The dozen leaders of the expedition were congratulating themselves on that in one of the executive offices after the first dinner at Port Carpenter. Rodney Maxwell, in Storisende,[Pg 136] had joined them in screen-image; he was mostly listening, and sometimes contributing a remark apropos4 of something the rest of them had said five minutes ago.
"Our hypership," Conn was saying, "is going to have to be item two on the agenda. The first thing we need is a ship for the Poictesme-Koshchei run. By this time next year, we ought to have a thousand to fifteen hundred people here at the least. We can't haul them all on that flying sardine5 can."
"We'll need supplies, too. What was left here won't last forever," Nichols added.
"And you're going to have to run this at a profit," Luther Chen-Wong, who had come along for first hand experience and to help with administrative6 work, added. "You have a big payroll7 to meet, and you'll have to keep the stockholders happy. People like Jethro Sastraman and some of these Storisende bankers aren't going to be satisfied with promises and long-term prospects8; they'll want dividends9."
"We'll have to get claims staked on something besides Port Carpenter, too. Those ships that are building at Storisende will be finished before long," Jerry Rivas said. "If we don't get some more things claimed, the first thing you know, we'll own Port Carpenter and nothing else."
"Well, let's see what we can find in the way of a big airboat, or a small ship," Conn said. "Jerry, you can pick a party for exploring. Just zigzag10 around the planet and transmit in locations and views of whatever you find, and we'll send it on to Storisende."
"And don't pick anybody for your exploring party that can't be spared from anything here," Jacquemont added. "We don't want to have to chase you halfway11 around the world to bring back the only specialist in something yesterday at the latest."
"Are you going to come along, Conn?" Rivas asked.
"Oh, Lord, no! I'm going to be doing fifteen things at once here."
All the computer work. Finding materials to make astrogational equipment and robo-pilots. Studying hyperspace theory—fortunately, there was an excellent library here—and setting up classes, and teaching school. And keeping in[Pg 137] touch with his father, on Poictesme. It was making him nervous not to know what sort of foolishness the older and wiser heads might be getting into.
The next morning, they began organizing work-gangs and setting up committees. Three men, two girls and about twenty robots got an open-pit iron mine started; as soon as the steel mill was ready, ore started coming in. Anse Dawes had a gang looking for something they could build a 350-foot interplanetary ship out of; Jacquemont and Mack Vibart were getting plans and specifications12 and making lists of needed materials. Conn gathered a dozen men and women and started classes in computer theory and practice; at the same time, he and Charley Gatworth were teaching themselves and each other hyperspatial astrogation, which was the art of tossing a ship into some everythingless noplace outside normal space-time, and then pulling her out again by her bootstraps at some other place in the normal continuum, light-years away.
Roughly, it compared to shooting hummingbirds13 on the wing, blindfolded14, with a not particularly accurate pistol, from a mile-a-minute merry-go-round.
That was something you could only do with a computer. A human, with a slide rule, a pencil and pad, could figure it out, of course—if he had fifty-odd thousand years to do it. A good computer did it in thirty seconds. That was one difference between people and computers. The other difference was that the desirability of making a hyperspace jump would never occur to a computer, unless somebody pushed a button and taped in instructions.
They found a three-hundred-foot globular skeleton, probably the nucleus15 of a big hyperspace ship, and decided16 that was big enough for what they wanted. The entire colony got to work on it. Photoprinted plans and specifications poured out as Jacquemont and a couple of draftsmen got them up. Steel came out of the steel mill at one end while ore came in at the other. A swarm17 of big contragravity machines, some robotic and some human-operated, clustered around the skeletal hull18 like hornets building a nest.[Pg 138]
Trisystem & Interstellar Spacelines was chartered; the lawyers reported having to overcome a little more resistance than usual from the Government about that. And the bill to nationalize Merlin, which had died in committee, was resuscitated19 and was being debated hotly on the floor of Parliament. The Administration was now supporting it.
"Are they completely crazy?" Conn wanted to know, when he heard about that. "They pass that bill and nobody's going to look for Merlin if they know the Government will snatch it as soon as they find it."
"That is precisely20 Jake Vyckhoven's idea," his father replied. "I told you he was afraid of Merlin. He's getting more afraid of it every day."
He had reason to. There was a growing sentiment in favor of turning the entire Government over to the computer as soon as it was found. To his horror, Conn heard himself named as chairman of a committee that should be set up to operate it. The moderates, who had merely wanted Merlin used in an advisory21 capacity, were dropping out; the agitation22 was coming from extremists who wanted Merlin to be the whole Government, and now the extremists were developing an extreme wing of their own, who called themselves Cybernarchists and started wearing colored-shirt uniforms and greeting each other with an archaic23 stiff-arm salute24, and the words, "Hail Merlin!"
