[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _A pioneer movement is like a building--the foundation is
never built for beauty!_]
The telephone rang. Reluctantly, Rod Workham picked it up. Nothing good
had come from that phone in six years, and his sour expression was
almost an automatic reflex.
"Workham here," he said.
He held the phone an inch away from his ear, but the tirade exceeded his
expectations--it would have been audible a foot away:
"Workham! How long do you think we're going to stand for this! At the
rate you're going, there won't be a man left on Venus or a dollar in the
budget! What kind of a personnel director are you? Don't you know this
project is vital to every person on Earth? Thirty more resignations came
in on this last mail flight."
Rod put the receiver gently on his desk. General Carlson raved and
ranted this way every time a colonist quit, and Rod knew he was not
expected to answer, even if given the chance. The general would carry on
for about five minutes and then would slam down the phone himself.
He dialed another number on the other phone.
"This is Rod, Dave," he said when he got an answer. "Carlson is on the
other phone, yelling at my desk blotter. He says thirty more
resignations came in just now. That right?"
"Close enough, Rod--twenty-three pulled out. That makes seventy-eight
per cent resigned in less than--"
"Spare me the statistics--Carlson's probably blatting them right now.
How do they break down? Are they mostly farmers or technicians?"
"There were only nine technicians left, and all of them quit with this
bunch. The rest were farmers." Dave Newson must be smoking his pipe, Rod
decided--grinding sounds were coming over the phone. "That doesn't leave
very much on Venus to start a colony with--a few farmers, some trappers.
And the scientific personnel--damn it, they seem to stick it out all
right--"
"Their contracts are different," Rod reminded him. "They go on a two
year hitch and then come back to Earth if they want to. The ones who are
there are the ones who can take it and are signed up again."
* * * * *
There was a speculative pause on the other end of the line. "Say, Rod,"
Newson said slowly. "Why not leave this last batch of quitters right
where they are? Every one of them. They signed up for the project with
their eyes open. Why don't you just refuse to bring them home? ...
they'd have to make a go of the colony to save their filthy necks!"
Rod grinned nastily. "I'd like to do it--but even General Carlson
wouldn't dare. We'd never get another colonist off Earth, once it got
out. They wouldn't trust us. Our first problem is to get a
self-supporting society on Venus--and that might do it, all right. But
our main job is to relieve the crowding on Earth, and that means large
numbers of people will have to go willingly later on. If we get tough
with these babies, who will take a chance later on that we won't repeat
the trick?"
"But we lose a hundred potential colonists every time one of these
quitters starts talking about why he left! More harm is done by letting
them come back than would result from leaving them where they are."
Again the speculative pause. "Maybe you could shoot them on arrival?"
"I'll suggest it to the general when I see him," Rod said, "if he
doesn't shoot me first. Now, can you get me the files on this latest
group? And I'd like to see the staff psychologist here, along with all
the interviewers who handled and passed the group. We'll see what we can
salvage out of this. And if you see Jaimie, send him along too, will
you? Maybe our gambling historian can find us something useful in the
Project Record."
"The files are already on the way. And I told Biddington you'd probably
want to see him--he said he'd be along in about ten minutes. I haven't
located all the interviewers yet. Jaimie's been right here, trying to
talk me into a game of Nim and protesting he never heard of binary
numbers. I'll send him up, but keep your hand on your wallet. If you
need anything else, I'll be right here."
* * * * *
Rod thanked him and hung up, shaking his head. Dave Newsom was too good
a man to be stuck on a government project--he ought to get out before
the trouble started. Anyone who worked for Rod Workham on Project Venus
was likely to end up with a bad name. They lived under the ax. The only
person who could be sure of his job was Rod himself. He'd been
recommended by a committee of top men in his field, and no other
personnel man would accept the job if he were removed. Also, most of his
men would leave the project if General Carlson bounced him, for they had
been telling him so ever since the job had gotten hot.
But there was the danger that the general might decide to bypass
Personnel in selecting colonists--or, what was more probable, might try
to tame the planet with a military outpost.
Rod could hardly blame the man for his feelings. The job was vital, and
everyone was intensely interested in making a go of it. Scientific
agriculture had gone about as far as it could; hydroponics had already
begun to shoulder the load required by an overpopulated planet. But the
fact known to most intelligent people on Earth was that either new room
was found in this kind of emergency, some place where people could go
and live under nearly the same standards, or else some drastic changes
in living standards would be required of all. And absolute and rigidly
enforced birth control would have to go into effect. And all the
attendant causes for race wars, nationalist wars, and have-not wars
would crop up.
But the majority of the people wouldn't move to an undeveloped planet.
You couldn't send ordinary citizens as pioneers. For one thing, they
wouldn't want to go. For another, the new community wouldn't last long
if you forced them to go--the average person had neither the attitudes
nor the physique needed to make over a wilderness.
The problem was to find people who would create a community on a new
planet and develop an integrated society there. This had meant rigid
selection, careful psychological preparation and a terrifically
expensive transportation system to get the people there and keep them
supplied. And the job had to be done soon. Economists predicted that
thirty years were left on Earth under present standards, maybe fifty. If
the population couldn't be thinned out one way by then, it would have to
be done by another.
