There are two basic kinds of fools--the ones who know they are
fools, and the kind that, because they do not know that, are
utterly deadly menaces!
The mountain was spinning.
Not dizzily, not even rapidly, but very perceptibly, the great mass of
jagged rock was turning on its axis.
Captain St. Simon scowled at it. "By damn, Jules," he said, "if you can
see 'em spinning, it's too damn fast!" He expected no answer, and got
none.
He tapped the drive pedal gently with his right foot, his gaze shifting
alternately from the instrument board to the looming hulk of stone
before him. As the little spacecraft moved in closer, he tapped the
reverse pedal with his left foot. He was now ten meters from the surface
of the asteroid. It was moving, all right. "Well, Jules," he said in his
most commanding voice, "we'll see just how fast she's moving. Prepare to
fire Torpedo Number One!"
"Yassuh, boss! Yassuh, Cap'n Sain' Simon, suh! All ready on the firin'
line!"
He touched a button with his right thumb. The ship quivered almost
imperceptibly as a jet of liquid leaped from the gun mounted in the nose
of the ship. At the same time, he hit the reverse pedal and backed the
ship away from the asteroid's surface. No point getting any more gunk on
the hull than necessary.
The jet of liquid struck the surface of the rotating mountain and
splashed, leaving a big splotch of silvery glitter. Even in the vacuum
of space, the silicone-based solvents of the paint vehicle took time to
boil off.
"How's that for pinpoint accuracy, Jules?"
"Veddy good, M'lud. Top hole, if I may say so, m'lud."
"You may." He jockeyed the little spacecraft around until he was
reasonably stationary with respect to the great hunk of whirling rock
and had the silver-white blotch centered on the crosshairs of the peeper
in front of him. Then he punched the button that started the timer and
waited for the silver spot to come round again.
The asteroid was roughly spherical--which was unusual, but not
remarkable. The radar gave him the distance from the surface of the
asteroid, and he measured the diameter and punched it through the
calculator. "Observe," he said in a dry, didactic voice. "The diameter
is on the order of five times ten to the fourteenth micromicrons." He
kept punching at the calculator. "If we assume a mean density of two
point six six times ten to the minus thirty-sixth metric tons per cubic
micromicron, we attain a mean mass of some one point seven four times
ten to the eleventh kilograms." More punching, while he kept his eye on
the meteorite, waiting for the spot to show up again. "And that, my dear
Jules, gives us a surface gravity of approximately two times ten to the
minus sixth standard gees."
"_Jawohl, Herr Oberstleutnant._"
"Und zo, mine dear Chules, ve haff at least der grave zuspicion dot der
zurface gravity iss less dan der zentrifugal force at der eqvator!
_Nein? Ja!_ Zo."
"_Jawohl, Herr Konzertmeister._"
Then there was a long, silent wait, while the asteroid went its
leisurely way around its own axis.
"There it comes," said Captain St. Simon. He kept his eyes on the
crosshair of the peeper, one hand over the timer button. When the silver
splotch drifted by the crosshair, he punched the stop button and looked
at the indicator.
"Sixteen minutes, forty seconds. How handy." He punched at the
calculator again. "Ah! You see, Jules! Just as we suspected! Negative
gees at the surface, on the equator, comes to ten to the minus third
standard gees--almost exactly one centimeter per second squared. So?"
"Ah, so, honorabu copton! Is somesing rike five hundred times as great
as gravitationar attraction, is not so?"
"Sukiyaki, my dear chap, sometimes your brilliance amazes me."
Well, at least it meant that there would be no loose rubble on the
surface. It would have been tossed off long ago by the centrifugal
force, flying off on a tangent to become more of the tiny rubble of the
belt. Perhaps "flying" wasn't exactly the right word, though, when
applied to a velocity of less than one centimeter per second. _Drifting_
off, then.
"What do you think, Jules?" said St. Simon.
"Waal, Ah reckon we can do it, cap'n. Ef'n we go to the one o' them thar
poles ... well, let's see--" He leaned over and punched more figures
into the calculator. "Ain't that purty! 'Cordin' ter this, thar's a spot
at each pole, 'bout a meter in diameter, whar the gee-pull is _greater_
than the centry-foogle force!"
Captain St. Simon looked at the figures on the calculator. The forces,
in any case, were negligibly small. On Earth, where the surface gravity
was ninety-eight per cent of a Standard Gee, St. Simon weighed close to
two hundred pounds. Discounting the spin, he would weigh about four
ten-thousandths of a pound on the asteroid he was inspecting. The spin
at the equator would try to push him off with a force of about two
tenths of a pound.
But a man who didn't take those forces into account could get himself
killed in the Belt.
"Very well, Jules," he said, "we'll inspect the poles."
"Do you think they vill velcome us in Kraukau, _Herr Erzbischof_?"
* * * * *
The area around the North Pole--defined as that pole from which the body
appears to be spinning counterclockwise--looked more suitable for
operations than the South Pole. Theoretically, St. Simon could have
stopped the spin, but that would have required an energy expenditure of
some twenty-three thousand kilowatt-hours in the first place, and it
would have required an anchor to be set somewhere on the equator. Since
his purpose in landing on the asteroid was to set just such an anchor,
stopping the spin would be a waste of time and energy.
Captain St. Simon positioned his little spacecraft a couple of meters
above the North Pole. It would take better than six minutes to fall that
far, so he had plenty of time. "Perhaps a boarding party, Mr. Christian!
On the double!"
"Aye, sir! On the double it is, sir!"
St. Simon pushed himself over to the locker, took out his vacuum suit,
and climbed into it. After checking it thoroughly, he said: "Prepare to
evacuate main control room, Mr. Christian!"
"Aye, aye, Sir! All prepared and ready. I hope."
Captain St. Simon looked around to make sure he hadn't left a bottle of
coffee sitting somewhere. He'd done that once, and the stuff had boiled
out all over everywhere when he pulled the air out of the little room.
Nope, no coffee. No obstacles to turning on the pump. He thumbed the
button, and the pumps started to whine. The whine built up to a
crescendo, then began to die away until finally it could only be felt
through the walls or floor. The air was gone.
