And so?
And so, kiddies, what was left of the space program was taken over by what was referred to as the Private Sector of the Economy. Got your decoder badges ready? It works out to S-a-m G-r-e-g-g. Governments could not continue to pour billions into space when there was no earthly reason for doing so. But with existing hardware and accumulated expertise it was not prohibitively expensive for Sam Gregg to keep a few things going. There was the matter of motive, of course. Sam Gregg had one, and he made money besides.
There were other projects to conceal, but they were easier than spaceships. Genetics research? Well, cancer was still a killer and everyone wanted to live forever. Such work was downright humanitarian, and therefore admirable. Ecological studies? The whole wretched planet was fouled by its own ecology-a solution had to be found. (There was no solution at this late date, but so what? It was a Good Thing. Everyone said so.) Computers, robots, cybernetics? Certainly they were beyond reproach. Hadn't they ushered in the Golden Age? Well, hadn't they?
Sam Gregg had his faults-ask anyone-but wishful thinking was not among them. He knew that he could succeed if he just had time. He could succeed if they didn't get him first. He could succeed because he had the resources and because the problem was essentially one of technology. No matter how complex they are, technological problems can be solved unless they involve flat impossibilities. You can build a suspension bridge, send a man to Mars or wherever, construct cities beneath the sea.
There are other problems, human problems. How do you build a bridge between people? How do you, send a better man to Mars? How do you construct an anthill city that is not a bughouse? Money will not solve those problems. Rhetoric will not solve them. Technology will not solve them.
Therefore, Sam did not fool with them. He used them for protective coloration, but he did not kid himself.
He stuck to the art of the possible.
Oh yes, he had a dream.
There was justice in it, of a sort. But human beings care nothing for justice. They look out for Number One.
Number One?
Sam permitted himself a brief, cold smile.
They would tear him apart if they knew, all those billions of Number Ones…
A day came when all the bits and pieces fell into place. The data came back, coded across the empty hundreds of millions of miles. The columns added up. The light turned green.
Sam was exultant, in a quiet sort of way. He had expected it to work, of course. He had checked it all out countless times. But that was theory, and Sam was a skeptic about theories.
This was fact.
It was ready. Not perfect, no-but that too had been anticipated.
Ain't science wunnerful?
He could not stay inside, not when he was this close. He had to get outside, taste what was left of freedom. At times like these, it was not enough to know that it was there. He had to see it.
He walked on the Estate.
Lois joined him, which was a pain in the clavicle but Sam did not allow her presence to destroy his mood. Lois had on one of her cunning Outdoor Suits. She always professed to adore what she called Nature, but she walked as though every blade of grass were poison ivy.
(Poison ivy had been extinct for decades, Lois would soon follow suit.)
"It's so peaceful," Lois said. She usually said that here.
Rather to his own surprise, Sam answered her. He wanted to talk to somebody, to celebrate. Failing that, he talked to Lois. "No," he said. "Not really. It only seems peaceful because we are observers, not part of it. And it is controlled, to some extent."
Lois looked at him sharply. It had been one of his longer speeches.
"See that cedar?" Sam pointed to it, knowing that she did not know a cedar from a cottonwood. "Tough little tree. It'll grow in poor soil, it doesn't take much water. See how the roots come up near the surface? It's brittle, though. Won't last long. That oak is crowding it, and it's got a century or two to play with. See that little willow-there, the droopy one? It needs too much water and the drainage is wrong. It'll never make it. Am I boring you?"
"No," Lois said truthfully. She was too amazed to be bored.
"See the bunny rabbit?" Sam's voice lapsed into parody. "See bunny run? He'd better run. Lots of things eat bunny rabbits. Hawks, bobcats, wolves. Snakes eat little bunnies-"
"Oh, Sam."
As if to prove his point, a beagle hound stuck his wet nose out of the brush. His white-tipped tail wagged tentatively. His liquid eyes were pools of adoration, (Beagles were originally bred as hunters. Remember?)
Sam turned his back on the dog, "Man's best friend. The supreme opportunist. He figured the odds twenty thousand years ago and threw in with us. K-9, Secret Agent. Con. Fink. Surplus now. Dear old pal."
"I don't understand you sometimes," Lois said with rare perception.
Idon't understand them, either, Sam thought. Animals, not women. Little Forest Friends Nobody understands them. We were too busy. There wasn't even a decent field study of the chimpanzee until around 1930. Seventy years later there were no chimpanzees. We didn't bother with the animals that were not like men; who cared? We learned exactly nothing about kudus and bears, coons and possums, badgers and buffalo. Too late now. They are gone or going, and so is their world.
Sam Gregg was not a sentimental man. He was a realist. Still, the facts bothered him. It was hard not to know. He would never know, and that was that. There was no way.
They walked along the trail together. (Arm in arm, lovely couple, backbone of empire.) Sam was a little nervous. It had been a long fight and-as they used to say-victory was at hand.
He felt a little like God and a lot like an old man.
From the branches of a gnarled oak, a masked mother and three small bandits watched them pass.
There were ancient raccoon thoughts in the air.
You are ready.
So do it. Don't wobble.
Sam did it.
Sound dramatic?
It was (in the very long run) and it wasn't (here and now). An extremely well-balanced, insulated, innocuous conveyor left the main lab and hissed gently to the spaceport. A large gray metallic box was loaded into a shuttle ship and locked into place. The box was ten feet square, and it was heavy. It could have been much smaller and lighter-about the size of a jigger glass-except for the refrigeration units, the electronic circuits, the separation cubicles, and the protective layers.
The shuttle lifted to the space station. Strictly routine.
The gray cube of metal was transferred very gingerly to a larger ship. She (that was surely the proper pronoun) was a special ship, a swimmer of deep space. She was crammed with expensive gear. Say, a billion dollars' worth. Maybe more.
She took off. She was completely automated, controlled by computers, powered by atomics.
There were no men on board.
The ship was never corning back.
Sam?
He stayed home.
There was nowhere for him to go.
Remember?
It is curious how a small gesture will offend some people.
There was no more capital punishment, unless living on earth was it, but good men and true were willing to make an exception in Sam's case.
"So you sunk twenty billion into it over a ten-year period," his chief lawyer said. He said it the same way he might have asked, "So you think you're a kumquat, eh?"
"Give or take a few million. Of course, some of the basic research goes back more than ten years. If you figure all that in, it might go to twenty-two billion. Maybe twenty-three."