And the followers25 of the gospel-shouter on the west coast were now cropping up all over the mainland, and on the continent of Acaire to the north, and another cult26, non-religious, was convinced that Merlin was a living machine, with conscious intelligence of its own and awesome27 psi-powers, a sort of super-Golem, which, if found and awakened28, would enslave the whole Galaxy29. Fortunately, these two hated each other as venomously as both did the Cybernarchists, and spent most of their energies attacking each other's meetings. The news-services were beginning to publish casualty lists, some heavy enough for outpost fighting between a couple of regular armies.
One thing, it helped the employment situation. Everybody was hiring mercenaries.[Pg 139]
"You ought to know," his father told him. "I suspect that you have all of them on Koshchei now."
The sane people, if that was what they were, were being busy. They were putting a set of Abbott lift-and-drive engines together, and Conn's computer class was estimating the mass of the finished ship and the amount of energy needed to overcome gravitation and give it constant acceleration31 from Koshchei to Poictesme. They were learning, by trial and error, largely error, how to build a set of pseudograv engines. And they were putting together a hundred and one other things, all of which was good training for the time they'd be ready to start work on Ouroboros II.
Jerry Rivas had found a contragravity craft which seemed to have been used by some top official for business and inspection32 trips, had gathered a crew of non-specialists who weren't urgently needed at Port Carpenter, and set out to circumnavigate the planet. It worked just the reverse of expectation. He found a big uranium mine, with an isotope-separation plant and a battery of plutonium-breeders; that meant that Mohammed Matsui and half a dozen other nuclear-power people had to get into another boat and speed after him to see what he had really found. As soon as they landed, Rivas took off again to discover a copper33 mine and a complex of smelters and processing plants. That took a few more experts, or reasonable facsimiles, away from Port Carpenter. And then he found a whole city that manufactured nothing but computers and robo-controls and things like that.
Conn loaded his whole computer-theory class onto a freight-scow and took them there. By the time he landed, his father was screening him from Storisende.
"When are you going to get the ship finished?" he was asking. "Kurt Fawzi's pestering34 the daylights out of me. He wants that equipment you promised him."
"We're working on it. What's happened, has Carl Leibert had another revelation?"
"I don't know about that. Kurt's sure Merlin is directly[Pg 140] under Force Command. And speaking about Leibert, Klem Zareff's been after me about him. You know I've contracted for the full-time35 and exclusive services of this Barton-Massarra detective agency. Well, Klem wants me to put them to work investigating Leibert."
"Yes, I know; Leibert's a Terran Federation36 spy. Why do you need the full-time services of the biggest private detective agency on Poictesme?"
"There have been some odd things happening. People have been trying to bribe37 and intimidate38 some of my office help. I have found microphones and screen-pickups planted around. I caught one of our clerks trying to make copies of voice-tapes. I think it's some of these other Merlin-chasing companies, trying to find out how close we are to it. Klem Zareff is recruiting more guards. But how soon are you going to get that ship built?"
"We're working on it. That's all I know, now."
He went back to work getting a classroom ready for his students. If he'd accepted that instructorship39 at Montevideo, he wouldn't be a full professor now, but none of the rest of this would be happening, either.
That night, he had the dream about starting the big machine and not being able to stop it again.
There was street-fighting in Storisende between the Cybernarchists and Government troops. There was a pitched battle in the west between the Armageddonists (Merlin-is-Satan) and the Human Supremacy40 League (Merlin-is-the-Golem), with heavy losses and claims of victory on both sides. President Vyckhoven proclaimed planet-wide martial41 law, and then discovered that he had nothing to enforce it with.
Luther Chen-Wong screened him from Port Carpenter. His voice was almost inaudibly low at first.
"Conn, I just had a call from Jerry and Clyde. I think we can knock off work on that ship we're building now. We won't need it."
"Have they found a ship?" If they had, it would be the first one anybody had found. "Where?"[Pg 141]
"They haven't found a ship, Conn; they've found all of them. All the ships in the Alpha System except the Harriet Barne and the two they're building at Storisende. The place is marked on the map as Sickle42 Mountain Naval43 Observatory44. It's just a bitty little dot, but the map was made before the evacuation started. It's where most of the troops in the system were embarked45 on hyperships, I think. Wait till I show you the views."
Conn put on another screen; the first view was from an altitude of five miles. He didn't need Luther's voice to identify Sickle Mountain; a long curve, with a spur at right angles to one end, the name must have suggested itself to whoever saw it first. The observatory had been built where the handle of the sickle joined the blade; as the ship from which the view had been taken had approached, the details grew plainer. At the same time, it became evident that the plain inside the curve of the sickle was powdered with tiny sparkles, like tinsel dust on red-brown velvet46.
