Here indeed was proof of Life, on a scale such as he had never imagined. On all of Titan, there were fewer than a hundred trees, cherished and protected with loving care. Spread out beneath him now were incomputable millions.
Somewhere, Duncan had encountered the phrase “primeval forest,” and now it flashed again into his mind. So must the Earth have looked in the ancient days, before Man had set to work upon it with fire and axe. Now, with the ending of the brief Agricultural Age, much of the planet was reverting to something like its original state.
Though the fact was very hard to believe, Duncan knew perfectly well that the “primeval forest” lying endlessly beneath him was not much older than
Grandfather. Only two centuries ago, this had all been farmland, divided into enormous checkerboards and covered in the autumn with golden grain. (That concept of seasons was another local reality he found extremely difficult to grasp…. ) There were still plenty of farms in the world, run by eccentric hobbyists or biological research organizations, but the disasters of the twentieth century had taught men never again to rely on a technology that, at its very best, had an efficiency of barely one percent.
The sun was sinking, driven down into the west with unnatural speed by the shuttle’s velocity. It clung to the horizon for a few seconds, then winked out. For perhaps a minute longer the forest was still visible; then it faded into obscurity.
But not into darkness. As if by magic, faint lines of light had appeared on the land below-spiders’ webs of luminosity, stretching as far as the eye could see. Sometimes three or four lines would meet at a single glowing knot. There were also isolated islands of phosphorescence, apparently unconnected with the main network. Here was further proof of Man’s existence; that great forest was a much
busier place than it appeared to be by daylight. Yet Duncan could not help comparing this modest display with pictures he had seen from the early Atomic Age, when millions of square kilometers blazed at night with such brilliance that men could no longer see the stars.
He suddenly became aware of a compact constellation of flashing lights, moving independently of the glimmering landscape far below. For a moment, he was baffled; then he realized that he was watching some great airship, cruising not much faster than a cloud with its cargo of freight or passengers. This was one experience Titan could not provide. He determined to enjoy it as soon as the opportunity arose.
And there was a city-quite a big one, at least a hundred thousand people.
The shuttle was now so low that he could make out blocks of buildings, roads, parks, and a stadium blazing with light, presumably the scene of some sporting event. The city fell astern, and a few minutes later everything was lost in a gray mist, lit by occasional flashes of lightning, not very impressive by the standards of Titan. Inside the cabin, Duncan could hear nothing of the storm through which they were now flying, but the vibration of the engines had taken a new note and he could sense that the ship was dropping rapidly. Nevertheless, he was taken completely by surprise when there was a sudden surge of weight, the slightest of jolt sand there on the screen was a sea of wet concrete, a confusion of lights, and half a dozen buses and service vehicles scurrying around in the driving rain.
After thirty years, Duncan Makenzie had returned to the world where he was born, but which he had never seen…. Part III
Terra
WASHINGTON, D.C.
“Sorry about the weather,” said George Washington. “We used to have local climate control, but gave it up after an Independence Day parade was blocked by snow.”
Duncan laughed dutifully, though he was not quite sure if he was supposed to believe this.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s all new to me. I’ve never seen rain before.”
That was not the literal truth, but it was near enough. He had often driven through ammonia gales and could still remember the poisonous cascades streaming down the windows only a few centimeters before his eyes. But this was harmless-no, beneficent-water, the source of life both on Earth and on
Titan. If he opened the door now he would merely get wet; he would not die horribly. But the instincts of a lifetime were hard to overcome, and he knew that it would require a real effort of will to leave the protection of the limousine.
And it was a genuine limousine-another first for Duncan. Never before had he traveled in such sybaritic comfort, with a communications console on one side and a well-stocked bar on the other. Washington saw his admiring gaze and commented: “Impressive, isn’t it? They don’t make them any more. This was President Bernstein’s favorite car.”
Duncan was not too good on American presidents -after all, there had been by now ninety-five of them-but he had an approximate idea of Bernstein’s date. He performed a quick calculation, didn’t believe the
resuli, and repeated it. “That means-it’s more than a hundred and fifty years old!”
“And it’s probably good for another hundred and fifty. Of course, the upholstery-real leather, notice -is replaced every twenty years or so. If these seats could talk, they could tell some secrets. As a matter of fact, they often did-but you have my personal assurance that it’s now been thoroughly debugged.”
“Debugged? Oh, I know what you mean. Anyway, I don’t have any secrets.”
“Then we’ll soon provide you with some; that’s our chief local industry.”
As the beautiful old car cruised in almost perfect silence under the guidance of its automatic controls, Duncan tried to see something of the terrain through which he was passing. The spaceport was fifty kilometers from the city-no one had yet invented a noiseless rocket-and the four-lane highway bore a surprising amount of traffic. Duncan could count at least twenty vehicles of various types, and even though they were all moving in the same direction, the spectacle was somewhat alarming.
“I hope all those other cars are on automatic,” he said anxiously.
Washington looked a little shocked. “Of course,” he said. “It’s been a criminal offense for-oh-at least a hundred years to drive manually on a public highway. Though we still have occasional psychopaths who kill themselves and other people.”
That was an interesting admission; Earth had not solved all its problems.
One of the greatest dangers to the Technological Society was the unpredictable madman who tried to express his frustrationsconsciously or otherwise-by sabotage. There had been hideous instances of this in the past. The destruction of the Gondwana reactor in the early twenty-first century was perhaps the best-known example. Since Titan was even more vulnerable than Earth in this respect, Duncan would have liked to discuss the matter further; but to do so within an hour of his arrival would hardly be tactful.
He was quite sure that if he did commit such a faux pas, his host would neatly divert the conversation without causing him the slightest embarrassment. During the short time that they had been acquainted, Duncan had decided that George Washington was a very polished diplomat, with the selfassurance that comes only with a family tree whose roots are several hundred years deep. Yet it would have been hard to imagine anyone less like his distinguished namesake, for this George Washington was a short, bald, and rather plump brown man, very elegantly dressed and bejeweled. The baldness and plumpness were both rather surprising, since they could be so easily corrected. On the other hand, they did provide a mark of distinction, and perhaps that was the idea. But this was another sensitive subject that Duncan would be well advised to avoid-at least until he knew his host much better. And perhaps not even then.