"What do you intend?"
"We want a haven. We are cold and hungry and needy."
Johnson nodded. "I can see that," he said dryly. "How did you collect
this gang?"
"Most of this outfit were caught in the crash. Their incomes did not
permit them to buy duplicators, and their friends were too busy running
up their money to bother handing any out."
"Fine friends."
"And in the smaller cities, the attendants at the power stations left.
There are a horde of dead towns on Mars today. That is why we have come
here. We know that Fabriville is self-sufficient. We intend to join
you."
"Sorry," said Keg. "We have no openings."
"We'll join you by force, if need be."
"Want to try it?" asked Keg, patting the twin 105-mm. short rifles that
looked out over the mob.
No answer for a moment.
"I'll try appealing to your better nature," said Norton softly. "Shall
we starve and shiver while Fabriville eats and is warm?"
"How willing are you to take part?" asked Keg.
"Name it."
* * * * *
"Then listen. We need a more sturdy fence around Fabriville. We have
the material--who hasn't--but we have not the manpower. Get your mob
to run up this fence, Norton, and I'll see that you are paid by giving
each and every man a house-hold-size duplicator complete with a set of
household recordings. Is that a deal?"
Norton smiled wryly. "And what good is a duplicator with no place to
plug it in? The power stations are down all over Mars."
"In building this fence," said Keg, "you are working out the value of
the duplicators. Now look, Norton, in order to make this thing tick,
I want to know whether you and your motley crew are honest. There
are enough of you to man every vacant power station on Mars. If you,
as leader of this gang, will see to it that the stations are manned
and running every minute of the day, I'll see that you are given the
benefits of Fabriville's more massive duplicators. That means fliers,
and equipment of that size, Norton. Are you game?"
"What are you getting out of this?" asked Norton suspiciously.
"No more than you. I can eat only so much. I can wear only so much. I
can use only so much. But it is my pleasure to run things, and I like
to do it. Therefore I shall run things until people decide that they
want another man to run things. Until that date, Norton, you'll answer
to me."
"And if I do not kowtow?"
"You don't have to. No one is going to kill you for spitting in my eye.
But if you have sense, you'll see that working my way will ultimately
bring you more reward than going on as an unruly mob. Replace me if you
can, Norton, but remember that it cannot be done by force. I have too
many real friends out across the face of Mars who won't let me be shot
to pieces. I've done them the same service I'm doing you. Take it or
leave it."
"Why can't we remain?"
"We have thirteen thousand people in Fabriville. To take on another ten
thousand would complicate our work-system to the breaking point. We're
running perilously close to chaos as it is, and we couldn't take more.
If you'll set up the power stations and start small communities at
these points, you'll all be better off."
"And what do I get for all this?"
"Nothing. You'll be fed and clothed and housed. That's all that any
of us are. Men out there are all the same, Norton. No one has a
dime. They're all bankrupt. There isn't one of them that can buy a
thing--even if the stores were open. But not one of them is starving,
not one of them is going unclothed, and not one of them is going
without the luxuries of life, except for those communities of which you
speak. Take life to them, Norton, and you'll be the ultimate gainer."
"Why do they remain?" wondered Norton.
"The duplicator will run on direct current," said Keg. "They just have
a set of fully charged batteries recorded. They have a set in spare.
When battery one runs down, battery two takes its place and the first
thing run off is a spare battery number three, and so on. The exhausted
batteries are dumped into the matter bank and re-converted. But it
is not a real luxury, running on batteries. They need the high power
that your stations will deliver. They need the telephone and the radio
which your men can maintain. Go and seek the officials of the various
companies, and tell them what you want to do. Work at it, Norton.
There will be a lot of men in your gang that would rather do something
else. Eventually you will be able to release them to do the jobs they
are best fitted for. Until we get a medium of exchange, it is a job
for job proposition. I'll add this inducement: The medical service of
Fabriville is yours--providing that you and your men work with us."
Norton thought for a moment. "Done," he said shortly. "Can you give us
warmth and food until we take care of the details?"
"That we can."
