They went into Herndon's office. He came in as Riki was peeling off the top part of her cold-garments. She still shivered. He glanced at her and said to Massy:
"There's been a call from the grid-control shack. It looks like there's something wrong, but they can't find anything. The grid is set for maximum power-collection, but it's bringing in only fifty thousand kilowatts!"
"We're on our way back to savagery," said Massy, with an attempt at irony.
It was true. A man can produce two hundred and fifty watts from his muscles for a reasonable length of time. When he has no more power, he is a savage. When he gains a kilowatt of energy from the muscles of a horse, he is a barbarian—but the new power cannot be directed wholly as he wills. When he can apply it to a plow he has high barbarian culture, and when he adds still more he begins to be civilized. Steam power put as much as four kilowatts to work for every human being in the first industrialized countries, and in the mid-twentieth century there was sixty kilowatts per person in the more advanced nations. Nowadays, of course, a modern culture assumed five hundred as a minimum. But there was less than half that in the colony on Lani II. And its environment made its own demands.
"There can't be any more," said Riki, trying to control her shivering. "We're even using the aurora and there isn't any more power. It's running out. We'll go even before the people at home, Ken."
Herndon's features looked very pinched.
"We can't! We mustn't!" He turned to Massy. "We do them good, back home! There was panic. Our report about cable grids has put heart in people. They're setting to work—magnificently! So we're some use! They know we're worse off than they are, and as long as we hold on they'll be encouraged! We've got to keep going somehow!"
Riki breathed deeply until her shivering stopped. Then she said calmly:
"Haven't you noticed, Ken, that Mr. Massy has the viewpoint of his profession? His business is finding things wrong with things. He was deposited in our midst to detect defects in what we did and do. He has the habit of looking for the worst. But I think he can turn the habit to good use. He did turn up the idea of cablegrids."
"Which," said Massy, "turns out to be no good at all. They'd be some good if they weren't needed, really. But the conditions that make them necessary make them useless!"
Riki shook her head.
"They are useful!" she said firmly. "They're keeping people at home from despairing. Now, though, you've got to think of something else. If you think of enough things, one will do good the way you want—more than making people feel better."
"What does it matter how people feel?" he demanded bitterly. "What difference do feelings make? Facts are facts! One can't change facts!"
Riki said with no less firmness:
"We humans are the only creatures in the universe who don't do anything else! Every other creature accepts facts. It lives where it is born, and it feeds on the fcod that is there for it, and it dies when the facts of nature require it to. We humans don't. Especially we women! We won't let men do it, either! When we don't like facts—mostly about ourselves—we change them. But important facts we disapprove of—we ask men to change for us. And they do!"
She faced Massy. Rather incredibly, she grinned at him.
"Will you please change the facts that look so annoying just now, please?Please?" Then she elaborately pantomimed an over-feminine girl's look of wide-eyed admiration. "You're so big and strong! I just know you can do it—for me!"
She abruptly dropped the pretense and moved toward the door. She half-turned then, and said detachedly:
"But about half of that is true."
The door slid shut behind her. Massy thought bitterly. Her brother admires me. She probably thinks I really can do something! It suddenly occurred to him that she knew a Colonial Survey ship was due to stop by here to pick him up. She believed he expected to be rescued, even though the rest of the colony could not be, and most of it wouldn't consent to leave their kindred when the death of mankind in this solar system took place. He said awkwardly:
"Fifty thousand kilowatts isn't enough to land a ship."
Herndon frowned. Then he said:
"Oh. You mean the Survey ship that's to pick you up can't land? But it can go in orbit and put down a rocket landing-boat for you."
Massy flushed.
"I wasn't thinking of that. I'd something more in mind. I…rather like your sister. She's…pretty wonderful. And there are some other women here in the colony, too. About a dozen all told. As a matter of self-respect I think we ought to get them away on the Survey ship. I agree that they wouldn't consent to go. But if they had no choice, if we could get them on board the grounded ship, and they suddenly found themselves well…kidnapped and outward-bound not by their own fault…They could be faced with the accomplished fact that they had to go on living."
Herndon said evenly:
"That's been in the back of my mind for some time. Yes. I'm for that. But if the Survey ship can't land..."
"I believe I can land it regardless," said Massy doggedly. "I can find out, anyhow. I'll need to try things. I'll need help…work done. But I want your promise that if I can get the ship to ground you'll conspire with her skipper and arrange for them to go on living."
Herndon looked at him.
"Some new stuff—in a way," said Massy uncomfortably. "I'll have to stay aground to work it. It's also part of the bargain that I shall. And, of course, your sister can't know about it, or she can't be fooled into living."
Herndon's expression changed a little.
"What'll you do? Of course it's a bargain."
"I'll need some metals we haven't smolted so far," said Massy. "Potassium if I can get it, sodium if I can't, and at worst I'll settle for zinc. Cesium would be best, but we've found no traces of it."
Herndon said thoughtfully,
"No-o-o. I think I can get you sodium and potassium, from rocks. I'm afraid no zinc. How much?"
"Grams," said Massy. "Trivial quantities. And I'll need a miniature landing-grid built. Very miniature."
Herndon shrugged his shoulders.
"It's over my head. But just to have work to do will be good for everybody. We've been feeling more frustrated than any other humans in history. I'll go round up the men who'll do the work. You talk to them."
The door closed behind him. Massy very deliberately got out of his cold-clothing. He thought, She'll rave when she finds her brother and I have deceived her. Then he thought of the other women. If any of them are married, we'll have to see if there's room for their husbands. I'll have to dress up the idea. Make it look like reason for hope, or the women would find out. But not many can go—he knew very closely how many extra passengers could be carried on a Survey ship, even in such an emergency as this. Living quarters were not luxurious, at best. Everything was cramped and skimped. Survey ships were rugged, tiny vessels which performed their duties amid tedium and discomfort and peril for all on board. But they could carry away a very few unwilling refugees to Kent IV.
He settled down at Herndon's desk to work out the thing to be done.
It was not unreasonable. Tapping the ionosphere for power was something like pumping water out of a pipewell in sand. If the water-table was high, there was pressure to force the water to the pipe, and one could pump fast. If the water-table were low, water couldn't flow fast enough. The pump would suck dry. In the ionosphere, the level of ionization was at once like the pressure and the size of the sand-grains. When the level was high, the flow was vast because the sand-grains were large and the conductivity high. But as the level lessened, so did the size of the sand-grains. There was less to draw, and more resistance to its flow.