“Not at all, Jim. Go right ahead.”
“Eh? I’m afraid I didn’t understands you.”
“I have no objection to the bank being nationalized. If that’s all, let’s adjourn and go to bed.”
Someone in the audience called out, “Hey, I want my question about New Pittsburgh money answered!”
“And mine about interest! Interest is wrong—it says so in the Bible!”
“Well, Ernie? You said earlier that you would answer questions.
“So I did. But if you are nationalizing the bank, wouldn’t it make more sense to put questions to your state treasurer, or whatever you decide to call him? The new head of the bank. Bv the way, who is he? Hadn’t he better sit up here on the platform?”
Warwick pounded his gavel, then said, “We haven’t got that far, Ernie. For the time being the entire Council of Selectmen is the finance committee—if we go ahead with this.”
“Oh, by all means go ahead. I’m shutting down.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said: I quit. A man doesn’t like to have his neighbors dislike him. The people of Top Dollar don’t like what I’ve been doing or this meeting would never have been called. So I’ve quit. The bank is closed; it will not reopen tomorrow. Nor ever, with me as president of it. That’s why I asked who your state treasurer will be. I’m as interested as anyone in finding out what we are going to use for money from here on—and what it will be worth.”
There was dead silence; then the Moderator had to pound his gavel and the Sergeant at Arms was very busy, all to shouts of “What about my seed loan?” “You owe me money!” “I sold Hank Brofsky a mule on his personal note—what do I collect?” “You can’t do this to us!”
Gibbons sat quietly, not letting his alertness show, until Warwick got them quieted down. Then Warwick said, wiping sweat from his brow: “Ernie, I think you’ve got some explaining to do.”
“Certainly, Mr. Moderator. The liquidation will be as orderly as you will let it be. Those who have deposits will be paid . . in banknotes, that being what was deposited. Those who owe money to the bank—well, I don’t know; it depends on the policies the council sets up. I suppose I’m bankrupt. I can’t know until you tell me what you mean when you say my bank is being ‘nationalized.’
“But I have had to take this step: Top Dollar Trading Post is no longer buying with banknotes—they may be worthless. Each deal will have to be barter. But we will continue to sell for banknotes. But I took down the posted prices just before I came here tonight . . because the stock I have on hand may be all I ever have with which to redeem those banknotes. Which could force me to raise prices. It all depends on whether ‘nationalize’ is simply another word for ‘confiscate.’ ”
Gibbons spent several days explaining to Warwick the elementary principles of banking and currency, patiently and with good humor—to Warwick by Hobson’s choice because the other selectmen found that they were too busy with their farms or businesses to take on the chore. There had been one candidate for the job of national banker or state treasurer (no agreement as yet on title) from outside the selectmen, a farmer named Leamer, but his self-nomination got nowhere despite his claim of generations of experience in banking plus a graduate degree in such matters.
Warwick got his first shock while he was taking inventory, with Gibbons, of the contents of the safe (almost the only safe on New Beginnings and the only one of Earth manufacture). “Ernie, where’s the money?”
“What money, Duke?”
“ ‘What money?’ Why, these account books show that you’ve taken in thousands and thousands of dollars. Your own trading post shows a balance of nearly a million. And I know you’ve been collecting mortgage payments on three or four dozen farms—and haven’t loaned hardly anything for a year or more. That’s been one of the major complaints, Ernie, why the selectmen just had to act—all that money going into the bank and none coming out. Money scarce everywhere. So where’s the money, man?”
“I burned it,” Gibbons answered cheerfully.
“What?”
“Certainly. It was piling up and getting too bulky. I didn’t dare keep it outside the safe even though we don’t have much theft here—if somebody stole it, it could ruin me. So far the past three years, as money came into the bank, I’ve been burning it. To keep it safe.”
“Good God!”
“What’s the trouble, Duke. It’s just wastepaper.”
“ ‘Wastepaper’? It’s money.”
