Short Fiction Mack Reynolds (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📖

Hélène Desage stared at him. So did Mohammed Mohmoud and Derek Mason for that matter.

Only Pierre Marimbert realized Johnny McCord’s position, and he chuckled and went for more beer.

Johnny McCord was a man who didn’t like to be thrown out of routine. He resented the interference with his schedule of the past few days. By nature he was methodical, not given to inspiration.

All of which was probably the reason that he spent a sleepless night trying to find rhyme and reason where seemingly there was none.

At dawn, he stepped from the door of his Quonset hut quarters and looked for a moment into the gigantic red ball which was the Saharan sun. Neither dawn nor sunset at Bidon Cinq were spectacular, nor would they become so until the Sahara Reforestation Commission began to return moisture to desert skies. Johnny wondered if he would live to see it.

He made his way over to the huge steel shed which doubled as garage and aircraft hanger. As yet, none of the native mechanics were stirring, although he could hear sounds of activity in the community kitchen.

Derek Mason looked up from his inspection of Hélène Desage’s air-cushion Land Rover.

Johnny McCord scowled at him. “What in the hell are you doing here?”

The lanky Canadian came erect and looked for a long moment at his superior. He said finally, soberly, “It occurs to me that I’m probably doing the same thing you came to do.”

“What have you found?”

“That a small bomb has been attached to the starter.”

Johnny didn’t change expression. It fitted in. “What else?” he said.

Derek handed him a steel ring.

Johnny McCord looked at it, recognized it for what it was and stuck it in his pocket. “Let’s go back to the office. Yell in to the cook to send some coffee over, and call Pierre. We’ve got some notes to check.”

Mademoiselle Desage was a late riser. When she entered the office, the three Sahara Reforestation Commission officers were already at work.

She said snappishly to Johnny McCord, “Today I would like to see these destroyed pumps.”

Johnny said, his eyebrows questioning, “How did you know they were destroyed?”

“It doesn’t seem to be much of a secret. The story is all about the camp.”

“Oh?” Johnny sighed, then drawled to Derek, “I say, Si, you better go get the hired hand, we might as well finish this up so we can get back to work.”

Derek nodded and left.

Johnny McCord left the collator he’d been working with, went around behind his desk and sat down. “Take a chair, Miss Desage. I want to say a few things in the way of background to you.”

She sat, but said defiantly, “I have no need of a lengthy lecture on the glories of the Sahara Reforestation Commission.”

“Coffee?” Pierre Marimbert said politely.

“No, thank you.”

Johnny said, his voice thoughtful, “I imagine the real starting point was back about 1957 when the Chinese discovered that a nation’s greatest natural resource is its manpower.”

She frowned at him. “What in the world are you talking about?”

He ignored her and went on. “Originally, appalled by the job of feeding over half a billion mouths, they had initiated a birth control plan. But after a year or two they saw it was the wrong approach. They were going to succeed, if they succeeded, in their Great Leaps Forward by utilizing the labor of every man, woman and child in the country. And that’s what they proceeded to do. The lesson was brought home to the rest of the world in less than ten years, when such other countries as India and Indonesia failed to do the same.”

Johnny leaned back in his chair, and his eyes were thoughtful but unseeing. “Even we of the west learned the lesson. The most important factor in our leadership was our wonderful trained labor force. As far back as 1960 we had more than 65 million Americans working daily in industry and distribution. Even the Russkies, with their larger population, didn’t begin to equal that number.”

“What are you driveling about?” the reporter demanded.

“To sum it up,” Johnny said mildly, “the battle for men’s minds continues and each of the world’s great powers has discovered that it can’t afford to limit its population⁠—its greatest resource. So population continues to explode and the world is currently frantically seeking sources of food for its new billions. The Amazon basin is being made into a tropical garden; the Japanese, landless, are devising a hundred methods of farming the sea; Australia is debouching into its long unpopulated interior, doing much the same things we are here in the Sahara. The Chinese are overflowing into Sinkiang, Mongolia and Tibet; the Russkies into Siberia. We of the west, with the large underdeveloped areas of the western hemisphere have not been so greatly pushed as some others. However, there is always tomorrow.”

Derek entered with Captain Mohammed Mohmoud. The latter day Rudolph Valentino had a puzzled expression on his dark face.

“Here’s the hired man, Hiram,” Derek drawled.

The desert patrol officer nodded questioningly to the men and said, “Bonjour,” to Hélène Desage.

Johnny went on. “Yes, there’s tomorrow. And by the time we run out of Lebensraum in Brazil and Alaska, in Central America and the Argentine, in Texas and Saskatchewan, we’re going to need the three million square miles of the Sahara.”

She said in ridicule, “It will take you a century at least to reforest the desert.”

“At least.” Johnny nodded agreeably. “And we’re willing and able to look that far ahead. Possibly by that time our opponents will also be looking for new lands for their expanding peoples. And where will they find them? The advantage will be ours, Miss Desage.”

Mohammed Mohmoud looked from one to the other, frowning. “What are we discussing?” he said. “I should be getting back to my men.”

Derek yawned and said, “Forget about it, pal. You’re never going to be getting back to your men again.”

The desert patrol officer’s eyes widened. He turned his