Duncan gulped, gave a sickly smile, and stumbled on. He tried to push to the back of his mind the baffling problem of the fish’s life-support system. If he stopped to worry about that, he would be tripping over his tongue in no time at all. Where was he? OH, back with the pioneers, difficult though it was to focus on them in this lavishly decorated and slightly overheated room.
“I’m sure many of you have read Professor Prescott’s famous book With Axe and Laser: A Study of Two Frontiers. Though he draws his parallels between America and Mercury, everything that he says is also applicable to Titan.”
“As I recall, Prescott argues that Man’s conquest of the wilderness on this planet was based on three things: the axe, the plow, and fire. He uses these symbolically rather than literally; the axe stands for all tools, the plow for agriculture, and fire for all forms of power generation.”
“The axe cut down the forests, shaped homes and furniture. More refined tools manufactured all the other necessities of civilized living, from cups and saucers to aircraft and computers.”
“The axe wasn’t much use on the Moon, or Mercury—or Titan. What took its place was the power laser. That was the tool that carved out our homes and, later, cities. And it opened up the mineral resources, buried kilometers down in the rocks.”
“Of course, we were luckier than the old pioneers, because we did not have to spend endless man-hours making every single object that we needed. All the artifacts of civilization were already stored in the memories of our replicators. As long as we fed in the raw materials, anything we needed—no matter how complex—would be produced automatically in a matter of seconds, and in any quantity we needed. I know we take the replicator for granted, but it would have seemed like magic to our ancestors.”
“As for the plow, that too had no place on our world. But by the twenty-second century, it had no place on yours either; we simply took your food technology to the planets. And on Titan, it was easy, much easier than anywhere else in the Solar System. We have enormous deposits of hydrocarbons—waxes, oils, and so forth. Who knows—perhaps one day we may be feeding Earth!”
“Finally, the third item—fire. Occasionally, we still use it, though, as I explained, we have to provide the oxygen. But, again as on Earth, we get all the power we need for nuclear fusion. We’re already heating large areas of Titan and are thinking about major changes to its climate. But as some of these may be irreversible, we’re proceeding very cautiously. We don’t want to repeat the mistakes that have been made—elsewhere.”
Duncan nearly said “on Earth,” but tactfully changed gear just in time. He did a swift scan of the audience, carefully avoiding the fish in the third row. The ladies still seemed to be with him, though one or two hats were nodding suspiciously.
“Yet despite their sophisticated tools, the first generation of our pioneers probably had as tough a time as your Pilgrim Fathers. What they lacked in hostile Indians was more than made up for by a hostile environment. Deaths by accident were common; anyone who was careless did not live long on Titan in the early days...”
“But, slowly and painfully, we managed to convert our first primitive bases, which had no more than the bare necessities for survival, into fairly comfortable towns, then cities... like Meridian, Carbonville, Oasis. True, the largest has a population of only fifty thousand—there are still fewer than a quarter of a million of us on Titan—but, as we all know, quality is more important than quantity.”
There were a few smiles at this strikingly original remark, and Duncan felt encouraged to continue, but then he saw something that almost stopped him dead in his tracks.
The smallest member of his audience was showing obvious signs of distress. Back there in the third row, that infernal fish was swimming round and round at an acute angle to the rest of the world. Since Duncan had noticed no alteration in the force of gravity, he could only assume that something had happened to its sense of balance. Even as he watched, it flipped over on its side...
Very close at hand, somebody was talking, using Duncan’s voice. Whether the words made any sense, he could not even guess. He was elsewhere, struggling with a problem of life and death.
Should he stop talking and warn Miss Fishbowl of the impending tragedy of which she was obviously unaware? Perhaps there was still time for her to rush to the nearest animal hospital. That creature might be the last of its species—the only one in the world, doomed to extinction owing to his negligence.
Alas, it was too late. With a final convulsive wriggle, the fish turned belly up and floated motionless in its crystal globe. Duncan had never received a more obvious hint. As quickly as possible he brought his peroration to a close. To his astonishment the applause seemed perfectly genuine.
He hoped he was not mistaken, but in any event he was quite sure of one thing. After this ordeal, speaking to the Congress of the United States would be child’s play.
24. Calindy
The package had been delivered to Duncan’s room while he was lecturing. It was a small, neatly wrapped cylinder, about fifteen centimeters high and ten across, and he could not imagine what it contained.
He hefted it in his hand a few times; it was fairly heavy, but not heavy enough to be metal. When he tapped it, there was merely a dull, unreverberant thud.
He abandoned futile speculation and tore open the envelope taped around the cylinder.
Mount Vernon Farm
Dear Duncan,
Sorry about the delay, but we had a little accident. Charlemagne managed to walk into the hives one night. Luckily—or not, depending on the point of view—our bees don’t sting. However, production was badly affected.
Remembering your reaction last time, Clara and I thought you might like this souvenir of your visit.
Best,
How kind of them, Duncan told himself. When he got through the wrappings, he found a transparent plastic jar, full of golden liquid. The locking mechanism on the screw-top lid baffled him for a moment—it had to be pushed down and tightened before it could be opened—but after a few frustrating minutes he had it off.
The smell was delicious, and once again there was that haunting sense of familiarity. Like a small boy, he could not resist dipping in a finger, then savoring the tip with his tongue.
Some delayed-action circuit was operating: deep in the recesses of memory, the most primitive—and potent—of all senses was opening doors that had been locked for years.
His body remembered before his mind. As he relaxed contentedly in a warm glow of sheer animal lust, everything came back to him.
Honey tasted like Calindy...
Sooner or later, of course, he would have contacted her. But he wanted time to adjust, and to feel as much at home on Earth as he could ever be. So he had told himself; but that was not the only reason.
The logical part of his mind had no wish for him to be sucked back into the whirlpool that had engulfed him as a boy. But in matters of the heart, logic was always defeated. In the long run, it could do no more than say: “I told you so...” and by then it was too late.