Chapter 46

"What? Say it isn't so Snuffleupagus."

"Pipe down. I told you I'm not sure. He just hinted about it," Rose said.

"Hell, I don't want to live forever," I said.

"Why in hell not? Somebody has to stay around and keep me company," Rose said.

"But what about everyone else? We'll have to hang around and watch our friends die off - over and over," I said, whining and I knew it.

"Don't get your drawers in a wad. Maybe we will and maybe we won't. Whatever they did didn't take long and wasn't much trouble. Maybe we can talk Sigfried into doing it to a few others. Even if we can't, you and I aren't the only ones. Everyone they put down here gets the same treatment, or at least I think they do."

"Okay. At any rate there's no need to panic right now I guess and it isn't the key to eternal life. Most of the others didn't have a bit of trouble getting their asses killed pronto," I said.

"You're right on the money there. The fish grab folks up, give them the money to buy what they want and then set them down basically cold. They don't bother with any kind of indoctrination lesson and they want participants with higher learning behind them. They can't get it through their head higher learning isn't much help here on the ground."

"And I can't understand why. I don't know what specialties the people studied, but it seems to me some of them could leave people at a disadvantage instead of help them."

"Oh, they don't choose people who went for a specialty. They just feel satisfied if they find someone with a good liberal arts education, whatever that is," Rose said.

"You mean the people who go through four years of college as if it were four more years of high school? The ones who take mostly English, math, history, and enough courses to get a degree without specifically trying to learn about something?" I asked.

"Yes, but it isn't a hard and fast rule, as you proved. It does seem as if they're not looking for anything special as long as the prospect finishes four years and gets a degree."

"Well I don't understand how any of it will help here. We have to look out for ourselves here and writing a good theme just won't help put supper on the table, especially since you usually have to kill supper. They'd be better off grabbing a bunch of old soldiers if they just want to pick for high survivability."

"There something odd there too. They won't even consider soldiers. I suggested a few I found and Rosco flat out told me former military training was not allowable."

"If so then they aren't looking for high survival rates, but I'm about to decide I don't care what they want. When it comes down to it there's not much more I want from them. Sure, my truck and the skidder came in damned handy, but I don't want to spend my time here driving a truck around and for that matter I don't want a big cattle ranch so I don't have to go hunting for meat."

"But we can feed so many more people if we do it," Rose said.

"To what end? All we're doing is building a small town. Sure, it helps out the ones we take in, but I don't like living in town anyway. We can keep a few animals protected for emergency rations or something, but I don't like farming myself and I don't think we'll help ourselves out by starting up a giant population-increasing project. We may already have more of one than will do us any good.

"We've got a bunch of people here now and life won't be very hard for them. I'm betting infant mortality for our group is going way down and soon. I'm glad about it, but I'm not happy thinking it's going to spread fast.

"I hate to see children suffer and die as much as anyone, but the other side of the coin is people getting thick on the ground. I don't think a heavy population is something to try for on its own sake."

"Well you've been working hard at building a population boom of your own for someone who doesn't want babies? Rose said, and I could tell she had a little edge to her voice.

"Sure I have. It's what human men were designed to do, or if they weren't designed it's what they evolved to do - women too for that matter. Fucking is fun for all concerned if you're doing it right and fucking will get you babies. When the babies come around you want to keep them well fed and healthy. Before you know it they're grown up and doing their own fucking," I said.

"Duh!"

"I know I'm stating the obvious, but if Rosco and his pals have fixed it so we won't die of disease or even get any older then they could have really fucked things up. What if we pass whatever they've done on when we have children?"

"It'll be great. Our kids will never get sick or die. Where is the problem?" Rose asked.

"I don't know where it is, but it'll come along down the road somewhere. If we're not going to die and none of our kids are going to die and none of their kids are going to die this place will get crowded sooner or later. It happened on the earth we came from and we didn't even have anything like this," I said.

"We won't have to worry about it. It'll take thousands of years."

"If what you hinted at is right we'll still be around then and if you are right it won't even take that long," I said.

"Fine. You might be right, but at any rate we don't have to worry about it now."

"You're right, but we need to know the real deal sooner or later so at least keep it in the back or your mind."

"Ok, I will, but right now I've got things to do," she said, and then wandered off.

Hell, I wanted to wander off myself and there was still plenty I had to do. I had a tough time getting my head to stop playing with the immortality scenario Rose got started though. I went looking for George and decided we'd have to do something to get it off my mind. Whether the concrete was cured or not it was time to put up the antenna.

When I found George he agreed with me about the antenna. Goondoe and twelve of his guys came with us. George drove the skidder and I followed after catching and saddling Jethro.

Once we were on top the next step was attaching the tower to the hinge fixture. It took about an hour to get everything set up and to run the coax and direction control lines up to the soon-to-be top.

The actual antenna was a five-element beam and it was the next assembly project. The damned thing was nearly thirty feet long and there was a large directional motor to attach it to the tower with. Once everything was working Rose would be able to aim the antenna our way for better reception. There was nothing to do but go ahead and get it finished.

The whole thing was easier than I though and easier than we deserved. Sigfried had everything marked so we couldn't make a mistake and soon enough we had the skidder's winch line attached about half way up the tower. The twelve men spaced themselves out and lifted it as high as they could starting from the far end and walking toward the base until it was too heavy for them to raise any further.