Anchorite Read online

woman's voice answered at the other end, he said: "Miss Lehman,this is Mr. Alhamid. I'd like to speak to the governor." There was apause. Then:

  "George? Larry here."

  Alhamid leaned back comfortably against the wall. "I just saw yourguests, Larry. I spent damn near three hours explaining why it wasnecessary to put anchors in rocks, how it was done, and why it wasdangerous."

  "Did you convince him? Tarnhorst, I mean."

  "I doubt it. Oh, I don't mean he thinks I'm lying or anything like that.He's too sharp for that. But he _is_ convinced that we're negligent,that we're a bunch of barbarians who care nothing about human life."

  "You've got to unconvince him, George," the governor said worriedly."The Belt still isn't self-sufficient enough to be able to afford anEarth embargo. They can hold out longer than we can."

  "I know," Alhamid said. "Give us another generation, and we can tell theWorld Welfare State where to head in--but right now, things are touchy,and you and I are in the big fat middle of it." He paused, rubbingthoughtfully at his lean blade of a nose with a bony forefinger. "Larry,what did you think of that blond nonentity Tarnhorst brought with him?"

  "He's not a nonentity," the governor objected gently. "He just looks it.He's Tarnhorst's 'expert' on space industry, if you want my opinion. Didhe say much of anything while he was with you?"

  "Hardly anything."

  "Same here. I have a feeling that his job is to evaluate every word yousay and report his evaluation to Tarnhorst. You'll have to be careful."

  "I agree," Alhamid said. "But he complicates things. I have a feelingthat if I tell Tarnhorst a straight story he'll believe it. He seems tobe a pretty shrewd judge. But Danley just might be the case of the manwho is dangerous because of his little learning. He obviously knows adevil of a lot more about operations in space than Tarnhorst does, andhe's evidently a hand-picked man, so that Tarnhorst will value hisopinion. But it's evident that Danley doesn't know anything about spaceby our standards. Put him out on a boat as an anchor man, and he'd belucky if he set a single anchor."

  "Well, there's not much chance of that. How do you mean, he'sdangerous?"

  "I'll give you a f'rinstance. Suppose you've got a complex circuit usingalternatic current, and you're trying to explain to a reasonablyintelligent man how it works and what it does. If he doesn't knowanything about electricity, he mightn't understand the explanation, buthe'll believe that you're telling him the truth even if he doesn'tunderstand it. But if he knows the basic theory of direct currents,you're likely to find yourself in trouble because he'll know just enoughto see that what you're telling him doesn't jibe with what he alreadyknows. Volts times amperes equal watts, as far as he's concerned, andthe term 'power factor' does nothing but confuse him. He knows thatcopper is a conductor, so he can't see how a current could be cut off bya choke coil. He knows that a current can't pass through an insulator,so a condenser obviously can't be what you say it is. Mentally, he tagsyou as a liar, and he begins to try to dig in to see how your gadget_really_ works."

  * * * * *

  "Hm-m-m. I see what you mean. Bad." He snorted. "Blast Earthmen, anyway!Have you ever been there?"

  "Earth? Nope. By careful self-restraint, I've managed to forego thatpleasure so far, Larry. Why?"

  "Brrr! It's the feel of the place that I can't stand. I don't mean theconstant high-gee; I take my daily exercise spin in the centrifuge justlike anyone else, and you soon get used to the steady pull on Earth. Imean the constant, oppressive _psychic_ tension, if you see what I mean.The feeling that everyone hates and distrusts everyone else. The curiousimpression of fear underneath every word and action.

  "I'm older than you are, George, and I've lived with a kind of fear allmy life--just as you and everyone else in the Belt has. A single mistakecan kill out here, and the fear that it will be some fool who makes amistake that will kill hundreds is always with us. We've learned to livewith that kind of fear; we've learned to take steps to prevent any idiotfrom throwing the wrong switch that would shut down a power plant oropen an air lock at the wrong time.

  "But the fear on Earth is different. It's the fear that everyone else isout to get you, the fear that someone will stick a figurative knife inyour back and reduce you to the basic subsistence level. And that fearis solidly based, believe me. The only way to climb up from basicsubsistence is to climb over everyone else, to knock aside those in yourway, to get rid of whoever is occupying the position you want. And onceyou get there, the only way you can hold your position is to make surethat nobody below you gets too big for his britches. The rule is: Pulldown those above you, hold down those below you.

  "I've seen it, George. The big cities are packed with people whose soleambition in life is to badger their local welfare worker out of anothercheck--they need new clothes, they need a new bed, they need a newtable, they need more food for the new baby, they need this, they needthat. All they ever do is _need_! But, of course, they're far toaristocratic to _work_.

  "Those who do have ambition have to become politicians--in the worstsense of the word. They have to gain some measure of control over thedispersal of largesse to the mob; they have to get themselves into aposition where they can give away other people's money, so that they canget their cut, too.

