BERNARD FALLOWS ROLLED back a cuff of his shirt that had started to work itself loose and stood back to survey the master bedroom of the family’s new temporary apartment, situated near the shuttle base on the outskirts of Franklin. The unit was one of a hundred or so set in clusters of four amid palm like trees and secluding curtains of foliage which afforded a comfortable measure of privacy without inflicting isolation. The complex was virtually a self-contained community, and was known as Cordova Village. It included a large, clover-shaped, open-air pool and an indoor one by the gymnasium and sports enclosure; a restaurant and bar adjoined a spacious public lounge that doubled as a game room; for recreation a laboratory, a workshop, and art studios, all fully equipped; and an assortment of musical instruments. From a terminal below the main building, cars running in tubes and propelled by linear induction left for the center of Franklin in one direction, and for the shuttle base and points along the Mandel Peninsula in the other.
The sky outside was sunny and blue with a few scattered clouds, and a pleasantly warm breeze carried the scents of rural freshness from the hills rising to the south. Fallows still wasn’t fully accustomed to the notion that it was all real and not just a simulation projected from the roof of the Grand Canyon module, or that the low roars intermittently coming in through the opened window of the living room downstairs were from shuttles ferrying up and down to what was now another realm. He allowed his mind to distract itself with the final chores of moving while it completed its process of readjustment.
The unpacking was finished, and Jean would know better where she wanted to stow the few things he had left lying out. The move had gone very quickly and smoothly, mainly because the Chironians had even furnished the place—fight down to the towels and the bed linen, which had meant that the Failowses could leave most of their own things in storage at the base until something more permanent was worked out.
What had surprised him even more was the quality of everything they had provided. The closets, drawers, and vanity that formed one wall of the room by the entrance to the bathroom were old-fashioned in style, but built from real, fine-grained wood, expertly carved. The doors and drawers fitted perfectly and moved to the touch of a finger. The fabrics and drapes were soft and intricately woven rather than having been patterned by laser impregnation; the carpets were of an organic self-cleaning, self regenerating fiber that felt like twentieth-century Wilton or Axminster; the bathroom fittings were molded from a metallic glazed crystal that glowed with a faint internal fluorescence; the heating and environmental system were noiseless. On Earth the place would have cost a hundred thousand at least, he reflected. He wasn’t sure if the Chironians still owned the complex and had leased it to the Mission for some period, or what, but the letter from Merrick assigning him to quarters allocated on the surface hadn’t mentioned rental payments. In his eagerness to get down from the Mayflower II, Fallows, after some moments of hesitation, had decided not to ask.
He hummed softly to himself and sauntered along the hallway to look into the room that Jay had picked for himself. Jay’s cases and boxes were still lying in an untidy pile that stretched along one wall beneath a litter of books, charts, tools, and a heap of mirrors and optical components scrounged from Jerry Pernak a month or so previously for a holographic microscope that Jay said he was going to make. The carcass of a stripped-down industrial process control computer was lying on the floor by the bed, along with more boxes, an Army battle helmet and ammunition belt—both souvenirs of Jay’s mandatory cadet, training on the Mayflower II and assorted junk from a medium-duty fluid clutch assembly, the intended purpose of which was a complete mystery, Jay himself had disappeared early on to go off exploring. Bernard shrugged to himself. If Jay wonted to leave the work until the end of the day when he would be tired, that was his business.
“Bernie, this is too much!” Jean’s voice came up from the lounge area below. “I’m never going to get used to this.” Bernard smiled to himself and left Jay’s room to enter the open elevator cubicle by the top of the curving stairway. Seconds later he walked out again and into the lounge. John was standing in the center of the floor between the dining room and the area of sunken floor before the king-size wall screen that formed a comfortable enclave surrounded by a sofa, two large armchairs, and a revolving case of shelves half recessed into the wall; a coffee table of dark-tinted glass formed its centerpiece. She gestured helplessly. “What are we ever going to do with all this space? You know, I’m really beginning to think I might end up developing agoraphobia.”
Bernard grinned. “It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it? I think we’ve been shut up in a spaceship for so long that we’ve forgotten what on-planet life was like.”
“Was it ever like this? I certainly don’t remember.”
“Perhaps not quite, but that was twenty years ago, remember. Times change, I guess.”
