The scowling youth produced his ground-car. Calhoun got in. Murgatroyd, of course, was not left behind. And the car was magnificent in polish and performance. Lavish effort and real ability had gone into its grooming and adjustment. With a spinning of wheels, it shot into immediate high speed. The dark-browed youngling drove with hair-raising recklessness and expertness. He traversed the city in minutes, and at a speed which allowed Calhoun only glimpses. But he could see that it was almost unoccupied.
Canopolis had been built by the youth of Phaedra to the designs of their elders for the reception of immigrants from the mother planet. It had been put up in frantic haste and used only as a receiving-depot. It had needed impassioned and dedicated labor, and sustained and exhausting concentration to get it and the rest of the colonial facilities built against a deadline of doom. But now its builders were fed up with it. It was practically empty. The last arrivals had scattered to places where food supplies were nearer and a more satisfactory way of life was possible. There were broken windows and spattered walls. There was untidiness everywhere. But there had been great pains taken in the building. Some partly-completed enterprises showed highly competent workmanship.
Then the city ended and was a giant pile of structures which fell swiftly behind. The highways were improvised. They could be made more perfect later. Across the horizon there were jerry-built villages—temporary by design, because there had been such desperate need for so many of them so soon.
The ground-car came to a stop with a screaming of brakes at the edge of such a jerry-built group of small houses. A woman ran to hiding. A man ran into view. Another, and another, and another. They came ominously toward the car.
"Hop out," said the scowling driver. He grinned faintly. "They don't want me here. But I stirred 'em up, eh?"
Calhoun stepped out of the ground-car. It whirled on one pair of wheels and sped back to the city, its driver turning to make a derisive gesture at the men who had appeared. They were still quite young men—younger than Calhoun. They looked at him steadily.
He growled to himself. Then he called:
"I'm looking for somebody named Walker. He's supposed to be top man here."
A tense young man said sardonically:
"I'm Walker. But I'm not tops. Where'd you come from? With a Med Service uniform and a tormal on your shoulder you're not one of us! Have you come to argue that we ought to give in to Phaedra?"
Calhoun snorted.
"I've a message that an attack from space is due in three days, but that's all from Phaedra. I'm a Med Service man. How's the health situation? How are you equipped for doctors and such? How about hospitals? How's the death rate?"
The younger Walker grinned savagely.
"This is a new colony. I doubt there are a hundred people on the planet over twenty-five. How many doctors would there be in a population like ours? I don't think there is a death rate. Do you know how we came to be here?"
"Your father told me," said Calhoun, "at the military base on the next planet out. They're getting ready for an attack—and they asked me to warn you about it. Three days from now."
Young Walker ground his teeth.
"They won't dare attack. We'll smash them if they do. They lied to us! Worked us to death—"
"And no death rate?" asked Calhoun.
The younger man knitted his brows.
"There's no use your arguing with us. This is our world! We made it and we're keeping it. They made fools of us long enough."
"And you've no health problems at all?"
The sardonic young man hesitated. One of the others said coldly:
"Make him happy. Let him talk to the women. They're worried about some of the kids."
Calhoun breathed a private sigh of relief. These relatively mature young men were the first-landed colonists. They'd had the hardest of all the tasks put upon the younger generation by the adults of Phaedra. They'd had the most back-breaking labor and the most urgent responsibilities. They'd been worked and stressed to the breaking-point. They'd finally arrived at a decision of desperation.
But apparently things could be worse. It is the custom, everywhere, for women to make themselves into whatever is most attractive to men. Young girls, in particular, will adopt any tradition which is approved of by their prospective husbands. And in a society to be formed brand-new, appalling new traditions could be started. But they hadn't. Deep-rooted instincts still worked. Women—young women—and girls appeared still to feel concern for young children which were not even their own. And Fredericks' story—
"By all means," agreed Calhoun. "If there's something wrong with the health of the children—"
Young Walker gestured and turned back toward the houses. He scowled as he walked. Presently he said defensively:
"You probably noticed there aren't many people in the city."
"Yes," said Calhoun. "I noticed."
"We're not fully organized yet," said Walker, more defensively still. "We weren't doing anything but building. We've got to get organized before we'll have a regular economic system. Some of the later-comers don't know anything but building. When they're ready for it, the city will be occupied. We'll have as sound a system for production and distribution of goods as anywhere else. But we've just finished a revolution. In a sense we're still in it. But presently this world will be pretty much like any other—only better."
"I see," said Calhoun.
"Most people live in the little settlements, like this—close to the crops we grow. People raise their own food, and so on. In a way you may think we're primitive, but we've got some good technicians! When they get over not having to work for the old folks and finish making things just for themselves—we'll do all right. After all, we weren't trained to make a complete world, just to make a world for the older people on Phaedra to take over. But we've taken it over for ourselves!"
"Yes," agreed Calhoun politely.
"We'll work out the other things," said young Walker truculently. "We'll have money, and credit, and hiring each other and so on. Right now defending ourselves is the top thing in everybody's mind."
"Yes," agreed Calhoun again. He was regarded as not quite an enemy, but he was not accepted as wholly neutral.
"The older ones of us are married," Walker said firmly, "and we feel responsibility, and we're keeping things pretty well in line. We were lied to, though, and we resent it. And we aren't letting in the old people to try to run us, when we've proved we can make and run a world ourselves!"
Calhoun said nothing. They reached a house. Walker turned to enter it, with a gesture for Calhoun to accompany him. Calhoun halted.
"Just a moment. The person who drove me here—when he turned up, at least one woman ran away and you men came out . . . well . . . pretty pugnaciously."
Walker flushed angrily.
"I said we had technicians. Some of them made a gadget to help take care of the children. That's harmless. But they want to use it to . . . to spy on older people with it. On us! Invasion of privacy. We don't like . . . well . . . they try to set up psych circuits near our homes. They . . . think it's fun to . . . know what people say and do—"
"Psych circuits can be useful," observed Calhoun, "or they can be pretty monstrous. On the other hand—"
"No decent man would do it!" snapped young Walker. "And no girl would have anything to do with anybody— But there are some crazy fools—"
"You have described," said Calhoun dryly, "a criminal class. Only instead of stealing other people's possessions they want to steal their sensations. Peeping-Tom stuff, eavesdropping on what other people feel about those they care for, as well as what they do and say. In a way it's a delinquency problem, isn't it?"