Murray Leinster (Duke Classic SiFi) (24 page)

So the astrogation-conference did not deal with a direct return to
Earth, but with a small sol-type star not too far out of the direct
line. The Pole Star could have been visited, but it was a double star.
Cochrane had no abstract scientific curiosity. His approach was strictly
that of a man of business. He did the business.

There was, of course, a suitable pause not too far from the second
planet—the planet of the shaggy beasts. They put out a plastic balloon
with a Dabney field generator inside it. It would float in emptiness
indefinitely. The field would hold for not less than twenty years. It
would serve as a beacon, a highway, a railroad track through space for
other ships planning to visit the third world now available to men.
Ultimately, better arrangements could be made.

Jones was already ecstatically designing ground-level Dabney field
installations. There would be Dabney fields extending from star to star.
Along them, as along pneumatic tubes, ships would travel at unthinkable
speeds toward absolutely certain destinations. True, at times they could
not be used because of the bulk of planets between starting-points and
landing-stations. But with due attention to scheduling, it would be a
simple matter indeed to arrange for something close to commuters'
service between star-clusters. He explained all this to Cochrane, with
Holden listening in.

"Oh, surely!" said Cochrane cynically. "And you'll have tax-payers
objecting because you make money. You'll be regulated out of existence.
Were you thinking that Spaceways would run this transportation system
you're planning, without cutting anybody else in on even the glory of
it?"

Jones looked at him, dead-pan. But he was annoyed.

"I want some money," he said. "I thought we could get this thing set up,
and then I could get myself a ship and facilities for doing some really
original work. I'd like to work something out and not have to sell the
publicity-rights to it!"

"I'll arrange it," promised Cochrane. "I've got our lawyers setting up a
deal right now. You're going to get as many tricky patents as you can on
this field, and assign them all to Spaceways. And Spaceways is going to
assign them all to a magnificent Space Development Association, a sort
of Chamber of Commerce for all the outer planets, and all the stuffed
shirts in creation are going to leap madly to get honorary posts on it.
And it will be practically beyond criticism, and it will have the public
interest passionately at its heart, and it will be practically beyond
interference and it will be as inefficient as hell! And the more
inefficient it is, the more it will have to take in to allow for its
inefficiency—and for your patents it has to give us a flat cut of its
gross! And meanwhile we'll get ours from the planets we've landed on and
publicized. We've got customers. We've built up a market for our
planets!"

"Eh?" said Jones in frank astonishment.

"We," said Cochrane, "rate as first inhabitants and therefore
proprietors and governments of the first two planets ever landed on
beyond Earth. When the Moon-colony was formed, there were elaborate laws
made to take care of surviving nation prides and so on. Whoever first
stays on a planet a full rotation is its proprietor and
government—until other inhabitants arrive. Then the government is all
of them, but the proprietorship remains with the first. We own two
planets. Nice planets. Glamorized planets, too! So I've already made
deals for the hotel-concessions on the glacier world."

Holden had listened with increasing uneasiness. Now he said doggedly:

"That's not right, Jed! I don't mind making money, but there are things
that are more important! Millions of people back home—hundreds of
millions of poor devils—spend their lives scared to death of losing
their jobs, not daring to hope for more than bare subsistence! I want to
do something for them! People need hope, Jed, simply to be healthy!
Maybe I'm a fool, but the human race needs hope more than I need money!"

Cochrane looked patient.

"What would you suggest?"

"I think," said Holden heavily, "that we ought to give what we've got to
the world. Let the governments of the world take over and assist
emigration. There's not one but will be glad to do it ..."

