Chapter 13

THE OUTPLANETS

While no one knows when man first appeared upon Earth, it is generally agreed that it

required many hundreds of thousands of years for the human population of Earth to

reach the billion mark, which it probably did sometime in the eighteen twenties. In the

next scant century, however, it doubled. In another seventy five or eighty years it doubled

again, to four billions. Then, due to limitation of births in most cultures and to famine and

pestilence in the few remaining backward ones, the rate of increase began to drop; and

early in the twenty second century Earth's population seemed to be approaching seven

billions as a limit.

Although cities had increased tremendously in size there was still much farmland, and

every acre of it including the Sahara, irrigated by demineralized and remineralized water

from the ocean-was cultivated and fertilized to the maximum possible constant yield.

There were also vast hydroponics installations. Complete diet had been synthesized long

since; hence Earthly fare for many years had been synthetic for most, vege-

tarian-and-synthetic for almost all of the upper twenty percent. Cow's milk and real meat

were for millionaires only.

The dwindling of Earth's reserves of oil and coal had forced the price of hydrocarbons up

to where it became profitable to work oil shale, and it was from the immense deposits of

that material that most of Earth's oil was being produced. Very little of this oil, however,

was being used as fuel; almost every ton of it was going into the insatiable conversion

plants of the plastics and synthetics industries.

Of power, fortunately, there was no lack. It was available everywhere, at relatively low

cost and in infinite amount.

Infinite? Well, not quite, perhaps. Inexhaustible, certainly. Also incalculable, since no two

mathematicians ever agreed even approximately in estimating the total kinetic energy of

the universe. And that super-genius Lee Chaytor, in developing the engine that still bears

her name-the engine that taps that inexhaustible source of energy-gave to mankind one

of the two greatest gifts it has ever received. The other, of course, was Wesley's

Subspace Drive; by virtue of which man peopled the planets of the stars.

However, it was only the bold, the hardy, and the independent, and the discontented who

went. Nor was there at first any such thing as Capital: the bankers of Earth were, then

as now, highly allergic to risking their money in any venture less certain than a

fifty-percent of-appraised-value first mortgage upon a practically sure thing. Hence

everything was on shares.

Elbridge Warner, Barbara Deston's great-great-great and-so-on grandfather, a

multi-millionaire oil man and a rabid anti-union capitalist, was the first big operator to go

off-Earth. Following the "hunches" that had made him what he was, he hired a crew of

the hardest, toughest, most intransigent men he could find and sniffed out a fantastically

oil-rich planet, theretofore unknown to man. He named this planet "Newmars" and

claimed it in toto as his own personal private property.

Then, having put down a tremendously productive well, he built and populated a

balanced-economy colony. He then put down a few more gushers and built an arms plant

and a couple of battleships, after which he: 1) Moved everything he owned that was

movable from Earth to Newmars, and 2) Fired every union man in his employ. The United

Oil Workers struck, of course, whereupon he made or stole-the record is not clear upon

this point-some Chaytor superfusers and destroyed every Warner well on Earth.

Destroyed them so thoroughly (everyone has seen a tri-di of what a superfuser does)

that not one of them could be made to produce again for years, if ever. He then sat back

on his wholly-owned, self-sufficient, fortified planet and waited.

The result was inevitable. Even with Warner Oil at full production, the demand had been

crowding the supply. And, because of the meagerness of Earth's reserves and because

the shale-oil people would not expand their plants-they knew that Warner could undersell

them by any margin he chose-Earth had to make terms with Elbridge Warner. The

Chamber of Commerce and the government of the United States of America forced the

United Oil Workers to surrender; whereupon Warner graciously allowed fleets of tankers

to haul oil from Newmars to Earth-at shale oil's exact delivered price.

Elbridge never did put down another well on Earth. In fact, as far as is known, he did not

even visit Earth throughout the remainder of his hundred years of life. He was not bitter,

exactly; he was stubborn, hard-headed, fiercely independent, and contumaceous; and he

surrounded himself by preference with people of his own hard kind. Which, with that start

and with Warner Oil always dominating the business, is why the oil-men of the planets

have never been a gentle breed.

