‘Is this project of hers a recent one?’
‘No, Uncle Siever. She's been trying to get the necessary data for a long time, she told me.’
‘Then why didn't your mother ask to come here a long time ago?’
‘She did, but Commissioner Pitt refused.’
‘Why did he agree now?’
‘Because he wanted to get rid of her.’
‘I'm sure of that - if she kept bothering him with her astronomical problems. But he must have been tired of her a long time ago. Why does he send her now?’
Marlene's voice was low. ‘He wanted to get rid of me.’
14. Fishing
Five years had now passed since the Leaving. Crile Fisher found that hard to believe since it seemed so much longer than that, infinitely longer. Rotor was not in the past, but in another life altogether, one that he could only view with gathering incredulity. Had he really lived there? Had he had a wife?
He remembered only his daughter clearly, and even that had its element of confusion, for sometimes it seemed to him he remembered her as a teenager.
Of course, the problem was compounded by the fact that his life in the last three years, ever since Earth had discovered the Neighbor Star, had been a hectic one. He had visited seven different Settlements.
All of these were inhabited by Settlers of his own skin shade who spoke more or less his language and shared more or less his cultural orientation. (That was the advantage of Earth's variety. Earth could supply an agent similar in appearance and culture to the general population of any Settlement.)
Of course, there was a limit to how closely he could melt into any Settlement. No matter how he matched its population superficially, he still had a distinctive accent of speech, he could not remain as graceful as they under changes of gravitational pull, he could not skim along as they did in low gravity. In a dozen ways, he betrayed himself on each Settlement he visited, and always they withdrew from him just slightly, even though, in each case, he had gone through quarantine and medical treatment before being allowed to even enter the Settlement proper. Of course, he remained on each Settlement only a few days to a few weeks. Never was he expected to remain on a Settlement on a semi-permanent basis or to build himself a family there as he had done on Rotor. But then Rotor had had hyper-assistance, and since then Earth had been looking for items of narrower importance, or at least he had been sent on tasks of narrower importance.
He had been back now for three months. There was no word of a new assignment and he was not anxious for one. He was tired of the uprooting, tired of not fitting in, tired of the pretense of being a tourist.
And there was Garand Wyler, his old friend and colleague, fresh from a Settlement of his own and staring at him with tired eyes. The dark skin of his graceful hand glimmered in the light as he raised his sleeve to his nose for a moment, then let it drop.
Fisher half-smiled. He knew the gesture, had gone through it himself. Each Settlement had its own characteristic odor, depending on the crops it grew, the spices it used, the perfumes it affected, the very nature of the machinery and lubricants it used. It quickly went unnoticed, but on the return to Earth, the Settlement odor clung to one quite detectably. And though the person might be bathed, and the clothing washed so that others did not notice, one still noticed the smell on himself.
Fisher said, ‘Welcome back. How was your Settlement this time?’
‘As always - terrible. Old Man Tanayama is correct. What all the Settlements fear and hate most is variety. They don't want differences in appearance, tastes, ways and life. They select themselves for uniformity and despise everything else.’
Fisher said, ‘You're right. And it's too bad.’
Wyler said, ‘That's a mild, unfeeling way of putting it. “Too bad.” “Oops, I dropped the dish. Oh, too bad.” “Whoops, my contact seal is out of line. Oh, too bad.” We're talking humanity here. We're talking about Earth's long struggle to find a way of living together, all cultures, all appearances. It isn't perfect yet, but compare it to how it was even a century ago, and it's heaven. Then, when we get a chance to move into space, we shuck it all off and move right back into the Dark Ages. And you say, “Too bad.” That's some reaction to something that's an enormous tragedy.’
‘I agree,’ said Fisher, ‘but unless you can tell me something practical I can do about it, what does it matter how eloquently I denounce it? You were at Akruma, weren't you?’
‘Yes,’ said Wyler.
‘Did they know about the Neighbor Star?’
‘Certainly. As far as I know, the news has now reached every Settlement.’
‘Were they concerned?’
‘Not a bit. Why should they be? They've got thousands of years. Long before the Neighbor Star is anywhere near, and if it should seem to be dangerous, which isn't absolutely certain, you know, they can wander off. They can all wander off. They admire Rotor, and only wait for a chance to get away themselves.’ Wyler was frowning, his tone bitter.
He went on, ‘They'll all leave, and we'll be stuck. How are we going to build enough Settlements for eight billion human beings and get them all away?’
‘You sound just like Tanayama. What good will it do us to chase them down and punish them, or destroy them? We'll still be here and we'll still be stuck. If they all stayed behind like good kids and faced the Neighbor Star with us, would we be better off?’
‘You're cold about this, Crile. Tanayama is hot, and I'm on his side. He's hot enough to pull the Galaxy apart if necessary to find hyper-assistance on our own. He wants it so we can chase after Rotor and blow them out of space, but even if that does no good, we're going to need hyper-assistance to get as many people off Earth as possible if it turns out that the Neighbor Star will make it necessary. So what Tanayama is doing is right, even if his motives are wrong.’
‘And suppose we have hyper-assistance and then we find we only have the time and the resources to get a billion people off. Which is the billion that goes? And what happens if those who are in charge start saving only their own kind?’
Wyler growled, ‘It doesn't bear thinking of.’
‘It doesn't,’ agreed Fisher. ‘Let's be glad we'll be long gone before even the barest beginning can be made.’
‘If it comes to that,’ said Wyler, his voice suddenly dropping. ‘The barest beginning may already have been made. I suspect we have hyper-assistance now, or just about have it.’
Fisher's expression was one of deep cynicism. ‘What makes you think that? Dreams? Intuition?’
‘No. I know a woman whose sister knows someone on the Old Man's staff. Will that do you?’
‘Of course not. You'll have to give me more than that.’
‘I'm not in a position to. Look, Crile, I'm your friend. You know I helped you get back your status in the Office.’
Crile nodded. ‘I do and I appreciate it. And I've tried to make an adequate return now and then.’
‘You have done so and I appreciate that. Now what I want to do is give you some information which is supposed to be confidential and which I think you will find useful and important. Are you ready to accept it and keep me clear?’
‘Always ready.’
‘You know what we've been doing, of course.’
Fisher said, ‘Yes.’ It was the kind of useless, rhetorical question that required no other answer.
For five years agents of the Office (for the last three years, Fisher among them) had been rummaging in the informational garbage heaps of the Settlements. Scavenging.
Every Settlement was working on hyper-assistance, just as Earth itself was, ever since the word had leaked out that Rotor had it, and certainly ever since Rotor had proved the fact by leaving the Solar System.
Presumably most Settlements, perhaps all, had obtained some scrap of what it was that Rotor had done. By the Open Science Agreement, each one of those scraps should have been laid on the table and if all were then put together, it might have meant practical hyper-assistance for all. That, however, was clearly too much to ask in this particular case. There was no telling what useful side effects might be born of the new technique and no Settlement could abandon the hope that it might be first in the field and, in this way, gain an important lead on the others in one way or another. So each hoarded what it had - if it had anything - and not one of them had enough.