Then he checked the manometer to make sure that most of the air had
actually been pumped back into the reserve tanks. Satisfied, he touched
the button that would open the door. There was a faint jar as the
remaining wisps of air shot out into the vacuum of space.
St. Simon sat back down at the controls and carefully repositioned the
ship. It was now less than a meter from the surface. He pushed himself
over to the open door and looked out.
He clipped one end of his safety cable to the steel eye-bolt at the edge
of the door. "Fasten on carefully, Jules," he said. "We don't want to
lose anything."
"Like what, _mon capitain_?"
"Like this spaceship, _mon petit tete de mouton_."
"Ah, but no, my old and raw; we could not afford to lose the so-dear
_Nancy Bell_, could we?"
The other end of the long cable was connected to the belt of the suit.
Then St. Simon launched himself out the open door toward the surface of
the planetoid. The ship began to drift--very slowly, but not so slowly
as it had been falling--off in the other direction.
He had picked the spot he was aiming for. There was a jagged hunk of
rock sticking out that looked as though it would make a good handhold.
Right nearby, there was a fairly smooth spot that would do to brake his
"fall". He struck it with his palm and took up the slight shock with his
elbow while his other hand grasped the outcropping.
He had not pushed himself very hard. There is not much weathering on the
surface of an asteroid. Micro-meteorites soften the contours of the rock
a little over the millions of millennia, but not much, since the debris
in the Belt all has roughly the same velocity. Collisions do occur, but
they aren't the violent smashes that make the brilliant meteor displays
of Earth. (And there is still a standing argument among the men of the
Belt as to whether that sort of action can be called "weathering".) Most
of the collisions tend to cause fracturing of the surface, which results
in jagged edges. A man in a vacuum suit does not push himself against a
surface like that with any great velocity.
* * * * *
St. Simon knew to a nicety that he could propel himself against a bed of
nails and broken glass at just the right velocity to be able to stop
himself without so much as scratching his glove. And he could see that
there was no ragged stuff on the spot he had selected. The slanting rays
of the sun would have made them stand out in relief.
Now he was clinging to the surface of the mountain of rock like a bug on
the side of a cliff. On a nickel-iron asteroid, he could have walked
around on the surface, using the magnetic soles of his vacuum suit. But
silicate rock is notably lacking in response to that attractive force.
No soul, maybe.
But directly and indirectly, that lack of response to magnetic forces
was the reason for St. Simon's crawling around on the surface of that
asteroid. Directly, because there was no other way he could move about
on a nonmetallic asteroid. Indirectly, because there was no way the big
space tugs could get a grip on such an asteroid, either.
The nickel-iron brutes were a dead cinch to haul off to the smelters.
All a space tug had to do was latch on to one of them with a magnetic
grapple and start hauling. There was no such simple answer for the
silicate rocks.
The nickel-iron asteroids were necessary. They supplied the building
material and the major export of the Belt cities. They averaged around
eighty to ninety per cent iron, anywhere from five to twenty per cent
nickel, and perhaps half a per cent cobalt, with smatterings of
phosphorous, sulfur, carbon, copper, and chromium. Necessary--but not
sufficient.
The silicate rocks ran only about twenty-five per cent iron--in the form
of nonmagnetic compounds. They averaged eighteen per cent silicon,
fourteen per cent magnesium, between one and one point five per cent
each of aluminum, nickel, and calcium, and good-sized dollops of sodium,
chromium, phosphorous, manganese, cobalt, potassium, and titanium.
But more important than these, as far as the immediate needs of the Belt
cities were concerned, was a big, whopping thirty-six per cent oxygen.
In the Belt cities, they had soon learned that, physically speaking, the
stuff of life was _not_ bread. And no matter how carefully oxygen is
conserved, no process is one hundred per cent efficient. There will be
leakage into space, and that which is lost must be replaced.
There is plenty of oxygen locked up in those silicates; the problem is
towing them to the processing plants where the stuff can be extracted.
Captain St. Simon's job was simple. All he had to do was sink an anchor
into the asteroid so that the space tugs could get a grip on it. Once he
had done that, the rest of the job was up to the tug crew.
He crawled across the face of the floating mountain. At the spot where
the North Pole was, he braced himself and then took a quick look around
at the _Nancy Bell_. She wasn't moving very fast, he had plenty of time.
He took a steel piton out of his tool pack, transferred it to his left
hand, and took out a hammer. Then, working carefully, he hammered the
piton into a narrow cleft in the rock. Three more of the steel spikes
were hammered into the surface, forming a rough quadrilateral around the
Pole.
"That looks good enough to me, Jules," he said when he had finished.
"Now that we have our little anchors, we can put the monster in."
Then he grabbed his safety line, and pulled himself back to the _Nancy
Bell_.
* * * * *
The small craft had floated away from the asteroid a little, but not
much. He repositioned it after he got the rocket drill out of the
storage compartment.
"Make way for the stovepipe!" he said as he pushed the drill ahead of
him, out the door. This time, he pulled himself back to his drilling
site by means of a cable which he had attached to one of the pitons.
The setting up of the drill didn't take much time, but it was done with
a great deal of care. He set the four-foot tube in the center of the
quadrilateral formed by the pitons and braced it in position by
attaching lines to the eyes on a detachable collar that encircled the
drill. Once the drill started working, it wouldn't need bracing, but
until it did, it had to be held down.
All the time he worked, he kept his eyes on his lines and on his ship.
The planetoid was turning under him, which made the ship appear to be
circling slowly around his worksite. He had to make sure that his lines
didn't get tangled or twisted while he was working.
As he set up the bracing on the six-inch diameter drill, he sang a song
that Kipling might have been startled to recognize:
_"To the tables down at Mory's,
To the place where Louie dwells,
Where it's always double drill and no canteen,
Sit the Whiffenpoofs assembled,
With their glasses raised on high,
And they'll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din."_
When the drill was firmly based on the surface of the planetoid, St.
Simon hauled his way back to his ship along his safety line. Inside, he
sat down in the control chair and backed well away from the slowly
spinning hunk of rock. Now there was only one thin pair of wires
stretching between his ship and the drill on the asteroid.