  "And even then, the man who gets to be a big shot doesn't dare show it.Take a look at Tarnhorst. He's probably one of the best of a bad lot. Hehas his fingers in a lot of business pies which make him money, and he'sin a high enough position in the government to enable him to keep someof his money. But his clothing is only a little bit better than theaverage, just as the man who is on basic subsistence wears clothes thatare only a little bit worse than the average. That diamond ring of hisis a real diamond, but you can buy imitations that can't be told fromthe real thing except by an expert, so his diamond doesn't offend anyoneby being ostentatious. And it's unfaceted, to eliminate offensive flash.

  "All the color has gone out of life on Earth, George. Women held outlonger than men did, but now no man or woman would be caught wearing abright-colored suit. You don't see any reds or yellows or blues orgreens or oranges--only grays and browns and black.

  "It's not for me, George. I'd much rather live in fear of the few foolswho might pull a stupid trick that would kill me than live in theconstant fear of everyone around me, who all want to destroy medeliberately."

  "I know what you mean," said Alhamid, "but I think you've put the wronglabel on what you're calling 'fear'; there's a difference between fearand having a healthy respect for something that is dangerous but notmalignant. That vacuum out there isn't out to 'get' anybody. The onlypeople it kills are the fools who have no respect for it and theneurotics who think that it wants to murder them. You're neither, and Iknow it."

  The governor laughed. "That's the advantage we have over Earthmen,George. We went through the same school of hard knocks together--all ofus. And we know how we stack up against each other."

  "True," Alhamid said darkly, "but how long will that hold if Tarnhorstcloses the school down?"

  "That's what you've got to prevent," said the governor flatly. "If youneed help, yell."

  "I will," Alhamid said. "Very loudly." He hung up, wishing he knew whatTarnhorst--and Danley--had in mind.

  * * * * *

  "The trouble with these people, Danley," said Edway Tarnhorst, "is thatthey have no respect whatever for human dignity. They have a tendency tooverlook the basic rights of the individual."

  "They're certainly--different," Peter Danley said.

  Tarnhorst juggled himself up and down on the easy-chair in which he wasseated, as though he could hardly believe that he had weight again. Hehated low gee. It made him feel awkward and undignified. The only thingthat reminded him that this was not "real" gravity was the faint, butall-pervasive hum of the huge engines that drove the big centrifuge. Therooms had cost more, but they were well worth it, as far as Tarnhorstwas concerned.

  "How do you mean, 'different'?
" he asked almost absently, settlinghimself comfortably into the cushions.

  "I don't know exactly. There's a hardness, a toughness--I can't quiteput my finger on it, but it's in the way they act, the way they talk."

  "Surely you'd noticed that before?" Tarnhorst asked in mild surprise."You've met these Belt men on Luna."

  "And their women," Danley said with a nod. "But the impact is somewhatmore pronounced on their own home ground--seeing them _en masse_."

  "Their women!" Tarnhorst said, caught by the phrase. "_Fah!_Bright-colored birds! Giggling children! And no more morals than acommon house-cat!"

  "Oh, they're not as bad as all that," Danley objected. "Their clothingis a little bright, I'll admit, and they laugh and kid around a lot, butI wouldn't say that their morals were any worse than those of a girlfrom New York or London."

  "Arrogance is the word," said Tarnhorst. "Arrogance. Like the way thatAlhamid kept standing all the time we were talking, towering over usthat way."

  "Just habit," Danley said. "When you don't weigh more than six or sevenpounds, there's not much point in sitting down. Besides, it leaves themon their feet in case of emergency."

  "He could have sat down out of politeness," Tarnhorst said. "But no.They try to put on an air of superiority that is offensive to humandignity." He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, andcrossed his ankles. "However, attitude itself needn't concern us untilit translates itself into anti-social behavior. What cannot be toleratedis this callous attitude toward the dignity and well-being of theworkers out here. What did you think of Alhamid's explanation of thisanchor-setting business?"

  Danley hesitated. "It sounded straightforward enough, as far as itwent."

  "You think he's concealing something, then?"

  "I don't know. I don't have all the information." He frowned, puttingfurrows between his almost invisible blond brows. "I know that neithergovernment business nor insurance business are my specialty, but I wouldlike to know a little more about the background before I render anydecision."

  "Hm-m-m. Well." Tarnhorst frowned in thought for a moment, then came toa decision. "I can't give you the detailed data, of course; that wouldbe a violation of the People's Mutual Welfare Code. But I can give youthe general story."

  "I just want to know what sort of thing to look for," Danley said.

  "Certainly. Certainly. Well." Tarnhorst paused to collect his thoughts,then launched into his speech. "It has now been over eighty years sincethe first colonists came out here to the Belt. At first, the ties withEarth were quite strong, naturally. Only a few actually intended to stayout there the rest of their lives; most of them intended to makethemselves a nice little nest egg, come back home, and retire. At thesame time, the World State was slowly evolving from its original looselytied group of independent nations toward what it is today.

  "The people who came out here were mostly misfits, sociologicallyspeaking." He smiled sardonically. "They haven't changed much.

