First Cycle Part 5

There were certain brain-cells, too, which had to be excised when they began disagreeing among themselves. Yav-Lorov was one of these; he was put on trial for contra- organicism, convicted without dissent, and brained with an iron mace. Execution by shooting was a useless expenditure of ammunition, and therefore a criminal waste of the resources of the State. His crime appears to have been disagreement with the Citizen First Controller about agrarian policy, again a matter of conservation of the resources of the State.

The resources of the State were the first concern of all; they had to be husbanded and multiplied. Every one of the humanoid resources-the body-cells, in the Citizen- Originator's metaphor-must perform precisely as much work as possible; they must be asked for no more, and they must deliver not one tap less. They must eat and wear and use what was barely necessary for the work they must do. They must reproduce themselves with the same machine-like efficiency with which they produced food and clothing and tools and weapons. After all, their children would be, in a very real sense, the tools and weapons of the State.

They were s.h.i.+fted from job to job, from place to place, from mate to mate, at the dictates of the First Controller and the Board of Deputy Control and the Board of Planning. They owned nothing, not even themselves. It must be said that Zov-Zolkov and his Deputy-Controllers drove themselves as hard as they drove the "body-cells," but that merely made the enslavement of Gir-Zashon complete.

In the earlier phases of the Organic State, technological advancement had top priority.

Dov-Soglov, when his thinking had not been distorted by too-rigid adherence to anatomical a.n.a.logies, had been a keen student of political history. He had realized that from the days of the First Sea Empire on Gvarda, the limiting factor upon the growth and survival of every state had been its level of technology, and he had postulated that the state can only grow numerically and geographically to the extent that it has the tools for supplying its subjects, communicating with the edges of its domain, and waging successful war upon its enemies. With this dictum Zov-Zolkov agreed wholeheartedly, not only because it would have been unthinkable for him not to do so, but because, if Dov-Soglov had not said so, he would have thought of it himself.

He established research and development centers; he selected the most intelligent "body-cells" and trained them to be "brain-cells"; he collected books on every scientific subject from all around the Central Sea; he imported scientists and technicians fromevery country on the globe and devised methods to encourage them to work for the State.

Steam-turbine engines were improved, and gas-turbine engines designed. Electricity, long a cla.s.sroom demonstration-toy in other lands, was studied and applied to industry and communication; electric lighting and power and the telephone were developed, and eventually the principles of radio were discovered.

Rav-Razkov was Zov-Zolkov's designated successor; after fifteen years as Second- Controller, he began to observe that the Citizen First Controller was growing absent- minded. If the director of the State Brain was beginning to fail, it was Rav-Razkov's clear Organicist duty to amputate him. The amputation was performed with a pinch of fast- acting poison in Citizen Zov-Zolkov's breakfast porridge; thereafter Rav-Razkov was Citizen First Controller.

The Organic State, in Rav-Razkov's. .h.i.therto scrupulously private opinion, had become too static. The body should grow; growth was an inescapable function of organic survival. The growing-pains began to be felt immediately on the neighboring continent of Thurv, still occupied by Zabashan troops. An intense infiltration of Organicist agents was carried on; incidents of conflict between Thurvans and Zabashan soldiers were provoked; atrocity-stories were manufactured and circulated wholesale; old songs and stories of Thurvan nationalism were rummaged out of the rag-bag of the past.

The Thurvan revolution, when it came, was organized and led from the start by Organicists; the Thurvan nationalists had been convinced that the Organic State was only interested in establis.h.i.+ng a friendly independent government on Thurv. A series of apparently spontaneous riots and uprisings was engineered, there were a number of sensational a.s.sa.s.sinations, and the Thurvan Civil War was off to a galloping start.

Naturally, as soon as the Zabashans on Thurv were all either ma.s.sacred or expelled, the Organicists took over; the pattern of their conquest of Gir-Zashon was repeated in detail, and Thurv became the second member of what was now being called the World Organic State. The orders, of course, came from Karkasha, and were transmitted through the "herdsmen" to the "cattle" in heavily Gir-Zashonan accents.

