The Survivors by Tom Godwin Page A

all that was known about Gerns and their weapons.
    Lake’s main contribution would be a lengthy book: TERRAN SPACESHIPS; TYPES AND
    OPERATION. He postponed its writing, however, to first produce a much smaller book but one that might well be more important: INTERIOR FEATURES OF A GERN CRUISER. Terran Intelligence knew a little about Gern cruisers and as second-in-command of the Constellation he had seen and studied a copy of that report. He had an excellent memory for such things, almost photographic, and he wrote the text and drew a multitude of sketches. He shook his head ruefully at the result. The text was good but, for clarity, the accompanying illustrations should be accurate and in perspective. And he was definitely not an artist.
    He discovered that Craig could take a pen in his scarred, powerful hand and draw with the neat precision of a professional artist. He turned the sketches over to him, together with the mass of specifications. Since it might someday be of such vital importance, he would make four copies of it. The text was given to a teen-age girl, who would make three more copies of it
    …
    Four days later Schroeder handed Lake a text with some rough sketches. The title was: OPERATION OF GERN BLASTERS.
    Not even Intelligence had ever been able to examine a Gern hand blaster. But a man named Schrader, on Venus, had killed a Gern with his own blaster and then disappeared with both infuriated Gerns and Gern-intimidated Venusian police in pursuit. There had been a high reward for his capture …
    He looked it over and said, “I was counting on your giving us this.”
    Only the barest trace of surprise showed on Schroeder’s face but his eyes were intently watching Lake. “So you knew all the time who I was?”
    “I knew.”
    “Did anyone else on the Constellation know?”
    “You were recognized by one of the ship’s officers. You would have been tried in two more days.”
    “I see,” Schroeder said. “And since I was guilty and couldn’t be returned to Earth or Venus I’d have been executed on the Constellation .” He smiled sardonically. “And you, as second-in-command, would have been my execution’s master of ceremonies.”
    Lake put the parchment sheets back together in their proper order. “Sometimes,” he said,
    “a ship’s officer has to do things that are contrary to all his own wishes.”
    Schroeder drew a deep breath, his face somber with the memories he had kept to himself.
    “It was two years ago when the Gerns were still talking friendship to the Earth government while they shoved the colonists around on Venus. This Gern … there was a girl there and he thought he could do what he wanted to her because he was a mighty Gern and she was nothing. He did. That’s why I killed him. I had to kill two Venusian police to get away—that’s where I put the rope around my neck.”
    “It’s not what we did but what we do that we’ll live or die by on Ragnarok,” Lake said. He handed Schroeder the sheets of parchment. “Tell Craig to make at least four copies of this. Someday our knowledge of Gern blasters may be something else we’ll live or die by.”
    *
    *
    *
    The school and writing were interrupted by the spring hunting. Craig made his journey to the Plateau’s snowcapped mountain but he was unable to keep his promise to prospect it. The plateau was perhaps ten thousand feet in elevation and the mountain rose another ten thousand feet above the plateau. No human could climb such a mountain in a 1.5 gravity.
    “I tried,” he told Lake wearily when he came back. “Damn it, I never tried harder at anything in my life. It was just too much for me. Maybe some of the young ones will be better adapted and can do it when they grow up.”
    Craig brought back several sheets of unusually transparent mica, each sheet a foot in diameter, and a dozen large water-clear quartz crystals.
    “Float, from higher up on the mountain,” he said. “The mica and crystals are in place up there if