“What is ‘money,’ Duke? Got any on you? Say a ten-dollar bill?” Warwick, still looking shocked, dug out one. “Read it, Duke,” Gibbons urged. “Never mind the fancy engraving and the pretty paper that can’t be made here as yet—read what it says.”
“It says it’s ten dollars.”
“So it does. But the important part is where it says that this bank will accept that note at face value in payment of debts to the bank.” Gibbons took out of his sporran a thousanddollar banknote, set fire to it while Warwick watched in horrified fascination. Gibbons rubbed the char off his fingers. “Wastepaper, Duke, as long as it’s in my possession. But if I let it get into circulation, it becomes my IOU that I must honor. Half a moment while I record that serial number; I keep track of what I burn so that I know how much is still in circulation. Quite a lot, but I can tell you to the dollar. Are you going to honor my IOU’s? And what about debts owed to the bank? Who gets paid? You? Or me?”
Warwick looked baffled. “Ernie, I just don’t know. Hell, man, I’m a mechanic by trade. But you heard what they said at the meeting.”
“Yeah, I heard. People always expect a government to work miracles—even people who are fairly bright other ways. Let’s lock up this junk and go over to the Waldorf and have a beer and discuss it.”
“—or should be, Duke, simply a public bookkeeping service and credit system in which the medium of exchange is stable. Anything more and you are jiggering with other people’s wealth, robbing Peter to pay Paul.
“Duke, I did my best to keep the dollar stable by keeping key prices stable—seed wheat in particular, For over twenty years the Top Dollar Trading Post has paid the same price for prime seed wheat, then resold it at the same markup—even if I took a loss and sometimes I did. Seed wheat isn’t too good a money standard; it’s perishable. But we don’t have gold or uranium as yet, and it has to be something.
“Now look, Duke—when you reopen as a treasury, or a government central bank, or whatever you call it, you’re certain to have pressures on you to do all sorts of things. Lower the interest rates. Expand the money supply. Guarantee high prices to the farmer for what he sells, guarantee low prices for what he buys. Brother, you’re going to be called worse names than they call me, no matter what you do.”
“Ernie—there’s only one thing for it. You know how . . so you’ve got to take the job of community treasurer.”
Gibbons laughed heartily. “No, sirree, bub. I’ve had that headache for more than twenty years; now it’s your turn. You grabbed the sack; now you hold it. If I let you put me back in as banker, all that will happen is that they will lynch both of us.”
Changes—Helen Mayberry married the Widower Parkinson, went to live with him in a small new house on the farm now worked by two of his sons; Dora Brandon became schoolmistress of what was still called “Mrs. Mayberry’s Primary School.” Ernest Gibbons, no longer banker, was now silent partner in Rick’s General Store, while his own warehouses bulged with cargo for the Andy J. if and when. Soon, he hoped, as the new inventory tax was eating into cash he had held out for trading, and inflation was eating into the buying power of that cash. Better hurry, Zack, before we are nibbled to death by ducks!
At last the ship appeared in New Beginnings’ sky, and Captain Zaccur Briggs came down with the first load of the fourth wave—almost all of them quite old. Gibbons refrained from comment until the partners were alone:
“Zack, where did you find those walking corpses?”
“Call it charity, Ernest. That sounds better than what did happen.”
“Such as?”
“Captain Sheffield, if you want our ship to go back to Earth again, you are welcome to take her there yourself. Not me. Not there. If a man is seventy-five years old there now, he becomes officially dead. His heirs inherit, he can’t own property, his ration books are canceled—anybody can kill him just for the hell of it. I didn’t get these passengers on Earth; they were refugees at Luna City and I took as many as I could—no messroom passengers; cold-sleep or nothing. I insisted on payment in hardware and pharmaceuticals, but cold-sleep let me hold down the price per head; I think we’ll break even. If not, we’ve got investments on Secundus; I haven’t lost money for us. I think.”
“Zack, you worry too much. Make money, lose money—who cares? The idea is to enjoy it. Tell me where we are going next, and I can begin picking cargo—I’ve got twice the metric tonnage we can stow. While you get her loaded, I’ll liquidate what we aren’t lifting and invest the proceeds. Leave it with a Howard, that is.” Gibbons looked thoughtful. “This new situation probably means no Clinic here any time soon?”