"Unfortunately," said Cochrane, "you are perfectly right. They would!
There have been resettlement projects and such stuff for generations.
I'm very much afraid that just what you propose will be done to some
degree somewhere or other on other planets as they're turned up. But on
the glacier planet there will be hotels. The rich will want to go there
to stay, to sight-see, to ride, to hunt, to ski, and to fly in
helicopters over volcanoes. The hotels will need to be staffed. There
will be guides and foresters and hunters. It will cost too much to bring
food from Earth, so farms will be started. It will be cheaper to buy
food from independent farmers than to raise it with hired help. So the
farmers will be independent. There will have to be stores to supply them
with what they need, and tourists with what they don't need but want.
From the minute the glacier planet starts up as a tourist resort, there
will be jobs for hundreds of people. It won't be long before there are
jobs for thousands. There'll be a man-shortage there. Anybody who wants
to can go there to work, and if he doesn't go there expecting a
certified, psychologically conditioned environment, but just a good job
with possible or probable advancement ... That's the environment we
humans want! Presently the hotels won't even be tourist hotels. They'll
just be the normal hotels that exist everywhere that there are cities
and people moving about among them! Then it won't be a tourist-planet,
and tourists will be a nuisance. It'll be home for one hell of a lot of
people! And they'll have made every bit of it themselves!"

Holden said uncomfortably:

"It'll be slow ..."

"It'll be sure!" snapped Cochrane. "The first settlements in America
were failures until the people started to work for themselves! Look at
this planet we're leaving! How many people will come to work that silly
diamond mine! How many will hunt to supply them with meat? How many will
farm to supply the hunters and the miners with other food? And how many
others will be along to run stores and manufacture things ..." He made
an impatient gesture. "You're thinking of encouraging people to move to
the stars to make more room on Earth. You'd get nice passive colonists
who'd obediently move because the long-hairs said it was wise and the
government paid for it. I'm thinking of colonists who'll fight and quite
possibly cheat and lie a little to get jobs where they can take care of
their families the way they want to! I want people to move to get what
they want in spite of any discouragement anybody throws at them. Now
shoo! I'm busy!"

Jones asked mildly:

"At what?"

"The latest proposed deal," said Cochrane impatiently, "is for rights to
bore for oil. The uranium concessions are farmed out. Water-power is
pending—not for cash, but a cut—and—."

Holden said uneasily:

"There's one other thing, Jed. All your plans and all your scheming
could still be blocked if back on Earth they think we might bring
plagues back to Earth. Remember Dabney suggested that? And some
biologist or other agreed with him?"

Cochrane grinned.

"There's a diamond-mine. There are herds of what people will call
cattle. There's food and riches. There's scenery and adventure. There's
room to do things! Nobody could keep political office if he tried to
keep his constituents from food and cash and adventure—even by proxy
when they send expendable Cousin Albert out to see if he can make a
living there. We've got to take reasonable precautions against germs, of
course. We'll have trouble enforcing them. But we'll manage!"

Al called down from the control-room. The ship was sufficiently aligned,
he thought, for their next stopping-place. He wanted Jones to charge the
booster-circuit and flash it over. Jones went.

A little later there was the peculiar sensation of a sound that was not
a sound, but was felt all through one. The result was not satisfactory.
The ship was still in empty space, and the nearest star was still a
star. There was a repetition of the booster-jump. Still not too good.
Thereafter the ship drove, and jumped, and jumped, and drove.

Jamison came down to where Cochrane conducted business via communicator.
He waited. Cochrane said:

"Dammit, I won't agree! I want twelve per cent or I take up another
offer!—What?"

The last was to Jamison. Jamison said uneasily:

"We found another planet. About Earth-size. Ice-caps. Clouds. Oceans.
Seas. Even rivers! But there's no green on it! It's all bare rocks!"

Cochrane thought concentratedly. Then he said impatiently:

"The whiskered people back home said that life couldn't have gotten
started on all the planets suited for it. They said there must be
planets where life hasn't reached, though they're perfectly suited for
it. Make a landing and try the air with algae like we did on the first
planet."

He turned back to the communicator.

"You reason," he snapped to a man on far-away Earth, "that all this is
only on paper. But that's the only reason you're getting a chance at it!
I'll guarantee that Jones will install drives on ships that meet our
requirements of space-worthiness—or government standards, whichever are
strictest—for ten per cent of your company stock plus twelve per cent
cash of the cost of each ship. Nothing less!"

