They stood, too, and went through the standard amenities.
Pond smiled and said, “I won’t mention the fact that you’re really a couple of snoops for United Planets.” The following day they took the shuttle from Greater Washington to Neuve Albuquerque and booked passage on the passenger-freighter SF Sheppard.
It was a strictly routine interplanetary journey and both Ronny and Dorn Horsten had been on a dozen or more spacecraft similar to the Sheppard. Routine was the only word. Somehow, the faster man travels, the less interesting the trip becomes. If one walks, one experiences much, sees a good deal. There is less if one rides a horse, or bicycles. There is still less if one speeds along a road in an automobile, and still less when the road becomes a super-highway and speed can be doubled. Still less does one experience in an airliner; aside from take-off and landing, there is precious little to do or see. But space travel, especially in underspace? Pure boredom.
All passengers—there were only three besides Dorn Horsten and Ronny—ate at the captain’s table.
At the first dinner in space, the skipper fixed his eyes on the two Section G agents. He was a grumpy old spacehound and should have been beyond retirement age. However, some of the planets specializing in interplanetary commerce, and often using over-aged space freighters, sometimes hired these old timers, since they could get them more cheaply. The aged spacehounds, after a lifetime going about the galaxy, found it impossible to adjust to surface life, and hung onto any job they could get that would keep them in interplanetary travel.
He said, “So you’re going to Einstein?”
Ronny sensed an opportunity to learn something additional about their destination. He said, “Why, yes. You’ve been there before?”
“Often,” the captain growled, breaking a roll in disgust. “It’s part of our regular run. Worst liberty set-down in the system. The crew hate it. I don’t blame them. Seldom leave my ship, myself, but spacemen need relaxation between jumps.”
Dorn and Ronny both looked at him questioningly.
The doctor said casually, in his mild voice, “What’s wrong with Einstein?”
“Nothing.”
They still looked at him.
He buttered his roll. The other passengers, three men, all of whom were obviously in interplanetary commerce, didn’t bother to listen. The ennui of space had already set in.
He said, “And nothing right, either, from a spaceman’s viewpoint. There’s nothing to do.”
Ronny said, “How do you mean?”
“There’s not even a bar at the spaceport. You can’t understand theTri-Di. Even if you could, the kind of shows they run you can’t… ”
Ronny said, “What do you mean, you can’t understand the Tri-Di?”
“They don’t speak Basic, or even Amer-English.”
“Oh. You mean on none of the programs? I’ve been on planets, such as Paris, where they continue to speak an old Earth language called French, or that damned Neu Reich, where they speak German, but everybody spoke Basic as well, and a good many of the theatres and Tri-Di and TV shows were in it, usually entertainment they’d imported from other planets.”
“On none of the programs,” the captain growled. “The cloddies never import entertainment from other planets. They make it clear they think it’s too juvenile.”
Ronny took a sip of wine before saying, still in puzzlement, “But there must be other types of entertainment in the cities besides those dependent on language—nightclubs, bars… ”
“There are no cities. Even if there were, there wouldn’t be any nightclubs or bars. From what I hear, they don’t drink alcohol, or anything else that’s supposedly bad for your health, for that matter. Not even coffee.”
Dorn Horsten said, “No cities?”
“They don’t like them.”
Ronny said in protest, “But you’ve got to have cities.”
“Evidently, they don’t think so,” the captain said. “I was talking to one of their customs officials, if that’s what you could call him, once, and he explained it to me. He said that, by the time the colonists arrived on Einstein from Earth, cities were already what he called an anachronism. The original reasons for being no longer applied. Originally, they were centers for defense, centers for trade, centers for manufacture, education, religion. Obviously, the defense reason is out now. In modern warfare, where you still find it at all, a city is just a sitting duck. And with modern methods of transportation, computers and automation, you can put your manufacturing plants and distribution centers anywhere. You don’t need a city for them. And with modern communications and planet-wide data banks, you don’t need cities for educational centers. As far as religion is concerned, damn few people are religious any more, especially on Einstein, but you can always tune in Tri-Di if you want to hear a sermon.”
“Well, this is a new one for me,” Ronny said. “I’ve never been on a planet that didn’t have at least small cities. Don’t they even have towns?”
“No. They like privacy and they don’t like congestion, pollution and the other alleged shortcomings of cities and towns.”
One of the other passengers, a red-faced type, yawned and said, “Have you all heard the one about the lovelorn gorilla? It’s the funniest dirty joke I ever heard.”
Chapter Six
Einstein began its peculiarity right from the beginning.
The skipper himself saw them to the gangplank, followed by two spacemen with their luggage. He had amusement in his gruff expression. It was a small spaceport with only two other craft on it. Both of them looked like interplanetary tramps. It would seem that Einstein wasn’t exactly much of a center of traffic.
Ronny and Dorn looked out over the pavement upon which the Sheppard had just landed. Three automated stevedore carts were hustling toward them; otherwise, the whole area was empty, save for a natty hover car parked only a few meters away. The sole occupant was a girl.
There were no buildings lining the field. Where the metallic-looking landing area ended, there was what looked like nothing so much as an Earth-side golf course. A bit more rolling, perhaps, than a golf course, including ponds and small lakes, and clumps of trees. In general, the first impression was than Einstein was earthlike to within a few percentage points. Either that, or the planetary engineers had gone to great effort to make it so.
Ronny look in the captain, who was grinning deprecation. Ronny said, “Where in the hell are the administration buildings, the freight terminals, the spaceport hotel and so on?”
The captain said, “Damned if I know.”
Ronny looked at him and said, “Thanks. But you warned us. This must be a helluva liberty set-down for your boys.”
“Not even a place to get a beer,” the captain told him. He’d obviously accompanied them for the sole purpose of witnessing their astonishment. He said, “I suppose that mopsy down there is your welcoming committee.”
“Welcoming committee?” Dorn Horsten said blankly. “We’re a delegation from the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, from United Planets. The first that’s ever come from Earth. I was, ah, rather expecting a band or so, blaring the planetary anthem of Einstein and possibly that of United Planets. A welcoming committee of a dozen or so elderly looking types with red sashes across their chests. Possibly a company or so of soldiers to be reviewed.”
“You dreamer,” the captain laughed sourly. “Have fun, gents.”
Ronny and Horsten started down the gangplank, followed by the two spacemen with their bags.
They approached the hover car, and, as they did, the girl came out of it, smiling.