Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

As a matter of fact, fall had come again before Westfield’s plant was in full operation. It didn’t look impressive: great flat screens on top of hastily constructed buildings, and inside these the apparatus to raise voltage and charge capacitors. But in conjunction with the watermill, it furnished more than enough electricity to run the county’s machines.

Arch was kept busy all that summer, directing, advising, helping. It seemed that everybody had some scheme of his own for using capacitite. Energy cost nothing, and machinery could be built from junkyard scrap if nothing else. Westfield was suddenly acquiring her own looms, mills, even a small foundry. Bob led a gang of young hellions who made an airplane and kept it aloft for days at a time. His father promptly confiscated it for the use of the civic guard, and after that there were no more surprise brushes with roving outlaws.

An eyewitness report was brought in from the air⁠—a clash between state troops and one of the robber bands which still existed to the north. The gangmen had their own trucks and jeeps, their own guns, all operating off accumulators which could be charged at any of a thousand watermills. A rifleman could stop a tank, and aircraft were of limited value against guerrillas who crouched in brush and weeds. The battle was a draw, with both sides finally retreating.

Arch shuddered, alone with Elizabeth, and crept into her arms. “Did I do that?” he asked through his tears. “Did I do it?”

“No, darling,” she said. One hand ruffled his disordered hair. “Can’t you forget that side of it? Think of what you have done, with your own hands⁠—built this town up again, given its people more than they ever had before.”

He set his teeth. “I’ll try,” he said.

Somewhat later, the government offered amnesty to those outlaws who would lay down their arms and come home. It had the desired effect; they had had enough of warring and insecurity. But Culquhoun scowled. “ ’Tis a vurra bad precedent,” he said. “Only a weak government makes such a move.”

Oddly, Arch felt a lightening within himself. “Maybe a weak government is what we need,” he answered.

News: Several southern states threaten secession unless court decisions concerning racial equality are withdrawn.

News: Uprisings in these same states. The Negro has had enough.

News: Capitulation of state governments. Constitutional conventions, transfer of power from state to local authorities.

News: The depression is not ending, but transforming itself: out-of-work men are starting to produce things for themselves with the help of capacitite-driven machinery often made at home, trading their surplus for whatever else they need. A mobile reclamation unit appears, costing little to operate, and families begin to irrigate and colonize desert areas. Big business, big labor, big government talk much and do nothing effective⁠—their day is past, but they simply cannot understand the new forces at work.

News: More and more city areas are becoming empty as their inhabitants take advantage of cheap, fast transportation and move into the rapidly expanding suburbs and even into the country. This migration is possible because with present energy sources, plastic board for home construction can be manufactured at very low cost.

News: There is a great deal of debate in Washington about redistricting to meet the new population pattern. It doesn’t seem too important, though, because a land of nearly self-sufficient communities, such as this is becoming, is much less dependent on central government.

News: Experiment and innovation in dress, work habits, manners and morals, grows ever more common. The basic cause of this is that few men need now be afraid of what the neighbors or the boss thinks. If you don’t like it where you are, you can easily go elsewhere and start over.

None of this happened at once. It would take a century or more for the change to complete itself. But even in the second year, the trend was obvious.

Snow whirled against the house, blindingly, as if the world drew into itself and nothing lay beyond these walls. The muted skirl of wind came through, lonesome and shivering. But inside, there was warmth and a calm light.

Arch sat with a whiskey and soda in his hand, looking across the floor at his wife. He felt tired, but there was a relaxation in him, a sense of labor finished.

Not fully⁠—there would be much to do yet. But power was there, machinery was there, food stored away; they would last the winter, and there would be another springtime.

“It’s settling down,” Elizabeth told him, putting her news magazine aside. “For once, I agree with the editor of this rag. The crisis is over, and now it’s a matter of readjustment. The world is never going to be the same, but it’ll be a better one⁠ ⁠… cleaner.”

“Perhaps,” said Arch. He didn’t feel so sharply the horror of guilt, not any more.

“Look around you,” she invited. “Look what you’ve done. I’m afraid, dear, that you’re going to be rediscovered. It won’t take long before people suddenly wake up to the fact that your invention did all this for them. Brace yourself⁠—you’re going to be famous for life.”

Arch winced. “But I didn’t!” he protested. “They did it for themselves. One man never could⁠—”

“I quite agree,” she smiled. “One man can neither make nor destroy a society. So why not give that conscience of yours a rest?”

“There’s been suffering,” he said, enough alcohol in him to break down his reserve. “People have died.”

“A lot of them needed killing,” she said earnestly. “Look what we’ve got. An end to dictatorship. Removal of the atomic-war threat. Cheap energy for a million new projects. A four-hour work day in prospect. Government, which was getting too big and officious in all countries, cut down to size again. The plain man standing on his own feet and working for himself. Natural resources conserved. If you must take either credit or blame, Si, then balance your books!”

“I know,” he said. “I know all that, up in my