“I am sure you mean yourself, dear,” said Bergen, “to which I can only answer that you are determined to have a baby here and to keep it here for a period of time after birth, and that effectively eliminates you from consideration.”
Demerest said stiffly, “We hope you will send men to Luna City. We are anxious to have you understand our problems.”
“Yes, a mutual exchange of problems and of weeping on each other’s shoulders might be of great comfort to all. For instance, you have one advantage on Luna City that I wish we could have. With low gravity and a low pressure differential, you can make your caverns take on any irregular and angular fashion that appeals to your aesthetic sense or is required for convenience. Down here we’re restricted to the sphere, at least for the foreseeable future, and our designers develop a hatred for the spherical that surpasses belief. Actually it isn’t funny. It breaks them down. They eventually resign rather than continue to work spherically.”
Bergen shook his head and leaned his chair back against a microfilm cabinet. “You know,” he continued, “when William Beebe built the first deep-set chamber in history in the 1930s—it was just a gondola suspended from a mother ship by a half-mile cable, with no buoyancy chambers and no engines, and if the cable broke, good night, only it never did. . . . Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, when Beebe built his first deep-sea chamber, he was going to make it cylindrical; you know, so a man would fit in it comfortably. After all, a man is essentially a tall, skinny cylinder. However, a friend of his argued him out of that and into a sphere on the very sensible grounds that a sphere would resist pressure more efficiently than any other possible shape. You know who that friend was?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“The man who was President of the United States at the time of Beebe’s descents—Franklin D. Roosevelt. All these spheres you see down here are the great-grandchildren of Roosevelt’s suggestion.”
Demerest considered that briefly but made no comment. He returned to the earlier topic. “We would particularly like someone from Ocean-Deep,” he said, “to visit Luna City because it might lead to a great enough understanding of the need, on Ocean-Deep’s part, for a course of action that might involve considerable self- sacrifice.”
“Oh?” Bergen’s chair came down flat-leggedly on all fours. “How’s that?”
“Ocean-Deep is a marvelous achievement; I wish to detract nothing from that. I can see where it will become greater still, a wonder of the world. Still—”
“Still?”
“Still, the oceans are only a part of the Earth; a major part, but only a part. The deep sea is only part of the ocean. It is inner space indeed; it works inward, narrowing constantly to a point.”
“I think,” broke in Annette, looking rather grim, “that you’re about to make a comparison with Luna City.”
“Indeed I am,” said Demerest. “Luna City represents outer space, widening to infinity. There is nowhere to go down here in the long run; everywhere to go out there.”
“We don’t judge by size and volume alone, Mr. Demerest,” said Bergen. “The ocean is only a small part of Earth, true, but for that very reason it is intimately connected with over five billion human beings. Ocean-Deep is experimental but the settlements on the continental shelf already deserve the name of cities. Ocean-Deep offers mankind the chance of exploiting the whole planet—”
“Of polluting the whole planet,” broke in Demerest excitedly. “Of raping it, of ending it. The concentration of human effort to Earth itself is unhealthy and even fatal if it isn’t balanced by a turning outward to the frontier.”
“There is nothing at the frontier,” said Annette, snapping out the words. “The Moon is dead, all the other worlds out there are dead. If there are live worlds among the stars, light-years away, they can’t be reached. This ocean is living.”
“The Moon is living, too, Mrs. Bergen, and if Ocean-Deep allows it, the Moon will become an independent world. We Moon-men will then see to it that other worlds are reached and made alive and, if mankind but has patience, we will reach the stars. We! We! It is only we Moon-men, used to space, used to a world in a cavern, used to an engineered environment, who could endure life in a spaceship that may have to travel centuries to reach the stars.”
“Wait, wait, Demerest,” said Bergen, holding up his hand. “Back up! What do you mean, if Ocean-Deep allows it? What have we to do with it?”
“You’re competing with us, Mr. Bergen. The Planetary Project Commission will swing your way, give you more, give us less, because in the short term, as your wife says, the ocean is alive and the Moon, except for a thousand men, is not; because you are a half-dozen miles away and we a quarter of a million; because you can be reached in an hour and we only in three days. And because you have an ideal safety record and we have had— misfortunes.”
“The last, surely, is trivial. Accidents can happen any time, anywhere.”
“But the trivial can be used,” said Demerest angrily. “It can be made to manipulate emotions. To people who don’t see the purpose and the importance of space exploration, the death of Moon-men in accidents is proof enough that the Moon is dangerous, that its colonization is a useless fantasy. Why not? It’s their excuse for saving money and they can then salve their consciences by investing part of it in Ocean-Deep instead. That’s why I said the accident on the Moon had threatened the survival of Luna City even though it killed only twenty people out of nearly a thousand.”
“I don’t accept your argument. There has been enough money for both for a score of years.”
“Not enough money. That’s exactly it. Not enough investment to make the Moon self-supporting in all these years, and then they use that lack of self-support against us. Not enough investment to make Ocean-Deep self- supporting either. . . . But now they can give you enough if they cut us out altogether.”
“Do you think that will happen?”
“I’m almost sure it will, unless Ocean-Deep shows a statesmanlike concern for man’s future.”
“How?”
“By refusing to accept additional funds. By not competing with Luna City. By putting the good of the whole race ahead of self-interest.”
“Surely you don’t expect us to dismantle—”
“You won’t have to. Don’t you see? Join us in explaining that Luna City is essential, that space exploration is the hope of mankind; that you will wait, retrench, if necessary.”
Bergen looked at his wife and raised his eyebrows. She shook her head angrily. Bergen said, “You have a rather romantic view of the PPC, I think. Even if I made noble, self-sacrificing speeches, who’s to say they would listen? There’s a great deal more involved in the matter of Ocean-Deep than my opinion and my statements. There are economic considerations and public feeling. Why don’t you relax, Mr. Demerest? Luna City won’t come to an end. You’ll receive funds, I’m sure of it. I tell you, I’m sure of it. Now let’s break this up—”
“No, I’ve got to convince you one way or another that I’m serious. If necessary, Ocean-Deep must come to a halt unless the PPC can supply ample funds for both.”
Bergen said, “Is this some sort of official mission, Mr. Demerest? Are you speaking for Luna City officially, or just for yourself?”
“Just for myself, but maybe that’s enough, Mr. Bergen.”
“I don’t think it is. I’m sorry, but this is turning out to be unpleasant. I suggest that, after all, you had better return Topside on the first available ’scaphe.”
“Not yet! Not yet!” Demerest looked about wildly, then rose unsteadily and put his back against the wall. He was a little too tall for the room and he became conscious of life receding. One more step and he would have gone too far to back out.
He had told them back on the Moon that there would be no use talking, no use negotiating. It was dog-eat- dog for the available funds and Luna City’s destiny must not be aborted; not for Ocean-Deep; not—for Earth; no, not for all of Earth, since mankind and the Universe came even before the Earth. Man must outgrow his womb and Demerest could hear his own ragged breathing and the inner turmoil of his whirling thoughts. The other two were looking at him with what seemed concern. Annette rose and said, “Are you ill, Mr. Demerest?”
“I am not ill. Sit down. I’m a safety engineer and I want to teach you about safety. Sit down, Mrs. Bergen.”
“Sit down, Annette,” said Bergen. “I’ll take care of him.” He rose and took a step forward.
But Demerest said, “No. Don’t you move either. I have something right here. You’re too naive concerning