When he was a good fifty meters away, he took one last look to make sure
everything was as it should be.
"Stand by for a broadside!"
"Standing by, sir!"
"You may fire when ready, Gridley!"
"Aye, sir! Rockets away!" His forefinger descended on a button which
sent a pulse of current through the pair of wires that trailed out the
open door to the drill fifty meters away.
A flare of light appeared on the top of the drill. Almost immediately,
it developed into a tongue of rocket flame. Then a glow appeared at the
base of the drill and flame began to billow out from beneath the tube.
The drill began to sink into the surface, and the planetoid began to
move ever so slowly.
The drill was essentially a pair of opposed rockets. The upper one,
which tried to push the drill into the surface of the planetoid,
developed nearly forty per cent more thrust than the lower one. Thus,
the lower one, which was trying to push the drill _off_ the rock, was
outmatched. It had to back up, if possible. And it was certainly
possible; the exhaust flame of the lower rocket easily burrowed a hole
that the rocket could back into, while the silicate rock boiled and
vaporized in order to get out of the way.
Soon there was no sign of the drill body itself. There was only a small
volcano, spewing up gas and liquid from a hole in the rock. On the
surface of a good-sized planet, the drill would have built up a little
volcanic cone around the lip of the hole, but building a cone like that
requires enough gravity to pull the hot matter back to the edge of the
hole.
The fireworks didn't last long. The drill wasn't built to go in too
deep. A drill of that type could be built which would burrow its way
right through a small planetoid, but that was hardly necessary for
planting an anchor. Ten meters was quite enough.
Now came the hard work.
On the outside of the _Nancy Bell_, locked into place, was a
specially-treated nickel-steel eye-bolt--thirty feet long and eight
inches in diameter. There had been ten of them, just as there had been
ten drills in the storage locker. Now the last drill had been used, and
there was but one eye-bolt left. The _Nancy Bell_ would have to go back
for more supplies after this job.
The anchor bolts had a mass of four metric tons each. Maneuvering them
around, even when they were practically weightless, was no easy job.
St. Simon again matched the velocity of the _Nancy Bell_ with that of
the planetoid, which had been accelerated by the drill's action. He
positioned the ship above the hole which had been drilled into the huge
rock. Not directly above it--rocket drills had been known to show spurts
of life after they were supposed to be dead. St. Simon had timed the
drill, and it had apparently behaved as it should, but there was no need
to take chances.
"Fire brigade, stand by!"
"Fire brigade standing by, sir!"
A nozzle came out of the nose of the _Nancy Bell_ and peeped over the
rim of the freshly-drilled hole.
"Ready! Aim! Squirt!"
A jet of kerosene-like fluosilicone oil shot down the shaft. When it had
finished its work, there was little possibility that anything could
happen at the bottom. Any unburned rocket fuel would have a hard time
catching fire with that stuff soaking into it.
"Ready to lower the boom, Mr. Christian!" bellowed St. Simon.
"Aye, sir! Ready, sir!"
"Lower away!"
His fingers played rapidly over the control board.
* * * * *
Outside the ship, the lower end of the great eye-bolt was released from
its clamp, and a small piston gave it a little shove. In a long, slow,
graceful arc, it swung away from the hull, swiveling around the pivot
clamp that held the eye. The braking effect of the pivot clamp was
precisely set to stop the eye-bolt when it was at right angles to the
hull. Moving carefully, St. Simon maneuvered the ship until the far end
of the bolt was directly over the shaft. Then he nudged the _Nancy Bell_
sideways, pushing the bolt down into the planetoid. It grated a couple
of times, but between the power of the ship and the mass of the
planetoid, there was enough pressure to push it past the obstacles. The
rocket drill and the eye-bolt had been designed to work together; the
hole made by the first was only a trifle larger than the second. The
anchor settled firmly into place.
St. Simon released the clamps that held the eye-bolt to the hull of the
ship, and backed away again. As he did, a power cord unreeled, for the
eye-bolt was still connected to the vessel electrically.
Several meters away, St. Simon pushed another button. There was no
sound, but his practiced eye saw the eye of the anchor quiver. A small
explosive charge, set in the buried end of the anchor, had detonated,
expanding the far end of the bolt, wedging it firmly in the hole. At the
same time, a piston had been forced up a small shaft in the center of
the bolt, forcing a catalyst to mix with a fast-setting resin, and
extruding the mixture out through half a dozen holes in the side of the
bolt. When the stuff set, the anchor was locked securely to the sides of
the shaft and thus to the planetoid itself.
St. Simon waited for a few minutes to make sure the resin had set
completely. Then he clambered outside again and attached a heavy towing
cable to the eye of the anchor, which projected above the surface of the
asteroid. Back inside the ship again, he slowly applied power. The cable
straightened and pulled at the anchor as the _Nancy Bell_ tried to get
away from the asteroid.
"Jules, old bunion," he said as he watched the needle of the tension
gauge, "we have set her well."
"Yes, m'lud. So it would appear, m'lud."
St. Simon cut the power. "Very good, Jules. Now we shall see if the
beeper is functioning as it should." He flipped a switch that turned on
the finder pickup, then turned the selector to his own frequency band.
_Beep!_ said the radio importantly. _Beep!_
The explosion had also triggered on a small but powerful transmitter
built into the anchor. The tugs would be able to find the planetoid by
following the beeps.
"Ah, Jules! Success!"
"Yes, m'lud. Success. For the tenth time in a row, this trip. And how
many trips does this make?"
"Ah, but who's counting? Think of the money!"
"And the monotony, m'lud. To say nothing of molasses, muchness, and
other things that begin with an M."
"Quite so, Jules; quite so. Well, let's detach the towing cable and be
on our way."
"Whither, m'lud, Vesta?"
"I rather thought Pallas this time, old thimble."
"Still, m'lud, Vesta--"
"Pallas, Jules."
"Vesta?"
"Hum, hi, ho," said Captain St. Simon thoughtfully. "Pallas?"
The argument continued while the tow cable was detached from the
freshly-placed anchor, and while the air was being let back into the
control chamber, and while St. Simon divested himself of his suit.
