Пол Андерсон: Explorations

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

EXPLORATIONS

Copyright © 1981 by Poul Anderson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Acknowledgments: The stories contained herein were first published and copyrighted as follows:

THE SATURN GAME: Analog, copyright © 1981 by Ziff-Davis

Publishing Corporation, Inc. THE BITTER BREAD: Analog, copyright © 1975 by The Conde Nast

Publications, Inc.

THE WAYS OF LOVE: Destinies, copyright © 1979 by Poul Anderson THE VOORTREKKERS: Final Stage, copyright © 1974 by Edward L.

Ferman and Barry N. Malzberg EPILOGUE: Analog, copyright © 1962 by The Conde Nast

Publications, Inc. STARFOG: Analog, copyright © 1967 by The Conde Nast Publications,

Inc.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24th Street

New York, N.Y. 10010

Cover art by Vincent Di Fate

ISBN: 0-812-51536-6

First printing: November 1981

Printed in the United States of America

098765432

TABLE OF CONTENTS

/. The Saturn Game……………… 12

ii. The Bitter Bread……………… 82

Hi, The Ways of Love…………….. 117

iv. The Voortrekkers…………….. 148

v. Epilogue……………………. 176

vi. Starfog…………………….. 241

Introduction to

EXPLORATIONS

by Poul Anderson

When Jim Baen and I were first discussing this book, what should go into it, he suggested that the motif and title be "The Ways of Love." I felt this was too limited a theme, and we settled on "Explorations." Each story deals with some aspect of humanity's future movement into the cosmos, which we both hope so much will come to pass. Then Jim noticed, to our mutual surprise, that each is also a love story anyway.

On second thought, perhaps this is no coincidence. The Greeks distinguished three emotions which English lumps together as "love." Yet are the three kinds really unrelated? Might not sexual love (eros), love for God (agape), and every other sort of affection (phile, from which we get such words as ' 'philosophy'' and * 'philanthropy") spring from a common source, or even be different faces of the same mystery?

How shall we think of that emotion which drives human beings to explore?

Romanticists to the contrary, it is not universal in our species. At least, in many people it is subordinate to other desires. They are apt to resent public attention given to anything except the objects of their own yearnings. Explorers, including scientists of every description, are usually more tolerant, though this may be a matter of necessity rather than temperament.

8 EXPLORATIONS

After all, they are forever a minority, striving to get a small share of society's resources in support of their undertakings; they must compromise. Demagogues, whose claims can be unlimited, are always free to denounce them.

A case very much in point is that of the American space program. We have been told it is useless, an extravagance we can no longer afford — at any rate, until that day when the politicians have collected enough taxes, enacted enough laws, and established enough bureaucracies to abolish poverty, disease, inequality, war, crime, pollution, inflation, urban sprawl, and wrong thinking. We have also been told that the public no longer cares, that space no longer has a constituency.

Both these assertions are false.

If we put rhetoric aside for a moment and look at a few facts, it is evident that, though the space program has had it share of human inefficiencies and absurdities, it has never been a losing proposition. It has, rather, already repaid the modest investment in it, and returned a huge profit as well.

Modest? Of course. The budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — for all of its varied activities — peaked at about the time of Apollo 11. Yet even in those palmy days it got less than 8 percent of the amount that the federal government spent on health, education, and welfare (a figure which takes no account of state and municipal undertakings or of private charities). It would be unkind to compare the actual accomplishments, but at least we can deny that NASA has ever taken bread out of the mouths of the poor.

INTRODUCTION 9

Profit? Certainly. The revolution in meteorology alone, brought about by weather satellites, proves that claim. The lives saved because hurricanes can be accurately predicted offer a spectacular example. However, precise forecasts as a routine matter, year after year, are the open-ended payoff, especially for agriculture and transportation, and thus for mankind. Or think of communications. Never mind if many television shows strike you as inane; never mind, even, educational uses in primitive areas which could not otherwise be reached — the fact is that transmission over great distances was bound to come and that relaying through space is cheaper than relaying across the surface. Cash economies are mere shorthand for labor set free and natural resources conserved. -

Landsats and seasats give us information by which we can make better use of those resources: for example, by identifying plant disease in remote areas, while it is still readily treatable. By examining the cosmic environment of our planet and comparing it with its neighbors, we have come to a better understanding of it: for example, studies of the chemistry of the atmosphere of Venus gave us our first clue to the menace that fluorocarbons were posing to our own ozone layer. Not much further off is a real comprehension of geophysics. The practical, humane applications of such knowledge are obvious: for example, earthquake predictions, perhaps eventual earthquake prevention. Meanwhile, astrophysics has long been a key to the full description and hence control of matter and energy; and the best place for that research is above the air. We can also expect deeper insights into how life works. Early biological experiments

10

EXPLORATIONS

in space have indicated how little we know today, how badly we need to carry on studies under conditions found nowhere else. A golden age of medicine and food production may well be a

result.

, But, some say, can't we save money by doing this with unmanned probes, vehicles, robots,

devices?

Machines are invaluable aids. Still, could they have had and shared the direct experiences of a Cook, Stanley, Lyell, Darwin, Boas, or, more recently, Cousteau, Leakey, Goodall? A human being is the only computer that continuously reprograms itself, the only sensor system that records data it is not planned to detect, the only thing that gives a damn.

Six fleeting visits to a single barren globe scarcely constitute exploration. If we stop now, it will be as if European mariners had stopped when Columbus reported his failure to reach India — which he never actually did, because he never knew how much more grand his discovery was. What he found brought legions overseas. What the astronauts have found in the tiny time granted them is astonishingly great: not material wealth, but the stuff of knowledge, whence all else arises. Shall we end the enterprise at its very

beginning?

I have emphasized knowledge, that being the one absolutely certain gain. However, a permanent human presence in space should also yield nearly unlimited economic returns. As solar collectors achieve their full potential out yonder, we should have all the energy we can ever use, free, clean, inexhaustible. We should have abundant raw materials, no longer taken out of