Isaac Asimov Buy Jupiter

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.It was lower, lower--when the ship sank down--that the tameness began to show.There was no wilderness anywhere.Lou had never seen Earthly wilderness; hehad only read of it, or seen it in old films.The forests stood in rank and file, with each tree carefully ticketed byspecies and position.The crops grew in their fields in orderly rotation, withintermittent and automated fertilization and weeding.The few domestic animalsthat still existed were numbered and Lou wryly suspected that the blades ofgrass were as well.Animals were so rarely seen as to be a sensation when glimpsed.Even theinsects had faded, and none of the large animals existed anywhere outside theslowly dwindling number of zoos.The very cats had become few in number, for it was much more patriotic to keepa hamster, if one had to have a pet at all.Correction! Only Earth's nonhuman animal population had diminished.Its massof animal life was asgreat as ever, but most of it, about three fourths of its total, was onespecies only--Homo sapiens.And, despite everything the Terrestrial Bureau of Ecology could do (or said itcould do), that fraction very slowly increased from year to year.Lou thought of that, as he always did, with a towering sense of loss.Thehuman presence was unobtrusive, to be sure.There was no sign of it from wherethe shuttle made its final orbits about the planet;and, Lou knew, there would be no sign of it even when they sank much lower.The sprawling cities of the chaotic pre-Planetary days were gone.The oldhighways could be traced from the air by the imprint they still left on thevegetation, but they were invisible from close quarters.Individual men themselves rarely troubled the surface, but they were there,underground.All mankind was, in all its billions, with the factories, thefood-processing plants, the energies, the vacu-tunnels.The tame world lived on solar energy and was free of strife, and to Lou it washateful in consequence.Yet at the moment he could almost forget, for, after months of failure, he wasgoing to see Adrastus, himself.It had meant the pulling of every availablestring.Ino Adrastus was the Secretary General of Ecology.It was not an electiveoffice; it was little-known.It was simply the most important post on Earth,for it controlled everything.Jan Marley said exactly that, as he sat there, with a sleepy look ofabsent-minded dishevelment that made one I think he would have been fat if thehuman diet were so I uncontrolled as to allow of fatness.He said, For my-money this is the most important post on Earth, and no oneseems to know it.I want to write it up.Adrastus shrugged.His stocky figure, with its shock of hair, once a lightbrown and now a brown-flecked gray, his faded blue eyes nested in darkenedsurrounding tissues, finely wrinkled, had been an unobtrusive part of theadministrative scene for a generation.He had been Secretary-General ofEcology ever since the regional ecological councils had been combined into theTerrestrial Bureau.Those who knew of him at all found it impossible to thinkof ecology without him.He said, The truth is I hardly ever make a decision truly my own.Thedirectives I sign aren't mine, really.I sign them because it would bepsychologically uncomfortable to have computers sign them.But, you know, it'sonly the computers that can do the work.Page 93ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html The Bureau ingests an incredible quantity of data each day; data forwarded toit from every part of the globe and dealing not only with human births,deaths, population shifts, production, and consumption, but with all thetangible changes in the plant and animal population as well, to say nothing ofthe measured state of the major segments of the environment--air, sea, andsoil.The information is taken apart, absorbed, and assimilated intocrossfiled memory indices of staggering complexity, and from that memory comesanswers to the questions we ask.Marley said, with a shrewd, sidelong glance, Answers to all questions?Adrastus smiled. We learn not to bother to ask questions that have noanswer. And the result, said Marley, is ecological balance. Right, but a special ecological balance.All through the planet's history,the balance has been maintained, but always at the cost of catastrophe.Aftertemporary imbalance, the balance is restored by famine, epidemic, drasticclimatic change.We maintain it now without catastrophe by daily shifts andchanges, by never allowing imbalance to accumulate dangerously.Marley said, There's what you once said--'Man's greatest asset is a balancedecology.' So they tell me I said. It's there on the wall behind you. Only the first three words, said Adrastus dryly.There it was on a long Shimmer-plast, the words winking and alive: MAN'SGREATEST ASSET. You don't have to complete the statement. What else can I tell you? Can I spend some time with you and watch you at your work? You'll watch a glorified clerk. I don't think so.Do you have appointments at which I may be present? One appointment today; a young fellow named Tansonia; one of our Moon-men.You can sit in. Moon-men? You mean-- Yes, from the lunar laboratories.Thank heaven for the moon.Otherwise alltheir experimentation would take place on Earth, and we have enough troublecontaining the ecology as it is. You mean like nuclear experiments and radiational pollution? I mean many things.Lou Tansonia's expression was a mixture of barely suppressed excitement andbarely suppressed apprehension. I'm glad to have this chance to see you, Mr.Secretary, he said breathlessly, puffing againstEarth's gravity. I'm sorry we couldn't make it sooner, said Adrastus smoothly. I haveexcellent reports concerning your work.The other gentleman present is JanMarley, a science writer, and he need not concern us.Lou glanced at the writer briefly and nodded, then turned eagerly to Adrastus. Mr.Secretary- Sit down, said Adrastus.Lou did so, with the trace of clumsiness to be expected of one acclimatinghimself to Earth, and with an air, somehow, that to pause long enough to sitwas a waste of time.He said, Mr.Secretary, I am appealing to you personallyconcerning my Project Application Num- I know it. You've read it, sir? No, I haven't, but the computers have.It's been rejected. Yes! But I appeal from the computers to you.Adrastus smiled and shook his head. That's a difficult appeal for me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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