Actually, although he would like to go to Vesta, it was out of the
question. Energywise and timewise, Pallas was much closer.
He settled back in the bucket seat and shot toward Pallas.
* * * * *
Mr. Edway Tarnhorst was from San Pedro, Greater Los Angeles, California,
Earth. He was a businessman of executive rank, and was fairly rich. In
his left lapel was the Magistral Knight's Cross of the Sovereign
Hierosolymitan Order of Malta, reproduced in miniature. In his wallet
was a card identifying him as a Representative of the Constituency of
Southern California to the Supreme Congress of the People of the United
Nations of Earth. He was just past his fifty-third birthday, and his
lean, ascetic face and graying hair gave him a look of saintly wisdom.
Aside from the eight-pointed cross in his lapel, the only ornamentation
or jewelry he wore consisted of a small, exquisitely thin gold watch on
his left wrist, and, on the ring finger of his left hand, a gold signet
ring set with a single, flat, unfaceted diamond which was delicately
engraved with the Tarnhorst coat of arms. His clothing was quietly but
impressively expensive, and under Earth gravity would probably have
draped impeccably, but it tended to fluff oddly away from his body under
a gee-pull only a twentieth of Earth's.
He sat in his chair with both feet planted firmly on the metal floor,
and his hands gripping the armrests as though he were afraid he might
float off toward the ceiling if he let go. But only his body betrayed
his unease; his face was impassive and calm.
The man sitting next to him looked a great deal more comfortable. This
was Mr. Peter Danley, who was twenty years younger than Mr. Tarnhorst
and looked it. Instead of the Earth-cut clothing that the older man was
wearing, he was wearing the close-fitting tights that were the common
dress of the Belt cities. His hair was cropped close, and the fine blond
strands made a sort of golden halo about his head when the light from
the panels overhead shone on them. His eyes were pale blue, and the
lashes and eyebrows were so light as to be almost invisible. That
effect, combined with his thin-lined, almost lipless mouth, gave his
face a rather expressionless expression. He carried himself like a man
who was used to low-gravity or null-gravity conditions, but he talked
like an Earthman, not a Belt man. The identification card in his belt
explained that; he was a pilot on the Earth-Moon shuttle service. In the
eyes of anyone from the Belt cities, he was still an Earthman, not a
true spaceman. He was looked upon in the same way that the captain of a
transatlantic liner might have looked upon the skipper of the Staten
Island ferry two centuries before. The very fact that he was seated in a
chair gave away his Earth habits.
The third man was standing, leaning at a slight angle, so that his back
touched the wall behind him. He was not tall--five nine--and his face
and body were thin. His tanned skin seemed to be stretched tightly over
this scanty padding, and in places the bones appeared to be trying to
poke their way through to the surface. His ears were small and lay
nearly flat against his head, and the hair on his skull was so sparse
that the tanned scalp could be easily seen beneath it, although there
was no actual bald spot anywhere. Only his large, luminous brown eyes
showed that Nature had not skimped on everything when he was formed. His
name was lettered neatly on the outside of the door to the office:
Georges Alhamid. In spite of the French spelling, he pronounced the name
"George," in the English manner.
He had welcomed the two Earthmen into his office, smiling the automatic
smile of the diplomat as he welcomed them to Pallas. As soon as they
were comfortably seated--though perhaps that word did not exactly apply
to Edway Tarnhorst--Georges Alhamid said:
"Now, gentlemen, what can I do for you?"
He asked it as though he were completely unaware of what had brought the
two men to Pallas.
Tarnhorst looked as though he were privately astonished that his host
could speak grammatically. "Mr. Alhamid," he began, "I don't know
whether you're aware that the industrial death rate here in the Belt has
been the subject of a great deal of discussion in both industrial and
governmental circles on Earth." It was a half question, and he let it
hang in the air, waiting to see whether he got an answer.
"Certainly my office has received a great deal of correspondence on the
subject," Alhamid said. His voice sounded as though Tarnhorst had
mentioned nothing more serious than a commercial deal. Important, but
nothing to get into a heavy sweat over.
Tarnhorst nodded and then held his head very still. His actions betrayed
the fact that he was not used to the messages his semicircular canals
were sending his brain when he moved his head under low gee.
"Exactly," he said after a moment's pause. "I have 'stat copies of a
part of that correspondence. To be specific, the correspondence between
your office and the Workers' Union Safety Control Board, and between
your office and the Workingman's Compensation Insurance Corporation."
"I see. Well, then, you're fully aware of what our trouble is, Mr.
Tarnhorst. I'm glad to see that an official of the insurance company is
taking an interest in our troubles."
Tarnhorst's head twitched, as though he were going to shake his head and
had thought better of it a fraction of a second too late. It didn't
matter. The fluid in his inner ears sloshed anyway.
"I am not here in my capacity as an officer of the Workingman's
Compensation Insurance Corporation," he said carefully. "I am here as a
representative of the People's Congress."
Alhamid's face showed a mild surprise which he did not feel. "I'm
honored, of course, Mr. Tarnhorst," he said, "but you must understand
that I am not an official of the government of Pallas."
Tarnhorst's ascetic face betrayed nothing. "Since you have no unified
government out here," he said, "I cannot, of course, presume to deal
with you in a governmental capacity. I have spoken to the Governor of
Pallas, however, and he assures me that you are the man to speak to."
"If it's about the industrial death rate," Alhamid agreed, "then he's
perfectly correct. But if you're here as a governmental representative
of Earth, I don't understand--"
"Please, Mr. Alhamid," Tarnhorst interrupted with a touch of irritation
in his voice. "This is not my first trip to the Belt, nor my first
attempt to deal with the official workings of the Confederated Cities."
Alhamid nodded gently. It was, as a matter of fact, Mr. Tarnhorst's
second trip beyond the Martian orbit, the first having taken place some
three years before. But the complaint was common enough; Earth, with its
strong centralized government, simply could not understand the
functioning of the Belt Confederacy. A man like Tarnhorst apparently
couldn't distinguish between _government_ and _business_. Knowing that,
Alhamid could confidently predict what the general sense of Tarnhorst's
next sentence would be.