Even before the amputation of the former First Controller, a project had been forming in Rav-Razkov's mind. Now that he was in absolute and unquestioned authority, he began to give it his full attention.

Since the inst.i.tution bf the Organic State, in 2052, there had existed between it and the Puzzan version of Tisseism a mutually implacable hostility. "Religion," Dov-Soglov had written, "is a dangerous hypnotic. It deadens the body-cells and prevents their obedience to the brain; it numbs the brain-cells and interferes with their control of the body."

However, Rav-Razkov considered, even the most dangerous drugs have their uses; no surgeon would care to be without certain hypnotics and anaesthetics, for example. And he had noticed that the organism of Puzzaism had been functioning quite efficiently for a long time; its body-cells, the laity, were entirely submissive to the hierarchical brain- cells. If, in some way, the Organic State could only get control of this marvelous engine of intellectual domination...

He established a select group of young, competent, aggressive "brain-cells" and put them to conducting an intensive study of Puzzan Tisseism. The secret police discovered a number of underground Puzzan congregations on Gir-Zashon, and were even aware of the ident.i.ty of a Puzzan archpriest, a Nimshan named Varthad, who was hiding at a farming-center along the coast, and who was in regular communication with thehierarchy at Tullon. Rav-Razkov ordered the police to pick up this archpriest and bring him in.

The prelate, when he was arrested, resigned himself to being brained with the state amputation mace, and took what solace he could from the martyr's crown that would be his in the Memory of Vran. Instead, he was conveyed in a fast car to Karkasha and taken directly to the private chambers of Rav-Razkov, where he was courteously invited to sit, and offered wine. Rav-Razkov even performed the supreme courtesy to his guest of drinking first from the bottle.

"Citizen Archpriest," the First Controller said, "I have to confess to you; I have been in grievous error."

Archpriest Varshad started; these were the ritual words of a penitent. The unorthodox mode of address, however, warned him to move cautiously; a warning that was echoed and reinforced by every item of his surroundings.

"Brother First Controller, it is my duty to counsel all those who find themselves in error," he replied. "If you will tell me-"

"The writings of the Citizen Originator, Dov-Soglov, were the beginning, not the end, of the Organic State," Rav-Razkov said. "Man is indeed a body, and the State must govern and direct its citizens as the brain directs the body. But man is also a soul, and the State is a part of the Mind of Vran, as the individual is a part of the State. To govern , the soul, there must be religion, and as there must be agreement between the body and the soul, so must there be agreement between the State and the religion."

"But the soul is more than the body, Brother First Controller," Varthad reminded him timidly. "It is eternal in the Memory of Vran, and the body perishes."

"True," Rav-Razkov agreed. "So the State must be constructed according to religious principles... the principles of the true religion," he added with feeling.

Varthad-caught his breath. Was it possible, he wondered, that a miracle had opened the heart of this wicked-no, this spiritually blind-man?

"As I am the First Controller of the State, I must be instructed in the principles of your religion, Citizen Archpriest, If you will stay here, with me- So Varthad was lodged in an apartment in the great building, the former palace of the Princes of Karkasha and now known as the Skull of the State; he was furnished a tailor to make his vestments, and given a dozen servants, all Puzzans. He spent his time teaching Rav-Razkov and his henchmen, and, of course, was in constant communication with Tullon.

Rav-Razkov's only fear was that things were going too well.

The Successor of Puzza, Avaraff XXI, was delighted with the reports which reached him from Varthad at Karkasha. His first glowing hopes of an immediate conversion to the Creed of all Organicist heathendom proved premature; Rav-Razkov was stubborn about relinquis.h.i.+ng some of his un-Vranly errors. He did, however, proclaim freedom of wors.h.i.+p to the followers of Puzza, and, what was almost as good, this grant of freedom was not extended to the Zaithuan heresy; Zaithuans were persecuted with even sterner rigor.

