The trolleys were a case in point. At first they were crude platforms on fixed axles, riding on solid wheels, each needing one of the six power-units to run it, though it was like harnessing together a team of horses to draw a pin out of the ground. Presently the hexum-powered engines couldn't be spared for this menial task; they were replaced on the trolleys by little electric motors driven by batteries charged by one of the engines. The motors, put together on a trial-and-error basis by Dick and Bentley and their helpers, often burned out at first, but soon they whined happily and smoothly whatever they were called on to do.
There was no rubber for tires; rubber trees wouldn't grow on Mundis. The finality of that made the finding of something else to do the job easier -- it wasn't a substitute for rubber that was sought, it was something to do the various jobs on a world which would never have rubber. Plastic was the answer as far as insulation was concerned, plastic and varnishes; plastic was tried for the tires too, and soon a truck was fitted with big clumsy tires of a dirty yellow color, plastic on a cloth base. They weren't very successful, but other tires replaced them, pneumatic and non-pneumatic, thick and thin, hard and soft. Eventually there were two candidates left in the field, a tough, springy non-pneumatic job which would have been perfect but for the fact that no satisfactory method had been found for ensuring it wouldn't go on fire when the friction was great enough, and a pneumatic tire which needed an air pressure so high it was rather hard. But by this time the problem could be considered solved, as far as it needed to be solved at the moment. There were no tire companies in opposition, trying to make a living.
Meantime the steering on the trucks had become more delicate and springing, ball bearings and nuts and bolts began to appear (earlier all joints had been permanent). As the roads improved, speeds of more than seven miles an hour seemed desirable, and the electric motors came off and went back on, quite prepared to drive the trucks at anything up to twenty miles an hour now.
There was no hold-up, because only the founder colonists had preconceived ideas about what was possible, how, why, and where. Occasionally one af them wasted time trying to do something that couldn't be done yet; the youngsters left cranes and bulldozers and glass lenses and steel girders and oil refining until they came naturally. At first the old people were completely certain that their experience of civilization and technology and engineering and machines was going to be invaluable, and the young people, at last, would really appreciate them and see how much they knew . . .
What happened was the founder would say: "See, it used to be done this way," and the youngsters would watch, at first with interest and then impatiently, as the older man found he didn't have the things he used to have at hand, things weren't available, he had forgotten the trick, the new materials didn't behave as the old ones had. Then the young Mundans would take over and do the thing unscientifically, without finesse or grace or the professional touch -- but they'd /do/ it, ignoring the founder colonist's protests that that wasn't the way. Often it wasn't the way. Things fell down, or apart, and had to be put up or together again. The second time they were generally done better, for no one had time to do jobs three times.
The best work was done by old and young people in collaboration, like Dick and Bentley. The older people would explain in general how the job used to be done, and the young people would either agree that that was a good way to do it, or shake their heads and say they'd try something else. The young Mundans, after all, knew Mundis. They weren't concerned about how things had been done in Chicago or New York or London. It required little or no thought for them to work out what was available to them at any time, while the old people, in thinking of a device which had once worked, were inclined to forget that there was now no gasoline or rubber or asbestos or whatever it was. Even after twenty-odd years on Mundis the founders were inclined to forget that a certain essential ingredient was missing. The youngsters didn't have to think. Without examining a plan in detail they would say: "What are you going to do about the so-and-so?"
And the truth was that nobody could do anything about the so-and-so, just yet. So the thing had to be done another way, if at all.
The old people would have held themselves up again and again trying to do things which couldn't economically be done yet -- the economics being time and trouble. But the youngsters wouldn't have got nearly as far as they did without the experience of the old people.
Three men had more to do with the building of Freedom than anyone else, They were Abner Carlass, Fred Mitchell, and Bob Foley.
Abner had never seen a city except on the pictures in microfilm. But he had always wanted to plan the greatest, most beautiful, gracious, friendly city ever, and he regarded the fact that he had never seen a town as his greatest asset. He knew the theory of town planning, he knew what towns needed and somehow had to have, and he had planned all his life, for fun, over the problems that were now dumped in his lap.
Rog was quite dictatorial over Abner. Hard things were said about Rog; there were frowns and angry whispers and even open threats. But Rog was insistent that Abner in every particular was to have his own way, unhampered by the old people's experience of other cities and the young people's enthusiastic but impractical advice.
And day by day, week by week, people came to accept Abner's ideas and see that Rog had been right.
Fred Mitchell had never been very important in the Mundan community, just a youngster who could build a good house and someone who had better be consulted about every important building that was going to be put up, in case it should fall down again. Fred wasn't impressive when he was giving his advice. He wasn't too good on reasons, but he would say he wouldn't do it that way and he thought maybe this wall had better he stronger but there was no need for such a heavy partition and did this room have to be so long and narrow? If he couldn't get his ideas across any other way, he would do the thing, and that would explain it.
