The Rival Rigelians

The Co-ordinator looked out over the eighteen seated before him and said, “I suppose I’m an incurable romantic. You see, I hate to see you go.”

Academician Amschel Mayer and Dr. Leonid Plekhanov sat slightly before the other sixteen. They were both in their early middle years and offset one another. Mayer was thin and high pitched, nervous and impatient; his manner was often that of a harried grade school teacher who disliked children. His colleague was heavy, slow and dour and he looked more the sergeant of infantry than a top political scientist.

Now, both showed their puzzlement, as did the balance of the team behind them.

The Co-ordinator added softly, “Without me.”

Plekhanov kept his massive face blank. It wasn’t for him to be impatient with his superior. Nevertheless, the ship was waiting, all stocked and ready for burn off. He stirred his bulk in his chair.

Amschel Mayer said, “It would be a pleasure if you could accompany us, Citizen.” Inwardly, he realized the other man’s position. Here was a dream coming true and Mayer and his fellows were the last thread that held the Co-ordinator’s control over the dream. When they left, half a century would pass before he could again check developments.

The Co-ordinator took a deep breath and became more businesslike. “Very briefly, I wish to go over your assignment. Undoubtedly redundant, but if there are any questions, no matter how trivial, this is the last opportunity to air them.”

What possible questions could there be at this late date? Plekhanov thought. He shifted his bulk again.

Behind him, Technician Jerome Kennedy whispered to the girl next to him from the side of his mouth, “Zen, I thought he was having us in for a last minute blast. A few snorts of guzzle.”

Natalie Wieliczka said, “Shhhh.”

The department head was swiveling slowly back and forth in his desk chair as he talked. “You are the first of many, many such teams. The manner in which you handle your task will effect man’s eternity. Obviously, since upon your experience we will base our future policies on interstellar colonization.” His voice lost volume. “The position in which you find yourself should be humbling.”

“It is,” Amschel Mayer agreed. Plekhanov nodded his head. Someone behind murmured further assent.

The Co-ordinator nodded too. “However, the situation is as near ideal as we could hope. Rigel’s planets are all but unbelievably Earthlike. Almost all our flora and fauna have been adaptable. Certainly our race has been.

“These two are the first of the seeded planets. Almost a thousand years ago we deposited small bodies of colonists upon each of them. Since then, we have periodically checked from a distance, but never intruded.”

His eyes swept the whole group, resting finally on the leaders. “No comment or questions thus far?”

Mayer said, when no one else could find a question, “This is one matter that has always surprised me. The colonies are so small to begin with. How could they possibly populate a whole world in one millennium?”

The Co-ordinator nodded and said, “Man adapts, Amschel. Have you studied the development of the United States in early history? During her first century and a half the need was for population to fill the vast lands wrested from the Amer-Inds. Families of eight, ten and twelve children were the common thing, and much larger ones were not unknown. And the generations crowded one against another. A girl worried about spinsterhood if she reached seventeen unwed. But in the next century? The frontier vanished, the driving need for population was gone. Not only were drastic immigration laws passed, but the family rapidly shrunk until by mid-Twentieth Century the usual consisted of two or three children, and even the childless family became increasingly common.”

Mayer frowned impatiently. “But still, a thousand years. There is always famine, war, disease…”

Plekhanov snorted patronizingly. “Forty to fifty generations, Amschel? Starting with a hundred colonists? Where are your mathematics?”

The Co-ordinator said, “The proof is there. We estimate that each of Rigel’s planets now supports a population of nearly one billion.”

“To be more exact”—Natt Roberts spoke up from the rear of the group—“some nine hundred million on Genoa, seven and a half on Texcoco.” His voice was as trim and neat as his physical appearance. However, it was information everyone present already possessed.

Mayer smiled wryly, “I wonder what the residents of each of these planets call their worlds. Hardly the same names we have arbitrarily bestowed.”