“I think that is certain, Ernest. Any Howard who needs rejuvenation soon had better take passage with us; we are bound to hit Secundus in a leg or six, no matter where we go. Then you are definitely coming along? All over your problem? What became of that baby girl? The short-lifer.”
Gibbons grinned. “I don’t think I’ll let you lay eyes on her, Son; I know you.”
Captain Briggs’ arrival caused Gibbons to miss three days running his usual daily ride with Dora Brandon. On the fourth day he showed up at the schoolhouse as school let out, Briggs having gone back up for a couple of days. “Got time for a ride today?”
She flashed him a smile. “You know I have. Half a minute while I change.”
They rode out of town, Gibbons as usual riding Beulah but with Dora on Betty. Buck was saddled (for his pride), but the saddle was empty; he was now ridden only ceremonially, by mule years he was quite old.
They paused on a sunny hilltop well out of town. Gibbons said, “Why so silent, little Dora? Buck has had more to say than you have.”
She turned in the saddle and faced him. “How many more rides will we have together? Is this the last?”
“Why. Dora! Of course we will have more rides together.”
“I wonder. Lazarus, I—”
“What did you call me?”
“I called you by your name, Lazarus.”
He stared at her thoughtfully. “Dora, you’re not supposed to know that name. I’m your ‘Uncle Gibbie.’ ”
“ ‘Uncle Gibbie’ is gone, and so is ‘Little Dora.’ I’m almost as tall as you are now, and I’ve known for two years who you are, and I had guessed it before that-guessed that you were one of the Methuselahs, I mean. But I said nothing to anyone. And never will.”
“Don’t make it a promise, Dora; it isn’t necessary. It’s just that I never meant to burden you with it. How did I give myself away? I thought I had been most careful.”
“You have been. But I have seen you nearly every day almost as far back as I can remember. Little things. Things no one would notice who didn’t see you—really look at you—every day.”
“Well, yes. But I didn’t expect to have to keep it up so long. Helen knew?”
“I think she did. We never spoke of it. But I think she guessed the same way I did . . and she may have figured out which Methuselah you are—”
“Don’t call me that, dear. It’s like calling a Jew a ‘kike.’ I’m a member of the Howard Families. A Howard.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that the name mattered.”
“Well . . it doesn’t, really. It’s just a word that reminds me of a time long gone. A time of persecution. Sorry, Dora; you were telling me how you learned that my name is ‘Lazarus.’ One of my names, that is, for I am ‘Ernest Gibbons’ just as truly.”
“Yes . . Uncle Gibbie. It was in a book. A picture. A microbook one has to read with the viewer at the town library. I saw this picture and winked on past it—then clicked back and looked again. You weren’t wearing whiskers in the picture and your hair was longer . . but the longer I stared at it, the more it looked like my foster uncle. But I couldn’t be sure—and couldn’t ask.”
“Why not, Dora? I would have told you the truth.”
“If you had wanted me to know, you would have told me. You always have reasons for everything you do, everything you say. I learned that when I was so little we used to ride the same saddle. So I didn’t say anything. Until—Well, until today. Knowing that you are leaving.”
“Have I said that I was leaving?”
“Please! Once, when I was very little, you told me a story about when you were a little boy hearing wild geese honking in the sky—how, when you grew up, you wanted to find out where they went. I didn’t know what a wild goose was; you had to explain to me. I know you follow the wild goose. When you hear them honking, you have to go. You’ve been hearing them in your head for three or four years. I know . . because when you hear them, I hear them, too. And now the ship is here and it’s very loud in your head. So I knew.”
“Dora, Dora!”
“Don’t, please. I’m not trying to hold you back, truly I’m not. But before you go, I want something very much.”
“What, Dora? Uh, didn’t mean to tell you this yet, but I’m leaving some property for you with John Magee. Should be enough for—”
“No, no, please! I’m a grown woman now, and self-supporting. What I want doesn’t cost anything.” She looked him steadily in the eye. “I want your child, Lazarus.”