The Asteroid Mining Company followed WarnOil's lead. Iron and nickel, of course, and a

few other metals, were available in plenty in Sol's asteroid belt; but a great many other

highly important metals, particularly the heavier ones, were not. Wherefore the Asteroid

Mining Company changed its name to Galactic Metals, Incorporated, and sent hundreds

of prospectors out to explore new solar systems. These men, too-hard-muscled,

hard-fighting, hard-playing hard-rock men all were rugged, rough, and tough.

They found a sun with an asteroid belt so big and so full of chunks of heavy metal that it

was all but unapproachable along any radial line anywhere near the plane of the ecliptic.

This sun's fourth planet, while it was Tellus-Type as to gravity, temperature, water, air,

and so forth, was much richer than Earth in metals heavier than nickel. Whereupon

Galactic Metals pre-empted this metalliferous planet, named it "Galmetia", and pro-

ceeded to stock it with metalsmen-a breed perhaps one number Brinnell harder even

than Elbridge Warner's oilmen.

With colonization an actuality, and productive of profits far beyond anything possible on

Earth, a few of the most venturesome capitalists of Earth decided to dip into this flowing

fountain for themselves. Lactia Incorporated, the leading-milk-and-meat producer, was

the first banker-backed, consumer-oriented firm to take the big plunge. Knowing that it

could fly a fifty-thousand ton tanker from an out-planet to Earth in little more time and at

little more expense than was required to ship a five-gallon container from Trempealeau,

Wisconsin, to Chicago, Illinois, it found and claimed a Tellus type planet whose

tremendous expanses of fertile plains and whose equable climate made it ideal for the

production of milk and meat. It named its planet Lactia. Then Lactia the firm colonized

Lactia the planet with feedraisers, dairymen, and stockmen, and began to spend money

hand over fist.

It required years, of course, to build up the herds, and an immense amount of money, but

when many hundreds of millions of cattle lived upon hundreds of millions of fertile acres,

the retail price of milk had come down from twenty five dollars a pint to the mythically-old

figure of twenty cents per quart. Beef, pork, and mutton were available in every

marketplace. Clothing of real wool and of real leather was being sold at prices almost

anyone could afford. For, then as now, the businessmen of the planets adhered as

closely as they possibly could to the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Dozens of other industries followed Milk's lead. Wheatfields were measured by the

"square" (one hundred square kilometers) instead of by the acre and bread again

became a basic food. Rice became available in full supply and at low cost. Breakfast

cereals reappeared upon the shelves of even the smallest food stores. All of this came

about because, with all due respect to the biochemical engineers, natural food tasted

better than synthetic and "felt" better in the mouth, and vast numbers of consumers were

willing to pay a premium for it.

(With increasing automation, ever-mounting demand, and ever-increasing production as

costs were lowered, planetary agriculture eventually, of course, put the synthetic-food

industry completely out of business.)

These subsidiary planets, unlike Newmars and Galmetia, were at first dependent upon

Earth. However, each one grew in population at an exponential rate. For, despite all the

automation that is economically feasible, it takes a lot of men to work even as small a

holding as a hundred squares of land. Men need women and women go with their men.

Men and women have children -on the planets, as many children as they want. Families

need services-all kinds of services-and get them. Factories came into being, and

schools-elementary schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. Stores of all kinds,

from shoppes to supermarkets. Restaurants and theaters. Cars and trucks. Air-cars.

Radio, teevee, and tri-di. Boats and bowling lanes. Golf, even-on the planets there was

room for golf! And so on. The works.

At first, all this flood of adult population came from Earth; drawn, not by any urge to

pioneer, but by that mainspring of free enterprise, profit. Profit either in the form of high

wages or of opportunity to enlarge and to advance, each entrepreneur in his own field.

And not one in a hundred of those emigrants from Earth, having lived on an outplanet for

a year, ever moved back. "Tellus is a nice place to visit, but live there? If the Tellurians

like that kind of living-if they call it living-they can have it."

But the lessening of Earth's population was of very short duration. Assured of cheap and

abundant food, and of more and more good, secure jobs, more and more women had

more and more children and cities began to encroach upon what had once been

farmland.

One of the most important effects of this migration, although it was scarcely noticed at

the time, was the difference between the people of the planets and those of Earth. The

planetsmen were, to give a thumbnail description, the venturesome, the independent, the

ambitious, the chance-taking. Tellurians were, and became steadily more so, the stodgy,

the unimaginative, the security-conscious.