* * * * *
For six years, now, Rod had worked on the job of establishing a
self-supporting colony on Venus. Three different colonies had been
started, and each had died out in less than two years. Resignations
would come in slowly at first, and then in a rush, until only twenty or
thirty people would be left, of which the majority would be short-term
scientific teams. By the terms of the colonists' contracts no man could
be left on Venus more than a month after his resignation; so the bulk of
two colonies had simply had to be shipped back to Earth, and plans made
for another try.
And now the third colony was quitting, rushing home, leaving nothing on
the jungle planet but a few small clearings soon to be taken over by the
vegetation.
Several times in the last year Rod had thought of volunteering himself;
but he knew it for a futile gesture. He wasn't five hundred men. He
didn't even have the special skills or physique that were needed.
His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the men.
Biddington was first. Then in twos and threes came the interviewers, all
looking like the home team at the half, three touchdowns behind and just
waiting for their coach.
If psychologists made good colonists, Rod thought, here would be a dozen
more volunteers.
The arrival of Homer Jaimison brought the only cheerful face in the
group. The project historian was a young man, just over thirty, and
considerably over six feet. He wore the expression of a man who is
itching to do something. Jaimie had never really been busy yet on the
project--the colonies had died out so quickly that his work had been
mostly clerical, and he'd had to fill in time as best he could. So far
he had done it making up improbable contests of skill for drinks, with
such a weird assortment of shifting rules and scoring that he hadn't
paid for a drink since his arrival. He made a valuable contribution to
the project, however, since he helped to keep the group's minds off
their troubles a part of the time.
Rod genuinely liked Jaimie, and expected to miss him strongly when Venus
became self-supporting to the point where the historian would have to
complete his work in residence.
* * * * *
When they were all seated, Rod leaned against his desk and said, "I can
see you all know why we're here. To begin with, I'm not going to accuse
anyone of mistakes. Each of you is the best possible man in the country
for his job. If you weren't, you wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have asked
for you; and General Carlson wouldn't have kept you. So there's nothing
to feel bad about. If you can't do this work, no one can.
Self-recrimination is foolish when you've been put on an impossible
problem. I didn't call you in to bawl you out, but to ask you if we
should continue spending project funds for nothing."
Jaimie raised his eyebrows at this speech, but said nothing.
"What do you mean, impossible problem?" one of the interviewers
objected. "We know what we need--it's just that we're still making some
mistake in selection that we haven't corrected."
"That's right, Rod." Biddington, the project psychologist, took up the
dissension. "We know something is wrong with the selection techniques,
or in the personality patterns we consider necessary. But it's only a
problem of finding out what it is. The problem is by no means
insoluble."
"As long as you're not ready to give us up," another interviewer said,
"we aren't going to quit."
"You can't afford to get defeatist about this, Rod," Biddington went on.
"This project is too important to fail. Whether you like it or not, your
experience is too valuable for you to back out."
Rod grinned and held up his hands. "All right. That's the reaction I
wanted. If you all still think we can get somewhere, we may as well try
to analyze this last group." He sat down at his desk. "I have the files
here, along with the tapes of the interviews. Let's see what difference
we can find between those who hung on this long, and the ones that quit
after the first three months."
* * * * *
The group settled down to trying to differentiate between a man who
couldn't do a job but could try for six months longer than the next.
They took the colonists carefully apart, trait by trait, and put them
all back. They reviewed the colonists' records from birth, and compared
them in endless combinations. Jaimie came into the discussion to show
what the status of the colonies had been at the time each colonist had
resigned: what diseases had been encountered when one man quit; how much
jungle had been cleared before another did.
Files came and went in a continuous flux; coffee and sandwiches came and
grew cold and stale. The air became gray with smoke.
Nothing.
The same results had come out of every investigation: You needed a man
who was unstable to get him to leave Earth. You needed a man who was
stable to have him stay on Venus. You needed initiative and
resourcefulness to survive on a new planet. You needed a man who had so
little initiative and resourcefulness that the competition on Earth
wouldn't be profitable. You needed a young, healthy, vigorous specimen.
You needed an older, experienced, more mature person.
You needed A and you needed non-A.
And even if you found people with the factors balanced just right,
assuming you knew what the balance should be, where did you find five
hundred of them?
The discussion went on. The solutions got wilder and more absurd. Take
whole orphan asylums and bring them up on Venus under military guard.
Build a development in the steamiest, nastiest jungle, and test recruits
for the colony there. Send African natives.
The men were beginning to make the whole thing look impossible again, so
Rod decided to call a halt until they could get a better perspective.
Tired himself, he dismissed them. They left quietly, not arguing in
little groups or mumbling half-formed ideas to themselves, the way a
team that has been progressing will do.
* * * * *
Only Jaimie stayed. He remained sitting hunched up near the desk, in the
same position he'd held for the last hour. When the others had all left,
he grinned at Rod.
"You know, for a group of practicing psychologists, this is the softest
bunch of suckers I've seen."
"You've proved that to your own profit several times so far," Rod
answered, rubbing his face as though smoothing the wrinkles could remove
the tension. "Who have you robbed lately?"
"I'm talking about your performance just now. Here comes the whole crew,
walking in with their heads hanging to the floor. Every last man was
ready to tell you he was quitting--that the problem was insoluble. And
before anyone can say a word, you tell them that the whole thing is
impossible and imply that _you_ want to quit. Even Biddington fell for
it. You can't back out now, Rod, they say. Let's not have defeatist talk
out of you, of all people--"
"I did feel that way," Rod said. "I'm just about ready to quit. I think
that whatever our mistake has been, we can't do any better than we have.
We just don't know enough."