Men Against the Stars - [Adventures in Science Fiction 01]
Page 39
Mankin was bewildered. For the first time he had a clear look at what was happening in the encampment. He saw huge machines being unloaded. He saw that men were already at work with some of them. Beams were playing across the plains and at each place one struck puffs of smoke rose. Others were drilling into the earth and sending up high plumes of exhaust. Mankin suddenly realized that they must be re-oxygenators replacing humus, injecting heat under the crust. A faintness came over him. He could not believe what he saw and he could not hope.
Lars turned to him. “I could not tell you,” he said. “I could not promise you. But truly, I did nothing.”
Collingsby interrupted with a sharp “No, he did nothing. He came and sang us old ballads and told us the hero tales of Earth. He reminded us of the heritage we had behind us and of what we owed the mother planet. He made us see the quiet ocean and the green hills where our fathers lived. And then, having shrugged and said it was no more, he moved on.
“He went all through space and told his tales. In the empires everywhere school children formed subscriptions, governments formed expeditions, scientists worked on what had to be done—but here, certainly, President Mankin, you can see how this would be. After all, Earth is the ‘Mother’ of all the stars. Somewhere in the heart of every man in the empires lurks a fondness for the birthplace of his race. For our histories are full of Earth and all our stories, all our great triumphs, contain the name of Earth. Should we then let her die?
“And so we have come here, these combined forces, to make the old land green again, to replace the oceans, to rebuild an atmosphere, to make the rivers run, to put fish in the streams, and game in the hills.
“We’ll make this place a shrine, complete and vital as once it was, where Inter-Empire councils may arbitrate the disputes of space. Here we can meet on the common ground of birth and, in the halo of her greatness, find the answers to our problems. For, in the long run the problems and the answers change very little. All the fundamental questions have been asked and solved on Earth before; and they will be again.
“But come, we have less than a week to repair all this,” said Collingsby. He turned to Lars. “It’s just a week to July fourth, is it not? And that was the anniversary of the launching of the first expedition to Earth’s moon, wasn’t it?”
Lars nodded.
“Come into my ship where we can have some refreshments,” said Collingsby. “There will be time enough to stand around in the sun when all these fields are getting green again.”
They looked at Lars and he smiled at them. Mankin swallowed back a lump of emotion in his throat, and said:
“Lars, why didn’t you tell me you had saved Earth with a song?”
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