Free Worlds Apart by J. T. McIntosh Page A

that bit."
    "No one ever will."
    "Surely . . . " Rog stopped, thinking, trying to picture it.
    "The people in charge said 'Keep things running,' and told everybody there was nothing to worry about, and they themselves refused to believe there was anything to worry about. Perhaps in that world you, Rog, guessed the truth. Well, were you going to run down a hundred flights of stairs every morning? Were you going ts break up your car, and not use the shower, and stop eating food prepared by atomic power?"
    "A whole world," said Dick, /couldn't/ be built on just one thing -- "
    "Couldn't it? I tell you Earth was."
    "But if once there was /no/ atomic power," said Dick, "surely they could have gone back -- "
    "Oh, sure. But people are optimists, Dick, and like to leave things to someone else. 'Everything will come out all right.' Besides, sometimes it isn't easy to go back. You know how it is with machines. The very devil to start, sometimes, and then once they're hot and roaring you can't stop them at all unless you can cut off their power somehow. Well, nobody can stop the power of the atom."
    He had a lot more to say, but they seemed to have enough to think about for the moment. He was pleased with their reaction. He had always agreed that atomic power should do its last job in taking the ship to Mundis; but he hadn't been quite so certain that the way to kill atomic power was to forbid it to the extent of stopping people talking about it. Kill it, yes; but mere legislation never killed anything.
    "Anyone like some lemonade?" he asked pleasantly.
    2
    Mundis sneered at compasses, but that wasn't serious. The sun was seldom obscured by clouds, and never completely obscured. There was little seasonal variation. The sun rose due east and set due west, since the planet's axis was perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. And even an imbecile could travel by the stars as they were visible on Mundis.
    Pertwee and Toni traveled northeast. They hadn't intended to go far, but soon they found they liked traveling. They decided they might as well go on. There was always the possibility that they would discover something of importance. Considering the Mundan colony was twenty-two years old, there had been amazingly little exploration.
    "I never thought I'd be a vegetarian," Toni observed. Her eyes gleamed mischievously. "Don't you need good red meat to stay virile, Jack?"
    Pertwee grinned. "Don't worry about that."
    They got on amazingly well. Pertwee had had misgivings; he wasn't reckless enough to break wantonly any law of the society he lived in, except one. The rule that cut him off from women had to be broken. He was incapable of giving up women. When Toni came to him with her proposal, there had been no question of refusal. He had to go with Toni. It was automatic.
    They were both a little surprised about how it worked out. Toni had wondered if Pertwee could satisfy her for long; soon, she had feared, he would begin to seem an old, tired man to her. She found, however, that Pertwee's experience really counted for something after all. He was like a veteran tennis player who made his opponent do all the running. He did things the easy way, but did them well, so that she was never conscious that she was traveling with an old man. If either helped the other, it was liable to be him helping her.
    He never wasted effort. He would calculate exactly what every job needed, and put just that amount of effort into it. And he was placid, like her. Toni realized she had never before met a man whose temperament chimed with hers. They all mistook her passion for violence, They couldn't believe she was naturally contented, serene.
    Neither of them talked much. They liked to walk together by day and lie together by night, silent for the most part but occasionally chuckling together at some incident -- a situation usually. The same kind of situation amused them both, so if a humorous idea occurred to either, they shared it.
    There wasn't much to see. The