"Don't bring subjectivity into this, damn it! We get enough of that from
physical scientists." Jaimie held himself in the chair, almost shaking
with the intensity of his feeling. "Look, Rod, you know I want to see
the project succeed. And you admit that you haven't got an answer. Well,
baby, I think I have! It's an idea that has about a fifty-fifty chance
of being right in this case ... would you be willing to try it?"
"If I had been betting on your side for the last few months, I'd be
several dollars richer," Rod smiled. "Yes, I think I might go along with
your idea, if you can convince me it has an even chance for success.
Three failures out of three tries makes for poorer odds than that. What
do you have in mind?"
"H'm," Jaimie said. "I imagine your stock isn't so high with old
scabbard and blade right now, is it?"
Rod laughed. "I don't think he'll shoot on sight, but I'm not positive
enough to stand in front of a lighted window."
"Well, then--if I had an idea you agreed with, the surest way to kill it
would be to have you present it to him, right? And if you _fight_ it,
that's sure to convince Carlson!" Jaimie thought hard for a moment,
tapping the chair-arm. "Rod, I have to do something you aren't going to
like. Do you trust me?"
"You mean you're going to try this without even discussing it with the
personnel group?"
"That's right. If I don't tell you what I'm doing, I know you'll fight
it. And I'll need that kind of help from you to push Carlson into doing
it.
"But I have to do something far worse than that, Rod. I'm going to tell
the general that you knew my plan from the start, and have been sitting
on it because I'm not a psychologist. I'm going to ruin your reputation
with the worst set of lies since the Red purges. I'll say you're
fighting me, because you can't accept an idea that came from a man
outside of your own group. If the scheme doesn't work you'll be ruined,
because there'll be no way to retract the lies. If it does work, we can
announce that we put on an act to sell the plan to Carlson. Can you take
it?"
Rod was thoughtful for a few minutes. He liked and trusted Jaimie, but
the man had no experience in this field--and this sounded like an
all-or-nothing shot.
Then he remembered his despair over the latest set of resignations. He'd
been ready to quit--he had nothing to offer, and neither did his men.
Even a wild idea was worth a try, he thought grimly--he would be risking
nothing but a plan that had already failed.
"Go to it, boy," he said. "And if you need a fight, you'll get a damn
good one."
* * * * *
The fight with Carlson was short, and Rod was abruptly overruled. After
that Jaimie moved fast. The new colonists flocked in. Three months after
Rod's talk with him, the compounds started to fill. A shipload was a
hundred men, and each new man had to wait in a group until it was
filled. But there was no waiting now except for processing; the
compounds were full before the ships were ready.
Rod had paid no attention to Jaimie's recruiting methods, thinking that
the historian's idea differed mainly in control over the colonists.
Until he saw the crowds.
Even from a distance, they didn't have the young look of the previous
groups. Up close, they looked like the sweepings of the slums.
[Illustration]
He and Biddington talked to a few before they fully realized what Jaimie
had done. All the men were sure that Venus was a mineral paradise--gold
in the streams, uranium lodes so pure you had to wear a shield to get
near them, diamonds, silver--every treasure that had ever excited men on
Earth was scattered around the new world waiting to be picked up. That
was what Jaimie had told them.
Rod got to a phone, fast.
"Jaimie, you fool! I know what you're doing, and I won't put up with it!
You've told these dupes they can get rich on Venus! You intended to
attract large numbers of recruits, in the hope that some of them will be
what we need--but look at what you attracted! Crooks, gangsters, bums,
hoboes, sharecroppers and I don't know what. You got recruits all
right ... but what the hell kind of a society are you going to start
with them! And who will go and live there among them later?"
"What's the matter, Workham?" Jaimie asked coldly. "Are you a racial
purist? Want only your kind of people to get to Venus?"
"I don't care _who_ goes, as long as they fit some standards. But to
make a decent place, you need decent people--morally clean and healthy.
Not this collection of mental cripples, alcoholics and thieves. Probably
half of them are wanted men!"
He argued further, unable to believe that this was Jaimison's great
fifty-fifty chance. He said many things ... and regretted every one; for
that night the telecasts carried a recorded version of his outburst.
Jaimie had maneuvered him into saying things he didn't quite mean, so
that it looked as if he was trying to hide the all good things on Venus
and save them for his own friends. One commentator said outright that if
you weren't a college graduate recommended by one of Workham's friends,
it would cost you a thousand dollars to get on an outgoing ship. By the
next morning, half the papers in the world were after Workham's scalp.
* * * * *
Rod could only take the abuse and grind his teeth. How did you fight a
thing like that? You were condemned if you kept silent, and if you
answered, people nodded their heads and said, "See--he's still trying to
deny it."
The failures from the old colonies were Rod's only allies. They tried to
tell people what Venus was like, and what lies Carlson and his stooge
Jaimison were using for bait. But it was pointed out that these men
naturally had a stake in the secret ... and, after all, everyone knew
how well off the returning colonists were! This was actually due to the
high premium paid to get men to go to the planet, but no one believed.
Days passed. Weeks. The compounds filled, and emptied, and filled again.