Marie, who had been exploring the house, emerged from the elevator. “The basement is huge!” she told them. “There are all kinds of rooms down there, and I don’t know what they’re for. I could have my own room to draw things in. And did you know there’s another door down there that leads out to a tunnel? I think it might go through to where the cab stops because it’s got a thing like a conveyer running along next to it. Perhaps we needn’t have carried all those things over and in through the front door at all”
“I said you were in too much of a hurry,” Jean said to Bernard. “Just think, all that work for nothing. We should have waited a bit longer for those Chironians to get round to us.”
Bernard shrugged. “What the hell? It’s done now. We needed the exercise.”
Marie walked across the room end gazed at the large screen. “Does this work?” she asked.
“I don’t know. We haven’t tried it yet,” Bernard answered. He raised his voice a fraction. “Anybody home? What do we have to do to get a computer in this place?” No response.
“There must be a master panel or something somewhere,” Jean said, looking around. “How about that?” She tripped down the two shallow steps into the sunken section of the floor, sat down at one end of the sofa, end lifted a portable flat screen display/touchpanel from a side-pedestal. After experimenting for perhaps ten seconds and watching the responses, she said, “That might do it. Try again.”
“Is there a computer in the house?” Bernard called out.
“At your service,” a voice replied from the direction of the screen. “I answer to Jeeves, unless you wont to make it something different.” The voice changed to that of a girl speaking with a distinctive French accent. “Une petite francaise, possiblement?” Then it switched to a guttural male—“Karl, ze Bavarian butler, maybe?”—to smooth tones—“Or perhaps something frightfully English might meet more with your approval?”—and finally back to its original American. “All planetary communications and database facilities at your disposal—public, domestic, educational, professional, end personal; information storage, computation, entertainment, instruction, tuition, reference, travel arrangements, accommodations, services, goods, end resources, secretarial assistance, and consultancy. You name it, I can handle it or put you in touch with the right people.”
Bernard raised his eyebrows. “Well, hello, Jeeves. How about all that? I guess you’d better stay who you are for the time being. How about giving us a rundown on this place for a start? For instance, how do you...”
Jean looked away as she heard the front door open. A few seconds later Jay arrived. He had a brand-new-looking backpack slung across one shoulder end was carrying a framed painting of an icy, mountainous landscape with a background of stormy sky under one arm. His expression was vaguely perplexed.
“Jay!” Jean exclaimed. “Did you find anywhere nice? -- What are those things?”
“Oh.” Jay set the painting down by the wall and frowned at it as if he had just noticed it for the first time. “I thought that might look nice in my room.” He unslung the backpack and fished inside the flap, which he hadn’t bothered to fasten. “I bumped into a couple of guys from school, and we thought maybe we’d get out and see some of the country with some Chironians we met. There’s a lot more of it around here than inside the GC module. So I got these.” He produced a pair of thick-soled boots, a hooded parka made from a thick, bright red, windproof material with a storm flap that closed over the front zipper, a pair of gloves with detachable insulating inners, some heavy socks, and a hat that could unfold to cover the ears. “We were thinking of going to the mountains across the sea,” he explained. “You can get there in a flyer from Franklin in about twenty minutes.”
Jean took the boots and turned them over in her hands. Then she picked up the parka, unfolded it, and studied it in silence for a couple of seconds. “But...these are good, Jay,” she said. A concerned expression spread over her face. “Where...how did you get them? I mean...what’s all this going to cost?”
Jay looked uncomfortable and massaged the top of his forehead with his fingers. “I know you’re not going to believe this, Ms,” he said. “But they’re not going to cost anything. Nothing seems to cost anything. I don’t understand it either, but—“
“Oh, Jay, don’t be silly. Come on now—tell me where all this came from.”
“Really—you just walk in and help yourself. That’s how they do things here...for everything.”
“What’s the problem?” Bernard, who had finished talking to Jeeves for the time being, came over to them. Marie followed close behind.
Jean looked at him with a worried face. “Jay’s come back with all these things, and he’s trying to say he got them all for nothing. He’s claiming that anyone can just help themselves. I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
Bernard gave Jay a stern look. “You don’t expect us to believe that, surely. Now, tell us where this stuff came from. I want the truth. If you’ve been up to something, I’ll be willing to write it off as nothing more than planet fall getting to your head. Now—are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell us?”
