I need to make that hardnosed bastard trust us. Make him want to help us.
Farley realized he was back at the barracks. There weren’t all that many buildings here—hell, Stanford had been a lot bigger—and Farley had a pilot’s sense of direction.
The stickball game was still under way in the courtyard. Farley hung back and watched for a minute. Men and women from the barracks were on both teams, along with the Morgana crew. Yone was pitching, Broben was catching, a woman was playing third base. A small crowd watched from the courtyard perimeter and second-floor railing. That smartass, Lang, was taking a lead off the first-base cushion and grinning at Yone. Everyone looked like they were having a good time.
Farley shook his head. Two days ago his men had been fighting Messerschmitts and enduring the worst flak he’d ever seen. Today they were in a huge dome city on another world, cracking jokes and teaching the natives to play stickball.
But that’s what we do, thought Farley. We put down our comic books and go to England and fight the Germans and drink warm beer and fix the tractors of the farmers whose fields are runways now.
“That’s what we do,” he said aloud.
“Okay, here’s the situation,” said Farley.
The crew sat on the ingeniously unfolded sofas, dangled their feet from the recessed bunks, sat at pull-out tables, sprawled on the floor. All of them were smoking. The air vents worked harder to compensate, but the crewmen didn’t notice it.
Farley looked them over before continuing. “This place is basically one big lifeboat,” he said. “It was built to keep people alive after a war wiped out the entire planet. It’s been doing that for a couple hundred years.”
Shorty whistled. The rest of them looked at each other.
“These people have been locked up in here like a castle under siege longer than America’s been a country,” Farley continued. “They’re alive because of strict rationing and some pretty tough laws about wasting resources, and their enemies are on the other side of the crater, twenty miles away. The CO of this operation doesn’t like the idea of them having our bomber, and he can’t afford to put us up here.”
Plavitz raised a hand. “So we get our ride back and get out,” he said. “Birds, meet stone.”
Farley nodded. “I’ve been working with the commander to figure out how they can help us do just that.”
The men cheered. Farley held up a hand. “So here’s the thinking,” he said. “If we shoot our way to the bomber right now, chances are what we’ll find is a lame duck. But if we give them two more days, odds are they’ll have done a lot of our repair work for us, and we’ll have a bomber that’s a lot closer to being airworthy.”
Broben shook his head and whistled low. “That’s a hell of a gamble, Joe.”
“I don’t think so. The Morgana was pretty worked over. Wen said it’d take him a couple of days. These people have never seen an airplane before, much less a radial engine. They aren’t likely to fix three of them—along with the tail section and god knows what else—and take her out for a spin in two days.”
“So that’s the plan?” asked Plavitz. “Wait two days and then go get the Morgana back?”
“If it was that simple,” said Broben, “the captain wouldn’t be making a speech.”
Farley nodded. “Here’s the catch,” he said. “We can really use these people’s help. Their guns, their gizmos, their armor. More eyes, more ears, and more trigger fingers. The whole ball of wax. They’ve got about a thousand people in this bubble of theirs, and we’re asking them to risk six or eight of them. We’ll have a lot better chance of getting their help if we help them. There’s a lot around here that needs fixing.” He blinked. “Make them love us.”
“In two days?” asked Everett.
“You got them playing stickball in twenty minutes.” Farley looked them over. “Sure, this place was built by some pretty smart cookies—”
“That picture phone’s sure a killer diller,” agreed Shorty.
“Picture phone?” said Boney. “They have a fake sun.”
“Not at eleven a.m., they don’t,” said Martin.
“That’s my point,” Farley told him. “This whole place is like one big clock, and a lot of it’s broken. So we’re going to find out what needs fixing, and we’re going to fix it. Wennda’s been handed TDY as our den mother here. She’ll help us figure out where we can do some good.”
“Is she gonna figure out where you can do some good, Joseph?” Broben asked.
“I do not seek the nomination, but if elected, I will serve.”
Broben leered. “God and country, pal. That’ll get you through these dark times.”
Farley ignored him. “Garrett, Everett—you’re farm boys.”
“I am,” said Garrett. “He’s from one of those combines.”
“Yep,” agreed Everett. “I’m a big-farm boy.”
“You two visit with those toy farmers they’ve got here,” said Farley. “They’ve been growing crops in this cake dish so long, maybe they’ve forgotten some things.”
“Will do, cap,” said Everett.
“Plavitz, I want you to find what passes for a library here and study some maps. I want you to know how to get through those canyons in your sleep. On foot and in the air.”
“If they have them,” said Plavitz, “I’ll tattoo them in my brain.”
“Boney, you’re pretty mechanical,” said Farley.
“Like a robot,” Shorty chimed in.
“And Mr. Dubuque,” said Farley. “You’ve got the electronics background.”
“Fat lotta good that does,” said Shorty. “I haven’t seen a single vacuum tube in this dump.”
“So learn what they use in their place and get to work with Boney.”
“What are we working on, skipper?” asked Boney.
“I want you to fix the sun.”
SIXTEEN
Garrett had his hands on his hips and Everett had his arms folded as they stood amid the squares of crops beneath the rounded hexagon of bright afternoon sun. Both men were warm in their uniforms as they looked in mild consternation at plots of trellised vines, neat lines of plastic sheeting sprouting bushy growths, even rows of stalks, orderly orchards of big-leafed trees. The arrangement was too big to be called a garden and too small to be called a farm, as they understood the word. Behind the fields were the dun-colored administration and housing complexes.
“You feed a thousand people with this?” said Everett.
Their guide nodded proudly. Her name was Evna and she was distractingly pretty, though privately both Americans thought she could use a little more curve. They grew them small and thin and pale here in the Dome. Evna had boyishly short brown hair and wore the standard-issue jumpsuit and slippers, though her jumpsuit had been expertly decorated—by Wennda, who apparently had a talent for such things—with drawn-on stripes and swirls and intricate designs.
“One thousand one hundred thirty-five,” she replied to Everett. “Not with crops alone, of course. Fats and protein that aren’t provided by the reverter are vat-grown from cloned tissue. Much more efficient.”
Garrett nudged Everett. “Much more efficient,” he said.
“We get fats and oils from peanuts,” Evna continued, heedless. “Soap, soil conditioner, paper fabrics—there’s so much you can do with peanuts beyond eating them.”
“Sure,” said Garrett. “Me and this monkey work for ’em.”
“We have eighteen crops in intensive cultivation,” Evna continued blithely, pointing at the little fields. “Wheat, barley, white potatoes—”