Decade after decade this difference became more and more marked, until finally there

developed a definite traffic pattern that operated continuously to intensify it. Young

Tellurians of both sexes who did not like regimentation-and urged on by the

blandishments of planetary advertising campaigns-left Earth for good. Conversely, a thin

stream of colonials who preferred security to competition flowed to Earth. This condition

had existed for over two hundred years. (And, by the way, it still exists.)

For competition was and is the way of life on the planets. The labor unions of Earth tried,

of course; but the Tellurian brand of unionism never did "take", because of the profoundly

basic difference in attitude of the men involved. Some Tellus-Type unions were formed in

the early years and a few strikes occurred; only one of which, the last and the most

violent and which neither side won, will be mentioned here.

The Stockmen's Strike, on Lactia, was the worst strike in all history. Some three

thousand men and over five million head of stock lost their lives; about eight billion dollars

of invested capital went down the drain. Neither side would give an inch. Warfare and

destruction went on until, driven by the force of public opinion-affected no little by the

virtual absence of meat and milk from civilizations every table-the massed armed forces

of all the other planets attacked Lactia and took it by storm. Martial law was declared.

Capital was seized. Labor either worked or faced a firing squad. This condition would

continue, both Capital and Labor were told, until they got together and worked out a

formula that would work.

Experts from both sides, in collaboration with a board of the most outstanding

economists of the time, went to work on the problem. They worked for almost a year.

Capital must make enough profit to attract investors, and wants to make as much more

than that minimum as it can. Labor must make a living, and wants as much more than the

minimum as it can get. Between those two minima lies the line of dispute, which is the

locus of all points of reasonable and practicable settlement. Somewhere on that line lies

a point, which can be computed from the Law of Diminishing Returns as base, at which

Capital's net profit, Labor's net annual income, and the public's benefit, will all three

combine to produce the maximum summated good.

Thus was enunciated the Principle of Enlightened Self-Interest. It worked. Wherever and

whenever it has been given a chance to work, it has worked ever since.

The planet-wide adoption of this Principle (it never did gain much favor on Earth) ended

hourly wages and full annual salaries. Every employee, from top to bottom, received an

annual basic salary plus a bonus. This bonus varied with the net profit of the firm and with

each employee's actual ability. And the Planetsmen, as the production and service

personnel of the planets came to he called, liked it that way. They were independent.

They were individualists. Very few of them wanted to be held down in pay or in

opportunity to any dead level of mediocrity just to help some stupid jerks of incompetents

hang onto their jobs.

The Planetsmen liked automation, and not only because of the perennial shortage of

personnel on the outplanets. And, week after week, union organizers from Earth tried

fruitlessly to crack the Planetsmen's united front. One such attempt, representative of

hundreds on record, is quoted in part as follows:

Organizer: "But listen! You Associated Wavesmen are organized already; organized to

the Queen's taste. All you have to do is use your brains and join up with us and it

wouldn't take hardly any strike at all to . . ."

Planetsman: "Strike? You crazy in the head? What in hell would we strike for?"

Org: "For more money, of course. You ain't dumb, are you? You could be getting a lot

more money than you are now."

Plan: "I could like hell. I'd be getting less, come the end of the quarter."

Org: "Less? How do you figure that?"

Plan: "I don't. I don't have to. We've got expert computermen figuring for us all the time,

and they keep Top Brass right on the peak of the curve, too, believe me. You never

heard of the Law of Diminishing Returns, I guess."

Org: "I did so; but what has that got to do with. . . ?" Plan: "Everything. It works like this,

see? My basic is six thousand-and say, how much to Tellurian poleclimbers get?"

Org: "Well, of course we would..."

Plan: "Not with our help you won't. You'll dig your own spuds, brother. Anyway, say we

strike-and that's saying a hell of a lot-ever hear of Lactia? But say we do, and say they

raise our basic to-and that's saying a hell of a lot, too, believe me-but say they do,

to-hell, to anything you please. Okay. So costs go up, so Top Brass has to raise prices. .

. ."

Org: "Uh-uh. Let 'em take it out of their profits."

Plan: "They ain't makin' that much. Anyway, it'd stack up the same, come to the end of

the quarter. The point would slide off of the peak and my bonus would get a bad case of

the dropsy and I'd wind up the year making less than I will the way things are now."

