The World Swappers by John Brunner

circled and were already on their way to a landing when the next batch arrived.
    “Verity!” called Katya to a white-haired woman sitting astride a sort of monstrous mechanical horse, which tugged a trailer-load of electrical equipment out of the transfax field. “What the deuce have you got there?”
    “I pinched a complete broadcast power-unit off a new construction project,” Verity called back cheerfully. “I thought it would come in handy.” Catching sight of Anty, she gave a wild wave before lumbering off across the plaza with her vast vehicle.
    After that people and equipment seemed to come in equal quantities. Counce came through from Earth, bringing nothing but his unparalleled experience. Then from Shiva; then from Zeus; then from New Peru; then more from Earth.
    Watching, Anty felt a chill of sheer awe race down his spine. This was the organization to which he belonged to, to which he had given his life. An organization dedicated to a dream and a vision–without rules, except those they imposed on themselves, without any qualification for membership except the desire to serve one’s fellow man.
    Like an army going into battle, they were assembling here from every world occupied by man, but especially from the mother-world of Earth. Those from the colder worlds stopped only to discard their outer clothing as they emerged into the blazing heat of Regis; those from tropical climates did not even waste that much time before going to work.
    First, the transfax units–one to seize the raw plasma out of the sun; another (because the first would be totally destroyed by the fantastic heat) to reach across the parsecs and kidnap the alien ship. That one they sent up to the polar regions. It seemed that it had barely gone from sight before one of the rockets from K’ung-fu-tse took off awkwardly for the weight of a drum of power cable under its starboard wing and began to lay a snakelike thread of it across the landscape. A second followed it. That would be enough to convey the incredible flow of power for the few vital seconds.
    Men and women had scrambled into spacesuits; now the main transfax was temporarily withdrawn from import duty and used to hurl a duplicate of itself, an assembly crew, and the complete broadcast power-unit Verity had brought from Boreas into orbit far overhead. When they seized the plasma from the sun, they would have to use the vacuum of space itself to insulate it, draw off its power on the spot, and broadcast it to ground in a tight beam.
    Power cables spread over the base, like the web of a crazy spider; jury-rigged scaffolding canted upwards, carrying the power unit subassemblies. But there was more going on than could be plainly seen. In one of the huts Jaroslav was being deprived of a colony of involuntary fellow-travelers–germs native to Ymir, which were slapped into cold-culture dishes and used as the basis for the artificial “disease” the Others were to carry home with them. Far to the north, a team of men and women sweated and slaved to prepare the transfax for receiving the ship.
    The sun went down; came up again. It still looked on a frantic hive of activity, but there was order where there had been chaos. Technicians were running preliminary tests now; there was time to snatch a bite to eat and a glass of water. Red-eyed with fatigue, Anty Dreean walked slowly through the midst of it all, wondering at his inspiration become reality.
    “Anty!” said a familiar voice, and he turned to see Counce waving to him. A little shyly, because Counce was a great man, Anty returned the greeting.
    “Good,” Counce said briefly, and made a gesture that took in the entire scene. There was no need to say more; Anty went on his way feeling that he had received an accolade.
    A small group was emerging from Wu’s office: Wu himself, Katya, a woman so beautiful she could only be Falconetta, and a white-haired old man. Katya waved and called to Anty, who hurried across to them. They were