Lazarus Long took a deep breath, tried to steady his heartbeat. “Dora, Dora, my dear, you are hardly more than a child yourself; it is too soon for you to be talking about having one. You don’t want to marry me—”
“I did not ask you to marry me.”
“I was trying to say that, in a year or two—or three, or four —you will want to marry. Then you will be glad that you did not have my child.”
“You refuse me this?”
“I’m saying that you must not let an emotional upset over parting cause you to make any such hasty decision.”
She sat very straight in the saddle, squared her shoulders. “It is not a hasty decision, sir. I made up my mind long ago . . even before I guessed that you were a—Howard. Long before. I told Aunt Helen, and she said that I was a silly girl and that I must forget it. But I have never forgotten it, and if I was a silly girl then, I am much older now and know what I am doing. Lazarus, I am not asking for anything else. It could be syringes and such, with Doc Krausmeyer’s help. Or” —again she looked him squarely in his eyes—“it could be the usual way.” She dropped her eyes, then looked up again, smiled briefly and added, “But, either way, it had best be quickly. I don’t know the ship’s schedule; I do know mine.”
Gibbons spent all of a half second reviewing certain factors in his mind. “Dora.”
“Yes . . Ernest?”
“My name is not ‘Ernest,’ nor is it ‘Lazarus.’ My right name is Woodrow Wilson Smith. So since I am no longer ‘Uncle Gibbie’—and you are right on that point; ‘Uncle Gibbie0146 is gone and will never be back—you might as well call me ‘Woodrow.’ ”
“Yes, Woodrow.”
“Do you want to know why I had to change my name?”
“No, Woodrow.”
“So? Do you want to know how old I am?”
“No, Woodrow.”
“But you want to have a child by me?”
“Yes, Woodrow.”
“Will you marry me?”
Her eyes widened slightly. But she answered at once:
“No, Woodrow.”
Minerva, at that point Dora and I almost had our first—and last, and only—quarrel. She had been a sweet and lovable baby who had grown into a sweet-tempered and utterly lovable young woman. But she was as stubborn as I am—with the sort of firmness that can’t be arg
ued with, because she would not argue. I pay her the respect of believing that she had thought this through, all aspects, and had long since made up her mind to bear my child if I would let her—but not to marry me.
As for me, I did not ask her to marry me on impulse; it just sounds like it. A supersaturated solution will crystallize almost instantly; that’s the shape I was in. I had lost interest in that colony years earlier, as soon as it stopped presenting real challenges; I was itching to do something else. At the top of my mind I thought I was waiting for Zack to return . . but when the Andy J. finally did orbit in that sky, two years overdue—well, I learned that it was not what I had been waiting for.
When Dora made that amazing request, I knew what I had been waiting for.
Surely, I tried to argue her out of it—but I was playing devil’s advocate. In fact, my mind was busy with what and how. All the objections to marrying a short-lifer still remained. My even stronger objections to leaving a pregnant woman behind me—shucks, dear, I didn’t spend a nanosecond on that.
“Why not, Dora?”
“I told you. You are leaving, I will not hold you back.”
“You won’t hold me back. No one ever has yet, Dora. But —no marriage, no child.”
She looked thoughtful. “What is your purpose in insisting on a marriage ceremony, Woodrow? So that our child will bear your name? I don’t want to be a sky widow . . but if that is what it takes, let’s ride back to town and find the Moderator. Because it really should be today. If the books are right about how to figure it.”
“Woman, you talk too much.” She did not answer this; he went on: “I don’t give a hoot about a wedding ceremony—certainly not one in Top Dollar.”
She hesitated, then said, “May I say that I do not understand?”
“Eh? Yes, surely. Dora, I won’t settle for one child. You’re going to have half a dozen children by me, or more. Probably more. Maybe a dozen. Any objection?”
“Yes, Woodrow—I mean No, I do not object. Yes, I will have a dozen children by you. Or more.”