fantastic expansion had been able to keep up with it.
Day after day, planet after planet, they surveyed the ninety five colonized and all the
virgin planets they had scanned so sketchily on their first trip. Deston found immense
deposits of several of the “wanted” metals, including copper, and Barbara found plenty of
water and fuels. Tungsten and tantalum, however, were no more abundant on any of
those planets than they were on Earth; and rhenium existed only in almost imperceptible
traces. Therefore the Procyon set out, on an immensely helical course, toward the
center of the galaxy.
On their first expedition the Destons had learned so much that they could work any
planet whose sun they could see. Now, as their psionic powers kept on increasing, their
astronomers had to push the Procyon’s telescopes farther and farther out into the
immensity of space to keep them busy.
Days lengthened into weeks, and life aboard the immense sky-rover settled down into a
routine. Adults worked, read, studied, loafed, and tuned in programs of entertainment
and of instruction. Children went to school and/or played just as though they were at
home. In fact, they were at home. Except that physical travel outside the hall was
forbidden, life aboard the starship was very similar to, and in many ways more
rewarding_ than, life in any village of civilization.
Deston and Barbara, however, worked and slept and ate-and that was all. Fourteen
hours per day every day of every week is a brutal shift to work, especially at such
grueling tasks as theirs; but the entire expedition had been built around those two and
they wanted to get the job done.
Chapter 8
THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK SPACEPORT
Galactic Metals moved its main office from Earth to Galmetia. WarnOil’s was already on
Newmars. InStell moved to Newmars. Many other very large firms moved from Earth to
various “outplanets.” Thus, while there was a great deal of objection to the formation of
such a gigantic “trust” as METALS AND ENERGY, INCORPORATED, there was nothing
that WestHem’s government could do about it. While GalMet was now a whollyowned
subsidiary of MetEnge, neither its name nor its operation had been changed in any way.
In GalMet’s vast new building on Galmetia, President Upton Maynard sat at the head of
a conference table. At his left sat Executive Vice-President Eldon Smith and Comptroller
Desmond Phelps. At his right were Darrell Steams, head of GalMet’s legal staff, and
Ward Q. Wilson, Chief Mediator of WestHem. Miss Champion sat at her desk, off to one
side. Wilson was speaking.
. . . no over-riding authority, of course, since MetEnge is a Newmars corporation and
GalMet’s legal domicile and principal place of business is here on Galmetia. While such
tax evasion is not. . .”
“Let’s keep the record straight, Mr. Wilson,” Maynard said sharply. “Not evasion;
avoidance. Avoidance of Earth’s ruthlessly confiscatory taxation was necessary to our
continued existence. Under such taxation our basic principle of operation, which the
founders of GalMet inaugurated over two hundred years ago, could not possibly have
remained implemented.
“Do you think it’s accidental that we are the largest firm in existence? It isn’t; it is due
absolutely to the fact that, very unlike capital in general, we have adhered strictly to the
Principle of Enlightened Self-Interest.
Simply stated, that Principle is: Don’t be a hog. You make more, over the long pull, by
letting the other fellows make something, too. Most important, it’s non-inflationary, even
though the standard of living is continually rising. If we had stayed on Earth and gone
along all these years with blind, stupid, greedy, grasping conventional Capital, what
would the price of steel have been today? What would the dollar have been worth?”
“Nevertheless, there has been some inflation. . .”
“How well we know it!” Phelps, the moneyman, broke in. “Whose fault is it? Your
government’s deficit spending-cradle-to-grave security-reckless, foolhardy installment
buying-the whole inflated credit situation. We, on the other hand, do not use credit. We
buy sight-draft attached-to-bill-of-lading and sell the same way. Hard money and cash on
the barrelhead. We have it before we spend it.”
