Worlds Apart Read Free

absently. He wasn't primarily a chemist, but he was making up a doctor's prescription as Dick spoke. Bentley always had to be doing something. "Thinking is a good thing, Dick," he said whimsically. "I'm always glad to hear about a boy of your age doing it."
    "But look," said Dick impulsively. "There's gaps in what I know. Naturally. And there are gaps in the microfilm data. Some of them wouldn't bother me, some I could forget about if I had the very slightest knowledge of what you call nuclear fission . . . "
    Abruptly Bentley stopped being abstracted and became very keen and alert.
    " . . . and some still would," Dick went on hastily. "But what I mean is -- how am I supposed to know what's legitimate research and what isn't? I can work freely on nearly everything I like, but some things I'm not supposed to touch. And I'm not told enough to know when I'm touching them! I can appreciate why you think we'd be much better off without atomic energy -- "
    "It's debatable," said Bentley quietly, "whether you're better off without atomic energy. But we decided long ago there was no question that you'd all be much better off /alive/. Atomic energy means death, one way or another, sooner or later. If we don't help you to find it, you won't -- not for a long time. It took thousands of years back on Earth. Maybe by the time it's found again, people will know better how to use it. We're hoping so, anyway."
    "Yes, but don't you see?" said Dick eagerly, encouraged by the mild reception. "You won't be here always. Neither will I."
    The last three words came out involuntarily. He hadn't meant to say them. It had never occurred to him that he too would grow old and die. But the idea somehow fired his imagination.
    "Suppose I believe that I shouldn't try to discover anything about atomic power. Suppose I try to pass on that caution. What force is it going to have for the next Dick Smith?"
    Bentley smiled. Like all the founder colonists, he was fifty-four. He was small and spare, his thick, coarse hair iron gray. "None, I suppose," he said. "But . . . "
    He laughed outright. Dick smiled nervously. Bentley didn't often laugh. He had a strong sense of humor, but he usually kept his amusement to himself. "Dick." he said, "I have to be careful what I tell you about atomics. You know that, don't you? I'm not only keeping things back because I personally don't think you should know them, though I don't, but because I'd be on the carpet before the Council if I did tell you them."
    "But you're on the Inner Council." said Dick.
    "A lot of good that would do me. John Pertwee was President, once, and you know what happened to him."
    He looked down thoughtfully at the waxed table top. Finally he said: "I don't want to tell you anything that would be a clue, Dick, but you can take it from me that if we changed our minds now and went all out for atomic power, telling you young people all we know, it wouldn't be accomplished any sooner than in the time of your grandchildren."
    Dick was sensitive and reserved. And like many sensitive, reserved people, he was also intuitive. His head came up at that as he sensed an evasion. Bentley hadn't hesitated; he spoke confidently and decisively enough. Yet there was evasion. As if what he said was true, but unimportant.
    Bentley went on, however, interrupting Dick's thought that if it was true it didn't mean much, considering that the same thing could probably be said of the production of high- grade steel or camera lenses.
    "Atomic power." said Bentley, "is discovered and used in a culture that has hundreds of high-precision factories, unlimited electric power -- for, of course, you can't use atomic power to discover atomic power -- technicians trained in a little bit of a little bit of a branch of one section of knowledge, and economic competition. You don't even know what economic competition is, Dick, for we've never used money here.
    "That's why I laughed. When you're older, passing on some of what you've learned as