Or-: "Well, skipping that for just a minute, how about this automation that's putting so

many of you men out of jobs?"

Plan: "It ain't, that are worth a damn. If a man can't keep on top of the machines, to hell

with him. Let him take a lower-basic job or go to Tellus and live on security. The more

automation we can make work the more production per man-hour and the bigger my

bonus gets. And pretty quick I can jump a level and raise my basic, too. It's just that

simple. See?"

Org: "I see that it don't make sense. What you don't see is that Capital has been

suckering you all along. They've been giving you the business. Feeding you the old

boloney and giving you the shaft clear to the hilt and you're dumb enough to take it."

Plan: "Not by seven thousand tanks of juice, chum, and needling won't make us let you

lean on us a nickel's worth, either. We get the straight dope and our officers don't dip

into the kitty, either, the way yours do. So what you'd better do, meathead, is roll your

hoop back to Tellus, where maybe you can make somebody believe part of that crap."

Aboard the Explorer, the Adamses and the Destons were discussing the course of

civilization. Adams had prepared tables of figures, charts, and graphs. He had

determined trends and had extrapolated them into future time. His conclusions were far

from cheerful.

"This unstable condition has lasted far longer than was to have been expected two

centuries ago," Adams said, definitely. "The only reason why it has lasted so long is

because of the stabilizing effect of the planets siphoning off so many of Earth's

combative and aggressive people. The situation is now, however, deteriorating; and,

considering the ability, the quality, and the state of advancement of the Planetsmen, it will

continue to deteriorate at an ever-increasing rate to the point of catastrophe."

"Huh?" Deston asked. "Grind that up a little finer, will you, professor?"

"It's inevitable. The original aim of Communism was to master all Earth. It failed. It also

failed to gain any foothold upon any of the outplanets because the basic tenets of

Communism are completely unacceptable to the independent and self-reliant peoples of

the planets. The fact is, therefore, that Communism is bottled up on something over half

of the land surface of one planet, while we `contemptible capitalist warmongers' are

spreading at an exponential rate over a constantly increasing number of planets. The

question is, what will this present Nameless One of EastHem-who is none too stable a

character-do about this state of affairs?"

Deston whistled, and after a short silence Barbara said, "He will bomb, I suppose you

mean."

"Could be, at that," Deston agreed. "Especially since EastHem never will catch up with

our production technology. The most important thing, as I see -it, is when."

"Within a very few years, I think," Adams said. "By these charts, five years at most, and

probably much less than that."

"Nice," Deston said, and thought for moments. "And he won't stick around for the fallout.

He and the hard core of the Party will take off for some unknown planet -maybe they've

been working on it for years-with the idea of bombing a!! our planets. Is that your idea?"

"That is one of many, but I do not have enough data to give a high probability to any one

of them."

"But Uncle Andy," Barbara put in, "Since you never have been anybody's professional

crepe-hanger, you've already decided what to do about it. So give."

"I have been able to find only one solution having a probability of success of point nine

nine. In psionics, I think, lies the only possible answer. Such masters as Li Hing Wong

and the mahatmas can do much, but not nearly enough. What we should do is find and

train all the latent psiontists we can. I know of many who are not so latent,

either-Maynard, Smith, and Champion of GalMet; Lansing and DuPuy of WarnOil;

Hatfield, Spehn, and Dann of InStell; to name only a few of those whom I know

personally. There must be thousands of others, none of whom any one of us has ever

heard of. Such a force would almost certainly be able to cope with EastHem and its

bombs; therefore it seems to me that the best course to pursue is to set up a school for

psionic development."

"Sounds good to me," Deston approved, "Have you got it going? We'll all get behind it

and push."

"How could we have, young man? Even starting in a small way, such a school would

require an investment of at least a hundred thousand dollars-which might as well be a

million, as far as the Adams resources are concerned."

"A megabuck wouldn't more than start it, the way it ought to be." Deston glanced at

Barbara, who nodded. He took a sheet of paper out of a drawer, wrote a couple of lines,

and went on, "Doe, for a man with your brains, you've got absolutely the least sense of

anybody I know. Any nitwit would know that DesDes would back any such project as that

clear up to the hilt. Here, give this to Lansing. It's for twenty five megabucks now, and as

much more as you want, whenever you want it."