They rummaged in the ruins of Earth's cities,
looking for plans to restore vital machinery. But
what they finally constructed got up and ran away!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
February 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Markten flew low over the sun-lit ruins, and wondered idly if he wouldfind any more in them than he had found elsewhere on the planet.
"Looks as completely dead as all the rest," he said to his companion."New City has a big enough population anyhow, as far as I'm concerned.Not that it's important, I suppose. There's always plenty of space inwhich to expand, but you know what I mean."
The younger occupant of the low-circling aircraft nodded hisunderstanding. "There'd be enough room on either side of the BigMountains to take care of millions more of us, I guess. But I thinkyou're right. Anyway, there isn't another nomad or ruin-dweller on theplanet. New City is as complete as it's going to be—and as you say,twelve million is enough. But do you think we'll find any more plansdown there?"
"Hard to say," Markten answered, levelling off the aircraft for alanding. "But if there are traces of anything, I hope you'll keep yourattention on what's of technical value and not waste time again on allthat other stuff. None of us have ever bothered reading it—you can'tbuild anything from it—no diagrams. To build is the only purpose ofNew City's civilization—how could anything else be of importance?"
"I've wondered off and on about that. But then, there is so little ofanything left that it doesn't make much difference. Important thing isto find more diagrams."
"Glad you realize it. I've been a citizen of New City ever since thefirst few of us on this continent started building it forty years ago,and I can tell you, building things is all that's important. You'drealize that soon enough if you'd wandered around, alone and useless,as I and a lot of other Elders did for years." Markten brought thefast, twin-engined aircraft in to a perfect landing, cut the power,and set the brakes. The two left their seats and started getting fieldequipment together.
"They told us at the academy that you Elders wandered so far and forso long that you had permanently lost all memory of the past. Is thatreally true, Markten?"
"It is, not that it ever mattered. We all had forgotten from where we'dcome, or how we got where we were. I guess all we remembered was how tobuild. But then—"
"As you said, building is all there is that's important."
They left the plane and started in the direction of what once hadobviously been a city. To Markten and his young aide the sight wasnothing new; they had seen, as had all the other members of theResearch Builders division, thousands of others just like the onetoward which they were now walking. Sometimes Markten thought it wouldhave been a lot easier to have signed up with the Production Buildersdivision—but that would have been dull. Always searching for newplans: building something new—that was more to his taste.
The only trouble was, there seemed to be fewer and fewer new plansas the years went by. And now, even when you found some, you had tocheck its potentialities exhaustively before you started building it.Markten shuddered a little when he thought of some of the first thingsthat had been built without preconstruction study for analysis as toits probable use. One of them would have blown New City off the faceof the earth had it been put into operation in a metropolitan provinglab. Fort