The Burning Bridge
Usually there are two "reasons" why something is done; the reason why it needs to be done, and, quite separate, the reason people want to do it. The foul-up starts when the reason-for-wanting is satisfied ... and the need remains!
Approx. 10,723 words.
out the air lock or loafing on the surface. You wouldn't believe how blue the waves could be. They tell me on Rustum you can't come down off the mountain tops."
"But we'd have the whole planet to ourselves," said Teresa Zeleny.
One with a gentle scholar's face answered: "That may be precisely the trouble, my dear. Three thousand of us, counting children, totally isolated from the human mainstream. Can we hope to build a civilization? Or even maintain one?"
"Your problem, pop," said the officer beside him dryly, "is that there are no medieval manuscripts on Rustum."
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"I admit it," said the scholar. "I thought it more important my children grow up able to use their minds. But if it turns out they can do so on Earth--How much chance will the first generations on Rustum have to sit down and really think, anyway?"
"Would there even be a next generation on Rustum?"
"One and a quarter gravities--I can feel it now."
"Synthetics, year after year of