“Everything I’ve said is true,” Jay insisted. “There’s this big kinds market in town. It’s got just about everything, and you just walk in and take what you want. We got talking to some Chironians, and they showed us what you do. I don’t understand it either, but that’s how things work here.”
“Oh, Jay,” Jean groaned. “They were probably taking you for a ride to get a laugh out of it. At your age, you should know better.”
“They weren’t,” Jay protested. “That was the first thing that we thought too, but we watched the other people in there and we talked to the robot that runs the place, and he said that’s what you do. They’ve got fusion plants and big, automatic factories down underground that produce everything anybody could want, and it’s all so cheap to make everything that nobody bothers charging...or something like that. I can’t figure it out.”
“Is this the truth?” Bernard asked uncertainly with a strong note of suspicion in his voice.
“Of course it is.” Jay sighed wearily. “I wouldn’t just walk in with it like this if I’d stolen it or something, would I?”
“I bet he did,” Marie declared.
“Thanks a lot,” Jay said.
“I want to see this place. Is there any reason why you couldn’t take me back there right now?”
Jay sighed again. “I guess not. Let’s go. It’s one stop along the maglev line.”
“Can we go too?” Marie asked, evidently having forgotten her previous convictions. “I want to get lots of things.”
“Oh, let your father go with Jay, dear,” Jean said. “You can help me finish up here. We can go and see it tomorrow.”
“Don’t you want to come along?” Bernard asked Jean. “It would get you out and give you a break.”
Jean shook her head and indicated Marie surreptitiously with her eyes. “It would be best if you went on your own. We’ve got plenty to do here.” Marie made a face but stayed quiet.
Bernard nodded. “Okay. We’ll see you later then. Maybe you’d better leave that stuff here for now, Jay. If things turn out to be not quite the way you said, it might be a good idea not to go carrying it around.”
Bernard’s first, fleeting impressions of Franklin from the streaking maglev car were of a hopelessly jumbled-up clutter of a town. Unlike the neat and orderly models of urban planning that had replaced the heaps of American rubble during the recovery after the Lean Years—with business, entertainment, industrial, and residential sectors segregated by green belts and tidy landsculpting—everything in Franklin seemed to be intermingled with no discernible rhyme or reason. Buildings, towers, houses, and unidentifiable constructions of all shapes, sizes, and colors were packed together, overlapping and fusing in some places while giving way to clumps of greenery and trees in others. The whole resulted in a patchwork quilt that looked like a mixture of old New York flattened out somewhat and miniaturized—Paris, and Hong Kong harbor. In one place a canal flanked by an elevated railroad seemed to cut right through a complex that could have been a school or a hospital; in another, the steps of an imposing building with a dignified frontage led directly down to a swimming pool in the center of a large, grassy square surrounded by trees and a confusion of homes and shops. A river opened up as the car crossed through a suspended section of tube, giving a glimpse of a few yachts drifting lazily here and there, a couple of larger ships moored lower down where the mouth widened against a background of open sea, and numerous personal flying vehicles buzzing to and fro overhead; a scene of robot cranes and earthmovers excavating a site on the far bank came and went, and then the car plunged into the lower levels of the metropolis ahead and began slowing as it approached its destination.
“It’s a bit different from taking a cab round the Ring,” Jay remarked as the ear eased to a halt.
“You can say that again,” Bernard agreed.
“Is this what the cities back on Earth were like?”
“Well...some of them, a long time ago, maybe. But not modern ones.”
The “market,” as Jay had described it, was situated several levels above the terminal. To get to it they used a series of escalators. A lot of people were milling about, dressed in all manner of styles and colors and reflecting the various races of Earth in more or less even proportions, which was to be expected since the genetic codes carried by the Kuan-yin had comprised a balanced mix of types. Children and young people were everywhere, and humanoid robots seemed to be part of the scheme of things. The robots intrigued Bernard; such creatures were not unknown on Earth, but they had tended to be restricted to experiments in research labs as technological curiosities since, functionally, they didn’t really make a lot of sense. Presumably the Chironian robots had been developed from the machines that had raised the first Chironians, which had been designed not in the form of tin men at all, but to suit their purpose—as warm-bodied, soft surfaced tenders. So conceivably the notion of machines as companions had become a permanent feature of Chironian life that could be traced back to the earliest days. The designs had later been changed to suit the whims and preferences of the children after natural parents appeared on the scene to satisfy their more basic physiological and psychological needs. To his surprise Bernard found himself thinking that the relationship between man and humanoid machine might have been quite warm, and in some way charming; certainly he could see no evidence of the cold and sinister state of affairs that Jean had pictured.