  "At any rate, as I said, they were strongly tied to Earth. There was thematter of food, air, and equipment, all of which had to be shipped outfrom Earth to begin with. Only the tremendous supply of metal--almostfree for the taking--made such a venture commercially possible. Withintwenty-five years, however, the various industrial concerns that managedthe Belt mining had become self-supporting. The robot scoopers which areused to mine methane and ammonia from Jupiter's atmosphere gave themplenty of organic raw material. Now they grow plants of all kinds andeven raise food animals.

  "They began, as every misfit does, to complain about the taxes thegovernment put on their incomes. The government, in my opinion, made anerror back then. They wanted to keep people out in the Belt, since themines on Earth were not only rapidly being depleted, but the miningsites were needed for living space. Besides, asteroid metals werecheaper than metals mined on Earth. To induce the colonists to remain inthe Belt, no income tax was levied; the income tax was replaced by aneighty per cent tax on the savings accumulated when the colonistreturned to Earth to retire.

  "They resented even that. It was explained to them that the asteroidswere, after all, natural resources, and that they had no moral right tomake a large profit and deprive others of their fair share of the incomefrom a natural resource, but they insisted that they had earned it andhad a right to keep it.

  "In other words, the then government bribed them to stay out here, andthe bribe was more effective than they had intended."

  "So they stayed out here and kept their money," Danley said.

  "Exactly. At that time, if you will recall, there was a great deal ofagitation against colonialism--there had been for a long time, as amatter of fact. That agitation was directed against certainindustrialist robber-baron nations who had enslaved the populace ofparts of Asia and Africa solely to produce wealth, and not for thebenefit of the people themselves. But the Belt operators took advantageof the anticolonialism of the times and declared that the Belt citieswere, and by right ought to be, free and independent political entities.It was a ridiculous assumption, of course, but since the various Beltcities were, at that time, under the nominal control of three or four ofthe larger nations, the political picture required that they be allowedto declare themselves independent. It was not anticipated at the timethat they would be so resistant toward the World Government."

  He smiled slightly. "Of course, by refusing to send representatives tothe People's Congress, they have, in effect, cut themselves off from anyvoice in human government."

  Then he shrugged. "At the moment, that is neither here nor there. Whatinterests us at the moment is the death rate curve of the anchor-sinkersor whatever they are. Did you know that it is practically impossible foranyone to get a job out there in the Belt unless he has had experiencein the anchor-setting field?"

  "No," Danley admitted.

  "It's true. For every other job, they want only men with spaceexperience. And by 'space experience' they mean anchor-setting, becausethat's the only job a man can get without previous space experience.They spend six months in a special school, learning to do the work,according to our friend, Mr. Georges Alhamid. Then they are sent out toset anchors. Small ones, at first, in rocks only a few meters indiameter--then larger ones. After a year or so at that kind of work,they can apply for more lucrative positions.

  "I see nothing intrinsically wrong in that, I will admit, but theindications are that the schooling, which should have been getting moreefficient over the years, has evidently been getting more lax. The deathrate has gone up."

  "Just a minute," Danley interrupted. "Do you mean that a man has to havewhat they call 'space experience' before he can get _any_ kind of job?"

  Tarnhorst shook his head and was pleased to find that no nausearesulted. "No, of course not. Clerical jobs, teaching jobs, and the likedon't require that sort of training. But there's very little chance foradvancement unless you're one of the elite. A physician, for example,wouldn't have many patients unless he had had 'space experience'; hewouldn't be allowed to own or drive a space boat, and he wouldn't beallowed to go anywhere near what are called 'critical areas'--such asair locks, power plants, or heavy industry installations."

  "It sounds to me as though they have a very strong union," said Danley.

  "If you want to call it that, yes," Tarnhorst said. "Anything that hasanything to do with operations in space requires that sort ofexperience--and there are very few jobs out here that can avoid havinganything to do with space. Space is only a few kilometers away." Theexpression on his face showed that he didn't much care for the thought.

  "I don't see that that's so bad," Danley said. "Going out there isn'tsomething for the unexperienced. A man who doesn't know what he's doingcan get himself killed easily, and, what's worse, he's likely to takeothers with him."

  "You speak, of course, from experience," Tarnhorst said with no trace ofsarcasm. "I accept that. By not allowing inexperienced persons incritical areas, the Belt Companies are, at least indirectly, looking outfor the welfare of the pe
ople. But we mustn't delude ourselves intothinking that that is their prime objective. These Belt Companies are nobetter than the so-called 'industrial giants' of the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries. The government here is farcical. The sole job is toprevent crime and to adjudicate small civil cases. Every other functionof proper government--the organization of industry, the regulation ofstandards the subsidizing of research, the control of prices, and soon--are left to the Belt Companies or to the people. The Belt Cities areno more than what used to be called 'company towns'."

  "I understand that," Danley said. "But they seem to function fairlysmoothly."

  Tarnhorst eyed him. "If, by, 'smoothly functioning', you mean the denialof the common rights of human freedom and dignity yes. Oh, they givetheir sop to such basic human needs as the