[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
."For my part," said Chambers, slowly, measuring each word, "you can have those findings of ours.We'll give them to you, knowing you will use them as they should be used.Craven can tell you how they work.That is, if Craven wants to.He is the man who developed them.""Certainly," said Craven."They'll be something to remember us by.""But you are coming back to us, aren't you?" asked Greg.Craven shook his head."No, I'm going with Chambers.I don't know what he's thinking of, but whatever it is, it's all right with me.We've been together too long.I'd miss someone to fight with."Chambers was still staring out the vision port.He was talking, but he did not seem to be talking to them."I had a dream, you see.I saw the people struggling against the inefficiency and stupidity of popular government.I saw the periodic rise of bad leaders.I saw them lead the people into blunders.I read history and I saw that since the time man had risen from the ape, this had been going on.So I proposed to give the people scientific government.a business administration.An administration that would have run the government exactly as a successful businessman runs his business.The people would have resented it if I had told them they didn't know how to run their affairs.There was only one way to do it.gain control and force it down their throats."Chambers was no longer a beaten man, no longer a man with a white bandage around his head and his power stripped from him.Once again he was the fighting financier who had sat back at the desk in the Interplanetary building on Earth and issued orders.orders that sped across millions of miles of space.He shrugged his shoulders."They didn't want it.Man doesn't want to live under scientific government.He doesn't want to be protected against blunders.He wants what he calls freedom.The right to do the things he wants to do, even if it means making a damn fool of himself.The right to rise to great heights and tumble to equally low depths.That's human nature and I ruled it out.But you can't rule out human nature."They sat in silence, no one speaking.Russ cupped his pipe bowl in his hand and watched Chambers.Chambers leaned back and slowly puffed at the cigar.Greg just sat, his face unchanging.Craven finally broke the silence."Just what are you planning to do?"Chambers flicked his hand toward the distant sun that gleamed through the vision port."There's a new solar system out there," he said."New worlds, a new sun.A place to start over again.You and I discovered it.It's ours by right of discovery.We'll go there and stake out our claim.""But there may be nothing there," protested Greg."That sun is younger than our Sun.The planets may not have cooled as yet.Life may not have developed.""In such a case," said Chambers, "we shall find another planetary system around another sun.A system that has cooled, where there is life."Russ gasped.Here was something important, something that should set a precedent.The first men to roam from star to star seeking new worlds.The first men to turn their backs on the old solar system and strike out in search of new worlds swinging in their paths around distant suns.Greg was saying, "allright, if that s the way you want it.I was hoping you'd come back with us.But we'll help you repair your ship.We'll give you all the supplies we can spare."Russ rose to his feet."That," he said, "calls for a little drink."He opened a cabinet and took out bottles and glasses."Only three," said Chambers."Craven doesn't drink."Craven interrupted."Pour one for me, too, Page."Chambers looked at the scientist, astounded."I never knew you to take a drink in your life."Craven twisted his face into a grin."This is a special occasion."The Invincible was nearing Mars, heading for Earth, which was still a greenish sphere far to one side of the flaming Sun.Russ watched the little green globe, thinking.Earth was home.To him it always would be home.But that would be changed soon.Just a few more generations, and, to millions upon millions of human beings, Earth no longer would be home.With the new material energy engines, life on every planet would be possible now, even easy.The cost of manufacture, mining, shipping across the vast distances between the planets would be only a fraction of what it had been when man had been forced to rely upon the unwieldy, expensive accumulator system of supplying life-giving power.Now Mars would have power of her own.Even Pluto could generate her own.And power was.well, it was power.The power to live, the power to work, to establish and maintain commerce, to adjust gravity to Earth standard or to any standard.The power to remake and reshape and rebuild planetary conditions to suit man exactly.Earthmen and Earthwomen would be moving out en masse now to the new and virgin fields of endeavor--to the farms of Venus, to the manufacturing centers that were springing up on Mars, to the mines of the Jovian worlds, to the great laboratory plants that would spring up on Titan and on Pluto and on the other colder worlds.The migration of races had started long ago
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]