people were.
Where the felted mattress of fiber lay, something was slowly created. A cell grew there, a seed, a scion, a nucleus, something quite tiny, something that grew a little with each warming, day by day.
Beneath the soil lay Birribat Shum: what was left of him; what he had become.
TWO
• After receiving their orientation from Horgy Endure, Theor Close and Betrun Jun took themselves to the vehicle park, checked out a flier, and—during the brief but boring flight to Settlement One—told one another their original impression of Hobbs Land had been wholly substantiated. The world was uniformly dull. The two engineers came from volcano-lit Phansure, ocean-girt Phansure, cosmopolitan Phansure, with its ten thousand cities and clustered billions of mostly very clever persons. All Phansuris knew their world was the most beautiful and only civilized world in System, perhaps in Galaxy, and Betrun and Theor were unreservedly Phansuri.
They were not chauvinists, however. They told themselves that Hobbs Land was probably quite nice, just underendowed to start with and pitifully underdeveloped. Each assured the other they should be kind to Sam Girat, poor fellow, having to live in such a place.
Sam, meantime, gave himself similar assurances. Since Mysore Hobbs II was always sending batches of Phansuri engineers and designers to the Belt worlds to improve this or that, playing host was something Sam did fairly frequently. Before welcoming such visitors, Sam always reminded himself of what his upper-school teacher had said about Phansure, sneering just a little. Too many people, she had said. Like a swarm, she had said. Hardly any forests, almost no animals, and everyone living in each others’ armpits. When the various Phansuri visitors introduced themselves to Sam with their flourishes and politenesses, as Phansuri were wont to do, Sam was always very kind.
With both sides trying so hard, their mutual greetings were protracted and exceedingly warm, and only when the rituals were over did Theor Close and Betrun Jun refer to the problems Sam had listed in anticipation of their visit. After a brief discussion, the three of them went down to the heavy equipment barn, where they looked first at a blackened launcher.
“We didn’t design this,” said Theor Close with distaste.
“I know,” said Sam patiently. “If you’d designed it, we wouldn’t have the problem.” Phansuris were all geniuses. Everyone knew that. They didn’t need to rub it in.
Theor preened. “What’s the problem?”
“A settler got burned, on the face and neck. He was too close to the thing, and the back blast off that fire shield got him.”
“What do you use if for?” asked Betrun Jun.
“Certain trace elements in the soil get used up and we need to restore them. The quantities are so minuscule, it’s not economical to try to mix them evenly into the bulk fertilizers, so we wait for the wind to be right, then we go way, way upwind of the settlement, and use this launcher to kick an explosive cannister up about two miles. The mix is very fine, the dust gets wind-spread over hundreds of square miles and it drifts down for days. It’s primitive and untidy, but it’s effective and efficient.”
“The launcher needs a blast control chamber,” said Betrun Jun. “A torus-shaped ring at the base.” He sketched rapidly, holding out the result. “With baffles.”
Sam snorted. “It’s funny-looking. Like a doughnut with a pipe through it.”
“Well, whatever it looks like, the blast will buffet around in the ring shaped chamber without getting loose to burn anybody. This one is easy, and we’ll see to it at once. How many do you need?”
“Eleven, one for each settlement, plus a few spares.”
Jun added the eleven settlements to his list of Hobbs Land facilities, which already included the mines, the fertilizer plant, and Central Management.
“What’s next.”
Sam ticked off the second item. “There’s something faulty
Where the felted mattress of fiber lay, something was slowly created. A cell grew there, a seed, a scion, a nucleus, something quite tiny, something that grew a little with each warming, day by day.
Beneath the soil lay Birribat Shum: what was left of him; what he had become.
TWO
• After receiving their orientation from Horgy Endure, Theor Close and Betrun Jun took themselves to the vehicle park, checked out a flier, and—during the brief but boring flight to Settlement One—told one another their original impression of Hobbs Land had been wholly substantiated. The world was uniformly dull. The two engineers came from volcano-lit Phansure, ocean-girt Phansure, cosmopolitan Phansure, with its ten thousand cities and clustered billions of mostly very clever persons. All Phansuris knew their world was the most beautiful and only civilized world in System, perhaps in Galaxy, and Betrun and Theor were unreservedly Phansuri.
They were not chauvinists, however. They told themselves that Hobbs Land was probably quite nice, just underendowed to start with and pitifully underdeveloped. Each assured the other they should be kind to Sam Girat, poor fellow, having to live in such a place.
Sam, meantime, gave himself similar assurances. Since Mysore Hobbs II was always sending batches of Phansuri engineers and designers to the Belt worlds to improve this or that, playing host was something Sam did fairly frequently. Before welcoming such visitors, Sam always reminded himself of what his upper-school teacher had said about Phansure, sneering just a little. Too many people, she had said. Like a swarm, she had said. Hardly any forests, almost no animals, and everyone living in each others’ armpits. When the various Phansuri visitors introduced themselves to Sam with their flourishes and politenesses, as Phansuri were wont to do, Sam was always very kind.
With both sides trying so hard, their mutual greetings were protracted and exceedingly warm, and only when the rituals were over did Theor Close and Betrun Jun refer to the problems Sam had listed in anticipation of their visit. After a brief discussion, the three of them went down to the heavy equipment barn, where they looked first at a blackened launcher.
“We didn’t design this,” said Theor Close with distaste.
“I know,” said Sam patiently. “If you’d designed it, we wouldn’t have the problem.” Phansuris were all geniuses. Everyone knew that. They didn’t need to rub it in.
Theor preened. “What’s the problem?”
“A settler got burned, on the face and neck. He was too close to the thing, and the back blast off that fire shield got him.”
“What do you use if for?” asked Betrun Jun.
“Certain trace elements in the soil get used up and we need to restore them. The quantities are so minuscule, it’s not economical to try to mix them evenly into the bulk fertilizers, so we wait for the wind to be right, then we go way, way upwind of the settlement, and use this launcher to kick an explosive cannister up about two miles. The mix is very fine, the dust gets wind-spread over hundreds of square miles and it drifts down for days. It’s primitive and untidy, but it’s effective and efficient.”
“The launcher needs a blast control chamber,” said Betrun Jun. “A torus-shaped ring at the base.” He sketched rapidly, holding out the result. “With baffles.”
Sam snorted. “It’s funny-looking. Like a doughnut with a pipe through it.”
“Well, whatever it looks like, the blast will buffet around in the ring shaped chamber without getting loose to burn anybody. This one is easy, and we’ll see to it at once. How many do you need?”
“Eleven, one for each settlement, plus a few spares.”
Jun added the eleven settlements to his list of Hobbs Land facilities, which already included the mines, the fertilizer plant, and Central Management.
“What’s next.”
Sam ticked off the second item. “There’s something faulty
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