Several hands were in the air; Melker nodded to a pale young man in a puce jacket. "Mr. Oliver?"
"Of course, I'm no philosopher or anything," Oliver began jerkily, "but it seems to me -- you talk about consideration and so on. Well, suppose you let all the slaves go. I can't quite see it myself, but what I want to know, suppose you had a lot of little families scattered all over, instead of the big houses we have now, well, how do you know there'd be any more consideration then? I mean, wouldn't all the families be fighting with each other, where now, at least, we've got 'em under control, so they can't fight."
"A very valuable and interesting point," said Melker, smoothly. "Mr. Collundra, did you wish to answer that question?"
The dark-skinned man said, "Well, in a way. Mr. Oliver, of course, as you point out, it's difficult to measure consideration. Or happiness, or anything of that kind. But there is a standard that can be used, and that's the efficient use of land.
Seventy-odd years ago, there were a hundred and eighty million people living on the North American continent; today, there's no census, but probably there are about one-eighth that number. Now, I merely offer that as a scale on which you can compute one way of living against another; I think we might profitably debate that point."
"Good; now we shall see some fireworks," said Melker, rubbing his hands. "Mrs. Maxwell?"
The old woman's expression was amused under her mask of cosmetics. "Well, Mr. Collundra is absolutely right, although I doubt that he knows it. Efficient use of space is the test, and I can add some figures to the ones he gave. When the white men first came to this continent, I understand, the place was about half forest. In five hundred years they got that down to one-third -- cleared the rest, made it into farms, and towns and cities. Then we came along, and in less than a hundred years we got it back pretty near to half forest again. We ought to be proud. There isn't but about a hundred thousand square miles that we actually use; I mean unproved land, land that looks some way different from what it did before we got there. One good epidemic could carry us all off; the Black Death in Europe, I understand, buried more people than there are in North America now. Then the cougars and coyotes could take over; there's plenty of them."
She seemed to be finished; Melker nodded to a white-bearded man who sat vigorously erect. "Commander Holt?"
Holt cleared his throat and said mildly, "I don't know if I understand the lady, but it seems to me if it's density of population you want, the best civilization was pre-Gismo India; they had about two hundred to the square mile there. Now, it may be that there are too few of us at the moment; that's an unusual situation and we're growing fast; I understand most of the country families are running to four and five children apiece. I hope we never get to two hundred to the square mile. But I suppose we'll get somewhere near it, and then we'll have to have another war of the character Miss Flavin describes." He cleared his throat at length, and began again, unexpectedly, "Now this question of population is, it seems to me, one that Miss Flavin and her supporters have consistently refused to face. Miss Flavin, let me put this question to you. You believe, do you not, that it was a primary, ethical mistake to limit the number of Gismos?"
"Of course it was," she answered. "It was the one original injustice from which the rest inevitably followed. But as for population increase -- " a thin flush appeared on her cheeks -"there are ways and means, as you perfectly well know, Commander -- "
"No, if you'll pardon me, there aren't," said Holt. "Voluntary birth control methods only work on the people who choose to use 'em. A population check that doesn't work on everybody, doesn't work at all, because it simply breeds out the ones who use it. The only population check that really works is one that affects everybody, like a limit of space or food. Now, Miss Flavin, with Gismos freely available, there wouldn't ever be a shortage of food, would there?"
"No."
"No, there couldn't be. And, we would hope that people wouldn't go to war and kill each other off, merely because there was getting to be a lot of 'em, isn't that right?" "If you like to put it that way."
"All right, then that leaves a limit of space: and, Miss Flavin, there wouldn't've been any end to our natural increase until there was one of us for every square yard of land surface on the planet."
Melker beamed. "Taking advantage of the privilege of the chair, may I say that your picture of the future gives me goose-flesh of delight: one enormous pile of refuse, with people standing in rows, each beside his Gismo. No trees, no competing animals or birds, no room for lakes or streams -- and, for that matter, why waste the oceans, Commander? I suppose we could build rafts ... Yes, Mr. Kishor?"
A lantern-jawed young man, perched on one arm of the sofa, had been scribbling in a notebook. He held up the results. "I thought you might be interested to know just how many people the Earth could support, at the rate Commander Holt mentioned -- in round numbers, sixty-one trillion, nine hundred forty billion people."
"Of course, we could build a second story and double that," somebody called.
Melker was rapping for order. "Seriously -- seriously -- " a heavy, blunt-featured man kept saying. "Yes, Mr. Perse."
"Seriously, there really is an answer to this ridiculous problem we've been tossing around. I refer, of course, to space travel. Now I know some of you think of space travel as a kind of twentieth century frenzy, like the stock market or swallowing goldfish. But I assure you it is not. Space travel is an art completely worked out, in the most thorough detail, more than a century ago, and lacking only an adequate fuel -- which the Gismo provides! If it were not for the unfortunate moratorium placed on scientific progress at the beginning of the present era, we would be in space now -- and indeed, this isn't generally known, but we have some reason to believe that one or more spaceships may actually have got off during the War of Establishment. If it's standing room you want, there's the Moon -- there's Mars, Venus and all the other planets of this system just for a beginning. True, we are sadly limited on this poor little planet, but there's no need in the world to talk about reducing our numbers. Men and ladies, I ask you to consider that in our home galaxy alone there are more than thirty billion suns."
Dick's head was swimming. His first idea, that these people were talking reason, was obviously wrong, or else an old warhorse like Colonel Rosen wouldn't stay here and listen for a minute. No, this was what he had been looking for without knowing it: knowledgeable talk that didn't have the taint of slobbery. These were the people who really knew things. Dick conceived a sudden determination; he thought, I'll be like them. I'll talk that way too!
Going home afterwards through the blue-lighted residential corridors -- walking for the exercise, with Clay striding along beside him -- Dick felt elated. Through the narrow clerestory he could see the stars, sharp and bright in a sky flooded with moonlight. Life rolled on, after alclass="underline" here or at home, it made no real difference; he was Dick Jones of Buckhill, and the world was his oyster.
All the servants had gone to bed except the valet; Dick dismissed him, too, poured Clay a nightcap, and flung himself down on a divan. The room was spacious and warm; the shaded lights glimmered from the polished surfaces of tables and bookcases; there were fresh camellias, tastefully arranged, in the vases. "Howard," he said, "how long has that been going on?"
The scrape of Clay's match was loud in the stillness. "Not very long, actually." The fragrance of the cigar drifted across. "There was a Philosophers' Club here that lapsed about twenty years ago; Melker revived it. I had an idea you'd fit in." He smoked in silence for a while. "Of course," he added, "they'll expect you to speak up, eventually. I'll lend you some books if you want."