Chessman said glumly, "What difference does it make where you are? What
are they doing in the lounge?"
Kennedy looked at the screen, not expecting to see anything and
accomplishing just that. "Still on their marathon argument."
Joe Chessman grunted.
Just to be saying something, Kennedy said, "How do you stand in the big
debate?"
"I don't know. I suppose I favor Plekhanov. How we're going to take a
bunch of savages and teach them modern agriculture and industrial
methods in fifty years under democratic institutions, I don't know. I
can see them putting it to a vote when we suggest fertilizer might be a
good idea." He didn't feel like continuing the conversation. "See you
later, Kennedy," and then, as an afterthought, formally, "Relinquishing
the watch to Third Officer."
As he left the compartment, Jerry Kennedy called after him, "Hey, what's
the course!"
Chessman growled over his shoulder, "The same it was last month, and the
same it'll be next month." It wasn't much of a joke but it was the only
one they had between themselves.
In the ship's combination lounge and mess he drew a cup of coffee. Joe
Chessman, among whose specialties were propaganda and primitive
politics, was third in line in the expedition's hierarchy. As such he
participated in the endless controversy dealing with overall strategy
but only as a junior member of the firm. Amschel Mayer and Leonid
Plekhanov were the center of the fracas and right now were at it hot and
heavy.
Joe Chessman listened with only half interest. He settled into a chair
on the opposite side of the lounge and sipped at his coffee. They were
going over their old battlefields, assaulting ramparts they'd stormed a
thousand times over.
Plekhanov was saying doggedly, "Any planned economy is more efficient
than any unplanned one. What could be more elementary than that? How
could anyone in his right mind deny that?"
And Mayer snapped, "_I_ deny it. That term _planned economy_ covers a
multitude of sins. My dear Leonid, don't be an idiot ..."
"I beg your pardon, sir!"
"Oh, don't get into one of your huffs, Plekhanov."
They were at that stage again.
* * * * *
Technician Natt Roberts entered, a book in hand, and sent the trend of
conversation in a new direction. He said, worriedly, "I've been studying
up on this and what we're confronted with is two different ethnic
periods, barbarism and feudalism. Handling them both at once doubles our
problems."
One of the junior specialists who'd been sitting to one side said, "I've
been thinking about that and I believe I've got an answer. Why not all
of us concentrate on Texcoco? When we've brought them to the Genoa
level, which shouldn't take more than a decade or two, then we can start
working on the Genoese, too."
Mayer snapped, "And by that time we'll have hardly more than half our
fifty years left to raise the two of them to an industrial technology.
Don't be an idiot, Stevens."
Stevens flushed his resentment.
Plekhanov said slowly, "Besides, I'm not sure that, given the correct
method, we cannot raise Texcoco to an industrialized society in
approximately the same time it will take to bring Genoa there."
Mayer bleated a sarcastic laugh at that opinion.
Natt Roberts tossed his book to the table and sank into a chair. "If
only one of them had maintained itself at a reasonable level of
development, we'd have had help in working with the other. As it is,
there are only sixteen of us." He shook his head. "Why did the knowledge
held by the original colonists melt away? How can an intelligent people
lose such basics as the smelting of iron, gunpowder, the use of coal as
a fuel?"
Plekhanov was heavy with condescension. "Roberts, you seem to have
entered upon this expedition with a lack of background. Consider. You
put down a hundred colonists, products of the most advanced culture.
Among these you have one or two who can possibly repair an I.B.M.
machine, but is there one who can smelt iron, or even locate the ore? We
have others who could design an automated textile factory, but do any
know how to weave a blanket on a hand loom?
"The first generation gets along well with the weapons and equipment
brought with them from Earth. They maintain the old ways. The second
generation follows along but already ammunition for the weapons runs
short, the machinery imported from Earth needs parts. There is no local
economy that can provide such things. The third generation begins to
think of Earth as a legend and the methods necessary to survive on the
new planet conflict with those the first settlers imported. By the
fourth generation, Earth is no longer a legend but a fable ..."
"But the books, the tapes, the films ..." Roberts injected.
"Go with the guns, the vehicles and the other things brought from Earth.
On a new planet there is no leisure class among the colonists. Each
works hard if the group is to survive. There is no time to write new
books, nor to copy the old, and the second and especially the third
generation are impatient of the time needed to learn to read, time that
should be spent in the fields or at the chase. The youth of an
industrial culture can spend twenty years and more achieving a basic
education before assuming adult responsibilities but no pioneer society
can afford to allow its offspring to so waste its time."
Natt Roberts was being stubborn. "But still, a few would carry the torch
of knowledge."
Plekhanov nodded ponderously. "For a while. But then comes the reaction
against these nonconformists, these crackpots who, by spending time at
books, fail to carry their share of the load. One day they wake up to
find themselves expelled from the group--if not knocked over the head."
* * * * *
Joe Chessman had been following Plekhanov's argument. He said dourly,
"But finally the group conquers its environment to the point where a
minimum of leisure is available again. Not for everybody, of course."