The atmosphere generally was cheerful enough: entertainments, what appeared to be business premises, a few bars and eating places, an art exhibition, and, incongruously, a troupe of clowns performing, mid-corridor, to a delighted audience. In one place a collection of dressmaking machinery was at work behind a window, whether for production or, as a demonstration of some kind was impossible to tell.
Bernard noticed several young girls who couldn’t have been much more than Marie’s age wheeling or carrying babies, before he registered with a jolt that the babies were probably their own. Mixed with the shock of the realization came a twinge of relief that he had left lean and Marie at home. Explaining this was going to require some delicate handling. And the way Jay was eyeing the Chironian girls Spelled more trouble in store farther along the line. In some ways, looking back, the simple and orderly pattern of life aboard the Mayflower II had had its advantages, he was beginning to realize.
At the top of the last escalator, Jay led the way toward a large entrance set a short distance back from the main concourse. Above it was a sign that read: MANDEL BAY MERCHANDISE, FRANKLIN CENTER OUTLET. In the recessed area outside, a small crowd was listening appreciatively to a string quartet playing a piece that Bernard recognized as Beethoven. Suddenly, for a moment, Earth seemed less far away. Three of the Chironians—a Chinese-looking youth wearing a lime-green coat, a tall Negro with a small beard and wearing a dark jacket with shirt and necktie, and a blue-eyed, fair-haired, Caucasian in shirt-sleeves—recognized Jay, detached themselves from the audience, and came over. Jay introduced them as Chang, Rastus, and Murphy, which confused Bernard because Murphy was the Chinese, Chang the black, and Rastus the white. Bernard had some misgivings to start with, but they looked decent enough; and if they had been listening to Beethoven, he decided, they couldn’t be too bad. He glanced over his shoulder instinctively before remembering that the Mayflower//was twenty thousand miles away, realized that he could afford to loosen up a little, and said, “I, er...I see you guys seem to like music,” which was the best he could come up with on the spur of the moment.
“That’s one of my sisters playing the cello,” Murphy informed him. (Was it? Oh, yes—the Chinese was Murphy.) Bernard looked over at the quartet. The cello player was olive-skinned with Mediterranean features. “Oh...she’s very good,” Bernard said.
Murphy looked pleased. “Don’t you think it has a fine u tone? It’s one of Chang’s. He makes them.”
“Very,” Bernard agreed. He didn’t really have a clue. “These are the guys I was telling you about,” Jay said. “The ones who are with the group that’s going to the mountains.”
“You’d be welcome to come too if you want,” Rastus said.
Bernard managed a weak smile. “That’s a nice thought, but I’ve got a job to do. We’re still going to be busy for a while. Thanks anyway.” He thought for a few seconds. “I hope you’re not planning anything too tough out there. I mean, Jay hasn’t exactly had a lot of practice at that kind of thing. He’s never even seen a planet before.” Jay winced under his breath and looked away.
Chang laughed. “It’s okay. We won’t be going very high, and it’ll be more walking than anything else. There won’t be anything more risky than maybe a few daskrends showing up.”
“You can use a gun, can’t you, Jay?” Murphy asked.
“Well, yes, but...” Jay looked taken aback.
“We should have mentioned it,” Murphy said. “Bring one along. A forty-five or something like that would be best, if you’ve got one.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Bernard interrupted, raising a hand in alarm. “Just what the hell is this? What’s a das? -- “
“Daskrend,” Murphy supplied. “Oh, they’re a kind of wolf but bigger, and they’ve got poison fangs. But they’re pretty dumb and no big deal to handle. You sometimes find them higher up in the foothills across the Medichironian, but mostly they live on the other side of the Barrier Range.”
