"_A lot has been written about mankind starving amid plenty. But never before was a civilization confronted with the prospect of luxury amid bankruptcy_ -- "
Keg Johnson was the executive type. He was the chief executive of Interplanet Transport, a position of no mean height. Keg had become the chief executive by sheer guts, excellent judgment, and the ability to gamble and win.
Like any high executive in a culture based on a technical background, Keg was well aware of science. He was no master of the scientific method nor of laboratory technique. He was able to understand most of the long-haired concepts if they were presented in words of less than nine syllables, and he was more than anxious to make use of any scientific discovery that came from the laboratory. He knew that the laboratory paid off in the long run.
Keg Johnson was strictly a good business man. He played a good game and usually won, because he could size up any situation at a glance and prepare his next move while his opponent was finishing his preparatory speech.
So when Keg Johnson met Don Channing in the hallway of the courtroom in Buffalo, he was dangling an exact duplicate of the judge's watch -- a timepiece no longer a rare collector's item.
He waved the watch before Channing's face.
"Brother," he said with a worried smile, "what have you done!"
"We won," said Channing cheerfully.
"You've lost! " said Keg.
"Lost?"
Keg's eyes followed the Terran Electric lawyer, Mark Kingman, as he left the courtroom.
"He's been trying to put you out of business for a couple of years, Don, without any success. But you just put your own self out of commish. Venus Equilateral is about done for, Channing."
"Meaning? " asked Don, lowering his eyebrows. "Seems to me that you're the one that should worry. As I said, we'll give you your opportunity to buy in."
"Interplanet Transport is finished," agreed Johnson. He did not seem overly worried about the prospect of tossing a triplanetary corporation into the furnace. "So is Venus Equilateral."
"Do go on," snapped Don. "It seems to me that we've just begun. We can take over the job of shipping on the beams. The matter-transmitter will take anything but life, so far. Pick it up here, shove it down the communications beams and get it over there. Just like that."
"That's wonderful," said Keg in a scathing voice. "But who and why will ship what?"
"Huh?"
"Once they get recordings of Palanortis Whitewood logs on Mars, will we ship? Once they get recordings of the Martian Legal to Northern Landing, who will take the time to make the run by ship?"
"Right," agreed Channing.
"The bulk of your business, my brilliant friend, comes not from lovesick swains calling up their gal friends across a hundred million miles of space. It comes from men sending orders to ship thirty thousand tons of Venusian Arachnia-web to Terra, and to ship ten thousand fliers to Southern Point, Venus, and to send fifty thousand cylinders of acetylene to the Solar Observatory on Mercury, and so forth. Follow me?"
"I think so," said Channing slowly. "There'll still be need for communications, though."
"Sure. And also spacelines. But there's one more item, fella."
"Yes?"
"You've got a terrific laboratory job ahead of you, Don. It is one that must be done -- and quick! You owe it to the world, and to yourself, and to your children, and their children's children. You've brought forth the possibility of a system of plenty, Don, and left it without one very necessary item.
"_Channing, can you make one item that can not be duplicated? _"
"No, but -- "
"Uh-huh. Now we go back to barter and exchange."
"Golly!"
"Furthermore, chum, what are you going to barter with? A ton of pure gold is the same value as a ton of pure silver. That is, aside from their relative technical values. A ton of pure radium won't bother us at all, and if we want Uranium Two-thirty-five, we make it by the ton also. Oh brother, _you've really screwed the works this time_."
"Now what?"
"You and your crew start looking for something that is absolutely un-reproducible. It should be a light, metalloid substance of readily identifiable nature, and it should be ductile and workable. We need a coin-metal, Channing, that cannot be counterfeited!"
"Yum. That's one for the book. Meanwhile, we'll retrench on Venus Equilateral and get set for a long, long drought."
"Check. I'm about to do likewise with Interplanet Transport. You don't know anybody who'd like to buy the major holdings in a spaceline, do you? It's on the market, cheap. In fine condition, too, in spite of the depredations of Hellion Murdoch."
"Might swap you a communications company for your spaceline, Keg."
Johnson smiled. "No dice. I'm looking for a specialized business, Don. One that will pay off in a world where there is no money!"
"What are you going to sell -- and for what?"
"I'm going to sell security -- for service!"
"So?"
"Those are items that your devil-gadget won't duplicate, Channing. But they're intangible. Barter and exchange on the basis of a washed-car's worth of dug postholes."
Linna Johnson looked up with some annoyance as Keg entered her room. She was a tall woman, lissome in spite of her fifty years, but the artificial stamp of the "woman-of-fashion" spoke louder than her natural charm.
"Yes? " she asked without waiting for salutation.