When Rav-Razkov estimated that things had gone about as far as they should, he took his next step, the incitement of war with the Continental Republic of Zabash. Some two or three thousand Zabashan troops had escaped from Thurv after the Civil War; they had carried home with them frightening stories of the new Gir-Zashonah weapons, and of thediscipline and ferocity of the "volunteers" from Gir-Zashon. The rather loosely organized government of Zabath had fallen; the new government, a.s.suming extra-ordinary powers, had begun a frantic rearmament program, endeavoring to arm and train an army on the Gir-Zashonan pattern.

After a series of provocations and incidents intended to make Zabash appear to be the aggressor, war broke out. There were several spectacular but inconclusive naval battles, and a landing of Gir-Zashonan troops on the coast of Zabash, carefully staged to a.s.sume the appearance of a dangerous invasion. Avaraff XXI, the Successor of Puzza, fell neatly into the trap. He sent an offer of mediation to both the Premier of the Zabashan Re public and the Citizen First Controller. Rav-Razkov accepted at once, with protestations of his deep love of peace. Premier Moganna of Zabash, a pious Puzzan, could do nothing but follow suit. The peace-conference was held at Tullon, under the auspices of the Successor of Puzza and Interpreter of The Books of Tisse.

Rav-Razkov and the puppet First Controller of the Autonomous Organic State of Thurv, the latter a Thurvan Organicist educated at Karkasha. were all sweet conciliation.

Freedom of Puzzan wors.h.i.+p, which, to maintain the fiction of Thurvan autonomy, had not been established on that continent, was promptly decreed, and religious education of children was ordered on both Organicist continents. On Gir-Zashon and Thurv, the heretical Zaithan Confession was formally outlawed. The invasion force was withdrawn from Zabash, but in its place an army of secret agents was infiltrated into the country.

There was a long d.i.c.ker over indemnities, both sides magnanimously claiming to owe the most. In his ecclesiastical quality, Avariff proclaimed that there was nothing in the political principles of Organicism which conflicted with the tenets of Puzzanism or The Books of Tisse. The Organicist Party was given legal recognition in the Zabashan Republic. Rav-Razkov and his followers all announced their conversion to the creed of Puzza.

In the years following Rav-Razkov's rise to power, the technological program inst.i.tuted by Zov-Zolkov had been pus.h.i.+ng forward rapidly. Turbojet aircraft engines were devised, and high-alt.i.tude, high-performance airplanes were developed to use them.

The Organicist State possessed quite a few of them, including some specifically designed as heavy bombers, at the time of the Zabashan War. A few aircraft, mostly light fighters and reconnaissance planes, had been built elsewhere. After the peace of Tullon, Rav- Razkov expanded his plane-production enormously.

In 2078, five years after the Peace of Tullon, war broke out between the Organic States of Gir-Zashon and Thurv and the Kingdoms of Dudak; ostensibly as a result of a dispute over fis.h.i.+ng rights in the Outward Islands. The Dudakans had managed to build a few aircraft on their own, but by this time the Organic States possessed great fleets of them. They had also built large numbers of gas-turbine armored trucks, which carried cannon, rocket-launchers, and flame-projectors. Their standards blessed by Puzzan priests, the armies of Gir-Zashon and Thurv overran Dudak. Between one hot-season and the next, the whole continent was conquered, its cities blasted to rubble by Organicist aircraft.

One exception was the city of Urava, which was spared from bombardment and taken virtually intact by ground-troops. In Urava, Tisse had dictated his Books to Puzza; the building in which he had had his shop was still claimed to be in existence, even though the city had been totally destroyed several times in the twenty intervening centuries. TheShop of the Cobbler was supposed to have been miraculously spared, and was now reverently preserved. It still contained a shoemaker's bench, rather chipped up with the pa.s.sage of time, claimed to be the original. Devout pilgrims often fainted at the sight of it; all sorts of miraculous cures were reported. Little slivers of the original bench were sold to devout pilgrims at a nearby shop run by the Brothers of the Holy Order of The Books of Tisse. It was said that if all the slivers were put together, they would form a bench ten leagues long, two leagues wide, and half a league high.

That the Shop had, for so long, been in heretical hands had always been a burning sorrow to the Successors of Puzza. Now, by the arms of the Tissean Organic State, it was restored to the True Faith.

