A spacewreck presents many complications
not in the rule book. Take survival--it's quite
a basic instinct--but to some, so is politics!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1955
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Quibblers may shove dictionaries in my face till the end of the
universe and I will always maintain that almost anything you can name
is a matter of good luck or bad. Every great man owes his success to
luck of some sort. What made him great is what he did with his luck
after he got it.
Had I been born eleven years before Senator Clive Littlebrook, I might
have been brilliant to the point of stupidity, as he was. Nobody
planned that I should be 24 when he was 35, and a space pilot instead
of a senator. He had eleven years to get smarter than me. But all of
his brilliance and all of my youthful innocence couldn't have prevented
our being spacewrecked on a lonely, uninhabited planet. We knew it was
lonely and thought it was uninhabited, as it almost was. It was the
second planet of an unimportant sun, Yuga 16, which lay unexpectedly in
our path through hyperspace while I drove him to an important committee
meeting on Arcturus III. As a result I had to dump our fuel to alter
our mass in order to avoid a direct collision. And naturally there was
nothing else to do but land on II Yuga 16.
So we were marooned and even if our radio had been powerful enough to
send out an S O S it would take years for our message to get anywhere.
Clive was philosophical about it. After cussing me for three hours, he
decided that we'd better make the best of our situation. We could fight
when we had less important things to do.
"I have always maintained," he said, "that even in its smallest
detail, a human settlement must be political. And I've also believed
that politics must be designed to fit environment."
He always talked like that, so I wasn't particularly impressed till he
had talked a few minutes more, expanding his point.
"--so on this planet we will have a one-party, autocratic rule. I will
be the head of the government, and you will be my constituency."
"Huh?"
"It is perfectly clear. Dave," said Clive. "I have had experience in
political matters, therefore I'm more suited to governing the planet.
You follow my orders and do all the work, and I'll do the planning and
thinking."
These might not have been his exact words, but that was what he said.
I was mad enough to want to sock him right there. But I knew that we
might get rescued someday and he could throw his weight around almost
anywhere. The only time I had the authority to shove Clive Littlebrook
around was when he was a passenger on my spaceship, which he certainly
wasn't now.
"The first thing to do will be to find shelter, food and water," he
said.
"Don't be silly," I said, "we've got all those things on our spaceship."
"We don't know how long we'll be here," said Clive. "Since the supplies
on our ship are limited, we must try to be self-supporting."
I've always liked that fable about the oak and the willow trees. One
was big and strong, the other wasn't, but the willow tree lasted
longest because it bent and swayed before the wind. So with Senator
Clive Littlebrook, I made like a willow tree. I humored him.
* * * * *
I started out to explore the spot where our ship landed. A couple of
miles away were some rolling hills, covered with trees. Since we had
seen a number of small animals, I figured there would be game there,
probably water too.
Clive came with me, not to explore, but because he couldn't order me
around at long distance and there's nothing worse to a politician than
not being able to do any politicking. I was stuck with him.
We hit a jackpot. Not only was there a clear stream running through
a valley in the hills, but there was an abundance of small game. And
there was a ruined city.
Sometime in the past, this planet had been inhabited. Then something
happened. Epidemic, war, famine, drought or something we didn't know
about had wiped out the intelligent life to a man. This had happened so
long ago that even the bones had turned to dust. But the shell of his
cities remained.
"Too bad," said Clive, "this is going to make your task more difficult."
"Why?"
"You'll have the added duties of being the police force, the sanitary
commission and the city council," he said.
"But there's no need for those things," I protested. "There's nobody
to govern."
"You will also have to be the populace."
I could see that I was going to have the splittingest personality in
the galaxy.
"We'll also have to establish a monetary system," Clive went on.
"Unless there's trade, our city will perish."
"That's one thing we don't have to do," I said. We had been standing in
the stone framework of a building and I had kicked a pile of dust with
the toe of my boot. Under the dust was a mound of square, flat objects
of gold. Coins.
"We've already got money."