“Not too large, is she?” the pilot had commented, eyeing the long silvery dart with a full-sized frown. “But she’s the best we could do. Her core is an experimental model designed for a try at the outer planets just before the purge. In the first days of the disturbance they got her here—or the most important parts of her—and we have been building ever since.
No, the ship wasn’t large. Dard frankly could not see where all the toiling inhabitants of the Cleft were going to find berths on her, whether in the suspended animation of hibernation or not. But he didn’t mention that aloud. Instead he said:
“I don’t see how you’ve been able to hide out without detection this long.”
Kimber grinned wickedly. “We have more ways than one. What do you think of this?” He drew his hand from his breeches pocket. On his dark palm lay a flat piece of shining metal.
“That, my boy, is gold! There’s been precious little of it about for the past hundred years or so—governments buried their supplies of it and sat tight on them brooding. But it hasn’t lost its magic. We have found many metals in these mountains and, while this is useless for our purposes, it still carries a lot of weight out there.” He pointed to the peak which guarded the entrance to the Cleft. “We have our trading messengers and we fill hands in proper places. Then this is all camouflaged. If you were to fly across this valley in a ’copter, you’d see only what our techneers want you to. Don’t ask me how they do it—some warping of the light rays—too deep for me.” He shrugged. “I’m only a pilot waiting for a job.”
“But if you are able to keep hidden, why ’Ad Astra’?”
Kimber rubbed the curve of his jaw with his thumb.
“For several reasons. Pax has all the power pretty well in its hands now, so the Peacemen are stretching to wipe out the last holes of resistance. We’ve been receiving a steady stream of warnings through our messengers and the outside men we’ve bought. The roundup gangs are consolidating—planning on a big raid. What we have here is the precarious safety of a rabbit crouching at the bottom of a burrow while the hound sniffs outside. We have no time for anything except the ship, preparing to take advantage of the thin promise for another future that it offers us. Lui Skort—he’s a medico with a taste for history—gives Pax another fifty to a hundred years of life. And the Cleft can’t last that long. So we’ll try the chance in a million of going out—and it is a chance in a million. We may not find another earth—type planet, we may not ever survive the voyage. And, well, you can fill in a few of the other ifs, ands, and buts for yourself.”
Dard still watched the star ship. Yes, a thousand chances of failure against one or two of success. But what an adventure! And to be free—out of this dark morass which stunted minds and fed man’s fears to the point of madness—to be free among the stars!
He heard Kimber laugh softly. “You’re caught by it, too, aren’t you, kid? Well, keep your fingers crossed. If your brother’s stuff works, if the Voice gives us the right course, if the new fuel Tang concocted will really take her through why we’re off!”