A stilted monster rolled out from Fabriville under its own power. Four
great girdered legs supported a housing the size of a freight car, and
the legs moved on small tractor treads. Out it came, and it paused
just outside of the gate. A faint violet glow emerged from the bottom
of the housing, and the whirling-skirling of Martian sands obscured the
vastness of the space between the legs of the monster machine.
It moved again, and the original dust settled to disclose a very small
but completely finished and furnished house. Around the encircling
fence went the monstrous duplicator, and at each pause it dropped the
carbon copy of the original house. Hour after hour it hummed, and when
it completed the circle, Norton's mob was housed, fed, and clothed.
* * * * *
Venus Equilateral resounded and re-echoed from the force of the blast.
It rocked, and precession tilted it away from its true North and
South axial positioning. Men raced along the car-way to the blister
laboratory and Channing led the wild rush.
The blister was gone. A shaken Wes Farrell clung to a stanchion, his
face white behind the spacesuit mask. They fished him out of the
wreckage and took him inside.
"What happened?" asked Don.
"Was making artificial elements," explained Wes. "Far outside of the
Periodic Chart. I'd been stacking them over in a corner--they come in
six-inch cubes, you know. But the last one--_Bang!_"
Channing shook his head. "That's dangerous," he said solemnly. "If you
had a six-inch cube of every known element, would you stack 'em all
side by side?"
"It might be all right--until you came to putting phosphorus on top of
a hunk of iodine," said Walt.
"There's no reason to suppose that Wes didn't get a couple of very
active elements side by each. We know nothing of the extra-charted
elements. We can make 'em, but until we do, what can we know of them?"
"Well, we didn't lose the Station," said Walt. "And business is so
punk that tossing the beams won't harm us much; we'll have to spend
some time aligning the place again."
"We're all here, anyway," agreed Don, looking over the ruined blister
laboratory. "But look, Wes, I think you're running on the wrong gear.
Anything that can be made with this gadget can be duplicated. Right?"
"I guess so."
"What we need is a substance that will be stabilized under some sort of
electronic pressure. Then it might come unglued when the matter-dingbat
beam hit it. Follow?"
Wes Farrell thought for a few seconds. "We might make an electronic
alloy," he said.
"A what?"
"A substance that is overbalanced as goes electrons. They will be
inserted by concocting the stuff under extremely high electron
pressure. Make it some sort of station that has an intrinsic charge of
ten to the fiftieth electron volts, or so; that'll make queer alloys,
I'll bet. Then it can be stabilized by inter-alloying something with a
dearth of electrons. The two metals will be miscible, say, when liquid,
and so their electron balance will come out even. They are cooled under
this stress and so forth. When the disintegrator beam hits them, it
will liberate the electrons and the whole thing will go plooey."
"Looks like a matter of finding the right stuff," said Walt. "Don, what
about running the Station charge up as Wes says?"
"No dice. The Station is too big. Besides, the chargo-changing gear
would be overworked all over the Station to maintain the charge, once
made.
"Take the _Relay Girl_ out and try it, Wes."
"Come along?"
"We don't mind if we do," grinned Walt, winking at Don. "There'll be
nothing didding about business until we get a medium of exchange."
* * * * *
The Reverend Thomas Doylen speared Keg Johnson with a fishy glance and
thundered: "A plague on both your houses!"
Johnson grinned unmercifully. "You didn't get that out of the Bible,"
he said.
"But it is none the less true," came the booming reply.
"So what? Mind telling me what I'm doomed to eternal damnation for?"
"Sacrilege and blasphemy," exploded Doylen. "I came to plead with
you. I wanted to bring you into the fold--to show you the error of
your sinful way. And what do I find? I find, guarding the city, a
massive gate of mother-of-pearl and platinum. Solid gold bars on the
gates which swing wide at the approach. A bearded man in a white cloak
recording those who enter. Once inside--"
"You find a broad street paved with gold. Diamonds in profusion stud
the street for traction since gold is somewhat slippery as a pavement.
The sidewalks are pure silver and the street stop-lights are composed
of green emeralds, red rubies, and amber amethysts. They got sort of
practical at that point, reverend. Oh, I also see that you have taken
your sample."
Doylen looked down at the brick. It was the size of a housebrick--but
of pure gold. Stamped in the top surface were the words:
"99.99% pure gold. A souvenir of Fabriville."
