The Crack In Space (13 page)

‘Aw for god’s sake,’ Pethel protested. ‘How are you going to live over there?’

‘How did Cally Vale live?’

‘Sands transported one of these old obsolete A-bomb shelters over. Subsurface. Filled with supplies. She lived down in that.’

Hadley said, ‘Is the shelter still over there?’

‘Of course. What would be the point of transporting it back?’

‘We’ll live in that, then. Until we can build.’

‘What happens when the food in the shelter runs out? Assuming it hasn’t already.’

Seating himself on the edge of Dar Pethel’s desk, Hadley said, ‘I called around. You can pick up one of those colonization units dirt cheap these days; the manufacturers are going broke because virtually nobody is emigrating. They’re glad to get rid of one at any price, and the unit contains autonomic farming equipment, well-drilling rig, basic tools for . . .’

‘Okay,’ Pethel said, nodding. ‘I know what those colonization units contain; I admit one of them can sustain you indefinitely. So you got that part figured out—not bad.’

With fat, sleek pride Hadley said, ‘I’ve even arranged for the unit to be delivered at TD’s offices in Washington later today.’ He had thought of everything. ‘Let’s be realistic, Dar; a lot of people are going to be emigrating, and I want to get there first. I want things to be good for me and Sparky. So will you write out whatever it’ll take to get her and me into TD and into that ‘scuttler? I ought to have some priority; I was down in the repair department with Erickson when it happened, remember?’ He waited. Pethel said nothing. ‘Come on,’ Hadley said. ‘The forces of time and change are running against you, Dar. And you know it, deep down inside.’

‘Yes, but they always have,’ Pethel murmured. He got a sheet of paper, brought out his pen. ‘Are you really in—how did you describe it? —
love
with her?’

Hadley said, ‘On my mother’s honor.’

Wincing, Pethel began to write.

‘I’ll never forget you for this,’ Hadley said. ‘And I hate like hell to leave you stranded with no sales manager  . . . but it can’t be helped; she’s depending on me.’ He explained, ‘George Walt, you know, those two mutants who own the satellite, they closed everything down.’

Pethel ceased writing, lifted his head. ‘No kidding.’ He scowled. ‘I wonder what that means. I wonder what they have in mind.’

‘Who cares what they have in mind?’ Hadley said fervently. ‘I’m getting out of here.’

‘But I’m not,’ Pethel pointed out. He slowly resumed writing, deep in frowning thought.

When Leon Turpin, chairman of the board of directors of Terran Development, heard the news about the Pekes he was fit to be tied. How can we get any new industrial techniques out of that? he asked himself. Dawn men don’t have anything on the ball, technologically speaking.

‘Flint axes,’ Turpin spat out disappointedly. ‘So that’s what’s over there; that’s what hopped out of that childish glider. And we’ve expended a QB satellite, seven million dollars.’ Of course there were still mineral rights. The Pekes, according to Don Stanley’s report, definitely did not mine; therefore, everything below the soil remained intact.

But that was not enough. Turpin yearned for more. There had to be more. His mind reverted to the fallen satellite. They did manage to knock that out, he realized, and we’re still having trouble doing that.

Across from him Don Stanley shifted about restlessly in his chair. ‘If you’d like to see the Peking man we brought back, this Bill Smith, as the linguistics machine calls him-’

‘If I want to see a Peking man,’ Turpin said, ‘I’ll look in the Britannica. That’s where they belong, Stanley, not walking around on the face of the globe as if they owned it. But I guess it can’t be helped, not at this late date.’ From his desk he picked up a letter. ‘Here’s a young couple, Art and Rachael Chaffy, that want to emigrate over there. The first of a horde. Why not? Call them up and tell them to come by, and we’ll let them go across.’ He tossed the letter toward Don Stanley.

‘Should I explain to them the risks?’

Turpin shrugged. ‘I don’t see why you should; that’s not our business. Let them find out the hard way. Colonists are supposed to be hardy and brave. At least they used to be, in my time. Back in the twentieth century, when we first started landing on the planets. This certainly is no worse than that; in fact it’s considerably better.’

‘You’ve got a point, Mr Turpin.’ Stanley folded the letter and placed it in his breast pocket.

The intercom on Turpin’s desk said, ‘Mr T, there’s an official from the U.S. Department of Special Public Welfare here to see you. It’s Mr Thomas Rosenfeld, commissioner of the department.’

