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And when people, soon after spaceflight, began to ask each other, "How shall
we colonize the planets?," the Greater
Earth Port Authority had its answer ready.
Item:
terrafonning.
Terraformingremaking the planets into near-images of the Earth, so that
Earth-normal people could live on them.
Port Earth was prepared to start small. Port Earth wanted to move Mars out of
its orbit to a point somewhat closer to the sun, and make the minor
adjustments needed in the orbits of the other planets; to transport to Mars
about enough water to empty the Indian Oceanonly a pittance to Earth, after
all, and not 10 per cent of what would be needed later to terra-
form Venus; to carry to the little planet top-soil about equal in area to the
state of Iowa, in order to get started at growing plants which would slowly
change the atmosphere
of Mars; and so on. The whole thing, Port Earth pointed out reasonably, was
perfectly feasible from the point of view of the available supplies and energy
resources, and it would cost less than thirty-three billion dollars. The
Greater Earth Port
Authority was prepared to recover that sum at no cost in taxes in less thap a
century, through such items as $50 rocket-
mail stamps, $10,000 Mars landing fees, $1,000 one-way strap-down tickets,
100-per-desert-acre land titles, and so on.
Of course the fees would continue after the cost was re-
coveredfor maintenance.
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And what, after all, the Authority asked reasonably, was the alternative?
Nothing but domes. The Greater Earth Port Au-
thority hated domes. They cost too little to begin with, and the volume of
traffic to and from them would always be miniscule.
Experience on the Moon had made that painfully clear. And the public hated
domes, too; it had already shown a mass re-
luctance to live under them.
As for the governments, other than that of the United
States, that the Authority still tolerated, none of them had any love for
domes, or for the kind of limited colonization that the domes stood for. They
needed to get rid of their pul-
lulating masses by the bucket-full, not by the eye-dropper-fuU.
If the Authority knew that emigration increases the home population rather
than cuts it, the Authority carefully re-
framed from saying so to the governments involved; they could redisoover
Franklin's Law for themselves. Domes were out; terraforming was in.
Then came pantropy.
If this third alternative to the problem of colonizing the planets had come as
a surprise to the Authority, and to Port
Earth, they had nobody to blame for it but themselves.
There had been plenty of harbingers. The notion of modi-
fying the human stock genetically to live on the planets as they were found,
rather than changing the planets to accom-
modate the people, had been old with Olaf Stapledon; it had been touched upon
by many later writers; it went back, in es-
sence, as far as Proteus,-and as deep into the human mind as the werewolf, the
vampire, the fairy changeling, the trans-
migrated soul.
But suddenly it was possible; and, not very long afterwards, it was a fact.
The Authority hated it. Pantropy involved a high initial in-
vestment to produce the first colonists, but it was a method
which with refinement would become cheaper arid cheaper.
Once the colonists were planted, it required no investment at all; the
colonists were comfortable on their adopted world, and could produce new
colonists without outside help. Pan-
tropy, furthermore, was at its most expensive less than half -as costly as the
setting-up of the smallest and least difficult dome.
Compared to the cost of terraforming even so favorable a planet as Mars, it
cost nothing at all, from the Authority's point of view.
And there was no way to collect tolls against even the ini-
tial expense. It was too cheap to bother with.
WILL YOUR CHILD BE A MONSTER?
If a number of influential scientists have their way, some child or grandchild
of yours may eke out his life in the frozen wastes of Pluto, where even the
sun is only a spark in the skyand will be unable to return to Earth until
after he dies, if then!
Yes, even now there are plans afoot to change inno-
cent unborn children into alien creatures who would die terribly the moment
that they set foot upon the green planet of their ancestors. Impatient with
the slow but steady pace of man's conquest of Mars, prominent ivory-.
tower thinkers are working out ways to produce all kinds of travesties upon
the human formtfavesties which will be able to survive, somehow, in the
bitterest and most untamed of planetary infernos.
The process which may produce these pitiful freaks at enormous expenseis
called "pantropy." It is al-
ready in imperfect and dangerous existence. Chief among its prophets is
white-haired, dreamy-eyed Dr. Jacob
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Rullman, who. . .
"Stop,"
Sweeney said.
He put his fingertips to his temples, and then, trembling, took them away
again and looked at Rullman. The scientist put down the old magazine clipping,
which even in its telfon sheath was as yellow as paelta after its half-life in
Gany-
mede's air. Rullman's own hands were quite steady; and what there was left of
his hair was as reddish-brown as ever.
"Those lies II'm sorry. But they work, I know they work.
That's what they filled me up with. It's different when you realize how
vicious they are."
"I know," Rullman said, gently. "It's easy to do. Bringing up an Adapted child
is a special process, the child is always
isolated and anxious to imitate, you may tell it anything you wish; it has no
choice but to believe, it's desperate for closer contact, for acceptance, for
the embraces 'it can never have.
It's the ultimate in bottle-babies: the breast that might have fed it may be
just on the other side of the glass, but it also lies generations in the past.
Even the voice of 'the mother comes along a wireif it comes along at all. I
know, Donald, believe me. It happened to me, too. And it's very hard."
"Jacob Rullman was"
"My remote, immediate father. My mother died early. They often do, of the
deprivation, I believe; like yours. But my father taught me the truth, there
in the Moon caves, before he was killed."
Sweeney took a deep breath. "I'm learning all that now.
Go on."
"Are you sure, Donald?"
"Go on. I need to know, arid it's not too late. Please."
"Well," Rullman said reflectively, "the Authority got laws passed against
pantropy, but for a while the laws didn't have many teeth; Congress was leary
of forbidding vivisection at the same time, and didn't know exactly what it
was being asked to forbid; Port didn't want to be too explicit. My father was
detennined to see pantropy tried while the laws still pro vided some
loopholeshe knew well enough that they'd be stiffened as soon as Port thought
it safe to stiffen them. And he was convinced that we'd never colonize the
stars by dome-
building or terraforming. Those might work on some of our local planetsMars,
Venusbut not outside."
"Outside? How would anybody get there?"
"With the interstellar drive, Donald. It's been in existence for decades, in
fact for nearly half a century. Several explor-
atory voyages were made with it right after it was discovered, all of them
highly successfulthough you'll find no mention of them in the press of the
time. Port couldn't see any profit emerging out of interstellar flight and
suppressed the news, sequestered the patents, destroyed the records of the
trips insofar as it could. But all the Port ships have the overdrive, just in
case. Even our ship has it. So does your ferry-pilot friend up there."
Sweeney shut up.
"The thing is this: most planets, even right here inside the solar system,
won't sustain domes to begin with, and can't be terraformed in any even [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]