"I am well aware," said Tarnhorst, "that the Belt Companies not only
have the various governors under their collective thumb, but have thus
far prevented the formation of any kind of centralized government. Let
us not quibble, Mr. Alhamid; the Belt Companies run the Belt, and that
means that I must deal with officials of those companies--such as
yourself."
Alhamid felt it necessary to make a mild speech in rebuttal. "I cannot
agree with you, Mr. Tarnhorst. I have nothing to do with the government
of Pallas or any of the other asteroids. I am neither an elected nor an
appointed official of any government. Nor, for that matter, am I an
advisor in either an official or unofficial capacity to any government.
I do not make the laws designed to keep the peace, nor do I enforce
them, except in so far as I am a registered voter and therefore have
some voice in those laws in that respect. Nor, again, do I serve any
judiciary function in any Belt government, except inasmuch as I may be
called upon for jury duty.
"I am a business executive, Mr. Tarnhorst. Nothing more. If you have
governmental problems to discuss, then I can't help you, since I'm not
authorized to make any decisions for any government."
Edway Tarnhorst closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his thin nose
between thumb and forefinger. "I understand that. I understand that
perfectly. But out here, the Companies have taken over certain functions
of government, shall we say?"
"Shall we say, rather, that on Earth the government has usurped certain
functions which rightfully belong to private enterprise?" Alhamid said
gently. "Historically, I think, that is the correct view."
Tarnhorst opened his eyes and smiled. "You may be quite correct.
Historically speaking, perhaps, the Earth government has usurped the
functions that rightfully belong to kings, dictators, and warlords. To
say nothing of local satraps and petty chieftains. Hm-m-m. Perhaps we
should return to that? Perhaps we should return to the human suffering
that was endemic in those times?"
"You might try it," said Alhamid with a straight face. "Say, one year
out of every ten. It would give the people something to look forward to
with anticipation and to look back upon with nostalgia." Then he changed
his tone. "If you wish to debate theories of government, Mr. Tarnhorst,
possibly we could get up a couple of teams. Make a public affair of it.
It could be taped and televised here and on Earth, and we could charge
royalties on each--"
Peter Danley's blond, blank face became suddenly animated. He looked as
though he were trying to suppress a laugh. He almost succeeded. It came
out as a cough.
* * * * *
At the same time, Tarnhorst interrupted Alhamid. "You have made your
point, Mr. Alhamid," he said in a brittle voice. "Permit me to make
mine. I have come to discuss business with you. But, as a member of the
Congressional Committee for Industrial Welfare, I am also in search of
facts. Proper legislation requires facts, and legislation passed by the
Congress will depend to a great extent upon the report on my findings
here."
"I understand," said Alhamid. "I'll certainly be happy to provide you
with whatever data you want--with the exception of data on industrial
processes, of course. That's not mine to give. But anything else--" He
gestured with one hand, opening it palm upwards, as though dispensing a
gift.
"I'm not interested in industrial secrets," said Tarnhorst, somewhat
mollified. "It's a matter of the welfare of your workers. We feel that
we should do something to help. As you know, there have been protests
from the Worker's Union Safety Control Board and from the Workingman's
Compensation Insurance Corporation."
Alhamid nodded. "I know. The insurance company is complaining about the
high rate of claims for deaths. They've threatened to raise our premium
rates."
"Considering the expense, don't you, as a businessman, think that a fair
thing to do?"
"No," Alhamid said. "I have pointed out to them that the total amount of
the claims is far less per capita than, for instance, the Steel
Construction Workers' Union of Earth. Granted, there are more death
claims, but these are more than compensated for by the fact that the
claims for disability and hospitalization are almost negligible."
"That's another thing we don't understand," Tarnhorst said carefully.
"It appears that not only are the safety precautions insufficient, but
the post-accident care is ... er ... inefficient."
"I assure you that what post-accident care there is," Alhamid said, "is
quite efficient. But there is a high mortality rate because of the very
nature of the job. Do you know anything about anchor-placing, Mr.
Tarnhorst?"
"Very little," Tarnhorst admitted. "That is one of the things I am here
to get information on. You used the phrase 'what post-accident care
there is'--just how do you mean that?"
"Mr. Tarnhorst, when a man is out in space, completely surrounded by a
hard vacuum, _any_ accident is very likely to be fatal. On Earth, if a
man sticks his thumb in a punch press, he loses his thumb. Out here, if
a man's thumb is crushed off while he's in space, he loses his air and
his life long before he can bleed to death. Anything that disables a man
in space is deadly ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
"I can give you a parallel case. In the early days of oil drilling,
wells occasionally caught fire. One of the ways to put them out was to
literally blow them out with a charge of nitroglycerine. Naturally, the
nitroglycerine had to be transported from where it was made to where it
was to be used. Sensibly enough, it was not transported in tank-car
lots; it was carried in small special containers by a single man in an
automobile, who used the back roads and avoided traffic and stayed away
from thickly populated areas--which was possible in those days. In many
places these carriers were required to paint their cars red, and have
the words _Danger Nitroglycerine_ painted on the vehicle in yellow.
"Now, the interesting thing about that situation is that, whereas
insurance companies in those days were reluctant to give policies to
those men, even at astronomical premium rates, disability insurance cost
practically nothing--provided the insured would allow the insertion of a
clause that restricted the covered period to those times when he was
actually engaged in transporting nitroglycerine. You can see why."
"I am not familiar with explosives," Tarnhorst said. "I take it that the
substance is ... er ... easily detonated?"
"That's right," said Alhamid. "It's not only sensitive, but it's
unreliable. You might actually drop a jar of the stuff and do nothing
but shatter the jar. Another jar, apparently exactly similar, might go
off because it got jiggled by a seismic wave from a passing truck half a
mile away. But the latter was a great deal more likely than the former."
"Very well," said Tarnhorst after a moment, "I accept that analogy. I'd
like to know more about the work itself. What does the job entail,
exactly? What safety precautions are taken?"
It required the better part of three hours to explain exactly what an
anchor setter did and how he did it--and what safety precautions were
being taken. Through it all, Peter Danley just sat there, listening,
saying nothing.
