ever will, unless –
The Maurai hold a key, and beyond the door they guard is a stairway to the future. Their own ancestors were lucky. N’Zealann wasn’t
hit. Yes, it got its dose of ultraviolet when the bomb explosions thinned the ozone layer – diebacks and mutations in the microbial foundations of life, famines and pestilences and chaos. But it wasn’t hit. The structures remained, usually. Factories, laboratories, hydroelectric facilities, not to speak of unexhausted iron and coal mines. City people died, but country dwellers tended to live, and on their reservations the aborigines had a tribal fellowship with institutions that were adaptable to the new conditions. As nature began to recover, the N’Zealanners wanted to reconstruct, and found themselves facing a terrible labor shortage. They invested coal and iron in ships that went out recruiting immigrants, who were mainly from the Polynesian islands. It was natural for them to evolve a scientific but parsimonious technology.…
We’re different, we in the Northwest. We started with a richer base. And we didn’t change from what we had been. Throughout the hard centuries, we never stopped looking forward, we never stopped hoping and dreaming.
His pipe charged and between his jaws, Terai produced a lighter. It was a small hardwood cylinder with a close-fitting piston. He removed the latter and shook some tinder from a compartment of his tobacco pouch down the bore. After he had tucked the pouch away, he rammed the piston home, withdrew it again, and emptied the tinder onto his tobacco. Air compression had heated it to the combustion point. With careful inward puffs, a hand screening off the wind, he nursed the fire into complete life.
‘You know,’ Launy murmured, ‘that clumsy thing comes near to being a world-symbol for your civilization.’
Terai smiled; crow’s-feet meshed around his eyes. ‘Oh, it isn’t clumsy when you’ve gotten the knack. Don’t tell me you’d prefer sulfur matches! Why, a smoke would cost you a day’s wages.’
‘What people carry at home is a torch about the size of yourthumb. Plastic case, flint-and-steel igniter. The fuel, generally butane, we derive from coal or by destructive distillation of sawdust.’
‘I know. I’ve seen. A drunken sailor
is
less extravagant.’
‘Now wait a minute, Terai. Your people make use of forests as well as farms. Why, you farm and mine the seas themselves.’
‘We replant. We maintain a balance.’
‘We do too, as far as we’re able. We’d be better able if we had more energy to spend. That’s the solution to everything, energy.’
Terai pointed around the ocean, into the wind, and upward.
‘Oh, sure, your chosen sources,’ Launy said. ‘Sun, wind, water, biomass – but it all goes back in the end to the sun, and the sun’s good for hardly more than a kilowatt per square meter, at high noon on a clear day; a hell of a lot less in practice.’
‘We do use some coal, you know,’ Terai answered, ‘but we treat it for clean burning. You could do likewise.’
‘Not if we’re to live the way we think human beings are entitled to. That calls for high-production industries. Petroleum’s too precious a feedstock to burn, of course, and wood’s too valuable as lumber or just as forest. What’s left but coal? I admit it’s dirty, and it won’t last forever.’
Excitement mounted in Launy. ‘Why won’t you Maurai allow nuclear development?’ he challenged. The plants we designed would’ve been harmless and safe. We’d’ve disposed of the wastes perfectly safely, too, glassified and stored in geologically stable desert areas – innocent compared to coal mines, acids, ash, gases. We were willing to cooperate in precautions against any weapon-making. We’d also have cooperated in research on thermonuclear power, unlimited energy for as long as Earth lasts. Energy to start us back toward the stars.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘But no. You’d have none of
The Maurai hold a key, and beyond the door they guard is a stairway to the future. Their own ancestors were lucky. N’Zealann wasn’t
hit. Yes, it got its dose of ultraviolet when the bomb explosions thinned the ozone layer – diebacks and mutations in the microbial foundations of life, famines and pestilences and chaos. But it wasn’t hit. The structures remained, usually. Factories, laboratories, hydroelectric facilities, not to speak of unexhausted iron and coal mines. City people died, but country dwellers tended to live, and on their reservations the aborigines had a tribal fellowship with institutions that were adaptable to the new conditions. As nature began to recover, the N’Zealanners wanted to reconstruct, and found themselves facing a terrible labor shortage. They invested coal and iron in ships that went out recruiting immigrants, who were mainly from the Polynesian islands. It was natural for them to evolve a scientific but parsimonious technology.…
We’re different, we in the Northwest. We started with a richer base. And we didn’t change from what we had been. Throughout the hard centuries, we never stopped looking forward, we never stopped hoping and dreaming.
His pipe charged and between his jaws, Terai produced a lighter. It was a small hardwood cylinder with a close-fitting piston. He removed the latter and shook some tinder from a compartment of his tobacco pouch down the bore. After he had tucked the pouch away, he rammed the piston home, withdrew it again, and emptied the tinder onto his tobacco. Air compression had heated it to the combustion point. With careful inward puffs, a hand screening off the wind, he nursed the fire into complete life.
‘You know,’ Launy murmured, ‘that clumsy thing comes near to being a world-symbol for your civilization.’
Terai smiled; crow’s-feet meshed around his eyes. ‘Oh, it isn’t clumsy when you’ve gotten the knack. Don’t tell me you’d prefer sulfur matches! Why, a smoke would cost you a day’s wages.’
‘What people carry at home is a torch about the size of yourthumb. Plastic case, flint-and-steel igniter. The fuel, generally butane, we derive from coal or by destructive distillation of sawdust.’
‘I know. I’ve seen. A drunken sailor
is
less extravagant.’
‘Now wait a minute, Terai. Your people make use of forests as well as farms. Why, you farm and mine the seas themselves.’
‘We replant. We maintain a balance.’
‘We do too, as far as we’re able. We’d be better able if we had more energy to spend. That’s the solution to everything, energy.’
Terai pointed around the ocean, into the wind, and upward.
‘Oh, sure, your chosen sources,’ Launy said. ‘Sun, wind, water, biomass – but it all goes back in the end to the sun, and the sun’s good for hardly more than a kilowatt per square meter, at high noon on a clear day; a hell of a lot less in practice.’
‘We do use some coal, you know,’ Terai answered, ‘but we treat it for clean burning. You could do likewise.’
‘Not if we’re to live the way we think human beings are entitled to. That calls for high-production industries. Petroleum’s too precious a feedstock to burn, of course, and wood’s too valuable as lumber or just as forest. What’s left but coal? I admit it’s dirty, and it won’t last forever.’
Excitement mounted in Launy. ‘Why won’t you Maurai allow nuclear development?’ he challenged. The plants we designed would’ve been harmless and safe. We’d’ve disposed of the wastes perfectly safely, too, glassified and stored in geologically stable desert areas – innocent compared to coal mines, acids, ash, gases. We were willing to cooperate in precautions against any weapon-making. We’d also have cooperated in research on thermonuclear power, unlimited energy for as long as Earth lasts. Energy to start us back toward the stars.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘But no. You’d have none of
Similar Books