Rav-Razkov razed everything for blocks around the shop. Thousands of enslaved Dudakans toiled to build a shrine over it, and a huge temple of the Puzzan Creed, and a palace. Then Rav-Razkov sent a battle-fleet to Tullon to escort the Successor to the Holy City, which became both the center of Puzzan Tisseism and the capital of the World Organic State.

Two years later, an election on Zabash, marked by considerable pistol-and-truncheon campaigning, brought the Organicists into power. The conquest of Gvarda, the next year, was more a military parade than a war. Rav-Razkov now felt that his digression into Puzzan Tisseism had served its purpose. The hypnotic of religion could not be phased out, and slowly replaced with a completely secular form of Organicism.

Rav-Razkov's death came as a complete surprise to everyone, and especially Rav- Razkov himself. "It is not time," he was heard to murmur with his last breath. His funeral rites were conducted by the new Successor of Puzza, Varthad I, who always held that his deepest satisfaction was that he, personally, had converted the Citizen First Controller to Puzzanism. He was almost as proud of the fact that it was Rav-Razkov who had introduced him to the satisfying logic and inescapable beauty of Or-ganicism. Varthad I lived to see the two become indistinguishable. Rav-Razkov's t.i.tle and position was taken by Tov-Varsor, Puzzan priest as well as a political disciple of Rav-Razkov; he a.s.sumed, on the death of Varthad, the t.i.tle of Successor of Puzza and Dov-Soglov, and Spiritual and Organic Controller. The t.i.tle was eventually shortened to Successor-Controller.

There was a radio receiver at Skystabber Observatory, with its antenna directed to receive any possible signal from s.h.i.+ning Sister. Through the years it had been carefully maintained, its speaker kept turned up. It automatically tuned through the radio spectrum, s.h.i.+fting back and forth from one possible frequency to another. It produced, for almost a century and a half, an uninterrupted gabble of static, which the observatory staff quickly learned to ignore.

So, half a sun-trip after the west-to-east hot season of the year of the Railroad 556, it was some moments before anybody realized that the usual cacophony of whistling, squealing, crackling, and buzzing had briefly been interrupted by indisputable spoken words.

Whoever was nearest the radio jumped for it, tuning back to recapture the signal and then stabbing the frequency-s.h.i.+ft lock b.u.t.ton. More voices were coming in, jabbering excitedly, and there were noises that sounded more like automatic-weapons fire than like any kind of static. One of the observers grabbed a telephone and began calling all the stations on the lower peaks around Skystabber. Others were yelling the news to theliving-quarters. The head observer came running out of his bath, his fur white with soap- lather.

"Should we try to answer it?" a girl asked.

He listened for a minute, and then shook his head. "No, they're not trying to communicate with us. Those background noises sound like gunfire; probably a gang-fight going on. If we did manage to cut in on their conversation, we'd only mess things up for them, maybe get somebody killed."

"It certainly does sound like firing," Kama Tessaro, the Chief a.n.a.lyser, said. "Mondro Salgarvo was right in his theory about the cause of that black smoke that was sighted back in 416. ,Gavro, do you think we can determine which part of the planet these signals are coming from?"

"We'll play with the directional antenna," Gavro Kanzalgo said, "and see what happens."

"Good," Kama said, her eyes sparkling. "If we can pinpoint the signal, or even come close, we can aim the telescope at that point on the Planet's rim. Maybe we can make out something."

"Gavro! Gavro!" one of the junior a.s.sistants called. "The head adviser of s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine is on the phone! Can you talk to him?"

"Of course; give me the phone! Why, this is the most wonderful thing ever! Our lovely Sister's children!" There was a hint of tears in Gavro's eyes, and his hand shook as he took the phone from the boy. "Brando, old friend! Isn't this marvelous!"

The s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, relatively dormant after the excitement of a hundred and forty years before, became the center of public attention again. Fresh contributions poured in. The Skystabber Observatory bubbled with activity.