“We’re going to have to talk about this, Jay.” Bernard’s voice was very serious. “I was teasing, really,” Murphy said. “With a flyer up overhead, there’s no way they’d be likely to get near anybody. But it’s customary to go armed when you’re not in places like Franklin...just in case.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t rush things too much,” Bernard suggested. He looked at Jay: “You may want to give yourself time to acclimatize before you get into something like this.” His tone said that he was being tactful in his phrasing; Jay wasn’t going. For the moment, at least, Jay didn’t feel inclined to argue too much.
“It’s up to you. Just let us know,” Murphy said and dismissed the subject with a slight shrug. “So, have you come back for something else?”
“No. My father just wants to see the store.”
“Want to come with us?” Bernard invited.
“Sure,” Murphy accepted, and they all began walking. On the way, Jay explained the problem to his three friends.
Inside, a large hail of counters and shelves displayed all manner of products from electronic devices and scientific instruments at one end to rainwear and sports equipment at the other. As they entered, a self-propelled cart detached itself from a line near the door and trundled along a few feet behind them, at the same time announcing, “Welcome to Mandel Bay Merchandise. Did you ever think of laying out your own garden and tending it manually? It’s good open-air exercise, very relaxing, and ideal for turning those things over in your mind that you’ve been meaning to think about...as well as the soil, he-he! We have a special offer of the most expertly crafted and finished hand tools you’ve ever seen, every one with—“
“Go away,” Chang told it. “We’re just looking today.” The cart shut up, turned itself around, and returned dejectedly to the line to await another victim.
Bernard stopped, frowned, and looked around. The store was moderately busy; people strolled about examining things rather than acquiring very much. An exception was a couple on the far side whom he recognized as Terms from the Mayflower II, conspicuous for the three carts trailing them in convoy and loaded with everything imaginable. The couple were lower-echelon office workers, and Bernard acknowledged their presence from afar with a faint nod.
“I suppose all this seems a bit strange to you folks,” Rastus noted. “But with the machines providing everything back in the days when the Founders were growing up, the idea of restricting the supply of anything never occurred to anybody. There wasn’t any reason to. We’ve carried on that way ever since. You’ll get used to it.”
“But...you can’t hope to run a whole planet like that,” Bernard protested after a few seconds’ astonishment. “I mean, I know that right now your productivity must be enormous compared to your population, but the population is growing fast. You’ve got to start thinking about some kind of...system to regulate things. Your resources are only finite.”
Rastus looked puzzled. “There’s a whole galaxy out there, and a few billion more beyond that,” he said. “It’ll take a long time for it to get crowded. Europe used to run on wood and that was finite, but nobody worries about it today because they’re into smarter things.” He shrugged. “It’s the same with everything else. The human mind is an infinite resource, and that’s all you need.”
Bernard shook his head and gestured in the direction of the couple from the Mayflower II, who were glancing furtively around them while a handling machine by the exit unloaded their carts onto a conveyer that looked as if it fed down to the level below. “But look what’s happening,” he said. “How long can you keep up with that kind of thing? What happens when everyone starts acting like that?”
“Why should they?” Chang asked. He looked across at the couple curiously. “I was wondering what they want with all that stuff. Anyone would think it’s about to run out.”
“For the status,” Jay said. Chang looked at him blankly. “It’s okay,” Rastus said. “As long as they pay for it.”
“That’s my whole point,” Bernard told them. “They’re not paying for it—not a cent’s worth of any of it.”
“They will,” Rastus replied. “How?” Rastus looked mildly surprised. “They’ll find a way,” he said.
Just then Jerry Pernak came around a corner accompanied by his fiance, Eve Verritty, and two more Chironians. A cart was following them with a few odds and ends inside. He gaped at Bernard and Jay in surprise, then grinned. “Hey! So Jay dragged you out to see the sights, eh? Hello, Jay. Started making friends already?” Introductions were exchanged with smiles and handshakes. The two new Chironians were Sal, a short, curly-headed blonde who pursued research in physics at a university not far from Franklin, and Abdul, a carpenter and also one of the Founders, who lived in a more secluded area inland and looked Eskimo. Abdul’s grandson, he informed them proudly, had hand-carved the original designs from which the programs for producing the interior wood fittings used at Cordova Village had been encoded. He was delighted when Bemard praised their quality and promised to tell his grandson what the Terran had said.