Cabinet level, Turpin said to himself. A big man. Capable of setting policy. He said to the intercom, ‘Send Mr Rosenfeld in.’ To Stanley he said, ‘You know what this is going to be?’

‘Bibs,’ Stanley said.

‘I can’t make up my mind whether to tell him or not,’ Turpin said. The news about the Pekes would very soon, of course, begin to seep out; it was a temporary secret only. But still, that was better than nothing. The party had just returned from the other side, and the media people who had been along could not possibly have released the news through their services so soon. Rosenfeld, then, did not know; he could assume that. And could deal with the man accordingly.

A tall, red-haired man, well-dressed, entered Turpin’s office, smiling. ‘Mr Turpin? What a pleasure. President Schwarz asked me to drop by here for a little while and sort of chat with you. Sound you out, as it were. Is that an original Ramon Cadiz you have there on the wall behind you?’ Rosenfeld walked over to inspect it. ‘White on white. His best period.

‘I’d give the painting to you,’ Turpin said, ‘but it was a gift to me. I know you’ll understand.’ He lied in his teeth, but why not? Why, for purposes of mere etiquette, should he give away a costly work of art? It made no sense.

Rosenfeld said, ‘How’s your defective ‘scuttler functioning? Still as defective as ever? We’re very interested in it. We were, even before Jim Briskin’s speech  . . . President Schawz was exceptionally quick—even for him—to spot the potentialities in this. I don’t believe anyone else is able to reach a major decision as efficiently as he.’

This was odd, in view of the fact that no way existed by which Schwarz could have known about the break-through prior to Briskin’s speech, Turpin realized. However, he let this pass. Politics was politics.

Don Stanley spoke up. ‘How many sleepers do you have in the fedgov warehouses, Mr Rosenfeld?’

‘Well,’ Rosenfeld said drily, ‘the figure generally given is close to seventy million. But actually the true number at this date is more like one hundred million.’ He smiled a wry, humorless smile that was more a grimace than anything else.

Whistling, Stanley said, ‘That’s a lot.’

‘Yes,’ Rosenfeld agreed. ‘We admit it. Domestically speaking, it’s the number one headache here in Washington. Of course as you very well know, this administration inherited it from the last.’

‘You want us to put your hundred million bibs through into this alternate Earth?’ Turpin spoke up, weary of formalities.

‘If the situation is such that  . . .’

‘We can do it,’ Turpin said shortly. ‘But you understand our role in this is simply a technologic one. We provide the means of conveyance to this other Earth, but we make no warranty as to the conditions that obtain over there. We’re not anthropologists or sociologists or whoever it is that knows about such things.’

Rosenfeld nodded. ‘That’s understood. We’re not going to try to compel you to produce any given set of conditions, over there. Your job, as you say, is merely to get the persons across, and the rest is up to them. The government takes the identical position regarding itself; we put forth no warranty, either. This will be strictly on an as-is basis. If the settlers don’t like what they find, they can return.’

To himself Turpin thought acutely: So Schwarz doesn’t actually care what happens to them after they emigrate. He just wants those warehouses empty and the enormous finanacial drain involved abolished.

‘As to our costs  . . .’ Turpin began.

‘We’ve worked out a proposed schedule,’ Rosenfeld said, digging into his briefcase. ‘Per capita and then extrapolated. Basing this on the figure of one hundred million persons, this is what we feel would be an equitable return for your corporation.’ He slid a folded document to Leon Turpin and sat back to wait.

Turpin, examining the figure, blanched.

Coming around behind him, Don Stanley also looked. He grunted and said in a strained voice, ‘That’s a good deal of money, Mr Rosenfeld.’

‘It’s a good deal of a problem.’ Rosenfeld said, candidly.

Glancing up, Turpin said, ‘It’s actually worth that much to you?’

‘Our costs in the Dept of SPW are  . . .’ Rosenfeld gestured. ‘Let’s simply say they’re excessive.’

But that doesn’t explain this figure, Turpin decided. However, I know what does. If you can get the ball rolling right away, get the bibs started on their trek to the alter-Earth, you’ll have deprived Jim Briskin of his major appeal. Why vote for Briskin when the incumbent is already shipping the bibs across as rapidly as possible?

As rapidly as possible. Turpin thought suddenly: But just how rapidly is that? To Don Stanley he said, ‘How fast can full-grown human beings be put through that rent?’