The first message to be beamed toward s.h.i.+ning Sister went out several sleep-periods later, after Brando Lanorgo, the head adviser of s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, landed in his vertical-horizontal aircraft outside the observatory. It was cobbled together, a compromise between several conflicting notions, and consisted of a bar of music, followed by the words: "Sister's Children, we send you our love. Can you hear us?" and then a second bar of music. For the equivalent of thirty sleep-periods it was repeated.

There was nothing that could be considered an answer, even by the most enthusiastic, although other messages were picked up from time to time. Then there came an unbroken radio silence from s.h.i.+ning Sister.

There had been some air and sea fighting in the Outward Islands during the earlier phases of the Conquest of Dudak, and some of the aircraft, equipped with radio, had reported hearing mysterious signals, of unknown origin, consisting of what sounded like harp-music mixed with unintelligible gibberish. The origin-point must have been somewhere along the line-of-sight, because of the well-known behavior of radio waves on a planet with no effective ionosphere. But no possible origin-point could be found.

Eventually, after prolonged enquiry, the thick report folder was relegated to the inactive files. An archival clerk with a pa.s.sion for the odd and inexplicable saved it .when the seat of government was moved from Karkasha to Urava in 2080.

In the years of peace which followed the conquest of Dudak and Gvarda and the political victory in Zabash, the technique of sea-monster hunting was improved by the introduction of aircraft-carrying hunter-s.h.i.+ps and the use of tethered-balloons and radio for spotting and directing. Consequently, considerable radio-communication was goingon among the islands and on the Ocean Sea beyond. There were scattered reports, only gradually consolidated, of mysterious signals being picked up. The brain-cell in the Fish- Oil Production Bureau who first noted the relations.h.i.+p between the reports did some checking first on his own. Then he flew directly to Urava from Valkor Island, where he was in charge of the refinery complex, and requested an immediate audience with the Successor-Controller, Torv-Varsov.

"I am Skalv-Dalkov, Citizen Successor-Controller," he announced, when led into the simple, austere workroom from which Torv-Varsov controlled the affairs of the planet.

Torv-Varsov put down the report, which he had read before admitting the brain-cell.

"Fascinating," he said, "fascinating! You are sure about all of this, I suppose?"

"We made cross-checks from two killer-boats, twelve degrees of the planet's circ.u.mference apart. Citizen Successor-Controller," the fish-oil brain-cell said. "There can be no question about it. The signals come from the Horizon Object."

"Which, of course, means that the Horizon Object must be a world like our own, inhabited by intelligent creatures who have attained a high degree of civilization." Tov- Varsov frowned. "You appreciate the implications of this, Citizen Skalv-Dalkov?"

"I have tried not to. Citizen Successor-Controller," the other replied. "I am familiar with the position taken by The Books of Tisse on this issue. This world is the center of the Mind of Vran; the objects in the sky are all trivial, and of small size."

"Yet now we have the direct evidence of instruments far less fallible than the senses,"

Tov-Varsov replied. "Come now, Citizen, you have been trained as a brainL cell. You should know that, for all He was inspired by Vran, the Blessed Tisse was a scientifically illiterate, semi-skilled body-cell in the anarchic State of his time. Furthermore, his writing, for all that it is the Revealed Word of Vran, was written to be understood by ignorant semi-barbarians."

"But the centricity of this world in the Mind of Vran is a fundamental-" Skalv- Dalkov suddenly remembered just whom he was starting to lecture on theology, and abruptly stopped and closed his mouth, hoping he didn't look as foolish as he felt.

"My son, you are suffering from a lack of faith," Tov-Varsov said, a.s.suming his religious mantle, "coupled with a lack of imagination. Because science has now discovered that the Horizon Object, based upon irrefutable evidence, must be a world like our own, and is probably inhabited with people more or less like ourselves, you feel that the religious doctrine of centricity is somehow threatened. Is that not so?"

Skalv-Dalkov nodded humbly. "That was my thought, Successor-Controller," he admitted.

"Do you not think that Vran can hold all objects, of whatever size, in his mind?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then size is, clearly, irrelevant in this context. The distinction is clear. Religion is of the spirit, therefore non-physical. Physical measurements, such as size, weight, or distance, are of no relevance. Science is of the body, therefore physical. There can be no possible conflict; each represents truth of a different category."