Finally, Edway Tarnhorst said: "Well, thank you very much for your
information, Mr. Alhamid. I'd like to think this over. May I see you in
the morning?"
"Certainly, sir. You're welcome at any time."
"Thank you." The two Earthmen rose from their seats--Tarnhorst
carefully, Danley with the ease of long practice. "Would nine in the
morning be convenient?"
"Quite convenient. I'll expect you."
Danley glided over to the door and held it open for Tarnhorst. He was
wearing magnetic glide-shoes, the standard footwear of the Belt, which
had three ball-bearings in the forward part of the sole, allowing the
foot to move smoothly in any direction, while the rubber heel could be
brought down to act as a brake when necessary. He didn't handle them
with the adeptness of a Belt man, but he wasn't too awkward. Tarnhorst
was wearing plain magnetic-soled boots--the lift-'em-up-and-lay-'em-down
type. He had no intention of having his dignity compromised by shoes
that might treacherously scoot out from under him.
* * * * *
As soon as the door had closed behind them, Georges Alhamid picked up
the telephone on his desk and punched a number.
When a woman's voice answered at the other end, he said: "Miss Lehman,
this is Mr. Alhamid. I'd like to speak to the governor." There was a
pause. Then:
"George? Larry here."
Alhamid leaned back comfortably against the wall. "I just saw your
guests, Larry. I spent damn near three hours explaining why it was
necessary to put anchors in rocks, how it was done, and why it was
dangerous."
"Did you convince him? Tarnhorst, I mean."
"I doubt it. Oh, I don't mean he thinks I'm lying or anything like that.
He's too sharp for that. But he _is_ convinced that we're negligent,
that we're a bunch of barbarians who care nothing about human life."
"You've got to unconvince him, George," the governor said worriedly.
"The Belt still isn't self-sufficient enough to be able to afford an
Earth embargo. They can hold out longer than we can."
"I know," Alhamid said. "Give us another generation, and we can tell the
World Welfare State where to head in--but right now, things are touchy,
and you and I are in the big fat middle of it." He paused, rubbing
thoughtfully at his lean blade of a nose with a bony forefinger. "Larry,
what did you think of that blond nonentity Tarnhorst brought with him?"
"He's not a nonentity," the governor objected gently. "He just looks it.
He's Tarnhorst's 'expert' on space industry, if you want my opinion. Did
he say much of anything while he was with you?"
"Hardly anything."
"Same here. I have a feeling that his job is to evaluate every word you
say and report his evaluation to Tarnhorst. You'll have to be careful."
"I agree," Alhamid said. "But he complicates things. I have a feeling
that if I tell Tarnhorst a straight story he'll believe it. He seems to
be a pretty shrewd judge. But Danley just might be the case of the man
who is dangerous because of his little learning. He obviously knows a
devil of a lot more about operations in space than Tarnhorst does, and
he's evidently a hand-picked man, so that Tarnhorst will value his
opinion. But it's evident that Danley doesn't know anything about space
by our standards. Put him out on a boat as an anchor man, and he'd be
lucky if he set a single anchor."
"Well, there's not much chance of that. How do you mean, he's
dangerous?"
"I'll give you a f'rinstance. Suppose you've got a complex circuit using
alternatic current, and you're trying to explain to a reasonably
intelligent man how it works and what it does. If he doesn't know
anything about electricity, he mightn't understand the explanation, but
he'll believe that you're telling him the truth even if he doesn't
understand it. But if he knows the basic theory of direct currents,
you're likely to find yourself in trouble because he'll know just enough
to see that what you're telling him doesn't jibe with what he already
knows. Volts times amperes equal watts, as far as he's concerned, and
the term 'power factor' does nothing but confuse him. He knows that
copper is a conductor, so he can't see how a current could be cut off by
a choke coil. He knows that a current can't pass through an insulator,
so a condenser obviously can't be what you say it is. Mentally, he tags
you as a liar, and he begins to try to dig in to see how your gadget
_really_ works."
* * * * *
"Hm-m-m. I see what you mean. Bad." He snorted. "Blast Earthmen, anyway!
Have you ever been there?"
"Earth? Nope. By careful self-restraint, I've managed to forego that
pleasure so far, Larry. Why?"
"Brrr! It's the feel of the place that I can't stand. I don't mean the
constant high-gee; I take my daily exercise spin in the centrifuge just
like anyone else, and you soon get used to the steady pull on Earth. I
mean the constant, oppressive _psychic_ tension, if you see what I mean.
The feeling that everyone hates and distrusts everyone else. The curious
impression of fear underneath every word and action.
"I'm older than you are, George, and I've lived with a kind of fear all
my life--just as you and everyone else in the Belt has. A single mistake
can kill out here, and the fear that it will be some fool who makes a
mistake that will kill hundreds is always with us. We've learned to live
with that kind of fear; we've learned to take steps to prevent any idiot
from throwing the wrong switch that would shut down a power plant or
open an air lock at the wrong time.
"But the fear on Earth is different. It's the fear that everyone else is
out to get you, the fear that someone will stick a figurative knife in
your back and reduce you to the basic subsistence level. And that fear
is solidly based, believe me. The only way to climb up from basic
subsistence is to climb over everyone else, to knock aside those in your
way, to get rid of whoever is occupying the position you want. And once
you get there, the only way you can hold your position is to make sure
that nobody below you gets too big for his britches. The rule is: Pull
down those above you, hold down those below you.
"I've seen it, George. The big cities are packed with people whose sole
ambition in life is to badger their local welfare worker out of another
check--they need new clothes, they need a new bed, they need a new
table, they need more food for the new baby, they need this, they need
that. All they ever do is _need_! But, of course, they're far to
aristocratic to _work_.
"Those who do have ambition have to become politicians--in the worst
sense of the word. They have to gain some measure of control over the
dispersal of largesse to the mob; they have to get themselves into a
position where they can give away other people's money, so that they can
get their cut, too.
"And even then, the man who gets to be a big shot doesn't dare show it.
