«We’ve changed, too,» Briem said softly, almost in a whisper. «Some of us have, at least. There are a few of us who realize that we can’t remain separated. A few of us who believe exactly what you believe.»
«Can that be true?»
«Yes,» he said. «The human race must not remain separated into the wealthy few who live in space and the impoverished billions on Earth. That way is worse than madness. It’s evil.»
«You know what I want to do, then. You have known it all along.»
«I suspected it,» said Briem. «And I’m glad that my suspicions were correct. We need people like you: people who’ve been there and can convince the government and the voters that we must reestablish strong ties with our brothers and sisters.»
Dolores felt giddy, almost faint. «Then you will recommend—»
«I’m the chairman of the immigration board,» Briem revealed. «Your application for return will be approved, I promise you.»
Her thoughts tumbled dizzyingly in her mind, but the one that stood out most powerfully was that she would see her son again. I will see Hector Luis! I will hold him in my arms!
«Now I’ve really got to get to that concert,» Briem said. «I’m playing second keyboard tonight.»
«Yes,» Dolores said vaguely. «I am sorry to have kept you.»
He flashed her a smile and dashed off down the passageway.
«And thank you!» Dolores called after him.
Then she turned back to the window. Five hundred kilometers away was the Earth she had left only a week ago. The Earth on which she had spent ten years, working in their filthy choked cities, living among the helpless and the hopeless, trying to change their world, to make their lives better, learning day by painful day that they could not long survive without the wealth, the knowledge, the skills that the space communities had denied them.
The Earth slid from her view and she saw the Moon once again, clean and cool, distant yet reachable. She would return to the world of her birth, she realized. She would work with all the passion and strength in her to make them understand the debt they owed to the people of Earth. She would reunite the severed family of humankind.
And she would see her son and make him understand that despite everything she loved him. Perhaps she would even reunite her own severed family.
Dolores smiled to herself. She was dreaming impossible dreams and she knew it. But without the dreams, she also knew, there can be no reality.
THE SYSTEM
This story was written in the Nineteen Sixties, while I was connected with a program to develop an artificial heart. Even at that time, there were committees sitting to decide who would get to use the rare and expensive kidney dialysis machines and who would die of renal failure.
Any relationship between this tale and Obamacare or death panels is purely … prescient?
«Not just research,» Gorman said, rocking smugly in his swivel chair, «Organized research.»
Hopler, the cost-time analyst, nodded agreement. «Organized,» Gorman continued, «and carefully controlled—from above. The System—that’s what gets results. Give the scientists their way and they’ll spend you deaf, dumb, and blind on butterfly sex-ways or sub-subatomic particles. Damned nonsense.»
Sitting on the front inch of the visitor’s chair, Hopler asked meekly, «I’m afraid I don’t see what this has to do…»
«With the analysis you turned in?» Gorman glanced at the ponderous file that was resting on a corner of his desk. «No, I suppose you don’t know. You just chew through the numbers, don’t you? Names, people, ideas… they don’t enter into your work.»
With an uncomfortable shrug, Hopler replied, «My job is economic analysis. The System shouldn’t be biased by personalities…»
«Of course not.»
«But now that it’s over, I would like to know… I mean, there’ve been rumors going through the Bureau.»
«About the cure? They’re true. The cure works. I don’t know the details of it,» Gorman said, waving a chubby hand. «Something to do with repressor molecules. Cancerous cells lack ‘em. So the biochemists we’ve been supporting have found out how to attach repressors to the cancer cells. Stops ‘em from growing. Controls the cancer. Cures the patient. Simple… now that we can do it.»
«It… it’s almost miraculous.»
Gorman frowned. «What’s miraculous about it? Why do people always connect good things with miracles? Why don’t you think of cancer as a miracle, a black miracle?»
Hopler fluttered his hands as he fumbled for a reply. «Never mind,» Gorman snapped. «This analysis of yours. Shows the cure can be implemented on a nationwide basis. Not too expensive. Not too demanding of trained personnel that we don’t have.»
«I believe the cure could even be put into worldwide effect,» Hopler said.
«The hell it can be!»
«What? I don’t understand. My analysis…»
«Your analysis was one of many. The System has to look at all sides of the picture. That’s how we beat heart disease, and stroke, and even highway deaths.»
«And now cancer.»
«No. Not cancer. Cancer stays. Demographic analysis knocked out all thoughts of using the cure. There aren’t any other major killers around anymore. Stop cancer and we swamp ourselves with people. So the cure gets shelved.»
For a stunned instant, Hopler was silent. Then, «But… I need the cure!»
Gorman nodded grimly. «So will I. The System predicts it.»
BATTLE STATION
«Where do you get your crazy ideas?»
Every science fiction writer has heard that question, over and over again. Sometimes the questioner is kind enough to leave out the word «crazy.» But the question still is asked whenever I give a lecture to any audience that includes people who do not regularly read science fiction.
Some science fiction writers, bored by that same old question (and sometimes miffed at the implications behind that word «crazy»), have taken to answering: «Schenectady!» There’s even a mythology about it that claims that members of the Science Fiction Writers of America subscribe to the Crazy Idea Service of Schenectady, New York, and receive in the mail one crazy idea each month—wrapped in plain brown paper, of course.
Yet the question deserves an answer. People are obviously fascinated with the process of creativity. Nearly everybody has a deep curiosity about how a writer comes up with the ideas that generate fresh stories.
For most of the stories and novels I have written over the years, the ideation period is so long and complex that I could not begin to explain—even to myself—where the ideas originally came from.
With «Battle Station,» happily, I can trace the evolution of the story from original idea to final draft.
«Battle Station» has its roots in actual scientific research and technological development. In the mid-1960s I was employed at the research laboratory where the first high-power laser was invented. I helped to arrange the first briefing in the Pentagon to inform the Department of Defense that lasers of virtually any power desired could now be developed. That was the first step on the road to what is now called the Strategic Defense Initiative.
My 1976 novel Millennium examined, as only science fiction can, the human and social consequences of using lasers in satellites to defend against nuclear missiles. By 1983 the real world had caught up to the idea and President Reagan initiated the «Star Wars» program. In 1984 I published a nonfiction book on the subject, Assured Survival. In 1986 a second edition of that book, retitled Star Peace and published by Tor Books, brought the swiftly developing story up to date.