‘It would have to be one at a time,’ Stanley said, after a thoughtful pause. ‘Since it’s not very large. In fact, as you probably recall, you have to stoop down to get through.’

With pencil and paper Turpin began to calculate.

Allowing five seconds for each person—which was not a great deal—the time involved in conveying one hundred million bibs across would be approximately twenty years.

Seeing the figures, Don Stanley said, ‘But they don’t care; they’re asleep. For them twenty years is  . . .’

‘But I imagine Mr Rosenfeld cares,’ Turpin said caustically.

‘Is that how long it would require?’ Rosenfeld looked a little unnerved. ‘That is a long time.’

Turpin reflected that Bill Schwarz, by the time the job had been completed, would have been out of office sixteen years. Probably totally forgotten, to boot. So there was no use trying to sell the fedgov on the idea. The time element would simply have to be cut down.

To Don Stanley, Turpin said, ‘Can that rent be enlarged?’

Pondering, Stanley answered, ‘Probably. Increased grid voltage or oscillation within the field as it  . . .’

‘I don’t want to know how,’ Turpin said. ‘I just want to see it done.’ If two persons could pass through simultaneously, the time would be cut to ten years. And four at once, only five years. That might satisfy the politicians in the White House.

‘Five years would be acceptable,’ Rosenfeld said, when he had looked over Turpin’s figures.

‘We’ll finalize on that basis, then,’ Don Stanley said. But he had a worried expression on his face, and Turpin knew why. Don was thinking, Can it be done? Can we enlarge the rent that much?

Rising, Rosenfeld said, ‘Good enough. Legal people from my department will draw up the contract in the next day or so, and procurement will go through the process of validating it. Red tape—we can’t seem to get away from it. But this will give you time to implement your engineering changes.’

‘It was nice meeting you, Mr Rosenfeld,’ Turpin said, as they shook hands. ‘I presume we’ll see you again from time to time as this matter is expedited.’

‘I find it highly rewarding, working with you, sir,’ Rosenfeld said. ‘And I admire your taste in art; that’s only the second Ramon Cadiz I’ve seen this year. Good day, Mr Turpin. Mr Stanley.’

The door closed after Rosenfeld.

Presently Don Stanley said, ‘They like being in office.’

‘Everybody likes being in office,’ Turpin said. ‘We call that human nature.’ He wondered what the government would do when the news about the Pekes appeared in every homeopape in the country. Rescind the contract? Abandon the whole idea?

He doubted it. Either Schwarz did this or he lost in November; it was as simple as that Pekes or no Pekes. Of course, the president would send a few Marine commando units to accompany the bibs, to make certain that all was in order. Alter-Earth might require an interval of pacifying, to say the least. But it could be done. Turpin had no doubt of it.

And anyhow that was not TD’s problem—TD had its technological hands full already. Enlarging the rent in the ‘scuttler might very well prove to be impossible, at least within the time available to TD’s technicians.

But I want this contract, Leon Turpin said to himself. I want it very badly, enough to do everything I can to acquire it. Perhaps the solution is to fabricate another Jiffi-scuttler, identical to the one downstairs, hopefully malfunctioning in the same way. Or two or five or even ten of them, with bibs passing in single file through each, in unending lines.

What about equipment? Turpin asked himself suddenly. Rosenfeld had not expressed himself in that area. Was the government going to turn these people loose in an alien world with no hardware? Without proper machinery the colony on the other side would be nothing more than a huge DP camp. To function at all, the colony had to be self-sustaining; that was obvious to anyone who took the trouble to think about it ten minutes. And it would take time, a good deal of time, to ferry across sufficient gear for one hundred million people; the logistics of it would be incredible. It would be something like thirty-three times the problem of supply on D-day, back in World War Two. The government was out of its mind. The policy planners were so enmeshed in the political significance of the alter-Earth that they had lost sight of factual reality.

It could easily become the grandest confusion in recorded times.

But I refuse to worry about that, Leon Turpin reminded himself. It’s not my responsibility; mine’s discharged in the drayage. If things get too far out of hand too soon, Schwarz will be bounced right out of office and the burden will fall on Jim Briskin or whatever his name is. And that’s just where it ought to be, because it was his speech that got this all started.

‘Get everyone downstairs assembled in one spot where they can hear you,’ Turpin instructed Don Stanley.