Right from the early days of New Paris when people wanted a house that would look like a house they would talk to Bob Foley. His house in New Paris, still, was not only the best-looking house but the one that would last longest. He would grumble when people came to him, but not so much as when they didn't, and really it was the one pleasure of his life to get a piece of paper and build a house on it, placing cupboards and doors and windows and lavatories in the best, the /only/ place for them to be, and wander around later and see it was being done properly.
The two young men and the old man didn't confine themselves to one branch of building a city, nor did they try to do everything. Not one of them was in a union, so it didn't matter if Bob Foley was caught with a trowel in his hand or if Abner drew a complete plan of a house or Fred put up a house without a plan at all. If they were town planner and architect and builder they were also, all of them, men who liked to know what they were doing and why they were doing it and what they were working with.
They respected each other because they were good at their jobs. You had to respect someone who did something you needed in your job, and did it well, and admitted you did your job well too.
Rog left them pretty much alone. He knew his limitations. Alice wandered around, naturally enough, as Fred's wife, and saw what was going on, and told Rog. That worked better than Rog himself being called on for suggestions and making the wrong ones or not knowing any to make, good or bad. He thought he would know a good city if he saw one. But he had no delusion that he was the man to build it -- he merely believed that he was better than anyone else at finding the people who would do it well.
4
Bentley and Dick were the busiest men in the settlement, naturally. Everybody was using machines, but hardly anyone pretended to understand them. That was coming, gradually. There were three main classes. People like Rog and Alice and Abner and Jimmy Doran would use machines, quite well, aware of their purpose but not of their principle. Others like Fred and Brad and Mary Bentley, of all people, would tinker with them, driven by sheer curiosity and their own mechanical a
ptitude, and would soon handle them with a new confidence born of a knowledge of what made them tick. But only Dick and Bentley, so far, had the gift of creation. A few others showed signs of it, no more. Only they could assess the demands of a job and visualize the machine to do it.
At first they had to make the machines too, after making the tools with which to make them, after wresting the material to make the tools from the earth with raw power, after finding out how to apply the raw power usefully. But soon other workers took over. New skills in the Mundans weren't really developed, merely uncovered. Soon others were not only carrying out the plans which Dick and Bentley laid down, but coming to them with plans of their own almost worked out, needing only a few minutes' thought on the part of one of them to be practical projects.
It was Fred who planned and made the first drill, practically on his own, in the free time he could find from building, twelve hours a day. It could bore into rock and it could clear ground flat and it could dig enormous holes. The day it was in operation Fred started making a derrick.
And for the first time Fred was more important than his wife -- a lot more important. He didn't think of it like that. He was far too modest. But he did expand a little and developed a swagger and expressed an opinion more readily now that it occurred to him for the first time that it was worth while having an opinion.
Alice was pleased too. No woman likes to be always apologizing to herself and to everyone else for her husband. That would obviously never be necessary again. Fred would never have Alice's brains, but Alice would never have Fred's mechanical aptitude, and for at least a few months that counted more.
Alice wasn't idle, of course. Rog was still technically directing operations, and she helped him. But really they were helping and co-ordinating rather than directing anything. She was impressed by the way Rog could postulate and inspire and start a colossal effort and then step aside coolly and look on while others continued with the work. He took all responsibility and shared it out carefully, precisely, brilliantly. Only when it was clear he had made a mistake did he take any responsibility back.
Even the responsibility for co-ordination had been surrendered. That was Mary's. More than Rog, more than her daughter, Mary had the gift of handling people doing jobs and seeing that the jobs came out right and at the right time. So Alice, who had thought she was somebody, was comforted slightly, when she found herself running errands, by the thought that her father, mother, and husband were three of the most important people around, and that Rog Foley, who had planned and started and directed all this, was probably running errands too.
Rog found Bentley in a fairly slack moment. Dick was working on one of the atomic engines which had made all this possible. Bentley was stretching his back as if tired, but Rog saw his eyes dancing with glee. The true scientist likes to see things happening -- likes to have theories tested in the field and feel progress and the growth of knowledge about him.
"Freedom is healthy enough, Jim," said Rog soberly. "But how about the Clades?"
The glee didn't leave Bentley's eyes, though his face sobered a little. "I appreciate that you haven't kept asking that, Rog," he said, "and left me in peace until I had an answer. I've got one. Let us have three more weeks and the Clades won't he any stronger than we are."
Rog's eyes searched his face. "How is that?" he asked. "They have their ship and all its equipment, and we destroyed most of ours. It will take years before some of it can be replaced -- you told me that yourself. Even now . . . "
"Attack," said Bentley, "is just directed power. True, we should he able to direct it better if we had some of the weapons the Clades presumably has, and which we once had; if we had the lenses we won't he able to grind for years yet, the metals we can't refine so far, the precision manufacture that only comes in closer and closer approach to perfection over decades of technology.
"But basically, a weapon is still just directed power. And if we can't direct it so well we just have to throw in more power. We'll he able to do that."
"Why? Surely the Clades has as much power as we have? And isn't it practically unlimited?"
"You're no scientist, Rog," said Bentley, "but you have imagination. Remember this, for a start -- the power of the atom is always finite. Granted, it's enormous; granted, it's so far beyond our comprehension that we call it unlimited, not unreasonably. But there's a very real, very essential difference between what is infinite and what is merely fantastically large.
