Rocket kraschar tillbaka till jorden som har teknik, men använder inte den mycket

Jag läser den här novellen om 30-40 år sedan.

"The Climbing Wave" , en novella av Marion Zimmer Bradley , även svaret på den här senaste frågan ; först publicerad i The Magazine of Fantasy och Science fiction , februari 1955 , tillgänglig på Internetarkiv .

En raket kraschar tillbaka till jorden århundraden efter att jorden har gått igenom en form av förstörelse med få överlevande.

Det finns ingen krasch; först flygtrafiken och sedan det stora rymdskeppet landa säkert på jorden. De kommer från en koloni på en planet av Theta Centauri som grundades av besättningen av det första stjärnskyttet från jorden, som skadades i en kraschlandning:

It had taken four generations for the stranded crew of the original ship, the Starward, to repair the hyperdrives smashed in landing, and to wrest from the soil of Θ Centauri fourth planet — Terra Two, they called it — enough cerberum to take a pilot crew back to earth with news of their success. A hundred and thirty years, subjective time. Taking account of the time-lags engendered by their hyperspeeds, it was entirely possible that four or five hundred years had elapsed, objectively, on the planet their ancestors had left.

Jorden har haft en överbefolkningskris någon gång i det förflutna; Kolonierna på Mars och Venus har övergivits, städerna har övergivits, och den reducerade befolkningen lever ett decentraliserat liv i små byar. Earth native Hard Frobisher förklarar:

Probably the overpopulation reached such extremes—the solar system as a whole, of course, since Earth had to feed Mars and Venus too—that for one or two whole generations, every able-bodied man and woman had to put all his efforts into food-making instead of theoretical astronomy or whatever they called it. And by the time they had that problem solved, people were thinking of science in terms of human benefits, and probably realized that their resources could be handled more efficiently here on Earth.

En av raketarna försöker återintroducera tekniken, bara för att stängas av lokalbefolkningen. Efter tiden återintegrerar de flesta tillbaka till samhället, förutom för honom.

Det skulle vara Brian Kearns (tekniskt en hyperdrive tekniker, inte en raketman), tidigare kapten i rymdskeppet Homeward . Han och hans partner bor ombord på rymdskeppet medan resten av besättningen går in i byn:

"Brian is crazy!" Paula said emphatically. "Ellie—is it really true that you and Brian will go on living in the Homeward?" She glanced distastefully at the black mass of the starship, and went on, "Why do you stand for it?"

"I'd live with Brian in a worn-out hydroponics tank, Paula. You would too, if it were Tom," Ellie said wearily. "And Brian's right, some one should keep the ship from being dismantled. Any of you had the same choice."

En dag kommer när en av kvinnorna beror på att föda och en grupp samlas för att gå till henne. Den tidigare raketmannen undrar hur de ska resa tillräckligt snabbt för att vara vid födseln.

Paula har problem med sin graviditet, tydligen relaterad till att bli gravid i fall:

"You're right there's something wrong," he raged, and advanced on Frobisher so violently that the old man retreated a step or two. "I've got a girl on my hands who looks as if she were going to die," Brian roared, "and I want to know where on this devil-ridden planet you packed Tom off to, and where Marcia's gone! And then I want to know if there's a decent medical man anywhere in this damned backward dark-ages Utopia of yours!"

En lokal drar en helikopter ur en ladugård till raketmanens överraskning.

"I doubt if you'd understand," Brian snapped, but Frobisher said steadily, "I suppose it's the gravity sickness. Tom mentioned it before he left. It's easy to get hold of him. Destry—" He turned to the boy in the doorway. "Quick, go down and get the Center on the wire. Tell them to fly Mellen back here, inside an hour if they can. And—where's your father, Destry? This sounds like something for him."
[. . . .]
"What the—what the hell—!" Brian started, but Destry was already hurrying down a flight of stairs. Hard Frobisher put a compulsive hand on Brian's shoulder and shoved him after the boy. Brian stumbled on the steps and blinked in the raw light of an electric arc-bulb. On a rough wood workbench, with Destry's notebooks and a few ordinary boy-type oddments, the stupefied Brian recognized what was unmistakably a radio transmitter. And not a simple one. Destry was already adjusting earphones and making a careful calibration of an instrument which looked handmade but incredibly delicate. He moved a key and said in a hurried voice, "Marilla Center, please, second-class priority, personal. Hello—Betty? You've got a man in the Center working on radio? Mellen? That's the man. This is Destry Frobisher talking from Norten. Fly him over here—as fast as you can make it. His wife's ill—yes, I know, but it's a special case. Thanks—" A long pause. "Thanks again, but we'll manage. Look, Betty, I have to get Slayton. Clear the stations, will you?" Another pause, and he said. "My father. Why? Oh—thanks, Betty, thanks a lot. Tell them we'll bring a plane over there for him." He closed the key and ripped off the headphone, standing up, and Brian exploded again.
"Just what's going on?" he demanded. "What kind of a bluff have you people been putting up on us?"

Svaret på hans fråga: bara för att vi har teknikkapacitet betyder inte att vi måste använda den.

"Listen, Kearns," Frobisher said abruptly, "you've been jumping to conclusions all along. Now don't jump to another one, that we've been bluffing, and concealing our civilization from you. We live the way we like to live."

"But radio—planes—you have all those things, and yet—"

Frobisher said, with barely concealed disgust, "You have the Barbarian viewpoint, I see. Radio, for instance. We use it for emergency needs. The Barbarians used to listen to keep from doing things—I know, they even had radio with pictures, and used to sit and listen and look at other people doing things instead of doing them themselves. Of course, they had rather primitive lives—"

"Primitive!" Brian interrupted. "You have airplanes and yet people walk—"

Frobisher said irritably, "Why not? Where is there to go in such a hurry—as long as we have fast transport for those few times when it is really necessary?"