George O. Smith

“ The living room reflected wealth, position, good taste. In size it was a full ten feet by fourteen, with nearly an eight-foot ceiling. Light was furnished by glow panels precisely balanced in color to produce light's most flattering tint for the woman who sat in a delicate chair of authentic, golden-veined blackwood.
The chair itself must have cost a fortune to ship from Tau Ceti Five. It was an ostentation in the eyes of the visitor, who viewed it as evidence of a self-indulgent attitude that would certainly make his job more difficult. ”

“ Gloria Hanford abruptly stepped off the Tramway at Fifty-third, walked briskly three long blocks to LaGuardia's Sixth, found herself facing a group of burly policemen, and stopped long enough to think. One of the cops shoved a galton whistle between his teeth and blew a supersonic blast that registered on every cop's detector within a quarter mile. Audibly a siren wailed. Inaudibly and invisibly the drawstring web of civic forces began to close in. ”

“ Abruptly, Scholar Ross said, "Miss Hanford, how are you and Bertram getting along?"
"As well as could be expected."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning that each of us lives our own life. Berty likes his sedentary, torpid existence. In fact, he'd like to be more of a vegetable than he is. It started with his taking my pills and that was all right, I guess. But when he started sleeping in my bedroom so that he could estivate under the tranquilizing music program you prescribed for me, that was too much!" ”

“ There was the full round robin of introductions and small talk: "You had no trouble?" "No, the intercity beacon was running clear—" "Lovely apartment, Mrs. Harrison." "Mrs. Hanford, here in Philadelphia we feel that we're almost in the suburbs." "Got a treat for you, Hanford—been saving a bottle of natural bourbon!" "That'll be a treat, all right!" "This is a real event. Scholar Ross." "You know, Mrs. Hanford, the vidphone hardly does you justice!" "Why, thank you!"
"Miss Hanford, may I present Bertram Harrison?" "How do you do?" "I do as I please. What's your excuse?" "Huh?" "Now, Gloria!" ”

“ But the running gear in this droneship was designed to the analysis produced by Junior Spaceman Howard Reed, and it worked. Furthermore, he had only the scornful word of Commander Briggs of the Bureau of Research that his arguments had been parallel to those of the hapless Hansen.
It would hardly be the first time in the history of the human race that some bureaucrat got fat on the work of his underlings who not only received no credit for their work, but were often hushed, hidden, or otherwise prevented from proving their right to the fame and fortune. ”

“ She shook her head. "No, and I don't really enjoy the whole program you've laid out for me."
"I'd hardly expect anybody to approve of a program that is calculated to change their entire personality and character," said Scholar Ross. "But a bit of common logic will convince you that it is the better thing. Miss Hanford, you've simply got to conform."
"Why?" she demanded.
"We live in a free world, Miss Hanford, but it is a freedom diluted by our responsibility to our fellow-man. The density of population here on Earth is too high to permit rowdy behavior. ”

“ Harrison cleared his throat. "I'm not sure that I approve of Bertram marrying a headstrong girl, Scholar Ross."
Mrs. Harrison said, "William, you know it's best."
"For Bertram?"
"Now here," said Scholar Ross, "we must cease considering the welfare of the individual alone and start thinking of him as a part of an integrated society. No man is an island, Mr. Harrison. In a less advanced culture, Bertram would have been permitted to meet contemporary personalities. Perhaps might have met someone who—as he does—lacks drive and initiative, and the result would have been a family of dull children. ”

“ Ships have gone out and off and away and have never been heard of again. It is possible that one or more of these have succeeded in locating an Earth-like planet beyond the point of no return, but the Earthmen at home will never know about it until the range is extended. The possibility of such a planet favoring human life and ultimately harboring a culture of technical competence enough to create and maintain the power restoring equipment is extremely remote.
For spacecraft that carry women are few and far between.
And it takes more than one man's lifetime to make use of the know-how. ”

“ Reed, can you give me an estimate of the useful land area of Eden, Tau Ceti?"
"Sir, the total land area is about fifty million square miles. Perhaps about half of that is useful, or could be."
"Ah. You said 'could be'. Why, Mr. Reed?"
"Let's put it this way, sir. Whether a given acreage is useful often depends upon how badly it is needed. For instance, a plot of wooded land might well be ignored for centuries by a sparsely populated agrarian culture who had a lot of open plain to cultivate. ”

“ Well, scholar, I can tell you that my idea of happiness is not a husband who comes into my bedroom walking like a somnambulist just barely able to cross the room before collapsing like a loosely-packed sandbag. ”

“ Once the cities of Eden, Tau Ceti, offer the culture opportunity of the cities of Earth, then we'll have migration on a social level instead of the malcontents, rugged individualists, and petty lawbreakers who've been given the alternative of migration instead of incarceration. ”

“ Patience, sir? Look, sir, I took this sedentary duty until I'd had it up to here, and then I began to pry into the question of why we have a Space Force, complete with spacecraft, and still do so little space traveling. I found out. We're limited to a maximum range of seventeen light-years to the point of no return. Even a trip to Eden, Tau Ceti, our nearest colony, is eleven-point-eight light-years, and that takes prodigious power. ”

“ Finally Scholar Ross said, "Miss Hanford, we cannot force you to do anything, but we can make your life extremely uncomfortable if you do not comply with what we believe to be best for society. You will find—if you care to look it up—that there is a drastic shortage of eligible young women on the planet Eden, Tau Ceti." ”