"I see that now, Successor-Controller."

Tov-Varsov picked up a phone and ordered all his deputies to a.s.semble at once in the conference chamber, and then turned back to Skalv-Dalkov. "This, of course, is a matter to be kept inside the Brain. The body-cells can function only as long as they do not question the doctrines of the Citizen-Originator, or The Books of Tisse. We mustsuppress any report of this, and amputate any body-cells who may have learned the origin of these signals. We must prepare to gradually change perceptions to coincide with the facts. From now on, there must be no more use of radio in or beyond the Outward Islands."

Chapter Eleven

The radio signals detected on s.h.i.+ning Sister ceased suddenly. For what would have been twenty sleep periods, if anyone had done much sleeping, the giant transmitter beamed its message across s.p.a.ce without response. Finally, everyone gave up hope and the effort was halted.

"It's the same thing that happened back in 556," Arlla Hannaro, the head adviser of the s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, said wearily. "We pick up their signals, and we get very excited over them; we transmit a carefully-designed response back, and then they all stop broadcasting."

They must not know it's coming from us," Karlo Sankangro, the Newspaper Gangs'

Combine representative, said. "Although you'd think they'd almost have to. Don't you suppose they have any sort of direction-finders?"

"Yes, I do," Arlla told him. "And I think that's precisely why they go off the air as soon as they pick up our signals. I think they know where the signals are coming from, and I think they're frightened."

"Frightened? In the name of reason, why would anybody be frightened by a radio message from another planet, a hundred and twenty-five thousand kilo-lances away?" one of the representatives of a big, independent newspaper gang demanded.

Arlla shrugged. "What do any of us know about their mental processes? All we know is that there are people of some kind there, and they've invented radio recently, so that they are somewhere around our own cultural level. But we know nothing of what they call culture. We don't know what they're interested in, what they think of the universe, what they think of the large object that's always in their sky. We don't even know what they look like. They might have three heads, or be covered with scales like a pterinnal, instead of fur. And as far as their not returning our signal-Frasko Kanganno, the head observer at Skystabber, has a theory that s.h.i.+ning Sister may be surrounded by some sort of an electrified atmosphere-layer, as a result of all that water, which would have the effect of increasing the frequency of radio waves pa.s.sing through it. Which would mean that they can't receive a message sent on the same apparent wave-length as the messages we receive. And if they did receive it, by some fluke, we wouldn't be listening for the response on the wavelength they'd send it."

"What do you think about that?" one of the reporters asked.

"I'm not much impressed with this theory, as a theory, and to tell the truth, neither is Frasko. Don't quote me as saying this, but I think he's merely offering it as an alternative to my own theory because he is emotionally repelled by the idea that Our Sister's Children are afraid to talk to us.

But you can quote me on this-and Frasko, too, he agrees with me: The only way we're going to find out what s.h.i.+ning Sister is really like, and what sort of people our cousins really are, will be to build ourselves a rocket and go there!"

The s.h.i.+ning Sister Combine, at the Storm Valley Rendezvous, was already experimenting in that direction. They had developed a liquid-fuel rocket engine that would burn liquid oxygen and alcohol, and had used it to send a test rocket to an alt.i.tude of over fifty thousand lances. One of their scientists had done a workup to demonstratethat a two-stage rocket with that as the first stage could easily put a substantial payload in a low orbit around the planet. A two-stage rocket with that as the second stage could achieve escape velocity with a reasonable payload. By multiplexing the engines, and using a common fuel supply, they could create a ma.s.sive enough first-stage to be able to lift a manned rocket completely clear of Hetaira, and land a specially designed pod on the surface (or in the water) of s.h.i.+ning Sister.

But n.o.body could think of a way to carry enough fuel to allow a return flight.

The Balkadranna Gang, at Fall River Rendezvous, inadvertently opened the door to s.p.a.ce-travel-among many other things. They were a scientific-research gang, specializing in Physics. Two of their researchers, Voldro and Yanna Balkadranna, had isolated microscopic amounts of the 235-weight isotope of uranium, and established that it could be fissioned, with considerable energy release. They published their findings, and tried to get the necessary mathematical a.s.sistance to design a controllable-fission device.

