The Best of Bova: Volume 1 Read Free Page A

things you could never imagine.”
    “I don’t know if I’ll come with you.”
    He looked up from his work and stared Earthward. “Why?”
    “Well . . . Jason . . . he says there isn’t much left to see. And it’s all radioactive and diseased.”
    “Nonsense.”
    “But Jason says . . .”
    Tom snorted. “Jason hasn’t been out of the settlement for six years. I walked from Chicago to the settlement a year ago. I went through a dozen cities . . . they’re wrecked, and the radioactivity count was higher than it is at the settlement, but it’s not high enough to be dangerous.”
    “And you want to explore those cities; why?”
    “Let’s just say I’m a historian,” Tom answered while his hands manipulated complex wiring unconsciously, as though they belonged not to him but to some unseen puppeteer.
    “I don’t understand,” Ruth said.
    “Look—those cities hold mankind’s memory. I want to gather up the fragments of civilization before the last book is used for kindling and the last machine turns to rust. We need the knowledge in the cities if we expect to rebuild a civilization.”
    “But Jason and Dr. Arnoldsson and the engineers—they know all about—”
    “Jason and the engineers,” Tom snapped. “They had to stretch themselves to the breaking point to put together this rocket from parts that were already manufactured, waiting for them. Do you think they’d know how to build a city? Dr. Arnoldsson is a psychiatrist, his efforts at surgery are pathetic. Have you ever seen him try to set a broken leg? And what about agriculture? What about tool making or mining or digging wells, even . . . what about education? How many kids your own age can read or write?”
    “But the satellite . . .”
    “The satellite won’t be of any use to people who can’t work the machines. The satellite is no substitute for knowledge. Unless something is done, your grandchildren will be worshipping the machines, but they won’t know how to repair them.”
    “No . . .”
    “Yes, Ruth,” he insisted.
    “No,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the static-streaked hum in his earphones. “You’re wrong, Tom. You’re wrong. The satellite will send us the power we need. Then we’ll build our machines and teach our children.”
    How can you teach what you don’t know? Tom wanted to ask, but didn’t. He worked without talking, hauling the weightless tons of satellite packages into position, electronically welding them together, splicing wiring systems too intricate for his conscious mind to understand.
    Twice he pulled himself back along the lifeline into the ship for capsule meals and stimulants.
    Finally he found himself staring at his gloved hands moving industriously within the bowels of one of the satellite packages. He stopped, suddenly aware that it was piercingly cold and totally dark except for the lamp on his helmet.
    He pushed away from the unfinished satellite. Two of the packages were assembled now. The big parabolic mirror and two other uncrated units hung nearby, waiting impassively.
    Tom groped his way back into the ship. After taking off his helmet and swallowing a couple of energy pills he said to the ship’s radio:
    “What time is it?’’ The abrupt sound of his own voice half-startled him.
    “Nearly four a.m.” It was Jason.
    “Earth’s blotted out the sun,” Tom muttered. “Getting damned cold in here.”
    “You’re in the ship?”
    “Yes, it got too cold for the suit.”
    “Turn up the ship’s heaters,” Jason said. “What’s the temperature in there?”
    Tom glanced at the thermometer as he twisted the thermostat dial as far as it would go. “Forty-nine,” he answered.
    He could sense Jason nod. “The heaters are on minimum power automatically unless you turn them up. It’ll warm you up in a few seconds. How’s the satellite?”
    Tom told him what remained to be done.
    “You’re not even half through yet.” Jason’s voice grew fainter and Tom knew that he