"Great Ghu, are those all ships?"
"That's right. Look at this one, now."
The view changed. The aircraft was down, now, below the crest47 of the mountain, circling slowly above the plain. Hundreds, no, over a thousand, of them; two- and three-and five-hundred-footers, and here and there a thousand-footer that could have been converted into a hypership if anybody had wanted to take the trouble. The view changed again; this time from an aircar dropped from the ship, he supposed; it was down almost to the tops of the ships, and he could read names and home ports: Pixie, Chloris; Helen O'Loy, Anaïtis. They were from Jurgen. Sky-Rover, Port Saunders; she was from Horvendile. Ships from Storisende, and Yellowmarsh on Janicot, and....
"Now we know where they all went."
It was logical, of course. Most of the hyperships used in the evacuation had been built here. It had been less trouble to lead the troops and the civilian48 workers from Poictesme and the other planets onto small normal-space ships and bring them here than to take the big ships away on short interplanetary runs to the other planets.[Pg 142]
"Have you screened my father yet?"
"Yes. This is going to knock the bottom out of the companies that are building those ships at Storisende, I'm afraid."
"Their tough luck."
"It could be everybody's tough luck. Both those companies have been issuing stock, and there's been a lot of speculation49 in it. This market's so inflated50 now that a puncture51 at one place might blow the whole thing out."
He knew that. He shrugged52. "Father will have to think of something. Tell him I'll screen him from Sickle Mountain."
Then he went back to his classroom.
"All right, class dismissed," he said. "You have twenty minutes to get your bags packed. We're going to work for real, now."
Airboats and airships flocked to Sickle Mountain; some of them hastened back to Port Carpenter for loads of food, for there was none in the storehouses at the embarkation54 camp. They inspected ship after ship, and chose two three-hundred-footers. They sent airships and freight-scows to the dozen-odd cities and industrial centers that had been already explored, to gather cargo55, as far as possible the items in shortest supply on Poictesme.
"Don't worry about a market smash," his father told him. "We have that taken care of. Trisystem Investments has just bought up a lot of stock in both of those companies, and we've set up agreements with them—informally, of course; we'll have to get them voted on by our own companies—to sell them ships from Koshchei. In return, the company that's building the ship out of four air-freighters will go to Janicot, and the company that's building a ship out of the old Leitzenring Building will go to Jurgen, and they'll both stay off Koshchei. Sterber, Flynn & Chen-Wong will probably be defending antitrust suits till the end of time. The Planetary Government has stopped liking56 us, you know."
"Then we'll have to get one that will like us. There'll be an election about this time next year, won't there?"
His father nodded. "To use one of your expressions, we're working on it. How soon can you get your ships in?"[Pg 143]
"Well be loaded and ready to lift off in a week. Another week for the trip."
"Well, don't forget that equipment you promised Kurt Fawzi."
"Arms? Why, there are some. There was a pretty big force of Space Marines on duty here, and they left everything they couldn't carry in their hands. Why? The Armageddonists and the Cybernarchists and Human Supremacy bought all you had on hand?"
"They're buying, but I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking that your crews might need something to argue their way off the ships at Storisende with. Things are getting just slightly rugged53 here, now."
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1
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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5
sardine
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| n.[C]沙丁鱼 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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payroll
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| n.工资表，在职人员名单，工薪总额 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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dividends
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| 红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金 | |
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zigzag
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| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
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11
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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12
specifications
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| n.规格；载明；详述；（产品等的）说明书；说明书( specification的名词复数 )；详细的计划书；载明；详述 | |
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13
hummingbirds
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| n.蜂鸟( hummingbird的名词复数 ) | |
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14
blindfolded
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| v.（尤指用布）挡住（某人）的视线( blindfold的过去式 )；蒙住（某人）的眼睛；使不理解；蒙骗 | |
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nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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resuscitated
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| v.使（某人或某物）恢复知觉，苏醒( resuscitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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advisory
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| adj.劝告的，忠告的，顾问的，提供咨询 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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awesome
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| adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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galaxy
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| n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物) | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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acceleration
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| n.加速，加速度 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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pestering
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的现在分词 ) | |
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full-time
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| adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的 | |
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36
federation
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| n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会 | |
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bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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intimidate
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| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
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39
instructorship
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| （大学）讲师职位（或职务） | |
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supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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41
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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42
sickle
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| n.镰刀 | |
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43
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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44
observatory
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| n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台 | |
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45
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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46
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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47
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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48
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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49
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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50
inflated
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| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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51
puncture
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| n.刺孔，穿孔；v.刺穿，刺破 | |
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52
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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53
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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54
embarkation
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| n. 乘船, 搭机, 开船 | |
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55
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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56
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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57
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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