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."
"Good to know," said Andrew distractedly. "Would it be possible to talk to our children? I haven't heard their voices for over five weeks."
"I'll pass on your request," the voice replied, "but by the time we've gotten them to a transmitter you'll have arrived anyway. You'll be able to talk to them directly. Is Captain Douglas there,"
"I'm here," the Captain replied, making Andrew jump. He hadn't realised the Captain was standing in the doorway behind him. "Condition Sienna Two. All's well."
"Sienna Two, confirmed," the voice replied. "The President will be pleased to hear it."
"Long may his administration endure," Douglas replied. He leaned forward to see the instrument panel better. "We are now two miles out. ETA six minutes."
"I'll inform the perimeter guard. Welcome back, all of you. All of New Philadelphia will celebrate."
"Should be one hell of a party," said Douglas, stepping back into the doorway.
"Code words?" said Andrew as he cut the connection. "In case the five of us somehow overpowered all your men and are planning to take over your city?"
"Never underestimate the power of military paranoia," the Captain replied with an embarrassed smile. "Don't worry, the code words merely said that you were telling the truth and that you weren't going to try anything."
"As if we would with our children held hostage," said Susan with a frown.
"I'm sure they've been treated very well and will have some exciting stories to tell when they get back home," Douglas replied. Susan just kept frowning at him, though, until the Captain looked away, his eyes turning towards the cockpit window in front of him.
There were large, bulky objects on the horizon that hadn't been there on their first visit, Andrew saw. Weapon emplacements. Cannons by the look of them, positioned on hilltops surrounding the approach to the city, their long barrels pointing out towards the most likely routes an invader might take. Andrew shook his head in amusement. "If New London meant you harm, they could just drop rocks on your heads from orbit," he said.
"I expect it makes someone feel safer down there," the Captain replied. "What's an army without guns?"
"What's an army without an enemy?" Andrew asked. He frowned as a thought suddenly came to him. "Is it possible that they want to see New London as a threat in order to justify their existence?"
"What we want above all is to survive," the Captain replied. "And to survive, they need what they can only get from New London. I would imagine that simply having it given to them would be a blow to the pride of some people, though. They would be much happier if they could obtain it in honourable combat. You can bet that the President has teams of analysts drawing up plans for the invasion and subjugation of your city. Just as an intellectual exercise, of course."
"Well, we're going to have to disappoint them," Andrew told them. "We are indeed leaving this world. It's not a trick. This time next year, we'll leave our city empty with the doors wide open. You'll be able to walk right in. If that's a blow to their pride, they'll just have to find a way to deal with it."
The Captain nodded with a smile of amusement.
A moment later the tunnel down to the blast doors of New Philadelphia came into view ahead of them and they drove down to the hole made by the bunker buster two hundred years before. They continued on to the hanger space where they were delighted to see, alongside the four cannibalised IceRunners, four New London hab-rovers, one of which had been decorated with gleaming silver and brass to give it an official look. The transport of an ambassador, the first such person to have existed for over two centuries.
They turned their rovers, ready to dock them to the airlocks, but then the radio beeped and Susan touched a screen to answer it. A man's face appeared on the screen, a face they recognised from news broadcasts back in their own city. Daniel Vole, one of New London's councillors and one of the most important people in the city.
"Mister Councillor," said Andrew in surprise.
"Andrew Birch," the Councillor replied. "It's good to see you. As soon as you've docked, get all your people online in conference mode, if you please."
"Of course, Sir," Andrew replied. He glanced across as Susan in puzzlement. If he had something to tell them, why not wait until they could meet in person? He put the mystery out of his mind for the moment, though, as the rover's autopilot took over and reversed them in. There was a clunk as their airlock connected with the city's airlock, and then the rover's engines powered down. One by one the other rovers docked side by side, the cargo rover last, and then Andrew hailed the other rovers before their occupants had time to disembark. Soon, the faces of all the New Londoners appeared on monitor screens on the instrument panel, with everyone able to see and speak to everyone else.