"Infinity plus one equals infinity. But your fantastically large number plus one is a different number altogether. It's bigger."
Rog saw Bentley's point. "You mean," he said, "that we and the Clades start off more or less equal, and we only have to add a little they haven't got to be stronger?"
"Exactly. Theoretically, other things being equal, fifty express rifles will lose to fifty express rifles plus a bow and arrow. Now, we can obviously build up more power. You don't want too much on a ship -- you shunt away what you have no use for. On land, in our own base, we can have twice the reserve of the Clades -- enough to balance all her advantages and tip the scales the other way. We should be ready in three weeks, I'd say."
He paused and let his eyes wander over Rog's face. "Scientists never used to take responsibility for the things they created, Rog," he said soberly. "They just discovered things and handed them out free, more or less. Then, out here, we tried to change that. I tried to hide something I knew. But for the Clades I'd have kept it hidden. Now -- we'll never know whether what I was trying to do was right or wrong, whether it would have worked or wouldn't have worked.
"We're back to normal -- scientists handing things out free. I can give you the power that might destroy the Clades, used a certain way, and depending on what they do, but it's you who'll have to decide what to do with it."
Rog nodded.
"I suppose we always hope against all reason," Bentley reflected. "Anyway, I do hope that this time the old problem will be handled right. However 'right' is."
"So," said Rog, "do I."
XI
1
Hardly any light reached Outpost from Brinsen's Star -- much, much less than Sol had given Pluto. To scrutinize the dead world's surface Corey had to use his searchlights.
He searched the barren, frozen rock for two weeks. Then he had Pertwee and Toni brought before him. Mathers, Sloan, and Phyllis were there. The world below gave them weight -- not much, but enough.
"I believe you have lied again," he said grimly.
"How can you know?" Pertwee asked. "You have not examined a twentieth of the surface of this world yet."
"No. It would take a year, and even then one could not be sure they were not here. I believe this is another trick. Lieutenant Mathers!"
"Yes, sir."
"Draw your sword."
Pertwee glanced swiftly at Mathers. He hadn't noticed he was in full ceremonial uniform. He should have done, he told himself. It would have given him time to guess that something was going to happen and to work out what to do about it.
Mathers drew it out. It wasn't a very fine sword, for the Clades weren't good steelworkers as yet -- and, of course, there had been no swords on the ship when it left Earth. Spaceships had no room for such ceremonial luxuries. But it had a very sharp point; Worsley had discovered that.
"Place the tip directly above Toni's heart."
"This isn't very sensible," said Pertwee evenly. "I warn you, if anything happens to Toni and you only have me to question, I shall die before I tell you anything. I'll know, you see, that I'm your only source of information, and if I -- "
"The only useful information we ever got out of either of you," said Corey wearily, "was that there were other Mundans, It seems to me we'll lose little. Lieutenant, do as I say."
Without hesitation Mathers raised his sword arm so that it and the weapon made a straight line to Toni's left breast. Toni backed against the wall, involuntarily. Mathers closed the gap. He was proud of his skill with the sword. It was obvi
ous that he was enjoying this. He had possessed Toni; he didn't mind in the least hurting or killing her now.
"Lean on the sword gradually," said Corey, "so that in two minutes she will be dead. Now, Pertwee?"
The sword touched the cloth over Toni's breast. Mather's hand and arm were steady; Toni watched, fascinated. The point indented the cloth, then cut it. Toni winced.
"What do you want now?" asked Pertwee.
"The truth. You have lied often. We have wasted days, weeks, months because of you and this woman. We are wasting no more. /Where are the Mundans?/ Don't stop, Lieutenant."
There was suddenly a little red mark under the point of the sword. Toni tried to draw her breast in further, but couldn't.
"Very well," said Pertwee. He had to tell his story so that the Clades would go to Outpost, and it had had to be that the Mundans were there waiting for them, expecting them, wanting them to come. Only that way was it credible.
But now that story was out of date. Obviously no one was on Outpost, waiting for them, expecting them. Pertwee couldn't make them believe that the Mundans were there, but hiding. It was too late to tell the story that way. And if he let Toni die, Corey would still order the ship back to Mundis. They had delayed it all they could.
"We needed time," he said. "Our ship was buried, as I told you -- buried deep."
He waited. Corey nodded to Mathers, and he dropped his sword reluctantly. Pertwee went on: "We blew out a vast hole in the ground, and lowered the ship to the bottom. When we filled it in again the grass grew over it so that even someone who knew there was a ship there would have a lot of hard digging before he reached the top of it."
He allowed triumph to come into his voice. "While you were on Mundis we couldn't even start. It would have been a long job, and if you were high up you could see excavations like that for hundreds of miles. So we had to get you clear of Mundis."
"Whatever else happens," Corey promised in the cold fury so typical of the Clades, "your part in this affair will be justly assessed and rewarded when it's over. I shouldn't have listened to anything from you that wasn't screamed in agony. I should have -- "
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