“ It was a matter of finding the unclaimed acreage first."
The commander leaned forward to press his point. "Then came the industrial revolution and the age of automation. Industrial slavery ended in a clank of gears. Your little man no longer starved to death nor toiled twelve hours a day. The finest automobile that the wealthy man could buy was only three or four times as expensive as the car driven by the average workman. Therefore the idea of staking out arable land as a means to wealth became less and less desirable. Automation hit the farm. ”

“ The strong-willed personality makes its own way. The weak one follows."
"I see," sneered Gloria. "It's all my fault!"
"Of course it is," snapped Scholar Ross. "Were you willing to correct yourself, you'd also have been willing to correct Bertram since yours is the stronger personality."
"So what's the next move? Do I get to try another dolt?"
"Hardly. You'd do the same with any of them."
"So what is it? Am I going to be exported to Eden, Tau Ceti as an incorrigible?"
Scholar Ross was silent.
Mr. Hanford said, "Certainly there must be another way?"
Mrs. Hanford said, "Must I lose my daughter?" ”

“ It is not surprising that, with such a human heritage, an occasional wild one is born today."
The scholar took another surreptitious (he hoped) glance at the bare ankle and said, "No, you are not directly to blame. We know you wouldn't spawn a troublemaker willfully and maliciously. It's just an unfortunate accident. You must not despair over the past—but you must spend your efforts to calm the troubled future."
"What should we do, Scholar Ross?" asked Paul Hanford. ”

“ Scholar Ross smiled quietly. "We wait. We get acquainted, because there is a very high probability that you two families will be united through the marriage of your children. Then I shall enter a new file in the Genetics Bureau of the Department of Domestic Tranquility. We shall watch through the years as your grandchildren grow, and make periodic checks, and thereby advance mankind's knowledge of genetics."
"Doesn't this sort of master-minding ever give you a God complex?" asked Mr. Hanford. ”

“ Gloria snapped.
"Yes," pleaded Mrs. Hanford. "What is the alternative?"
"Eden, Tau Ceti. I'll arrange transportation under the migration act, and she'll be permitted two hundred pounds of gross." Scholar Ross smiled thinly. "You can diet a few pounds off and thus increase the net weight of your allowable possessions," he said. "But, on the other hand, if you diet down to rail-skinny no one will take a chance on you." ”

“ I now ask you to estimate how many men and their families sacrificed everything they had, packed a few treasured possessions into a Conestoga wagon and headed for the West."
"I have no way of knowing, sir."
"No, of course not. Let me tell you what happened. In that glorious phase of Early North America, men, women, and even their children toiled from sunrise to sunset to scratch out their living. From the dawn of history, luxury and leisure belonged to the landed baron. Since wealth went with acreage, any man who could stake out a claim to acreage could also claim wealth. ”

“ In trying to solve Hansen's Folly I engaged in some physical experiment and measurement because I couldn't find any flaw in the mathematical argument on the abstract scale. As you know, sir, one of the ways to find out why something won't work is to try it. It isn't often the easiest or the simplest, but it is often the only way. ”

“ Laws are not passed simply to curtail a man's freedom. They are passed to protect the innocent bystander—who is minding his own business—from the unruly, headstrong character who doesn't see anything wrong in disposing of empty beer bottles by dropping them out of his apartment window, and justifying his behavior by pointing out that it is a hundred-yard walk down the corridor to the trash chute. ”

“ It gravely concerns Society. Now, insofar as the Department of Domestic Tranquility is concerned, it is the excitable, headstrong, unruly, willful personality that is dangerous to social stability. The calm and placid ones do not commit acts of violence. Indeed, Mrs. Hanford, were it not for the quiet, phlegmatic personality like Bertram Harrison, we in genetics would have a hard time finding a useful niche for belligerents such as your daughter Gloria. ”

“ Of all the celestial real estate that orbits around old Sol, only the Earth will support life—at least as we know it. Survival elsewhere depends upon taking enough of Earth environment along to last of the trip. From the scientific standpoint, the first exploration of space was a brilliant operation, but before finding a place to accept the teeming millions of Earth's exploding population, the patient nearly died. ”

“ Nobody makes a dime until fifty thousand of its brothers are sold. The population to buy fifty thousand did not exist.
In simple fact, Eden, Tau Ceti, was far from a flourishing colony. It was a classic example of the simple economic truth that a fully integrated mechanistic society can not be supported by a sparsely populated region.
Ambition has many origins. The urge to return home became a drive. The result was Junior Spaceman Howard Reed's complete preoccupation with the mathematics known as Hansen's Folly. ”

“ Then, as a final clincher, they installed three men in Gloria Hanford's airscooter itself.
By virtue of the unexpected movement one can elude the cops for a time. Gloria, on the street before her apartment building, almost went into despair when she saw that there was no skycab within hailing distance. ”

“ And if simple radio broadcasting could not be supported, there was not yet room for even the old flat-faced television, much less trivideo.
Theirs was a culture in a mixed state. They had the know-how for a highly technical, closely-integrated urban civilization, but lacked the hardware necessary to construct it. They were an aircar people, but they used horses. Horses can be raised. Aircars have to be fabricated. It would not have been prohibitive to trans-ship the basic tools and dies for aircar assembly from Earth, Sol, to Eden, Tau Ceti. ”

“ The young man is a mental weathervane."
"So where do we stand?"
"As I say, we might as well prepare for the worst. If the case of Gloria Hanford ever comes under the scrutiny of the Law, she will be declared either a delinquent or an incorrigible, depending upon whether her escapades are ruled misdemeanors or felonies." Scholar Ross turned to Gloria Hanford. "I warned you. Now, where we of the Department of Domestic Tranquility have no power to force you into a proper course of action, you'll find that the Law most certainly has. ”