Diana got up from where she had been sitting and faced him. "Perry, how do you know that stuff won't go off all at once?"
He smiled tenderly. "Don't worry, honey. It hasn't yet on any tests, and it can't, or else I'm no mathematician."
Olga spoke again. "Perry, you are determined to go?"
"What do you think?"
She shook her head. "Oh, you're going all right. Oh Lord, was it for this that we re-made the world? Made it safe to rear babies? Brought sanity into the world?" She walked to the far end of the room and stood with her back to them. Perry followed her, took her by the shoulders and turned her around.
"Olga, look at me. This is what men have striven for. Economic systems are nothing, codes of customs are nothing, unless they are the means whereby man can follow his urge to fulfill himself, to search for the meaning of things, to create beauty, to seek out love. Listen to me. If there were a deadly new plague you'd go where it was, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, but that is to save people's lives."
"Don't tell me that. That is your secondary reason, your justification. You'd go in the first place to study something, to find out what made it tick."
"But your trip is so useless."
"Useless? Perhaps. But Pasteur didn't know what use there was in it when he studied one-celled life. Newton thought his calculus was a mathematical toy. I don't care whether it's useful or not, but you've no way of knowing that it won't be. All I know is that there is another face to the moon that we never see, and I'm going out there and seeing. After me someday will come a man in a better ship, who will land and walk on the moon, and come back to tell about it. Then in the next few years and centuries the human race will spread through the planets like bees swarming in the spring time—finding new homes, new ways to live, new and more beautiful things to do. I won't live to see it, but, by God, I can live long enough to show them the way.
"But I won't be killed this trip. At least I don't feel it in my bones. This time tomorrow I'll be back, and we'll all sit down to supper again." He consulted the chronometer. "Come on. It's time to go."
The reception hall of the Moon Rocket Station was crowded with people. Perry was met at the stair by the Director who kept back a crowd of excited visitors. A husky youth in greasy coveralls pushed through the mob. Perry caught his eye.
"All set, Joe?"
"All set, Master Perry." Perry clapped him on the shoulder.
"Cut out the master stuff, kid. It's soon enough when I get back. Besides you go on the next trip."
Joe smiled. "I'll hold you to that, Perry."
"Right. Now, look. You're all through, aren't you? Will you look after the girls here, and see that they get good spots to watch? Thanks." He turned back to Diana and Olga. "I'm going now. It's less than ten minutes to zero. I don't want you out on the field. Give a fellow a kiss and go." He looked around and called out, "Private sphere!" The televue scanners stopped clicking. Then he kissed each of them and they clung to him. He patted them clumsily, arm about each, then gently pulled away. The scanners picked up again. Joe led them to the observatory stairs and Perry stepped through the field lock.
Joe found them places in the observatory tower. They saw Perry in the white flood lights, moving toward his ship with a parade ground swing. The ship itself was silver in the moonlight, huge, uncouth. It rested on a cradle in which it leaned away from vertical and pointed a trifle west of meridian. Perry was climbing a ladder which scaled the framework of the cradle. He reached the manhole in the side of his rocket and slid his legs inside. Then, half seated, he looked back at the buildings and waved his right arm. Diana fancied that she could catch the glint of his smile. Then he slid inside and was gone. The port cover swung into place from inside the rocket, rotated clockwise a quarter turn, and rested.
THE END
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX
NOTE: This need not be read in sequence. It is included to amplify Davis' remarks in order that the reader may understand the causes of economic confusion in the early 20th century.
There is an old tale of five blind men who were taken to "see" an elephant. Each examined it as best he could, and described it in terms of his experience.
One felt a leg and said, "It is like the trunk of a tree."
One had grasped the tail and answered, "How ridiculous! It is a rope."
A third countered, "You are slightly mistaken, brother. It is somewhat like a rope, but is actually a mighty snake." He had touched the trunk.
Another ran his hand across the broad solid side of the beast and exclaimed, "How can you be so deceived? Verily, it is a wall."
The last touched the elephant not at all, but heard him trumpet. He fled, for he thought the Spirit of Death was upon him.
They were all correct insofar as their data went. Each in grasping a part of the truth had reached a different wrong conclusion.
Twentieth century economists, of whatever school, almost unanimously fell into the same sort of error. Illustrations of how they made such errors, through examining some special case of the production-consumption cycle, are set forth below:
RENT TROUBLE (The Single Tax Argument)
Use the same data as used by Perry and Davis, except:
(1) the banker spends all of his interest.
(2) the land owner does not spend his rent.
OVER-PRODUCTION: two playing cards.
Nevertheless, title to land frequently results in individuals receiving returns in rent disproportionate to investment. This is Henry George's "un-earned increment." But un-earned increment does not in itself cause over-production, and taxing it away will not balance the cycle. On the contrary, it throws it further out of balance. Taxing un-earned increment out of existence is only a means of social readjustment.
PROFIT TROUBLE (The Socialist Argument)
Same data except:
(1) Banker spends his interest.
(2) Entrepreneur spends only two shekels.
OVER-PRODUCTION: 3 playing cards.
Same situation as above. If a concern's profits seem disproportionately high, they may be lowered by punitive taxation, but to do so will not tend to balance the cycle, unless shekel for shekel (or dollar for dollar) an equal amount of money is given away to someone who will spend it.
LABOR TROUBLE (The Conservative Argument)
Using the same data, but with banker spending all the interest, run two cycles side by side. Let the additional cycle suffer from labor trouble, the workers striking for high wages, and winning the strike. Let the additional labor cost be 31.5 shekels. Necessary price of cards will be 2.5 shekels per card in this cycle. But the other cycle can sell to the same market at 2 shekels per card. No matter what the final market price, both cycles will have overproduction, or the second cycle will fail to obtain a return equal to cost, or both.
Results:
(a) Market price 2 shekels, 1st cycle balances, 2nd cycle sells all its goods, but is insolvent by 31.5 shekels.
(b) Market price 2 1/2 shekels, combined over-production is 15.75 playing cards.
DUMPING FROM ABROAD (The High Tariff Argument)
Using the same data, place on the market from another cycle with lower costs of any sort, especially labor, playing cards to sell at one shekel. Our entrepreneur is forced to cut prices and goes broke. Orthodox solution, XXth century: protective tariff. Rational solution: Cease to manufacture the type of articles being dumped on us, and pay for them with our currency. We gain the increment in real wealth.