After a moment's silence, he turned to the analyst again. "We've got to refuel," he said flatly. "In order to refuel, we must land."
"Yes, sir. But why not on Mars? We can develop our own facilities for producing fuel. Why must it be Earth?"
"Because there will be some existing facilities on Earth, even though they're out of space. The job would take five years on Mars."
The analyst lowered his eyes, shook his head wearily. "I'm thinking of a billion earthlings. Aren't they worth considering, sir?"
"I've got to consider the men in my command, Meikl. They've been through hell. We all have."
"The hell was our own making, baron."
"Meikl!"
"Sorry, sir."
Baron ven Klaeden paused ominously, then: "Besides, Meikl, your predictions of disaster rest on certain assumptions not known to be true. You assume that the recessive determinants still linger in the present inhabitants. Twenty thousand years is a long time. Nearly a thousand generations. I don't know a great deal about culturetics, but I've read that kulturverlaengerung reaches a threshold of extinction after about a dozen generations, if there's no restimulation."
"Only in laboratory cultures, sir," sighed the analyst. "Under rigid control to make certain there's no restimulant. In practice, in a planet-wide society, there's constant accidental restimulation, unconsciously occuring. A determinant gets restimulated, pops back to original intensity, and gets passed on. In practice, a kult'laenger linkage never really dies out—although, it can stay recessive and unconscious."