Short Fiction by Mack Reynolds (ready to read books .TXT) 📕

The old-timer nodded. “As evenings should be after a fruitful day’s toil. Sit down, comrade. You must be from the United Planets. Have you ever seen Earth?”

Ronny accepted the invitation and felt a soothing calm descend upon him almost immediately. An almost disturbingly pleasant calm. He said, “I was born on Earth.”

“Ai?” the old man said. “Tell me. The books say that Kropotkin is an Earth type planet within what they call a few degrees. But is it? Is Kropotkin truly like the mother planet?”

Ronny looked about him. He’d seen some of this world as the shuttle rocket had brought them down from the passing liner. The forests, the lakes, the rivers, and the great sections untouched by man’s hands. Now he saw the areas between homes, the neat fields, the signs of human toil⁠—the toil of hands, not machines.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid not. This is how Earth must once have been. But no longer.”

The other nodded. “Our total population is but a few million,” he said. Then, “I would like to see the mother planet, but I suppose I never shall.”

Ronny said diplomatically, “I have seen little of Kropotkin thus far but I am not so sure but that I might not be happy to stay here, rather than ever return to Earth.”

The old man knocked the ashes from his pipe by striking it against the heel of a work-gnarled hand. He looked about him thoughtfully and said, “Yes, perhaps you’re right. I am an old man and life has been good. I suppose I should be glad that I’ll unlikely live to see Kropotkin change.”

“Change? You plan changes?”

The old man looked at him and there seemed to be a very faint bitterness, politely suppressed. “I wouldn’t say we planned them, comrade. Certainly not we of the older generation. But the trend toward change is already to be seen by anyone who wishes to look, and our institutions won’t long be able to stand. But, of course, if you’re from United Planets you would know more of this than I.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You are new indeed on Kropotkin,” the old man said. “Just a moment.” He went into his house and emerged with a small power pack. He indicated it to Ronny Bronston. “This is our destruction,” he said.

The Section G agent shook his head, bewildered.

The old-timer sat down again. “My son,” he said, “runs the farm now. Six months ago, he traded one of our colts for a small pump, powered by one of these. It was little use on my part to argue against the step. The pump eliminates considerable work at the well and in irrigation.”

Ronny still didn’t understand.

“The power pack is dead now,” the old man said, “and my son needs a new one.”

“They’re extremely cheap,” Ronny said. “An industrialized planet turns them out in multi-million amounts at practically no cost.”

“We have little with which to trade. A few handicrafts, at most.”

Ronny said, “But, good heavens, man, build yourselves a plant to manufacture power packs. With a population this small, a factory employing no more than half a dozen men could turn out all you need.”

The old man was shaking his head. He held up the battery. “This comes from the planet Archimedes,” he said, “one of the most highly industrialized in the U.P., so I understand. On Archimedes do you know how many persons it takes to manufacture this power pack?”

“A handful to operate the whole factory, Archimedes is fully automated.”

The old man was still moving his head negatively. “No. It takes the total working population of the planet. How many different metals do you think are contained in it, in all? I can immediately see what must be lead and copper.”

Ronny said uncomfortably, “Probably at least a dozen, some in microscopic amounts.”

“That’s right. So we need a highly developed metallurgical industry before we can even begin. Then a developed transportation industry to take metals to the factory. We need power to run the factory, hydroelectric, solar, or possibly atomic power. We need a tool-making industry to equip the factory, the transport industry and the power industry. And while the men are employed in these, we need farmers to produce food for them, educators to teach them the sciences and techniques involved, and an entertainment industry to amuse them in their hours of rest. As their lives become more complicated with all this, we need a developed medical industry to keep them in health.”

The old man hesitated for a moment, then said, “And, above all, we need a highly complicated government to keep all this accumulation of wealth in check and balance. No. You see, my friend, it takes social labor to produce products such as this, and thus far we have avoided that on Kropotkin. In fact, it was for such avoidance that my ancestors originally came to this planet.”

Ronny said, scowling, “This gets ridiculous. You show me this basically simple power pack and say it will ruin your socioeconomic system. On the face of it, it’s ridiculous.”

The old man sighed and looked out over the village unseeingly. “It’s not just that single item, of course. The other day one of my neighbors turned up with a light bulb with built-in power for a year’s time. It is the envy of the unthinking persons of the neighborhood most of whom would give a great deal for such a source of light. A nephew of mine has somehow even acquired a powered bicycle, I think you call them, from somewhere or other. One by one, item by item, these products of advanced technology turn up⁠—from whence, we don’t seem to be able to find out.”

Under his breath, Ronny muttered, “Paine!”

“I beg your pardon,” the old man said.

“Nothing,” the Section G agent said. He leaned forward and, a worried frown working its way over his face, began to question the other more closely.

Afterwards, Ronny Bronston strode slowly toward the U.P. headquarters.