“Doubtless true. The devil’s about to break loose on High America, you realize that, don’t you?”
“Indeed I do.”
“Suggestions?”
Coffin pondered before he said: “Let me think at leisure, as you predicted I’d want to. I’ll call you back after sleeptime. Agreeable?”
“It’s got to be. Well, happy holidays.”
“Same to you. Don’t let this spoil your fun, Dorcas. You and I won’t have to cope with the arrival.”
“No. That girl of yours will.”
“Right. We’ll have to decide on her account. I only hope we’re able to. Good-bye.”
Coffin switched off, crossed the room, and knocked on the inner door. “All done, Alice,” he said. “Shall we continue our story?”
A calm spell, predicted to last a while, enabled Coffin to flit about by aircar, visiting chosen households throughout that huge, loosely defined territory which looked to him for guidance in its common affairs. He could have phoned instead, but the instrument made too many nuances impossible. Nobody objected to his breaking the custom of the season. They were glad to return some of the hospitality he and Eva had shown them.
Thus he went for a horseback ride with George Stein, who farmed part of the estate whereon he lived but mainly was the owner of the single steel mill in the lowlands, hence a man of weight. Stein knew that Coffin’s real desire was to speak privately. Yet the outing was worthwhile in its own right.
The Cyrus Valley was lower and warmer than Lake Moondance. Here many trees and shrubs— goldwood, soartop, fakepine, gnome—kept their foliage the year around. The blue-green “grasses” of summer had given way to russet muscoid, whose softness muffled hoofbeats. This was open woodland, where groves stood well apart. Between them could be seen an upward leap of mountains, which lost themselves in pearl-gray cloud deck. The air was mild and damp, blowing a little, laden with odors of humus. Afar whistled a syrinx bird.
When Coffin had finished his tale, Stein was quiet for a space. Saddle leather squeaked, muscles moved soothingly between thighs. A good land, Coffin thought, not for the first or the hundredth time. How glad I am that, having conquered it, we made our peace with it May there always be this kind of restraining wisdom on Rustum.
“Well, not altogether unexpected, hey?” Stein said at length. “I mean, ever since radio contact was established, it’s seemed more and more as if this colony wasn’t a dying-gasp attempt after all. Earth’s made some resumption of a space effort. And they may have a few expeditions out looking for new habitable planets, as they claim; but they know for certain that ours is.”
“On the highlands,” Coffin answered redundantly. “I doubt that this lot they’re shipping to us, I doubt it contains a bigger percentage than the original settlers had, of persons able to tolerate lowland air pressure. And… the highlands are pretty well filled up.”
“What? You’re not serious, Dan.”
“Never more so, my friend. There isn’t much real estate that far aloft, and High America contains nearly the whole of what’s desirable. Most has been claimed, under the Homestead Rule, and you can bet your nose that the rest soon will be, after this news breaks.”
“Why? Who has to worry about getting crowded? The lowlands can feed a hundred High Americas if we expand cultivation. Let them industrialize the whole plateau if need be.” Stein lifted a hand. “Oh, yes, I remember past rivalry. But that was before you got some industry started down here. Now we don’t have to fear economic domination. Anytime they overcharge us, we can build new facilities and undersell them. Therefore it makes perfectly good sense to specialize along geographical lines.”
“The trouble is,” Coffin said, “that prospect is exactly what’s worrying the more thoughtful High Americans. Has been for quite a while. They’ve been raised in the same tradition of elbow room and ample unspoiled nature as we have, George. They want to keep it for their descendants; and the area available to those descendants will be limited for a long time, historically speaking, until at last the pressure-tolerant genes have crowded the older kind out of man on Rustum.
“For instance, take my sometime partner Tom de Smet. He’s spent a fairish part of his life buying out land claims in the wilderness, as he got the money to do it. He’s created a really gigantic preserve. He’ll deed it to the public, if we write into the Constitution an article making its preservation perpetual, and certain other provisions he wants as regards the general environment. Failing that, his family intends to keep it. On a smaller scale, similar things have been happening— similar baronies have been growing—everywhere on High America. People have not forgotten what overpopulation did to Earth, and they don’t aim to let their personal descendants get caught in the same bind.”
“But—oh, Lord!” Stein exclaimed. “How many immigrants did you say? Five thousand? Well, I grant you even forty years hence, or whenever they arrive, even then they’ll be a substantial addition. Nevertheless, a minority group. And no matter how they breed, they won’t speed population increase enough to make any important difference.”
“They will, though,” Coffin replied, “having no land available to them for the reasons I just gave you—they will be a damned significant augmentation of one class of people we’re already beginning to get a few of.”
“Who?”
“The proletariat.”
“What’s that?”
“Not everybody on High America succeeded in becoming an independent farmer, a technical expert, or an entrepreneur. There are also those who, however worthy, have no special talents. Laborers, clerks, servants, routine maintenance men, et cetera. Those who have jobs, whatever jobs they happen to get, rather than careers. Those whose jobs get automated out from under them when employees acquire the means to build the machinery—unless they accept low wages and sink to the bottom of the social pyramid.”
“What about them?” Stein asked.
“You’ve not been keeping in touch with developments on High America over the years. I have. Mind you, I’m not scoffing at the people I’m talking about. Mostly they’re perfectly decent, conscientious human beings. They were absolutely vital in the early days.
“The point is, the early days are behind us. The frontier on High America is gone. We have a planetful of frontier in the lowlands, but that’s no help to men and women who can’t breathe here without getting sick.
“Anchor hasn’t got a real city proletariat yet, nor has its countryside got a rural one. Nevertheless, the tendency exits. It’s becoming noticeable, as increasing numbers of machines and workers end the chronic labor shortage we used to have.
“If something isn’t done, Rustum will repeat Earth’s miserable history. Poverty-stricken masses. Concentration on wealth and power. The growth of collectivism. Later, demagogues preaching revolution, and many of the well-off applauding, because they no longer have roots either, in a depersonalized society. Upheavals which can only lead to tyranny. Everything which we were supposed to escape by coming to Rustum!”
Stein frowned. “Sounds farfetched.”
“Oh, it is farfetched in the lowlands,” Coffin admitted. “A territory this big won’t stifle in a hurry. But High America is a different case.”
“What do they plan to do to head off this, uh, proletariat?”
Coffin smiled, not merrily. “That’s a good question. Especially when the whole idea of the Constitutional Convention is to secure individual rights—close the loopholes through which they got shot down in the republics of Earth—limit the government strictly to keeping public order and protecting the general environment—because, thank God, we don’t have to worry about foreign enemies.” Somberly: “Unless we generate our own. Societies have been known to polarize themselves. Civil wars are common in history.”