock and transfer crew." Debhu activated the next phase of the program. One after another the gigantic grapples disengaged, sending shudders of sound through the tug's frame. Once free of its mighty burden the tug drifted away, then jetted toward the deep spacer that was now lashed to the cargo of grain. Gentle contact was made and the airlock of one ship was sealed to the other. As soon as the connection was complete the inner door opened automatically. "Let's transfer," Debhu said, leading the way. "We usually remain while the tugs put themselves into orbit and power down to standby status. Not this time. When each ship is direct him to the malfunctioning unit where the trouble was. The suit rustled and expanded as the air was pumped from the lock; then the outer hatch swung open. Jan had no time to appreciate the glory of the stars, unshielded now by any planetary atmosphere. Their journey could not begin until he had done his work. He activated the direction finder, then pulled himself along the handbar in the direction indicated by the holographic green arrow that apparently floated in space before him. Then stopped abruptly as a column of ice particles suddenly sprang out of the hull at his side. Other growing pillars came into being all around him; he smiled to himself and pushed on. The ship was venting the air from the cargo. The air and water vapor froze instantly into tiny ice particles as it emerged. The vacuum of space would dehydrate and preserve the corn, lightening the cargo and helping to prevent the interplanetary spread of organisms. The frozen plumes were dying down and drifting away by the time he came to the grapple. He used the key to open the cover of the control box and activated the manual override. Motors whirred, he could feel their vibration through the palm of his hand, and the massive jaws slowly ground apart. He looked closely at their smooth surfaces, at what appeared to be an ice-crystaled clump of mud flattened on one of them. He brushed it away and pressed the switch in the control box. This time the jaws closed all the way and a satisfactory green light appeared. Not the world's most difficult repair, he thought as he sealed the box again. "Return at once!" the radio squawked loudly in his ears, then went dead. No Page 134 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html explanation given. He unclipped his safety line and began to pull back in the direction of the airlock. trying to understand what was happening. It suddenly became obvious when he saw the spacelock on the other ship begin to open. Of course. The Earth forces weren't going to give up that easily. They were out there, watching. They had observed the food convoy being assembled, had easily guessed the destination. And Earth needed the food in these hulls just as much as the rebel planets did. 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