Anderson, Poul - Explorations - ANDERSON, Poul

358 Pages·2016·0.93 MB·English

by  Anderson Poul

EXPLORATIONS

Copyright (c) 1981 by Poul Anderson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof, in any form.

Acknowledgments: The stories contained herein were first published and
copyrighted as follows:

THE SATURN GAME: Analog, copyright (c) 1981 by Ziff-Davis

Publishing Corporation, Inc. THE BITTER BREAD: Analog, copyright (c) 1975
by The Conde Nast

Publications, Inc.

THE WAYS OF LOVE: Destinies, copyright (c) 1979 by Poul Anderson THE
VOORTREKKERS: Final Stage, copyright (c) 1974 by Edward L.

Ferman and Barry N. Malzberg EPILOGUE: Analog, copyright (c) 1962 by The
Conde Nast
Publications, Inc. STARFOG: Analog, copyright (c) 1967 by The Conde Nast
Publications,

Inc.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24th Street

New York, N.Y. 10010

Cover art by Vincent Di Fate

ISBN: 0-812-51536-6

First printing: November 1981

Printed in the United States of America
098765432
TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Saturn Game
The Bitter Bread
The Ways of Love
The Voortrekkers
Epilogue
Starfog
Introduction to
EXPLORATIONS

by Poul Anderson

When Jim Baen and I were first discussing this book, what should go into it, he
suggested that the motif and title be “The Ways of Love.” I felt this was too
limited a theme, and we settled on “Explorations.” Each story deals with some
aspect of humanity’s future movement into the cosmos, which we both hope so
much will come to pass. Then Jim noticed, to our mutual surprise, that each is
also a love story anyway.

On second thought, perhaps this is no coincidence. The Greeks distinguished
three emotions which English lumps together as “love.” Yet are the three kinds
really unrelated? Might not sexual love (eros), love for God (agape), and every
other sort of affection (phile, from which we get such words as ‘ ‘philosophy”
and * ‘philanthropy”) spring from a common source, or even be different faces
of the same mystery?

How shall we think of that emotion which drives human beings to explore?

Romanticists to the contrary, it is not universal in our species. At least, in many
people it is subordinate to other desires. They are apt to resent public attention
given to anything except the objects of their own yearnings. Explorers, including
scientists of every description, are usually more tolerant, though this may be a
matter of necessity rather than temperament.

After all, they are forever a minority, striving to get a small share of society’s
resources in support of their undertakings; they must compromise. Demagogues,
whose claims can be unlimited, are always free to denounce them.

A case very much in point is that of the American space program. We have been
told it is useless, an extravagance we can no longer afford-at any rate, until that
day when the politicians have collected enough taxes, enacted enough laws, and
established enough bureaucracies to abolish poverty, disease, inequality, war,
crime, pollution, inflation, urban sprawl, and wrong thinking. We have also been
told that the public no longer cares, that space no longer has a constituency.

Both these assertions are false.

If we put rhetoric aside for a moment and look at a few facts, it is evident that,
though the space program has had it share of human inefficiencies and
absurdities, it has never been a losing proposition. It has, rather, already repaid
the modest investment in it, and returned a huge profit as well.

Modest? Of course. The budget of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration-for all of its varied activities-peaked at about the time of Apollo
11. Yet even in those palmy days it got less than 8 percent of the amount that the
federal government spent on health, education, and welfare (a figure which takes
no account of state and municipal undertakings or of private charities). It would
be unkind to compare the actual accomplishments, but at least we can deny that
NASA has ever taken bread out of the mouths of the poor.

Profit? Certainly. The revolution in meteorology alone, brought about by
weather satellites, proves that claim. The lives saved because hurricanes can be
accurately predicted offer a spectacular example. However, precise forecasts as a
routine matter, year after year, are the open-ended payoff, especially for
agriculture and transportation, and thus for mankind. Or think of
communications. Never mind if many television shows strike you as inane;
never mind, even, educational uses in primitive areas which could not otherwise
be reached-the fact is that transmission over great distances was bound to come
and that relaying through space is cheaper than relaying across the surface. Cash
economies are mere shorthand for labor set free and natural resources conserved.
-

Landsats and seasats give us information by which we can make better use of
those resources: for example, by identifying plant disease in remote areas, while
it is still readily treatable. By examining the cosmic environment of our planet
and comparing it with its neighbors, we have come to a better understanding of
it: for example, studies of the chemistry of the atmosphere of Venus gave us our
first clue to the menace that fluorocarbons were posing to our own ozone layer.
Not much further off is a real comprehension of geophysics. The practical,
humane applications of such knowledge are obvious: for example, earthquake
predictions, perhaps eventual earthquake prevention. Meanwhile, astrophysics
has long been a key to the full description and hence control of matter and
energy; and the best place for that research is above the air. We can also expect
deeper insights into how life works. Early biological experiments in space have
indicated how little we know today, how badly we need to carry on studies under
conditions found nowhere else. A golden age of medicine and food production
may well be a result.

, But, some say, can’t we save money by doing this with unmanned probes,
vehicles, robots, devices?

Machines are invaluable aids. Still, could they have had and shared the direct
experiences of a Cook, Stanley, Lyell, Darwin, Boas, or, more recently,
Cousteau, Leakey, Goodall? A human being is the only computer that
continuously reprograms itself, the only sensor system that records data it is not
planned to detect, the only thing that gives a damn.
Six fleeting visits to a single barren globe scarcely constitute exploration. If we
stop now, it will be as if European mariners had stopped when Columbus
reported his failure to reach India-which he never actually did, because he never
knew how much more grand his discovery was. What he found brought legions
overseas. What the astronauts have found in the tiny time granted them is
astonishingly great: not material wealth, but the stuff of knowledge, whence all
else arises. Shall we end the enterprise at its very beginning?

I have emphasized knowledge, that being the one absolutely certain gain.
However, a permanent human presence in space should also yield nearly
unlimited economic returns. As solar collectors achieve their full potential out
yonder, we should have all the energy we can ever use, free, clean, inexhaustible.
We should have abundant raw materials, no longer taken out of the hide of
Mother Earth. We should have industries moving to locations where they cannot
harm her, and entire new industries coming into existence. We should become
able to abolish poverty, if not the other ills that our race keeps visiting upon
itself, and abolish poverty not only in America but throughout the world. What
this would mean to the spirit is incalculable.

As for the falsehood that the public has lost interest, the popularity of science
fiction suffices to disprove that. We have, besides, the many thousands who
undergo expense and discomfort to watch space events in person, the many
millions who breathlessly follow every one on television and in the newspapers.
We have a large and growing volume of mail to Washington, urging a revitalized
program. (It would help mightily if you would send such letters, brief and
respectful, to your national legislators and the President.) Oh, yes, the people
care.

And so we return to the theme with which we began, love and its indivisibility.
Maybe the reason why some cannot imagine what we have to gain beyond Earth
is that they have not let heaven touch their hearts.