Take a look at Tarnhorst. He's probably one of the best of a bad lot. He
has his fingers in a lot of business pies which make him money, and he's
in a high enough position in the government to enable him to keep some
of his money. But his clothing is only a little bit better than the
average, just as the man who is on basic subsistence wears clothes that
are only a little bit worse than the average. That diamond ring of his
is a real diamond, but you can buy imitations that can't be told from
the real thing except by an expert, so his diamond doesn't offend anyone
by being ostentatious. And it's unfaceted, to eliminate offensive flash.
"All the color has gone out of life on Earth, George. Women held out
longer than men did, but now no man or woman would be caught wearing a
bright-colored suit. You don't see any reds or yellows or blues or
greens or oranges--only grays and browns and black.
"It's not for me, George. I'd much rather live in fear of the few fools
who might pull a stupid trick that would kill me than live in the
constant fear of everyone around me, who all want to destroy me
deliberately."
"I know what you mean," said Alhamid, "but I think you've put the wrong
label on what you're calling 'fear'; there's a difference between fear
and having a healthy respect for something that is dangerous but not
malignant. That vacuum out there isn't out to 'get' anybody. The only
people it kills are the fools who have no respect for it and the
neurotics who think that it wants to murder them. You're neither, and I
know it."
The governor laughed. "That's the advantage we have over Earthmen,
George. We went through the same school of hard knocks together--all of
us. And we know how we stack up against each other."
"True," Alhamid said darkly, "but how long will that hold if Tarnhorst
closes the school down?"
"That's what you've got to prevent," said the governor flatly. "If you
need help, yell."
"I will," Alhamid said. "Very loudly." He hung up, wishing he knew what
Tarnhorst--and Danley--had in mind.
* * * * *
"The trouble with these people, Danley," said Edway Tarnhorst, "is that
they have no respect whatever for human dignity. They have a tendency to
overlook the basic rights of the individual."
"They're certainly--different," Peter Danley said.
Tarnhorst juggled himself up and down on the easy-chair in which he was
seated, as though he could hardly believe that he had weight again. He
hated low gee. It made him feel awkward and undignified. The only thing
that reminded him that this was not "real" gravity was the faint, but
all-pervasive hum of the huge engines that drove the big centrifuge. The
rooms had cost more, but they were well worth it, as far as Tarnhorst
was concerned.
"How do you mean, 'different'?" he asked almost absently, settling
himself comfortably into the cushions.
"I don't know exactly. There's a hardness, a toughness--I can't quite
put my finger on it, but it's in the way they act, the way they talk."
"Surely you'd noticed that before?" Tarnhorst asked in mild surprise.
"You've met these Belt men on Luna."
"And their women," Danley said with a nod. "But the impact is somewhat
more pronounced on their own home ground--seeing them _en masse_."
"Their women!" Tarnhorst said, caught by the phrase. "_Fah!_
Bright-colored birds! Giggling children! And no more morals than a
common house-cat!"
"Oh, they're not as bad as all that," Danley objected. "Their clothing
is a little bright, I'll admit, and they laugh and kid around a lot, but
I wouldn't say that their morals were any worse than those of a girl
from New York or London."
"Arrogance is the word," said Tarnhorst. "Arrogance. Like the way that
Alhamid kept standing all the time we were talking, towering over us
that way."
"Just habit," Danley said. "When you don't weigh more than six or seven
pounds, there's not much point in sitting down. Besides, it leaves them
on their feet in case of emergency."
"He could have sat down out of politeness," Tarnhorst said. "But no.
They try to put on an air of superiority that is offensive to human
dignity." He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and
crossed his ankles. "However, attitude itself needn't concern us until
it translates itself into anti-social behavior. What cannot be tolerated
is this callous attitude toward the dignity and well-being of the
workers out here. What did you think of Alhamid's explanation of this
anchor-setting business?"
Danley hesitated. "It sounded straightforward enough, as far as it
went."
"You think he's concealing something, then?"
"I don't know. I don't have all the information." He frowned, putting
furrows between his almost invisible blond brows. "I know that neither
government business nor insurance business are my specialty, but I would
like to know a little more about the background before I render any
decision."
"Hm-m-m. Well." Tarnhorst frowned in thought for a moment, then came to
a decision. "I can't give you the detailed data, of course; that would
be a violation of the People's Mutual Welfare Code. But I can give you
the general story."
"I just want to know what sort of thing to look for," Danley said.
"Certainly. Certainly. Well." Tarnhorst paused to collect his thoughts,
then launched into his speech. "It has now been over eighty years since
the first colonists came out here to the Belt. At first, the ties with
Earth were quite strong, naturally. Only a few actually intended to stay
out there the rest of their lives; most of them intended to make
themselves a nice little nest egg, come back home, and retire. At the
same time, the World State was slowly evolving from its original loosely
tied group of independent nations toward what it is today.
"The people who came out here were mostly misfits, sociologically
speaking." He smiled sardonically. "They haven't changed much.
"At any rate, as I said, they were strongly tied to Earth. There was the
matter of food, air, and equipment, all of which had to be shipped out
from Earth to begin with. Only the tremendous supply of metal--almost
free for the taking--made such a venture commercially possible. Within
twenty-five years, however, the various industrial concerns that managed
the Belt mining had become self-supporting. The robot scoopers which are
used to mine methane and ammonia from Jupiter's atmosphere gave them
plenty of organic raw material. Now they grow plants of all kinds and
even raise food animals.
"They began, as every misfit does, to complain about the taxes the
government put on their incomes. The government, in my opinion, made an
error back then. They wanted to keep people out in the Belt, since the
mines on Earth were not only rapidly being depleted, but the mining
sites were needed for living space. Besides, asteroid metals were
cheaper than metals mined on Earth. To induce the colonists to remain in
the Belt, no income tax was levied; the income tax was replaced by an
eighty per cent tax on the savings accumulated when the colonist
returned to Earth to retire.
"They resented even that. It was explained to them that the asteroids
were, after all, natural resources, and that they had no moral right to
make a large profit and deprive others of their fair share of the income
from a natural resource, but they insisted that they had earned it and
had a right to keep it.
"In other words, the then government bribed them to stay out here, and
the bribe was more effective than they had intended."
