But correct or not, the K-Crash theory was as good an explanation as any for what had happened to the Earth’s economy. Certainly there had to be some reason for the global downturn. Just as certainly, there had been a great deal of knowledge, coming in from many sources, headed toward a lot of people, for a long time.
The cultural radicals—the Naked Purples, the Final Clan, all of them—were supposed to be a direct offshoot of the same info-neurosis that had ultimately caused the Crash. There were Whole communities who rejected the overinformed lifestyle of Earth and reached for something else—anything else—so long as it was different. Raphael did not approve of the rads. But he could easily believe they were pushed over the edge by societal neuroses.
The mental institutions of Earth were full of info-neurotics, people who had simply become overwhelmed by all they needed to know. Information psychosis was an officially recognized—and highly prevalent—mental disorder. Living in the modern world simply took more knowledge than some people were capable of absorbing. The age-old coping mechanisms of denial, withdrawal, phobic reaction and regression expressed themselves in response to brand-new mental crises.
Granted, therefore, that too much data could give a person a nervous breakdown. Could the same thing have happened to the whole planet?
The time needed for the training required to do the average technical job was sucking up the time that should have gone to doing the job. There were cases, far too many of them, of workers going straight from training program to retirement, with never a day of productive labor in between. Such cases were extreme, but for many professions, the initial training period was substantially longer than the period of productive labor—and the need for periodic retraining only made the situation worse.
Not merely the time, but the expense required for all that training was incredible. No matter how it was subsidized or reapportioned or provided via scholarship or grant program, the education was expensive, a substantial drain on the Gross Planetary Product.
Bloated with information, choked with the needs of a world-girdling bureaucracy required to track information and put it to use, strangled by the data security nets that kept knowledge out of the wrong hands, lost in the endless maze of storing and accessing all the data required merely to keep things on an even keel, Earth’s economy had simply ground to a halt. The world was so busy learning how to work that it never got the chance to do the work. The planet was losing so much time gathering vital data that it didn’t have a chance to put the data to use. Earth’s economy was writhing in agony. Both the planet generally, and the U.N. Astrophysical Foundation specifically, could scarcely afford necessities. They certainly could not afford luxuries—especially ones that could only add to the knowledge burden. Such as the Ring of Charon.
His heart pounding, Raphael’s vision blurred for a moment, and he glared unseeingly at the paper clenched in his fist. Anger. Hatred. For the Crash, for the Board, for the Ring, for the staff—
And for himself, of course. Hatred for himself.
Marooned out here all these years, with but the rarest and briefest of pilgrimages home, trapped all that time on this rotting iceball, with that damned Ring staring down at him, the satellite Charon framed inside it, the dark blind pupil of a sightless eye, pinning him to the spot in its unblinking gaze, a relentless reminder of his failure.
The project, the station, the Ring had failed to crack the problem he had staked his reputation on. Practical gravity control was flat-out impossible. That fact he was sure of. He had certainly paid enough for that knowledge. Paid for it with his life’s work.
He forced himself to be calm and looked around the table at the people. He knew that he should think of them as his people; he had tried for a long time to do so. But they were the ones that he, Raphael, had failed. They were the source of his guilt, and he hated them for it. For in his chase after artificial gravity, he had dragged their lives down with his.
They were the ones most harmed by his failure. The last transport ship had arrived and immediately departed for home five months before, delivering the newest recruits and taking home a lucky few. Raphael remembered few things as clearly as the faces of the stay-behinds, watching the transport head for home, leaving them behind, stranded on Pluto until the next ship came, a few wistful glances skyward at the Nenya’s parking orbit.
Now they would all be going home.
Going home marked as failures, on a four-month journey that would offer them little more than time to brood.
Another wave of anger washed over him, and he called the meeting to order. “Ladies and gentlemen, if we could please get started,” he said. There was something that bespoke patience above and beyond the call of duty in his gravelly voice, as if he had been sitting there waiting for order for far longer than was proper. The people around the table, chastened, stopped their low conversations.
Sondra Berghoff leaned back in her seat and watched the man go to work. Raphael-watching was something of a hobby for her. She knew what was coming, or at least she had made a fairly shrewd guess. She was interested in seeing how Raphael would handle it, how he would play the room. The man was a past master of emotional blackmail, a prize manipulator—there was no question about that.
“I propose to dispense with the normal meeting procedures today, if that is acceptable to you all,” Raphael said, pausing just a bit too briefly for anyone to have a chance to object. “I have a rather significant announcement to make, which I believe ought to take precedence over other matters. As per the lasergram I received from Earth this morning, I must now direct you to commence shutdown of this facility.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then a buzz of voices raised in protest. Sondra sighed. She had expected it, but she wasn’t happy about it. Dr. Raphael started speaking, a calculated half beat early once again, before someone had the chance to collect his or her wits enough to speak up. “If I could continue,” he went on, with a warning edge to his voice. “As you all know, shutdown has been a serious possibility for some time, and I have pursued every means of preventing it. But economic problems back home—and I might add the distraction caused by certain political movements in the Earth-Moon system—are simply too much for us to overcome. The funding board feels that the massive expense of this station is not justified by the quantity or quality of your work—of our work.” He corrected himself with great magnanimity, a gently pained expression on his face. Sondra read the meaning easily. As your leader, I must of course willingly associate myself with your work, however inadequate it might be. Such are the trials of leadership. Everyone in the room understood that subtext. “The people back home simply expected too much. Unrealistic promises were made.” Two or three people shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and angry scowls clouded more than one face.
Sondra herself had a bit of trouble resisting the temptation to lean across the table and punch him. Just who made those promises, Sunshine? she thought.
Raphael scanned the faces about the table and continued. “Of course this is unfair, and shortsighted of the board. We have done great things, and when the history of science in this century is written, the Ring will figure prominently.” Nice little blind side there, Sondra decided. Blame the funding board, blame the staff, but don’t blame yourself, Raffy, she thought.