"Matter of procedure. The first thing is to elect a temporary chairman."
Rod thought quickly. "I guess you're right. Jimmy, your nomination is thrown out. Nominations for temporary chairman are in order."
"Rod Walker for temporary chairman!"
"Oh, shut up, Jimmy! I don't want to be temporary chairman."
Roy Kilroy was elected. He took the imaginary gavel and announced, "The chair recognizes Brother Cowper for a statement of aims and purposes of this meeting."
Jimmy Throxton called out, "What do we want any speeches for? Let's elect Rod and go to bed. I'm tired- and I've got a two-hour watch coming up."
"Out of order. The chair recognizes Grant Cowper." Cowper stood up. The firelight caught his handsome features and curly, short beard. Rod rubbed the scraggly growth on his own chin and wished that he looked like Cowper. The young man was dressed only in walking shorts and soft bush shoes but he carried himself with the easy dignity of a distinguished speaker before some important body. "Friends," he said, "brothers and sisters, we are gathered here tonight not to elect a survival-team captain, but to found a new nation."
He paused to let the idea sink in. "You know the situation we are in. We fervently hope to be rescued, none more so than I. I will even go so far as to say that I think we will be rescued... eventually. But we have no way of knowing, we have no data on which to base an intelligent guess, as to when we will be rescued.
"It might be tomorrow... it might be our descendants a thousand years from now." He said the last very solemnly.
"But when the main body of our great race re-establishes contact with us, it is up to us, this little group here tonight, whether they find a civilized society or flea-bitten animals without language, without arts, with the light of reason grown dim... or no survivors at all, nothing but bones picked clean."
"Not mine!" called out Caroline. Kilroy gave her a dirty look and called for order.
"Not yours, Caroline," Cowper agreed gravely. "Nor mine. Not any of us. Because tonight we will take the step that will keep this colony alive. We are poor in things; we will make what we need. We are rich in knowledge; among us we hold the basic knowledge of our great race. We must preserve it... we will!"
Caroline cut through Cowper's dramatic pause with a stage whisper. "Talks pretty, doesn't he? Maybe I'll marry him."
He did not try to fit this heckling into his speech. "What is the prime knowledge acquired by our race? That without which the rest is useless? What flame must we guard like vestal virgins?"
Some one called out, "Fire." Cowper shook his head.
"Writing!"
"The decimal system."
"Atomics!"
"The wheel, of course.
"No, none of those. They are all important, but they are not the keystone. The greatest invention of mankind is government. It is also the hardest of all. More individualistic than cats, nevertheless we have learned to cooperate more efficiently than ants or bees or termites. Wilder, bloodier, and more deadly than sharks, we have learned to live together as peacefully as lambs. But these things are not easy. That is why that which we do tonight will decide our future... and perhaps the future of our children, our children's children, our descendants far into the womb of time. We are not picking a temporary survival leader; we are setting up a government. We must do it with care. We must pick a chief executive for our new nation, a mayor of our city-state. But we must draw up a constitution, sign articles binding us together. We must organize and plan."
"Hear, hear!"
"Bravo!"
"We must establish law, appoint judges, arrange for orderly administration of our code. Take for example, this morning-" Cowper turned to Rod and gave him a friendly smile. "Nothing personal, Rod, you understand that. I think you acted with wisdom and I was happy that you tempered justice with mercy. Yet no one could have criticized if you had yielded to your impulse and killed all four of those, uh... anti-social individuals. But justice should not be subject to the whims of a dictator. We can't stake our lives on your temper... good or bad. You see that, don't you?"
Rod did not answer He felt that he was being accused of bad temper, of being a tyrant and dictator, of being a danger to the group. But he could not put his finger on it. Grant Cowper's remarks had been friendly... yet they felt intensely personal and critical.
Cowper insisted on an answer. "You do see that, Rod? Don't you? You don't want to continue to have absolute power over the lives and persons of our community? You don't want that? Do you?" He waited.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure! I mean, I agree with you."
"Good! I was sure you would understand. And I must ay that I think you have done a very good job in getting us together. I don't agree with any who have criticized you. You were doing your best and we should let bygones be bygones." Cowper grinned that friendly grin and Rod felt as if he were being smothered with kisses.
Cowper turned to Kilroy. "That's all I have to say, Mr. Chairman." He flashed his grin and added as he sat down, "Sorry I talked so long, folks. I had to get it off my chest."
Kilroy clapped his hands once. "The chair will entertam nominations for- Hey, Grant, if we don't call it 'captain,' then what should we call it?"
"Mmm..." Cowper said judicially. "'President' seems a little pompous. I think 'mayor' would be about right-mayor of our city-state, our village."
"The chair will entertain nominations for mayor.
"Hey!" demanded Jimmy Throxton. "Doesn't anybody else get to shoot off his face?"
"Out of order."
"No," Cowper objected, "I don't think you should rule Jimmy out of order, Roy. Anyone who has something to contribute should be encouraged to speak. We mustn't act hastily."
"Okay, Throxton, speak your piece."
"Oh, I didn't want to sound off. I just didn't like the squeeze play."
"All right, the chair stands corrected. Anybody else? If not, we will entertain-"
"One moment, Mr. Chairman!"
Rod saw that it was Arthur Nielsen, one of the Teller University group. He managed to look neat even in these circumstances but he had strayed into camp bereft of all equipment, without even a knife. He had been quite hungry.
Kilroy looked at him. "You want to talk, Waxie?"
"Nielsen is the name. Or Arthur. As you know. Yes."
"Okay. Keep it short."
"I shall keep it as short as circumstances permit. Fellow associates, we have here a unique opportunity, probably one which has not occurred before in history. As Cowper pointed out, we must proceed with care. But, already we have set out on the wrong foot. Our object should be to found the first truly scientific community. Yet what do I find? You are proposing to select an executive by counting noses! Leaders should not be chosen by popular whim; they should be determined by rigorous scientific criteria. Once selected, those leaders must have full scientific freedom to direct the bio-group in accordance with natural law, unhampered by such artificial anachronisms as statutes, constitutions, and courts of law. We have here an adequate supply of healthy females; we have the means to breed scientifically a new race, a super race, a race which, if I may say so-"
A handful of mud struck Nielsen in the chest; he stopped suddenly. "I saw who did that!" he said angrily. Just the sort of nincompoop who always-"
"Order, order, please!" Kilroy shouted. "No mudsling or I'll appoint a squad of sergeants-at-arms. Are you through, Waxie?"
"I was just getting started."
"Just a moment," put in Cowper. "Point of order Mr. Chairman. Arthur has a right to be heard. But I think he speaking before the wrong body. We're going to have a constitutional committee, I'm sure. He should present his arguments to them. Then, if we like them, we can adopt his ideas."