"So they stayed out here and kept their money," Danley said.
"Exactly. At that time, if you will recall, there was a great deal of
agitation against colonialism--there had been for a long time, as a
matter of fact. That agitation was directed against certain
industrialist robber-baron nations who had enslaved the populace of
parts of Asia and Africa solely to produce wealth, and not for the
benefit of the people themselves. But the Belt operators took advantage
of the anticolonialism of the times and declared that the Belt cities
were, and by right ought to be, free and independent political entities.
It was a ridiculous assumption, of course, but since the various Belt
cities were, at that time, under the nominal control of three or four of
the larger nations, the political picture required that they be allowed
to declare themselves independent. It was not anticipated at the time
that they would be so resistant toward the World Government."
He smiled slightly. "Of course, by refusing to send representatives to
the People's Congress, they have, in effect, cut themselves off from any
voice in human government."
Then he shrugged. "At the moment, that is neither here nor there. What
interests us at the moment is the death rate curve of the anchor-sinkers
or whatever they are. Did you know that it is practically impossible for
anyone to get a job out there in the Belt unless he has had experience
in the anchor-setting field?"
"No," Danley admitted.
"It's true. For every other job, they want only men with space
experience. And by 'space experience' they mean anchor-setting, because
that's the only job a man can get without previous space experience.
They spend six months in a special school, learning to do the work,
according to our friend, Mr. Georges Alhamid. Then they are sent out to
set anchors. Small ones, at first, in rocks only a few meters in
diameter--then larger ones. After a year or so at that kind of work,
they can apply for more lucrative positions.
"I see nothing intrinsically wrong in that, I will admit, but the
indications are that the schooling, which should have been getting more
efficient over the years, has evidently been getting more lax. The death
rate has gone up."
"Just a minute," Danley interrupted. "Do you mean that a man has to have
what they call 'space experience' before he can get _any_ kind of job?"
Tarnhorst shook his head and was pleased to find that no nausea
resulted. "No, of course not. Clerical jobs, teaching jobs, and the like
don't require that sort of training. But there's very little chance for
advancement unless you're one of the elite. A physician, for example,
wouldn't have many patients unless he had had 'space experience'; he
wouldn't be allowed to own or drive a space boat, and he wouldn't be
allowed to go anywhere near what are called 'critical areas'--such as
air locks, power plants, or heavy industry installations."
"It sounds to me as though they have a very strong union," said Danley.
"If you want to call it that, yes," Tarnhorst said. "Anything that has
anything to do with operations in space requires that sort of
experience--and there are very few jobs out here that can avoid having
anything to do with space. Space is only a few kilometers away." The
expression on his face showed that he didn't much care for the thought.
"I don't see that that's so bad," Danley said. "Going out there isn't
something for the unexperienced. A man who doesn't know what he's doing
can get himself killed easily, and, what's worse, he's likely to take
others with him."
"You speak, of course, from experience," Tarnhorst said with no trace of
sarcasm. "I accept that. By not allowing inexperienced persons in
critical areas, the Belt Companies are, at least indirectly, looking out
for the welfare of the people. But we mustn't delude ourselves into
thinking that that is their prime objective. These Belt Companies are no
better than the so-called 'industrial giants' of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. The government here is farcical. The sole job is to
prevent crime and to adjudicate small civil cases. Every other function
of proper government--the organization of industry, the regulation of
standards the subsidizing of research, the control of prices, and so
on--are left to the Belt Companies or to the people. The Belt Cities are
no more than what used to be called 'company towns'."
"I understand that," Danley said. "But they seem to function fairly
smoothly."
Tarnhorst eyed him. "If, by, 'smoothly functioning', you mean the denial
of the common rights of human freedom and dignity yes. Oh, they give
their sop to such basic human needs as the right of every individual to
be respected--but only because Earth has put pressure on them.
Otherwise, people who, through no fault of their own, were unable to
work or get 'space experience' would be unable to get jobs and would be
looked down upon as pariahs."
"You mean there are people here who have no jobs? I wouldn't think that
unemployment would be a problem out here."
"It isn't," said Tarnhorst, "yet. But there are always those
unfortunates who are psychologically incapable of work, and society must
provide for them. The Belt Cities provide for a basic education, of
course. As long as a person is going to school, he is given a stipend.
But a person who has neither the ability to work nor the ability to
study is an outcast, even though he is provided for by the companies. He
is forced to do something to earn what should be his by right; he is
given menial and degrading tasks to do. We would like to put a stop to
that sort of thing, but we ... ah ... have no ... ah ... means of doing
so." He paused, as though considering whether he had said too much.
"The problem at hand," he went on hurriedly, "is the death curve. When
this technique for taking the rocks to the smelters was being worked
out, the death rate was--as you might imagine--quite high. The Belt
Companies had already been operating out here for a long time before the
stony meteorites were mined commercially. At first, the big thing was
nickel-iron. That's what they came here to get in the beginning. That's
where most of the money still is. But the stony asteroids provide them
with their oxygen.
"This anchor-setting technique was worked out at a time when the Belt
Companies were trying to find ways to make the Belt self-sufficient.
After they got the technique worked out so that it operated smoothly,
the death rate dropped 'way down. It stayed down for a little while, and
then began to rise again. It has nearly reached an all-time high.
Obviously, something is wrong, and we have to find out what it is."
Danley scratched ruminatively behind his right ear and wished he'd had
the opportunity to study history. He had been vaguely aware, of the
broad outlines, but the details had never been brought to his attention
before. "Suppose Alhamid _is_ trying to hide something," he said after a
moment. "What would it be, do you think?"
Tarnhorst shrugged and spread his hands. "What could it be but some sort
of money-saving scheme? Inferior materials being used at a critical
spot, perhaps. Skimping on quality or quantity. Somewhere, somehow, they
are shaving costs at the risk of the workers' lives. We have to find out
what it is."
Peter Danley nodded. _You don't mean_ "_we_," Danley thought to himself.
I _am the one who's going to have to go out there and find it, while you
sit here safe_. He felt that there was a pretty good chance that these
Belt operators might kill him to keep him from finding out what it was
they were saving money on.