“And how about this?” Pernak said. “Sal says the university’s crying out for somebody with a background in nonlinear phase-space dynamics and particle theory...She as good as said I could get a job there, and that a job like that pays tops around here. What do you think of that for a break?”
Bernard gave a pained smile. “It sounds good,” he agreed. “But the Directorate might have a few things to say.”
“I know, but I figured I’d go take a look at the place anyhow out of curiosity. That can’t do any harm. Later on, well...maybe anything could happen.”
“How are they going to pay you?” Jay asked.
“We haven’t talked about that yet,” Pernak told him.
“That’s a personal question, Jay,” Bernard cautioned. “Anyhow, it’s early yet.”
“Jay told us you’re an engineering officer on the Mayflower II,” Chang said, sounding interested. “A specialist in fusion processes.”
“That’s right.” Bernard was surprised and felt a little flattered. “I help look after the main drive systems.”
“We could probably arrange a visit for you too,” Chang offered. “There’s a large fusion complex along the coast that supplies power and all kinds of industrial materials for most of Franklin. Another one’s due to be built soon, and they’ll be needing people too. I could arrange for you to go and see it, if you think you’d be interested.”
It was interesting, certainly. “Well...maybe,” Bernard replied guardedly. “Who do you know there?”
“I’ve got a friend whose mother works most of her time there. Her name’s Kathy
“And that would be enough to fix something?”
“Sure,” Chang said confidently. “I’ll give you a call when I’ve talked to Adam. He’s the friend. Would Jay like to go too?”
Bernard hadn’t really thought of that. He saw Jay nodding vigorously, and tossed up his hands. “Why not? If you’re sure it’s okay, then thanks...thanks a lot.”
“No problem,” Chang told him.
Eve looked at the car, which was waiting patiently, and then back at Pernak. “We’re through, really,” she said. “Shall we carry on and see the town?”
“Let’s do that,” Pernak agreed. “I’ll take the things.”
“They can go on the maglev on their own,” Murphy informed them. “The handler at the village terminal will route them through. You pick them up by the elevator in your basement. What’s your number there?”
“Ninety-seven,” Pernak replied. He looked at Eve and shook his head.
“That’s all,” Murphy said, addressing the cart. “Ninety-seven, Cordova Village. On your way.”
“One second,” a voice said from behind them. They looked round to find a Chironian robot winking its lights at them. It was a short, rounded type, which made it loose tubby. “You haven’t taken any of our special-offer hand gardening tools. Do you want to grow fat and old before your time? Think of all the pleasant and creative hours you could be spending in the afternoon sun, the breeze caressing your brow gently, the distant sounds of—“
“Aw, cut it out, Hoover,” Rastus told the robot. “These people have only just arrived. They’ve got more than enough to do.” He looked at the Terrans. “This is Hoover. He runs the place. Don’t pay too much attention or you’ll end up buried in junk up to your eyes.”
“Junk?!” Hoover’s lights blazed crimson in unison. “What do you mean, funk? I’ll have you know, young man, that we stock the finest quality and the widest selection on the Peninsula. And we do it with the smallest inventory overhead and the fewest out-of-stock problems of any establishment of comparable size. Junk indeed! Have you troubled to inspect our—“
“Okay, okay, Hoover.” Rastus held up an apologetic hand. “You know I didn’t mean it. You do a great job here. And the displays today are very artistic.”
“Thank you, and my compliments to you, sir.” Hoover acknowledged in a suddenly more agreeable voice. “I hope you all enjoyed your visit and that we’ll see you here again soon.” The cart rolled away to deliver its load to the handling machine. Hoover escorted the group back to the entrance. “Now, next week we’re expecting a consignment of absolutely first-class—“
“Lay off, Hoover,” Chang said wearily. “We’ll check it out through the net. Okay, maybe we’ll see you next week.”
In the corridor, the quartet had shifted to Mozart. “Have the robots been kept on as a kind of tradition?” Bernard asked.
“The kids like having them around,” Sal confirmed. “And to be honest, I suppose we do too. We’ve all grown up with them.”
“I can remember the one that first taught me to talk,” Abdul said. “It’s still operating today, up there on the Kuan-yin. But the ones you see today have changed a lot.”
