Hal Clement: Ocean on Top

But it was so different. Even with energy restraint gone as far as my neighbors were concerned, would I feel comfortable after a lifetime under its rules? Would the thought of the black, crushing ocean between me and all I had grown up with loom too large? Or if I didn’t stay, would the thought of what I might have accomplished down here come too often between me and normal living?

I couldn’t decide. Even if I tried to cut out all personal factors — not just those connected with Marie, but all which by any stretch could be called selfish — I still couldn’t.

There was my regular work with the Board. It was useful, even important, and I liked it. I could do useful work down here, though, and would almost certainly like it. Reward, to be selfish again, meant little in either place. Wealth as such has been meaningless since power rationing started, and down here I had seen no signs of plutocracy. Though admittedly I might have missed them; I know so little about the place.

Of course, I could learn more. Neither decision was irrevocable. The only thing that couldn’t be changed back had already been done; my coughing reflex was gone, and I’d have to be careful in eating for the rest of my life no matter where I lived.

Maybe I could stay now, see more of what life here was like and go back up later on. After all, there was no reason why the two places couldn’t stay in communication. I looked up and was about to write an answer for Marie when my thoughts started working again.

Would there be communication? Joey had pointed out excellent reasons why the Board would not want knowledge of this place to spread, though he hadn’t stated them just that way.

Here was a place where power rationing, however real it might, be mathematically, simply wasn’t a conscious factor in life. The population, as Marie had said, was like a group of French aristocrats in a world of Jacquerie. Ordinary morals up above called for a rigid attitude toward energy use which these people didn’t have and probably couldn’t understand.

If too many people from the surface visited here and the word about its way of life spread at all generally, there would be trouble. Even if the spreading word remained accurate, which was most unlikely, a lot of the outer world’s people would either want to migrate down here or build more volcanic-power installations so that everyone could have more. The old ‘why can’t I have as much as he does’ feeling would have people screaming for the modern equivalent of the philosopher’s stone, to take an illustration from the days when wealth was metal instead of energy.

The average citizen would be able to see why the Board shouldn’t do just that — build more power stations to take advantage of the inexhaustible heat inside the Earth. I hate to sound cynical, but I know that’s one thing the Board would never do. They won’t do anything to make power rationing unnecessary.

Cynicism aside, they’re perfectly right. The decision decades ago that hydrogen fusion was man’s only real hope was almost certainly a sound one. We know that solving that problem isn’t just a matter of engineering details, as was originally thought. Too many of the factors involved are inherently unstable unless held in by, at least, the mass of a small star. It’s only a matter of faith that we’ll solve it at all. And if we’re to do so, it will take every effort — the best that man can offer.

And the effort will stop if anything happens to postpone power starvation. Mankind as a whole did practically nothing but waste his resources until that menace stared him literally in the face. If plentiful volcanic power suddenly eased the threat, the pressure would be off. Quite aside from the obvious collapse of morals which would follow, the fusion work would come to a halt. It might go on in name, but the work would stop. Men are too casual; the best of power-plant operators start leaving office lights on when they go out, just because it is power plant and there’s so much on hand.

And considering what the Board sometimes has to do about that very attitude. I shouldn’t count on being allowed to go back up if I stayed here now, or come back down if I went up now. It would be safer to regard my present decision, whichever it might be, as irrevocable.

And that realization, political philosophy and morals aside, didn’t make the decision any easier to make.

Was there any chance that the Board would insist on this place’s joining civilization and tying into the power net?

None. The very process of connecting would be almost impractical. Considering the trickle which could be spared above the photosynthesis drain even if the local population adopted the surface-rationing level, decades would pass before the energy investment of making the connection could possibly be paid off. It might never be.

All of which meant that the transponders I had gone to so much trouble to plant represented wasted effort.

So — should I stay here or not? Did I want to live here, or in the sunlight? I still didn’t know.

The temptation was to let it all depend on Marie’s decision, but Marie wasn’t publishing her decision.

Bert was out of the running — as far as Marie was concerned he had never been in it, apparently. You’d think she’d realize by now that Joey was a hopeless case as far as she was concerned. Why wouldn’t she give me at least a hint?

She did. She got tired of waiting for me to come up with the answer I couldn’t make and started talking again. For a moment her first words sounded like a change of subject.

“What do you suppose Bert will do now? Stay here, or go back?” she asked.

I was glad enough to leave unanswerable questions for the moment.

“He stayed here for a year before all this happened,” I pointed out. “I can’t see that the last few minutes can have given him any burning urge to change his mind. I should think he’d have less reason than ever to go back now.” I raised my eyebrows in query to Joey at the same time. He read the note, shrugged as usual, then nodded. Marie’s answering comment was the eye-opener.

“I wouldn’t say that,” she remarked. “One of you should tell him I understand. I wouldn’t want him to feel too unhappy about it all.”

I looked at Joey. He looked at me, and raised the eyebrow on the side of his face away from the sub. Neither of us had ever realized that forgiveness could depend less on ‘what’ than on ‘why’.

I turned to the pad once more, and wrote.

“If you really feel that way, I’ll tell him. I’ll be staying down here to help Joey and should see Bert again often enough. I’m almost as good a linguist as he is and may make some headway in untangling this ghastly excuse for a communication system.”

I thought it better not to make any comments about possible interesting language teachers. If Marie had another change of mind even from mere jealousy, I’d never be able to make any more decisions. This one felt too nice to waste, after all the uncertainty that had preceded it.