[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

were trying to get lost then, remember?--and you'll have one star trip under your belt to tell your kids
about. Or they may never look for you; some clerk may chuck your trip record into the file basket and
leave it there until it gets lost rather than bother. Or you might be able to persuade a clerk in Mr. Kuiper's
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
office to lose the duplicates, not mail them in. Nelson, for example; he's got a hungry look." Sam eyed
him carefully, then added, "Or you might do what I'm going to do."
Only part of what Sam had said had sunk in. Max let the record play back and gradually calmed
down as he began to understand that his situation was not entirely desperate. He was inclined to agree
about Nelson, as Nelson had already suggested indirectly that sometimes the efficiency marks on the
ship's books were not necessarily the ones that found their way into the permanent records--under
certain circumstances. He put the idea aside, not liking it and having no notion anyhow of how to go
about offering a bribe.
When he came, in his mental play back, to Sam's last remark, it brought him to attention. "What are
_you_ going to do?"
Sam eyed the end of his cigar stub. "I'm not going back."
This required no diagram to be understood. But, under Imperial decrees, the suggested offense
carried even heavier punishment than faking membership in a guild. Deserting was almost treason. "Keep
talking," Max said gruffly.
"Let's run over where we touch this cruise. Garson's Planet--domed colonies, like Luna and Mars. In
a domed colony you do exactly what the powers-that-be say, or you stop breathing. You might hide out
and have a new identity grafted on, but you would still be in the domes. No good, there's more freedom
even back on Terra. Nu Pegasi VI, Halcyon--not bad though pretty cold at aphelion. But it is still
importing more than it exports which means that the Imperials run the show and the locals will help dig
out a wanted man. Now we come to Nova Terra, Beta Aquarii X-- and that, old son, is what the doctor
ordered and why the preacher danced."
"You've been there?"
"Once. I should have stayed. Max, imagine a place like Earth, but sweeter than Terra ever was.
Better weather, broader richer lands . . . forests aching to be cut, game that practically jumps into the
stew pot. If you don't like settlements, you move on until you've got no neighbors, poke a seed in the
ground, then jump back before it sprouts. No obnoxious insects. Practically no terrestrial diseases and no
native diseases that like the flavor of our breed. Gushing rivers. Placid oceans. Man, I'm telling you!"
"But wouldn't they haul us back from there?"
"Too big. The colonists _want_ more people and they won't help the Imperials. The Imperial Council
has a deuce of a time just collecting taxes. They don't even try to arrest a deserter outside the bigger
towns." Sam grinned. "You know why?"
"Why?"
"Because it didn't pay. An Imperial would be sent to Back-and-Beyond to pick up someone; while
he was looking he would find some golden-haired daughter of a rancher eyeing him--they run to eight or
nine kids, per family and there are always lots of eligible fillies, husband-high and eager. So pretty quick
he is a rancher with a beard and a new name and a wife. He was a bachelor and he hasn't been home
lately--or maybe he's married back on Terra and doesn't want to go home. Either way, even the Imperial
Council can't fight human nature."
"I don't want to get married."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"That's your problem. But best of all, the place still has a comfortable looseness about it. No
property taxes, outside the towns. Nobody would pay one; they'd just move on, if they didn't shoot the
tax collector instead. No guilds--you can plow a furrow, saw a board, drive a truck, or thread a pipe, all
the same day and never ask permission. A man can do anything and there's no one to stop him, no one to
tell him he wasn't born into the trade, or didn't start young enough, or hasn't paid his contribution. There's
more work than there are men to do it and the colonists just don't care."
Max tried to imagine such anarchy and could not, he had never experienced it. "But don't the guilds
object?"
"What guilds? Oh, the mother lodges back earthside squawked when they heard, but not even the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]