"What means all this?" stormed the reverend, waving the brick.
"My very good friend, it is intended to prove only one thing.
Nothing--absolutely nothing--is worth anything. The psychological
impact of the pearly gate and the street of gold tends to strike home
the fact that here in Fabriville, nothing of material substance is of
value. Service, which cannot be duplicated, is the medium of exchange
in Fabriville--have you anything to offer, reverend?"
"The Lord saith: 'Six days shalt thou labor--' You have destroyed that
law, Johnson."
"That's no law. That's an admonition not to overdo your labor. He
didn't want us laboring seven days per week. If He were running things
under the present set-up, He'd be tickled pink to see people taking it
easy five days per week, believe me."
"Sacrilege!"
"Is it? Am I being sacrilegious to believe that He has a sense of humor
and a load more common sense than you and me?"
"To speak familiarly--"
"If I've offended Him, let Him strike me where I stand," smiled Keg.
"He is far too busy to hear the voice of an agnostic."
"Then He is far too busy to have heard that I mentioned Him in familiar
terms. What is your point, reverend? What do you want?"
"A return to religion."
"Good. Start it."
"People will not come to church. They are too busy satiating themselves
with the worldly goods and luxuries."
* * * * *
"Your particularly private sect, like a lot of others," said Keg
Johnson harshly, "has been catering to the wishful-thinking of the
have-nots. That used to be all right, I suppose. You gave them hope
that in the next life they could live in peace, quiet, and also
luxury, believe it or not. You call down the troubles of hell upon the
shoulders of the ambitious, and squall that it is impossible for a
rich man to get ahead in heaven. Nuts, reverend. You've been getting
your flock from people who have no chance to have the pleasure of
fine homes and good friends. You've been promising them streets of
gold, pearly gates, and the sound of angelic music. Fine. Now we have
a condition where people can have those--worldly goods--luxuries right
here on earth and without waiting for death to take them there. If you
want to start a return to church movement, reverend, you might start it
by making your particular outfit one of the first to eschew all this
palaver about streets of gold. Start being a spiritual organization,
try to uplift the poor in spirit instead of telling them that they
will be blessed because of it. Don't ever hope to keep your position
by telling people that material made with a duplicator is a product of
Hell, Devil, & Co., because they won't believe it in the first place
and there won't be anything manufactured by any other means in the
second place."
"And yet you have all of Mars under your thumb," scolded the Reverend
Thomas Doylen. "Of what value is it to gain the whole world and lose
your soul?"
"My soul isn't in bad shape," responded Keg cheerfully. "I think I may
have done as much toward lifting civilization out of the mire as you
have."
"Sacril--"
"Careful, reverend. It is you that I am criticizing now, not God.
Just remember this, people are not going to fall for a bit of salving
talk when they want nothing. You promise them anything you like in
the way of fancy embroidery, but they'll have it at home now instead
of getting it in heaven. Give 'em something to hope for in the way of
greater intelligence, or finer personality, or better friends, and
they'll eat it up.
"As far as having all of Mars under my thumb, someone had to straighten
out this mess. I gave them the only thing I had worth giving. I gave
them the product of my ability to organize; to operate under any
conditions; and to serve them as I can. I'm no better off than I would
have been to sit at home and watch the rest run wild. They'd have done
it, too, if there hadn't been a strong hand on their shoulder. Where
were you when the bottom fell out? Were you trying to help them or were
you telling them that this was the result of their sinful way of life?"
The reverend flushed. "They wouldn't listen to my pleas that they
forsake this devil's invention."
"Naturally not. Work _with_ this thing and you'll come out all right.
But you've got to revise your thinking as well as the rest of the world
has had to revise theirs, or you'll fall by the wayside. Now good day,
reverend, and I wish you luck."
"Your argument may have merit," said the reverend, "though it is
against the nature of things to fall in with any scheme without
considerable thought."
"Think it over, then, and see if I'm not correct. I don't expect any
immediate change, though, until you find that your former doctrines do
not fit the people's wants now."
The reverend left, and as the door closed, a wave of pain swept through
Keg Johnson's body. He reached for the telephone painfully and put a
call through for the doctor.