People stood in lines to apply. They walked miles to appear at a
recruiting center. They fought for a place on the next ship, or the one
after that. Farmers, clerks, ragged families, hoboes, armed men,
teen-age boys and old men. Four thousand people applied in the first few
months and were shipped out. Then the crowds thinned, even though the
Get Rich propaganda continued. Soon, only a few hundred appeared where
there had been thousands; then twos and threes; at last only a dozen or
so a day, many of whom changed their minds before the full shipload had
been assembled.
Rod clung to his job throughout. He had little to do, though his
department had never been formally discontinued. Sooner or later, he
knew, their services would be needed--when this cheap trick had failed.
So he and his staff remained. Studying old files, making up test
batteries, discussing survival factors, they readied themselves for the
project again. From time to time they interviewed and tested a few of
those waiting in the compounds. There was too much time to just sit
around--even this activity was a welcome diversion.
As the year passed, the number of prospective colonists stopped
decreasing and held steady at about five a day. But slowly something
else changed. Among the new arrivals there began to appear engineers who
had tossed up good jobs to emigrate, farmers with their families,
school-teachers, storekeepers, lawyers, even doctors. All of them young.
Not in any great number; but their appearance was a surprise still. Then
there came two former colonists who had resigned on one of the earlier
attempts, now trying to get back to Venus without inducement of bonus,
high pay or guaranteed return.
That was the day Rod decided to call on Jaimie.
* * * * *
"I have here a bottle of eight-year-old rye, Jaimie," he began. "I think
you're entitled to a drink, and I'm entitled to an explanation. Want to
swap?"
"Rod!" Jaimie's bony face lit up. "It's good to see you. I've been
afraid to call you until we could admit to the hoax. Come in, come in."
"Well, you did it," Rod said, after they had settled down. "I met two
former colonists in the compound today. They know there isn't gold on
Venus, and still they want to go out for free. No contract. And lately
we've been getting professional people. There was even a kid fresh out
of journalism school who wants to start up a paper. Jaimie, how did you
do it? Were we so far wrong as that?"
"You did it yourself, Rod. You told me how--but you wouldn't have
believed, then. Or if you had, we never would have sold it to Carlson.
Remember, you said if there were only a recent pioneer civilization
around, you'd run to them with ink-blots and vocabulary tests? All you
needed to do was duplicate the kind of person who settled America or
Australia or California.
"Well, as a historian I _knew_ those people. And I knew what brought
them. So I merely put out the same kind of bait."
"The same kind of bait!" Rod exclaimed. "What about freedom of religion
and freedom from oppression? Isn't that what brought people to this
country? There's no oppression to flee from these days! And even if it
was the same bait, why weren't the same kind of people attracted? You
saw that first compound full--where in that cesspool was Thomas Paine,
or Franklin, or Miles Standish?"
"Franklin was born here," Jaimie grinned. "Paine didn't come over in the
first wave. And I suppose General Carlson was Miles Standish. Maybe that
kid journalist you saw was Paine's counterpart. No, Rod--the bait I held
out attracted the same kind of people initially as it always has. You
have been compromising all along on the factors you really wanted in
order to get young, healthy, moral people to Venus. The answer is simply
this: Pioneers are not necessarily young, healthy, or moral. So you
didn't get what you wanted.
"You see, America wasn't only founded by pilgrims. They were actually a
minority here. We were settled by promoters, trappers, bonded servants,
exiled British deportees, pickpockets and thieves. We were explored by
French and Spanish pirates. The better element in Europe didn't come
here at first--why should they? It was dangerous. Pioneering was to the
advantage of the worst elements. They came by court order, out of
necessity, for adventure. They came for gold more than for freedom; for
a new chance more than for a new religion.
"Australia was set up as a penal colony. Others went there for gold, or
to start over where they weren't known. That's the kind of person who
settles a new land--the misfits: too impulsive, drunkards, weaklings,
convicts, and fugitives from justice. Too sick in mind and body to make
a go of it where they are.
"So we announced that there was a brand new world with a new chance for
everyone on it. We implied that there was wealth. We told them
everything about Venus that brought the English to America, the Spanish
to South America, the Easterners to the West, and the Middlewesterners
to California. We didn't hunt for pioneers. They came to us."
* * * * *
Rod refilled his glass thoughtfully. "But what kind of a society will
men like that create? A fighting, lawless structure...."
"That's right. And the lawless will eliminate themselves by their very
activities. Like the early West. While the doctors come in to treat
wounds, and the lawyers to plead their cases; while their wives and the
other wives will start schools and bring in school-teachers. That
society will purge itself, Rod--many of the worst will become good
citizens out of meeting the challenge of a new planet, and the rest will
disappear."
"Well, then, what about the gold story?" Rod asked. "Won't they be angry
with everyone connected with the project because of the hoax?"
"That was a little raw, but no worse than other gold rushes--few of the
stampeders ever found the gold they went after. The captain of one of
the rockets told me that the first few months the colonists were trying
to stow away on the returning ships. Now they send messages to friends
and relatives to come before the opportunity is gone--that's why you've
seen this better element. Our lies will soon be forgotten, and crops and
foods and minerals will be coming from Venus, and better people will go
to meet the diminished challenge on our brave new world."
Rod stood up. "Well, my compliments for a job well done, Jaimie. When do
you expect to go and live there yourself? You'll have to soon, won't
you, to complete the Project Record in residence?"