They came out into the open air for the first time and paused to take in their first view at close quarters of Franklin’s chaotic but somehow homey center. “And what about all this?” Eve asked. “Does it go back to the first days too?”
“Yes,” Sal replied. “Forty years ago this was just a few domes and a shuttle port. The main base that you came in through was only built about ten years ago. Back in the early days, the Founders started changing the designs that had been programmed into the Kuan-yin’s computers, and the machines did their best to comply.” She sighed. “And this is what it ended up like. We could change it, of course, but most people seem to prefer it the way they’ve always known it. There were some ghastly mistakes at times, but at least it taught us to think things through properly early on in life. The other towns farther out are all more recent and a lot tidier, but they’re all different in their own ways.”
“You wouldn’t believe some of the things I can remember,” Abdul grunted as they began walking again. “Darned machines...always did just what we told ‘em. For a time we thought they were pretty stupid; but it turned out it was us.”
“How old were you then?” Eve asked curiously.
“Oh, I don’t know...four, five, maybe. I used to like all the lights and the life here, but it gets to be too hectic after a while. Now I prefer the hills. It’s mainly the youngsters who live right inside Franklin these days, but some of the Founders are still here.”
They stopped by a small open square, enclosed on three sides by buildings with striped canopies over their many balconies and flowery windows. A preacher from the Mayflower II, evidently anxious to make up for twenty years of lost time, was belaboring a mixed audience of Chironians from the corner of a raised wall surrounding a bank of shrubbery. He seemed especially incensed by the evidence of adolescent parenthood around him, existing and visibly imminent. The Chironians appeared curious but skeptical. Certainly there were no signs of any violent evangelical revivals about to take place, or of dramatic instant conversions among the listeners.
“It seems irrational to me to argue one way or another about things there’s no evidence for,” a boy of about fourteen remarked. “You can make up anything you want if there’s no way of testing whether it’s true or not, so what’s the point?”
“We must have faith/” the preacher roared, his eyes wide with fervor.
“Why?” a girl in a pink jacket asked.
“Because the Book tells us we must.”
“How do you know it’s right?”
“There are some things which we must accept” the preacher thundered.
“That’s my point,” the boy told him. “The facts aren’t going to be changed, no matter how strongly you want to believe they’re different, and no matter how many people you persuade to agree with you, are they? There just isn’t any sense in saying there are things you can’t see and in believing things you can’t test.”
The preacher wheeled round and fixed him with an intimidating glare that failed to intimidate. “Do you believe in atoms?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Aha!” The preacher made an appealing gesture to the audience. “Is there any difference, my friends? Can we see atoms? Is this not arrogant insolence?” He looked back at the boy and jabbed an accusing finger at him. “Do you claim to have seen atoms? Tell us that you have, and I will say that you lie!” Another appealing flourish. “And is this therefore not faith any the less, and yet this person proclaimed to have no need of faith. Does he not, therefore, contradict himself before us?”
“Your comparison is quite invalid,” a girl who was with the boy pointed out. “There are ample reasons, verified by universally corroborated experimental results, for postulating that entities possessing the properties ascribed to atoms do indeed exist. Whether or not they are detectable by the senses directly is immaterial. Where are your comparable data?”
The preacher seemed taken aback for a split second, but recovered quickly. “The world around us,” he bellowed, throwing his arms wide. “Is it not there? Do I not see it? Who created it? Tell us. Is that not evidence enough?”
“No,” the boy answered after a moment’s reflection. “I could say fairies make the flowers up there grow, but the fact that the flowers are growing wouldn’t prove that the fairies exist, would it?”
“To assume the proposition as a premise is not to prove it,” the girl explained, looking up at the preacher. “Your argument, I’m afraid, is completely circular.”
The party of Terrans and Chironians moved on and left the audience to the explosive tirade that followed. “Those were hardly more than children,” Eve Verritty murmured.
“You seem surprised,” Rastus said to Bernard.
“Those kids,” Bernard replied, gesturing behind them. “There are some pretty sharp minds among them. Is everyone here like that?”
“Of course not,” Rastus said. “But everyone values what they have. I said the mind was an infinite resource, but only if you don’t squander it. Don’t you think that makes an interesting paradox?”