He heard the rockets make the louder sound that was the symptom of
descent against gravity.

The world was lifeless. The ship had landed on bare stone, when Cochrane
looked out the control-room ports. There had been trouble finding a flat
space on which the three landing-fins would find a suitable foundation.
It had taken half an hour of maneuvering to locate such a place and to
settle solidly on it. Then the look of things was appalling.

The landing-spot was a naked mass of what seemed to be basalt polygons,
similar to the Giants' Causeway of Ireland back on Earth. There was no
softness anywhere. The stone which on other planets underlay soil, here
showed harshly. There was no soil. There was no microscopic life to
nibble at rocks and make soil in which less minute life could live. The
nudity of the stones led to glaring colors everywhere. The colors were
brilliant as nowhere else but on Earth's moon. There was no vegetation
at all.

That was somehow shocking. The ship's company stared and stared, but
there could be no comment. There was a vast, dark sea to the left of the
landing-place. Inland there were mountains and valleys. But the
mountains were not sloped. There were heaps of detritus at the bases of
their cliffs, but it was simply detritus. No tiniest patch of lichen
grew anywhere. No blade of grass. No moss. No leaf. Nothing.

The air was empty. Nothing flew. There were clouds, to be sure. The sky
was even blue, though a darker blue than Earth's, because there was no
vegetation to break stone down to dust, or to form dust by its own
decay.

The sea was violently active. Great waves flung themselves toward the
harsh coastline and beat upon it with insensate violence. They shattered
into masses of foam. But the foam broke—too quickly—and left the
surging water dark again. Far down the line of foam there were dark
clouds, and rain fell in masses, and lightning flashed. But it was a
scene of desolation which was somehow more horrible even than the
scarred and battered moon of Earth.

Cochrane looked out very carefully. Alicia came to him, a trifle
hesitant.

"Johnny's asleep now. He didn't sleep at first, and while we were out of
gravity he was unhappy. But he went off to sleep the instant we landed.
He needs rest. Could we—just stay landed here until he catches up on
sleep?"

Cochrane nodded. Alicia smiled at him and went away. There was still the
mark of a bruise on her cheek. She went down to where her husband needed
her. Holden said dourly:

"This world's useless. So is her husband."

"Wait till we check the air," said Cochrane absently.

"I've checked it," Holden told him indifferently. "I went in the port
and sniffed at the cracked outer door. I didn't die, so I opened the
door. There is a smell of stone. That's all. The air's perfectly
breathable. The ocean's probably absorbed all soluble gases, and
poisonous gases are soluble. If they weren't, they couldn't be
poisonous."

"Mmmmmm," said Cochrane thoughtfully.

Jamison came over to him.

"We're not going to stay here, are we?" he asked. "I don't like to look
at it. The moon's bad enough, but at least nothing could live there!
Anything could live here. But it doesn't! I don't like it!"

"We'll stay here at least while Johnny has a nap. I do want Bell to take
all the pictures he can, though. Probably not for broadcast, but for
business reasons. I'll need pictures to back up a deal."

Jamison went away. Holden said without interest:

"You'll make no deals with this planet! This is one you can do what you
like with! I don't want any part of it!"

Cochrane shrugged.

"Speaking of things you don't want any part of—what about Johnny Simms?
Speaking as a psychiatrist, what effect will that business of being in
the dark all night and nearly being pecked to death—what will it do to
him? Are psychopaths the way they are because they can't face reality,
or because they've never had to?"

Holden stared away down the incredible, lifeless coastline at the
distant storm. There was darkness under many layers of cloud. The sea
foamed and lashed and instantly was free of foam again. Because there
were no plankton, no animalcules, no tiny, gluey, organic beings in it
to give the water the property of making foam which endured. There was
thunder, yonder in the storm, and no ear heard it. Over a vast world
there was sunshine which no eyes saw. There was night in which nothing
rested, and somewhere dawn was breaking now, and nothing sang.