Runaway World

Daniel Vole

     Three weeks later, the cargo rover, its hold containing three tonnes of newly refined dysprosium, set off back to New Philadelphia accompanied by the three hab-rovers.

     Everyone was feeling a warm glow of satisfaction and relief, with the possible exception of Philip Badger, but even he seemed to be almost back to his own self, to everyone's mingled surprise and relief. The others worried for a while that he might be holding his grief and his anger towards Reginald Fox under tight control, that it might be festering inside him, just waiting for some trigger to release a sudden wave of fury and violence. One day passed after another, though, with the man diligently doing his part in the recovery operation with only a reluctance to join in the general banter to mark the tragedy. Maybe public displays of grief simply weren't a part of his makeup, they thought. It had been the same when he lost his wife, Lungelo told them one day while Philip had been sitting alone in his own rover. He'll deal with what he's going through in his own way. The best thing is to just let him do so. The others had nodded solemnly and followed his advice.

     The work had continued, therefore, smoothly and efficiently, watched over by the New Philadelphia soldiers and their machine guns, and eventually Andrew had gone to Captain Douglas to tell him that they had finished. They now had all the dysprosium they needed. Enough to finish work on the spaceships that would take the New Londoners to Mars. The Captain had simply nodded. He'd been keeping track on the progress of the salvage work, had been watching the New Londoners loading one ingot of the silvery metal after another into the rover, so the news came as no surprise to him.

     "Pack everything away, then," the soldier had said. "Will you want to be taking the habitat back with you?"

     "No," Andrew had replied. "Collapsing it back into its storage configuration would take more time and effort than it's worth. No, we'll leave it here. Maybe one day someone will come back and configure it as a life hutch. Maybe it'll save someone's life one day. We'll take the furnace and the fork lift, though. There's plenty of space in the cargo rover for them."

     Douglas had nodded. "Will you be able to leave first thing tomorrow?" he'd asked.

     "No problem," Andrew had replied.

     "Spread the word, then," Douglas had said. "First thing tomorrow, we head back to New Philadelphia."

     And now they were on their way, following the tracks they'd left on their first trip and the second set of tracks they'd made on their way back. Every so often Andrew tried the radio, even though he knew that such a form of communication was line of sight only without an ionosphere above them to bounce upward travelling radio waves back down to Earth. There was always the chance that some random feature of the geography, like an ice covered radio mast or a grain silo, might reflect their signal around the intervening hills and allow the city to receive their signal earlier than they should normally have been able to, and he didn't want to miss the opportunity to talk to his children sooner than expected.

     They had no such luck, though, and it wasn't until they were within five kilometres of the city that they finally got a reply to their hails. The squawking and clicking generated as the rover's sophisticated autopilot tried to make sense of the natural radio emissions that filled the universe suddenly gave way to a voice. "New London One, we receive you. This is New Philadelphia. Good to hear from you."

     "Good to he heard from," Andrew replied, sharing a grin with Susan, who was sharing the cockpit with him. "We have accomplished our mission without any further mishaps or casualties and are returning to your city. We're eager to be reunited with our children."

     "Your children are all safe and healthy," the voice replied, making the last of Andrew's tense nervousness evaporate. His grin broadened and he reached out to take Susan's hand. She squeezed it happily. "We are also pleased to report," the voice continued, "that our emissary to New London successfully made contact with your city and that they have sent an emissary back to negotiate the terms of the relationship that will exist between our two cities." There was a squawk as the signal strength momentarily dropped below the level necessary for the autopilot to be able to make sense of it, but then the voice returned. "It's going to be a long process of shuttle diplomacy for a while until we have some way of communicating directly, but I'm told your people are preparing to launch a second communications satellite that will be stationed above the Mid-Atlantic ridge. Give it a couple of months and your ambassador will be able to consult directly with his superiors back home."