"We're ready," he then said to the Councillor.
Daniel Vole nodded. "I'm told you have accomplished your mission," he said.
"That's right, Sir," Andrew replied, feeling a warm glow of pride. He glanced across at his wife to share the moment with her.
"Very well done," Vole told them. "New London is proud of you." The other faces smiled with pleasure with the exception of Philip who looked sick and dejected.
The Councillor noticed. "Philip Badger," he said gently. "I was very sorry to hear about the death of your son. I can only imagine what you're going through right now. I intend to confer with the rest of the Council as soon as this is possible and I would very much appreciate it if the full details of what happened could be kept from the general public."
Philip looked up, his eyes widening in surprise. "Why would you want that?" he asked suspiciously.
"There are other remainers in New London," Daniel Vole told him. "Possibly a whole network of them, and they might still try something. I don't want to encourage them with the knowledge of how close they came to success. The official story, therefore, will be that your mission proceeded smoothly, without a hitch, and that your son was killed in a tragic accident. An accident that also claimed the lives of several New Philadelphia soldiers."
"Will the New Philadelphians go along with that?" asked Valentina.
"They have already agreed to do so," the Councillor replied. "The other remainers will probably guess that he died trying to sabotage the mission, but we will try to make them believe that he never stood a chance of success. That way, they will hopefully be discouraged. May be deterred from trying something else. To the rest of the city, your son will be a hero, his reputation untarnished."
"If that could be done," said Philip, brightening and seeming to come back to life before their eyes, "I would be more grateful than I have words to express. Thank you, Sir."
The Councillor nodded. "The same thing goes for your daughter," he said to Andrew. "I've spoken to her and, although she says she acted out of fear for her own, and your, safety, I am not altogether convinced that that is the case. There will be no official suggestion that she was, in any way, a willing participant in what happened, though. I understand you found a frozen cow and ate it,"
"That's right, Sir," Andrew replied, suddenly embarrassed.
"You got the Strep bacterium from the cow," Daniel Vole told them. "That will be the official story. Your daughter will be held blameless, for the sake of the smooth and peaceful completion of the Return project. I'm afraid she will still have to suffer some consequences for what she did, though."
"What kind of consequences?"
"She will no longer be allowed any involvement in any critical operation, or allowed access to any critical equipment, damage to which could delay or even prevent The Return. She will be encouraged to seek employment somewhere safe and harmless, and hopefully she'll meet another bright young man, settle down and get married. Spend the rest of her life in domestic harmony. I'm pretty sure she'll prefer that to a spell of confinement at the Council's pleasure and a black mark on her record that would follow her for the rest of her life. All she has to do is deny any involvement in the disease that afflicted you. It was the cow. Understood?"
"I understand," Andrew replied. "Thank you for doing this for us."
"What we do is for the good of the city," said Danial Vole. "And now to get to the real point of this communication. We have reached a partial agreement with New Philadelphia. They will let us take some of the dysprosium back to New London, so that work on the spaceships can continue, but they will hold the rest until the final terms of the agreement have been worked out. They want to transport the dysprosium themselves, in their own vehicle, to highlight the fact that they have the ability to donate or withhold this precious substance. I understand that you're all eager to meet with your children again, but before you enter the city proper I want you to transfer one ton of dysprosium into the New Philadelphia IceRunner. That way, it can leave immediately and the work on the spaceships can continue uninterrupted. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," Andrew replied. On the screens, the other New Londoners were also nodding. "We'll get on they right away."
The Councillor nodded, smiling with pleasure. "Your children will be right here waiting when you've finished," he said. "I expect it'll be quite a reunion."
"I'm sure it will be," said Andrew happily. "If you'll excuse us, then, we'll get to work."
"And I'm looking forward to meeting you in person," the Councillor replied. "Until then..." He reached forward to touch a control and the screen went blank.