"It's here again," he said.
"O.K., Keg. You're it."
"I'm licked, all right. Can I be back in seven days?"
"Make it three days with no mention of work. In five days you can have
official visitors for three hours. In seven you may be up and around
the hospital. You'll not be back there for eleven days."
"I'll have to put it off."
"Put it off another day and you'll not be back at all," snapped Dr.
Hansen. "Take it or leave it!"
"How do I pay?"
"We'll take it out of your hide," said Hansen. "You're under the same
rules as the rest of us. You do your day's work, and you receive the
same medical blessing. Do you want to hoe the garden or will you wash
my car?"
"I'll wash the car."
"That's what you say. Get over here in an hour--and bring Linna with
you."
"What for?"
"Someone's got to drive--and it shouldn't be you!"
"That an order?"
"Nothing else but. Official order from the medical council. You'll play
or else we'll have an interne take out that appendix."
Keg realized the sageness of the doctor's order by the time he reached
the hospital. He was doubled over with pain and they did not permit
him to walk from the car to the front door, but came out and got him on
a stretcher. He was whisked inside, leaving Linna to straighten out the
details at the Incoming desk.
He went up to the operating room immediately, and the anaesthetic
blacked him out and released him from both pain and consciousness.
The days that followed were hazy; they kept him drugged because his
energetic nature would have prevented rapid healing. And it was
four days after the operation that they gave him a quick shot of
counter-drug that brought him out of the fog immediately.
There were people there.
Don Channing, Walt Franks, Wes Farrell, and Dr. Hansen.
"Hello," he said, looking up with a wry smile. "How many car-washings
do I owe you?"
"Plenty, brother. I tinkered for three hours over that frame of yours.
Why did they have to run through an engineering change when they got to
hanging your appendix in? I had to dig for it."
"That's the trouble with this system," Keg mumbled to Don. "He'll get
the same credit for tinkering with me as he would for removing the
cat's appendix."
"Well, you're worth the same as any cat," grinned Walt.
"Thanks," grunted Keg. "Don't tell me that you guys were worried?"
"Nope. We came to give you a hunk of something interesting. Wes Farrell
hauled it out of space, electrons, and considerable high-powered
theory. _Identium._ Corrosion-proof, inert, malleable but hard enough
for coins, and you can roll it out into ten-thousandths sheets and use
it for paper money. But don't ever put it into a duplicator. It'll
blow the top right off of your roof if you do. There's our medium of
exchange, Keg."
"Now," breathed Keg, "we can all get back to normal. Thanks, fellows."
"The government is making the stuff in reams," said Don. "It won't be
too long before you'll be able to pay Hansen what he's really worth, as
well as the rest of your crew. But in spite of this trinket, Life has
still made a big change. I can foresee the four-hour week right now."
"It's here and been here for some time," said Keg. "But--Hey! Linna!"
Keg's wife entered. She was clad in hospital whites and was carrying a
tray.
"Hello, Keg," she said solemnly. Keg hadn't heard that tone of voice
for years.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Someone had to help. I was doing nothing and so I pitched in to help
Dr. Hansen when he worked on you. He said I did fine."
"Linna is a good nurse's aid," responded Hansen. "Mind if we keep her
on a bit?"
"Not if she minds staying."
"I want to, Keg," she said quietly. "With Marie wearing a
platinum-mounted diamond tiara to dust the house, and Briggs coming to
work in a limousine--imagine the idea of a butler's chauffeur!--and as
you said, people eating from gold plates and using iridium tableware,
there's nothing to get long-nosed about but one's inventiveness,
talent, or uniqueness."
"Linna, you're an ace," grinned Keg. He smiled up at her and said,
while waving the sheet of Identium before their faces, "Do me a job,
Linna. Go out and buy me back the spaceline."
"Huh?" blurted Channing, Franks and Hansen. "What for?"
"When the tumult and the shouting dies, fellers, we'll all be back in
business again. Identium! The only thing you can write a contract on
and not have it fouled or duplicated. The only thing you can write
a check on, or use for credit. Identium--the first page of the new
era--and when we get the mess cleared up Keg Johnson and company will
be carrying the mail! Linna, go out and buy me back my spaceline!"