Amschel Mayer bounced back into the discussion. "Enter the priest, enter
the war lord. Enter the smart operator who talks or fights himself into
a position where he's free from drudgery."
Joe Chessman said reasonably, "If you don't have the man with leisure,
society stagnates. Somebody has to have time off for thinking, if the
whole group is to advance."
"Admittedly!" Mayer agreed. "I'd be the last to contend that an upper
class is necessarily parasitic."
Plekhanov grumbled, "We're getting away from the subject. In spite of
Mayer's poorly founded opinions, it is quite obvious that only a
collectivized economy is going to enable these Rigel planets to achieve
an industrial culture in as short a period as half a century."
Amschel Mayer reacted as might have been predicted. "Look here,
Plekhanov, we have our own history to go by. Man made his greatest
strides under a freely competitive system."
"Well now ..." Chessman began.
"Prove that!" Plekhanov insisted loudly. "Your so-called free economy
countries such as England, France and the United States began their
industrial revolution in the early part of the nineteenth century. It
took them a hundred years to accomplish what the Soviets did in fifty,
in the next century."
"Just a _moment_, now," Mayer simmered. "That's fine, but the Soviets
were able to profit by the pioneering the free countries did. The
scientific developments, the industrial techniques, were handed to her
on a platter."
Specialist Martin Gunther, thus far silent, put in his calm opinion.
"Actually, it seems to me the fastest industrialization comes under a
paternal guidance from a more advanced culture. Take Japan. In 1854 she
was opened to trade by Commodore Perry. In 1871 she abolished feudalism
and encouraged by her own government and utilizing the most advanced
techniques of a sympathetic West, she began to industrialize." Gunther
smiled wryly, "Soon to the dismay of the very countries that originally
sponsored bringing her into the modern world. By 1894 she was able to
wage a successful war against China and by 1904 she took on and trounced
Czarist Russia. In a period of thirty-five years she had advanced from
feudalism to a world power."
Joe Chessman took his turn. He said obdurately, "Your paternalistic
guidance, given an uncontrolled competitive system, doesn't always work
out. Take India after she gained independence from England. She tried to
industrialize and had the support of the free nations. But what
happened?"
Plekhanov leaned forward to take the ball. "Yes! There's your classic
example. Compare India and China. China had a planned industrial
development. None of this free competition nonsense. In ten years time
they had startled the world with their advances. In twenty years--"
"Yes," Stevens said softly, "but at what price?"
Plekhanov turned on him. "At any price!" he roared. "In one generation
they left behind the China of famine, flood, illiteracy, war lords and
all the misery that had been China's throughout history."
Stevens said mildly, "Whether in their admitted advances they left
behind all the misery that had been China's is debatable, sir."
Plekhanov began to bellow an angry retort but Amschel Mayer popped
suddenly to his feet and lifted a hand to quiet the others. "Our
solution has just come to me!"
Plekhanov glowered at him.
Mayer said excitedly, "Remember what the Co-ordinator told us? This
expedition of ours is the first of its type. Even though we fail, the
very mistakes we make will be invaluable. Our task is to learn how to
bring backward peoples into an industrialized culture in roughly half a
century."
The messroom's occupants scowled at him. Thus far he'd said nothing new.
Mayer went on enthusiastically. "Thus far in our debates we've had two
basic suggestions on procedure. I have advocated a system of free
competition; my learned colleague has been of the opinion that a strong
state and a planned, not to say totalitarian, economy would be the
quicker." He paused dramatically. "Very well, I am in favor of trying
them both."
They regarded him blankly.
He said with impatience, "There are two planets, at different ethnic
periods it is true, but not so far apart as all that. Fine, eight of us
will take Genoa and eight Texcoco."
Plekhanov rumbled, "Fine, indeed. But which group will have the use of
the _Pedagogue_ with its library, its laboratories, its shops, its
weapons?"
For a moment, Mayer was stopped but Joe Chessman growled, "That's no
problem. Leave her in orbit around Rigel. We've got two small boats with
which to ferry back and forth. Each group could have the use of her
facilities any time they wished."
"I suppose we could have periodic conferences," Plekhanov said. "Say
once every decade to compare notes and make further plans, if
necessary."
Natt Roberts was worried. "We had no such instructions from the
Co-ordinator. Dividing our forces like that."
Mayer cut him short. "My dear Roberts, we were given _carte blanche_. It
is up to us to decide procedure. Actually, this system realizes twice
the information such expeditions as ours might ordinarily offer."
"Texcoco for me," Plekhanov grumbled, accepting the plan in its whole.
"The more backward of the two, but under my guidance in half a century
it will be the more advanced, mark me."
"Look here," Martin Gunther said. "Do we have two of each of the basic
specialists, so that we can divide the party in such a way that neither
planet will miss out in any one field?"
Amschel Mayer was beaming at the reception of his scheme. "The point is
well taken, my dear Martin, however you'll recall that our training was
deliberately made such that each man spreads over several fields. This
in case, during our half century without contact, one or more of us
meets with accident. Besides, the _Pedagogue's_ library is such that any
literate can soon become effective in any field to the extent needed on
the Rigel planets."