“I’m not saying that your principle hasn’t worked very well for you, up to now. You haven’t
had a real strike for half a century, until now. Not because of the stable dollar or of your
principle of operation, however, but simply because no union was strong enough to fight
you to a finish. Now, there is one. The UCM controls all copper mining and Burley
Hoadman controls the UCM. The situation, gentlemen, is now desperate; it is a civili-
zation-wide emergency. It is intolerable that all industry should come to a halt because of
your refusal to settle this strike. You know that all industry must have at least some new
copper to operate at all.”
“We do,” Maynard said. “You are saying that since Hoadman will not settle for anything
less than double the present scale-already tops-we must cave in and pay it? And
surrender to all the other unions that will jump onto the gravy train? That the subsequent
inevitable surge of inflation won’t hurt? You know exactly what the spiral will be.”
Wilson glanced at his microphone and said nothing.
Miss Champion entered a couple of pot-hooks in her notebook. Maynard went on:
“Your opinion is not for the record. I understand. This is an election year, and because
the dear pe-pul are getting out of hand the administration sent you here to tell us to give
Hoadman everything he wants-or else. They’re junking financial stability completely to get
themselves re-elected.”
“No, I was not going to. . .”
“Not so crudely, of course; but nobody has put any pressure at all on Hoadman.”
“We can’t.” Wilson spread his hands out helplessly and Miss Champion made a few more
marks in her book. “All popular sentiment is for the union and against you. You are
altogether too big.”
“Or not big enough-yet,” Maynard said, savagely. “Also, in the public mind, the salaries of
all you tycoons are altogether too high.”
“High, hell!” Smith snarled. “How about Hoadman’s take? He drags down more than all
four of us put together!”
“Whether or not it is true, that point is irrelevant. The pertinent fact is that Senator
Wrigley of California is preparing a bill to annex both Newmars and Galmetia to the
Western Hemisphere.”
Smith whistled. “Brother/ They went a hell of a long ways out after that one!”
Wilson said nothing.
Steams stared thoughtfully at the mediator, then said, “It’s unconstitutional. Obviously. It
violates every principle of Interplanetary law.”
Better yet, it’s unenforceable,” Smith said. “Admiral Porter knows as well as we do that
his handful of tomato-juice cans wouldn’t stand the chance of the proverbial nitrocellulose
cat in hell.”
“One more thing,” Maynard said. “Ninety five other planets wouldn’t like it, either. Have
you thought about what a good, solid boycott would do to Earth?”
“The possibility has been considered, and the consensus is that there can be no effective
boycott. Labor will hold . . .”
“Hold it!” Maynard snapped. “You know-at least you should-that the organizations of the
Planetsmen are no more like the labor unions of Tellus than black is like white. They are
in favor of automation. They want change. They want advancement by ability, not
seniority. As opposed to that attitude, what do your unions want, Mr. Wilson?”
Wilson pursed his lips in hesitation and Smith said, “I’ll answer that for you, then, Mr.
Wilson. They want security, period, but they don’t want to have to earn it. They want
everything handed to them on a platter. Advancement by seniority only-all they have to
do is stay alive. No changes allowed except more pay and more benefits for fewer hours
of exactly the same work. Strictly serf labor and that’s the way they like it. Security, hell!
It’s exactly the same kind of security, if they had brains enough to realize it, as they’d
have in jail.”
“It has been computed,” Wilson said, ignoring Smith’s barbed opinion, “that in an
emergency outplanet Labor ,will support that of Earth. Furthermore, public opinion is very
strongly opposed to such gigantic trusts, combines, and monopolies as you are. And
finally, at the worst, the inevitable litigation would take a long time, which would … ?”
Wilson paused, delicately.
“It would,” Maynard agreed, grimly. “It would cramp us plenty and cost us plenty; and the
administration could and would pull a lot of other stuff just as slimy.”
Wilson neither confirmed nor denied the statement and Maynard went on. “Okay. We’ll
sign up for everything Hoadman demands; even the voice in management and the
feather-bedding. Also, well make the wage scales and fringe benefits retroactive to
cover all hours worked on and after July first.”
“May I ask why? They might yield that one point.” “Why should they?” Smith sneered.
“It’s just out of the goodness of our hearts. You may quote me on that” “And that isn’t