whereas Wingate picked up nothing whatsoever on the conventional receiver located in the same room with the experimental transmitter.
In the meantime he worked on his book.
Why he was writing a book he could not have told you. Back on earth it could have been termed a political pamphlet against the colonial system. Here there was no one to convince of his thesis, nor had he any expectation of ever being able to present it to a reading public. Venus was his home. He knew that there was no chance for him ever to return; the only way lay through Adonis, and there, waiting for him, were warrants for half the crimes in the calendar, contract-jumping, theft, kidnapping, criminal abandonment, conspiracy, subverting government. If the company police ever laid hands on him, they would jail him and lose the key.
No, the book arose, not from any expectation of publication, but from a half-subconscious need to arrange his thoughts. He had suffered a complete upsetting of all the evaluations by which he had lived; for his mental health it was necessary that he formulate new ones. It was natural to his orderly, if somewhat unimaginative, mind that he set his reasons and conclusions forth in writing.
Somewhat diffidently he offered the manuscript to Doc. He had learned that the nickname title had derived from the man's former occupation on Earth; he had been a professor of economics and philosophy in one of the smaller universities. Doc had even offered a partial explanation of his presence on Venus. «A little matter involving one of my women students,» he confided. «My wife took an unsympathetic view of the matter and so did the board of regents. The board had long considered my opinions a little too radical.»
«Were they?»
«Heavens, no! I was rockbound conservative. But I had an unfortunate tendency to express conservative principles in realistic rather than allegorical language.»
«I suppose you're a radical now.»
Doc's eyebrows lifted slightly. «Not at all. Radical and conservative are terms for emotional attitudes, not sociological opinions.»
Doc accepted the manuscript, read it through, and returned it without comment. But Wingate pressed him for an opinion. «Well, my boy, if you insist – »
«I do.»
» – I would say that you have fallen into the commonest fallacy of all in dealing with social and economic subjects – the 'devil theory.' »
«Huh?»
«You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity. Colonial slavery is nothing new; it is the inevitable result of imperial expansion, the automatic result of an antiquated financial structure – »
«I pointed out the part the banks played in my book.»
«No, no, no! You think bankers are scoundrels. They are not. Nor are company officials, nor patrons, nor the governing classes back on earth. Men are constrained by necessity and build up rationalizations to account for their acts. It is not even cupidity. Slavery is economically unsound, non-productive, but men drift into it whenever the circumstances compel it. A different financial system – But that's another story.»
«I still think it's rooted in human cussedness,» Wingate said stubbornly.
«Not cussedness – simple stupidity. I can't prove it to you, but you will learn.»
The success of the «silent radio» caused the Governor to send Wingate on a long swing around the other camps of the free federation to help them rig new equipment and to teach them how to use it. He spent four hard- working and soul-satisfying weeks, and finished with the warm knowledge that he had done more to consolidate the position of the free men against their enemies than could be done by winning a pitched battle.
When he returned to his home community, he found Sam Houston Jones waiting there.
Wingate broke into a run. «Sam!» he shouted, «Sam!
«Howdy, Hump,» said Sam. «Now one at a time, and not so fast.»
But Wingate bubbled on. «My, but it's good to see your ugly face, fellow. And am I glad you came here – this is a great place. We've got the most up-and-coming little state in the whole federation. You'll like it. They're a great bunch – »
«What are you?» Jones asked, eyeing him. «President of the local chamber of commerce?»
Wingate looked at him, and then laughed. «I get it. But seriously, you will like it. Of course, it's a lot different from what you were used to back on Earth – but that's all past and done with. No use crying over spilt milk, eh?»
«Wait a minute. You are under a misapprehension, Hump. Listen. I'm not an escaped slave.
Wingate opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. «But Sam,» he said, «that's impossible. You don't know.»
«I think I do.»
«But you don't. There's no going back for me. If I did, I'd have to face trial, and they've got me dead to rights. Even if I threw myself on the mercy of the court and managed to get off with a light sentence, it would be twenty years before I'd be a free man. No, Sam, it's impossible. You don't know the things I'm charged with.»
«I don't, eh? It's cost me a nice piece of change to clear them up.»
«Huh?»
«I know how you escaped. I know you stole a crock and kidnapped your patron and got two other clients to run with you. It took my best blarney and plenty of folding money to fix it. So help me, Hump – why didn't you pull something mild, like murder, or rape, or robbing a post office?»
«Well, now, Sam – I didn't do any of those things to cause you trouble. I had counted you out of my calculations. I was on my own. I'm sorry about the money.»
«Forget it. Money isn't an item with me. I'm filthy with the stuff. You know that. It comes from exercising care in the choice of parents. I was just pulling your leg and it came off in my hand.»
«Okay. Sorry.» Wingate's grin was a little forced. Nobody likes charity. «But tell me what happened. I'm still in the dark.»
«Right.» Jones had been as much surprised and distressed at being separated from Wingate on grounding as Wingate had been. But there had been nothing for him to do about it until he received assistance from Earth. He had spent long weeks as a metal worker at South Pole, waiting and wondering why his sister did not answer his call for help. He had written letters to her to supplement his first radiogram, that being the only type of communication he could afford, but the days crept past with no answer.
When a message did arrive from her the mystery was cleared up. She had not received his radio to Earth promptly, because she too, was aboard the
The message had not been relayed to her on Venus because the bright planet had by that time crawled to superior opposition on the far side of the sun from the Earth. For a matter of sixty earth days there was no communication, Earth to Venus. The message had rested, recorded but still scrambled, in the hands of the family firm, until she could be reached.
When she received it, she started a small tornado. Jones had been released, the liens against his contract paid, and ample credit posted to his name on Venus, in less than twenty-four hours. «So that was that,» concluded Jones, «except that I've got to explain to big sister when I get home how I got into this mess. She'll burn my ears.»
Jones had chartered a rocket for North Pole and had gotten on Wingate's trail at once. «If you had held on one more day, I would have picked you up. We retrieved your ex-patron about a mile from his gates.»
«So the old villain made it. I'm glad of that.»
«And a good job, too. If he hadn't I might never have been able to square you. He was pretty well done in, and his heart was kicking up plenty. Do you know that abandonment is a capital offense on this planet – with a mandatory death sentence if the victim dies?»