It was clear that uncontrolled fission would not be a desirable effect unless one wanted to remove a mountain.

There was a brief flurry of public excitement about this, due to prematurely optimistic statements in the public press. It soon became clear that the harnessing of atomic energy was going to be a long, and expensive, process; it would be a good while before the state of the art would permit of atomic rocket engines. And so interest began to wane in s.h.i.+ning Sister again.

Arlla Hannaro, considering the chemical-fuel rocket problem, decided that it might be feasible to send a manned rocket to s.h.i.+ning Sister which would orbit around it and return and land on her own world. If such a rocket were sent out and returned, with even the poorest high-alt.i.tude photographs of the hidden side of the planet, the scientific gain would be enormous, and the public enthusiasm would be incalculably great. With only the slightest urging, the people of Hetaira could develop the sort of mania for s.h.i.+ning Sister that is, in other places, reserved for wars or sporting events. The board of advisers of the Combine decided to allocate funds to make the attempt. There were a series of sedate news-releases, emphasizing the fact that success in this venture would be years coming. Nonetheless the trickle of contributions increased, and kept at a slightly higher level.

The years pa.s.sed. The Balkadranna Gang, at Fall River Rendezvous, succeeded in separating enough U-235 to build a graphite-moderated reactor which would not only sustain a chain reaction, but would generate enough steam to heat the Rendezvous's buildings and run its power plant. Seeing commercial possibilities in the new power- source, a gang in the Horizon Zone began mining uranite and floated a loan from the Trading Combine to build an extraction and isotope-separation plant.

Arlla Hannaro was killed, in 610, in an explosion at the rocket-engine testing site; her son, Vandro Hannaro, took her place as adviser of advisers. In 614, after an extensive testing program, a multi-step rocket was launched from a firing stand on the north side of Skystabber, aimed to land in the middle of s.h.i.+ning Sister's vast ocean. It was radar tracked as it lofted out of the atmosphere, circled the planet twice, and then headed across the void separating the sister worlds. Unfortunately, a component failure caused the small rocket motor in the last stage to fire its mid-course correction at the wrong time, and to expend its fuel entirely in that one shot. The radar-trackers then had the pleasure ofwatching the s.p.a.cecraft miss s.h.i.+ning Sister and pa.s.s out of contact, going in the direction of the Star-Cl.u.s.ter.

The contributions to support the work of the Combine dwindled off after that. Most of the loose money was being invested in nuclear-power projects. Vandro Hannaro and his a.s.sociates were not particularly displeased about this last; they had long felt that the development of nuclear power and the necessary improvement in nuclear technology that it would foster would be of great utility in the eventual conquest of s.p.a.ce. Less pleasant was the outburst of uranium wars, reminiscent of the oil-wars of the previous century.

Finally a three-stage, unmanned rocket was launched that successfully dumped the final stage into the great ocean of s.h.i.+ning Sister's near side. Two years later the rocket that was to circle s.h.i.+ning Sister and photograph the hidden side was built; it left the treasury of the Combine empty, and a staggering total of unpaid debts hanging over the advisers' heads. The excitement that was generated by the project, however, was tremendous; it was impossible to hear anything else talked of.

"A lot of public interest, yes," Vandro said, rubbing the fur of his head nervously, as though he had fleas. "But everybody thinks the job is just about done, now, and there's no need for further contributions. If we had some way of raising a little more money-"

"A lot more money," his chief a.s.sistant said.

"Look, Vandro," an old man who had been one of Arlla's a.s.sistants, and who might, for all either of them knew, have been Vandro's father, said. "The rocket is designed to carry three: pilot, instrumenter, and relief. Well, the first two have to be well trained professionals, so they will be able to react correctly in case anything, no matter how unlikely, goes wrong. But couldn't you send a relief up with just perfunctory training- say, half a year-if you had to?"

"We could, I suppose," Vandro agreed, "but what would be the point?"

"Look, suppose we sell the third place on the rocket. There must be thousands of people who'd pay well for a chance to go on that trip!"