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"Sup. One(l) class delta flitter, modB(3), per ConsComp Reg. D-ll(b), as
modified Alstats li-yr."
While as Operations officer Gerswin did not know the exact content of the
Alstats message referenced, he had a good idea of how it had been applied to Old
Earth, and the fact that all Old Earth Base requisitions had been cut by two thirds
did not surprise him. Virtually everything but trace element foodstuffs had been
cut back over the last three years, and from what he could tell from the few
supply ships, all the out-bases were being shorted, some worse than Old Earth.
Right now, though, the base needed equipment. There wasn't any metal, nor
any native power source to speak of, except the wind, and maybe, near the coasts,
some sort of tidal power. The sun shone a fraction more, according to the records,
than it had thirty years earlier, the first time detailed records had been entered,
but until the ecology could be returned to its pre-collapse state or some
approximation thereof, and the paniculate-based cloud cover reduced, solar
power was out as any sort of reliable alternative.
Gerswin sighed. Everything wound together in a web.
He needed more dozers to reclaim the land and re-establish a usable ground
cover and a solid agriculture base. Each dozer required support equipment,
personnel, spare parts, and the power to maintain them. Imperial deployed
technology was based on fusactors, handy unitized fusion reactors easily
produced by any technologically advanced system and impossible to produce
anywhere else. Most important, fusactors were expensive to transport. Since an
arcdozer was essentially a moving fusactor, the Empire disliked shipping them to
distant points. Finally, since fusactors were unitized, once assembled, they were
almost impossible to repair and were designed to melt into an impermeable bloc
within their own shielding in cases of malfunction.
Without dozers, he couldn't reclaim. Without reclamation, the base couldn't
support itself, except slightly above subsistence level, because Imperial
technology was all geared to either fusion power or high-energy synthetics.
Without local metals, which no longer existed except in deep deposits or in
system asteroids unreachable without high energy technology, the locals had no
way to develop substitutes with which to rebuild their planet and their society.
Gerswin didn't have enough dozers to continue full-scale reclamation more
than a tour or so into the future, and that was assuming rather optimistic
projections. And so far, the base had just begun to make a dent in reverting the
ecology.
"So you worry ..."
He hadn't realized he had spoken aloud until he heard the echo of his words in
the small office.
He frowned.
The Empire wouldn't close down Old Earth Base yet, but with the resource
commitment it required, he could see the supply lines getting tighter and tighter,
year after year.
"What can you do? Order more equipment they won't send you? Exaggerate the
requirements along with everyone else? Then they'll cut everyone back farther."
He flicked off the screen and stood, stretching, looking at the lighter gray
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square where Vierio's holoview of his wife's estate house had covered half the wall
opposite the console.
His steps circled the console.
The old exec, Byykr, had understood some of the problem. But Byykr was gone,
and Commander LeTrille was merely going through the motions. Commander
Manders understood, but was too tired to start a fight with the Imperial
bureaucracy, although, Gerswin admitted to himself, Manders usually took his
recommendations.
What good was a recommendation when you couldn't get what you needed and
didn't know what else to recommend?
What did Old Earth need?
Metal, power, and arable land.
The arable land might be possible before too long. Acreage had increased to the
point where at subsistence level it would support most of the scattered Noraro
population, assuming the produce could even be distributed. But the land still
required a sponge grain scavenge crop every third year.
The power was barely adequate and completely dependent upon the Empire.
One possibility existed-coming up with an oilseed plant that could be refined to
approximate synthetic fuels-but that required more land, reduced food crop
yields, and demanded a refining technology which would require metals and
power.
He shook his head.
"Face it, Gerswin. You don't know enough. You can't figure your way out of this
one."
As for the metal-unless they could literally mine something . . .
His eyes glinted, and he sat down at the console, flicking it back on and
beginning to punch in the numbers, the requests for data. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]