"Linna, I need a hundred and seventy thousand dollars."
"Remarkable. What do you want me to do about it?"
"You've got a quarter of a million tied up in baubles. I want 'em."
"Give up my jewelry? " scoffed Linna. "What kind of tramp deal have you got into this time, Keg?"
"No tramp deal, Linna," he said. "I've just sold the spaceline."
"So -- you've sold your spaceline. That should have brought you in a pretty penny. What do you need more for?"
"I want to buy Fabriville."
"Who or what is Fabri. what-is-it?"
"Fabriville. A fairly large manufacturing village south of Canalopsis, here. They have a complete village, assembly plant, stores, and all that's needed to be self-sufficient if you permit a thorough income and outgo of fabricated articles."
"Never heard of it."
"Well," said Keg dourly, "there are a lot of things you have never heard of nor taken the interest to find out, Linna. Better shell out the baubles. They won't be worth an exhausted cathode inside of a year."
"Why?"
"The economic structure of the system is about to be shot to pieces in a box. Nothing will be worth anything in money. A diamond as big as your fist will be just so much carbon crystal. I want to butter us up, Linna, before the crash. That's the way to do it."
"What is this crash coming from?"
"Don Channing and Walt Franks have just developed a gadget that will transmit articles over any distance. That shoots Interplanet. The articles -- or the signal-impulses from them -- can be recorded, and the recording can be used to duplicate, exactly, the same thing as many times as you want it."
"You idiot," scorned Linna, "why not just get one and duplicate your present money?"
"Merely because an operator as large as myself cannot palm off two hundred one thousand dollar bills with the serial number AG334557990HHL-6. Counterfeiting will become a simple art soon enough, Linna, but until it is accepted, I'm not going to break any laws. I can't if I'm going to shove ahead."
"But my jewels."
"So much junk."
"But everything I have is tied up in jewelry."
"Still so much junk."
"Then we're bankrupt?"
"We're broke."
"But the house. the cars."
"Not worth a farthing. We'll keep 'em, but their trade-in value will be zero."
"If we have no money," said Linna, "how are we going to pay for them?"
"Not going to. They'll pay for themselves. We'll send 'em back and keep duplicates which we'll make."
"But -- "
"Look, Linna. Shell out. I've got to hit the market this afternoon if I'm going to grab Fabriville."
"Seems to me that getting that place is slightly foolish," objected Linna. "If nothing will have any value, why bother?"
"Oh, certain items will have value, Linna. That's what I'm working on."
"I still do not like the idea of giving up my jewels."
"If the junk is that important," exploded Keg, "I'll promise to replace them all with interest as soon as we get running."
"Promise? " whined Linna.
"Yes," said Keg wearily. "It's a promise. I've got to make an option-payment immediately. From then on in, the place will be mine."
"But if you gamble and lose? " asked Linna worriedly. "I'll lose my jewelry."
"I can't lose."
"But if the economic structure falls?"
"I can't miss. All I want to do is to get what I need before the bottom falls out. Inflation of the worst kind will set in, and the wheels will stop dead -- except at Fabriville. That's where I enter the picture."
"Good," said Linna in a bored voice. "As long as I am assured of my jewelry, I don't care how you play the market. Run along, Keg. I've got a dinner engagement. May I have just a few, though? I'll feel naked without at least a ring."
"Take what you need," said Keg and was immediately appalled at the necessities of life.
An hour later, Keg Johnson was making some quiet trading and slowly but surely gaining control over the manufacturing village of Fabriville. The market was steady and strong. The traders worked noisily and eagerly, tossing millions back and forth with the flick of a finger. It was a normal scene, this work of theirs, and when it was done, they would take their usual way home to a quiet evening beside a roaring fireplace.
But this was surface quiet. Deep down below there was a minuscule vortex that churned and throbbed, and other, equally minute forces fought the vortex -- and strove in a battle that was lost before it began.
Terran Electric bought a full page advertisement in every paper. A five-minute commercial assailed the ears from every radio that listened to the Interplanetary Network. A full column emerged from the morning news-facsimile machines. Terran Electric, it said, was announcing the most modern line of household electrical appliances. Everything from deep-freezers to super-cookers. Everything from cigarette lighters to doorbell chimes.
The prices they quoted were devastating.
But on page seventeen, hidden among the financial and labor-situation news, was a tiny, three-line squib that told the story to those who knew the truth. Terran Electric had just released sixty percent of their production-line labor.
Don Channing caught the squib, and headed for Evanston less than fifteen minutes after reading it.
Unannounced, Don Channing entered Kingman's office and perched himself on the end of Kingman's desk. His bright blue eyes met Kingman's lowering brown eyes in a challenge.
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