Anything You Can Do ...

by Randall Garrett

  _[19]_

  From the very moment he had heard that "Stanley Martin" had arrived totake charge of the project, Bart Stanton pushed all thoughts of hisbrother out of his mind. He had fouled up once by thinking of himselfrather than thinking of what had to be done; he would not make thatmistake again.

  Nor, apparently, did Martin have any desire to meet Bart Stanton. Hetook control of the project smoothly. Apparently Mannheim had taken intoaccount the possibility of his own death and had arranged thingsaccordingly. Although Martin was not a member of the World Police, hisown record showed that he had the ability to handle the job, and anExecutive Session had unanimously accepted Colonel Mannheim's wishes inthe matter. There was little else they could do; the very fact thatMannheim had died in the way he had, ordering the guard to hold hisfire, had stilled those voices on the Executive Council who had beenwavering before.

  Martin had come in to Earth almost secretly, without fanfare, and thegeneral public was totally unaware that anything at all had happened.

  Special messages, going through the channels known to be tapped by theNipe, said that it would not be in the public interest to admit that theNipe could actually penetrate the defenses of World Police Headquarters,so the Nipe was not surprised when the public news channels announcedquietly that Colonel Walther Mannheim, the man who had been decoratedtwelve years before for the quelling of the Central BrazilianInsurrection, had died peacefully in his sleep. The funeral was quiet,but with full honors.

  Stanton stopped worrying about such things. Until he had done the jobthat he had been rebuilt for, he was determined to make that goal hissole purpose. As the weeks sped by, he kept determinedly to his regime,exercising regularly to keep himself in top physical condition, andstudying the three-dimensional motion studies of the Nipe in action.

  Only one of these made him ill the first time he watched it, but it wasthe only recording of the Nipe actually in the process of killing aman, so he watched, over and over again, the shots taken from the guntower when the Nipe attacked Colonel Mannheim.

  A full-sized mockup of the Nipe's body had been built, with the bestapproximation possible of the Nipe's bone structure and musculature, andStanton worked with it to determine what, if any, were the Nipe'sphysical limitations.

  His only periods of relative relaxation occurred when he discussed thepsychological peculiarities of the Nipe mind with George Yoritomo.

  One afternoon, after a particularly strenuous boxing session, he walkedinto Yoritomo's office with a grin on his face. "I've been consideringthe problem of the apparent paradox of a high technology in aritual-taboo system."

  Yoritomo grinned back delightedly and waved Stanton to a chair."Excellent! It is always much better if the student thinks these thingsout for himself. Now, while I fill this hand-furnace with tobacco andfire up, you will please explain to me all about it."

  Stanton sat down and settled himself comfortably. "All right. In thefirst place, there's the notion of religion. In tribal cultures, thereligion is usually--uh--animistic, I think the word is."

  Yoritomo nodded silently.

  "They believe there are spirits everywhere," Stanton said. "That sort ofbelief, it seems to me, would grow up in any race that had imagination,and the Nipes must have had plenty of that, or they wouldn't have thetechnology that we know they do have. Am I on the right track?"

  "Very good. _Very_ good," Yoritomo said in approval. "But what evidencehave you that this technology was not given to them by some other, moreadvanced race?"

  "I hadn't thought of that." Stanton stared into space for a moment, thennodded his head. "Of course. It would take too long to teach them. Itwouldn't be worth all the trouble it would take to make them unlearntheir fallacies and learn the new facts. It would take generations to doit unless this hypothetical other race killed off all the adult Nipesand started the little ones off fresh. And that didn't happen, becauseif it had, the ritual-taboo system would have died out, too. So thatother-race theory is out."

  "The argument is imperfect," Yoritomo said, "but it will suffice for themoment. Go on about the religion."

  "Okay. Religious beliefs are not subject to pragmatic tests. That is,the spiritual beliefs aren't. Any belief that _could_ be disproven bysuch a test would eventually die out. But beliefs in ghosts or demons orangels or life after death aren't disprovable by material tests, anymore than they are provable. So, as a race increases its knowledge ofthe physical world, its religion would tend to become more and morespiritual."

  "Agreed. Yes. It happened so among human beings," said Yoritomo. "Buthow do you link this fact with ritual-taboo?"

  "Well, once a belief gains a foothold," Stanton said, "it is verydifficult to wipe it out, even among human beings. Among Nipes, it wouldbe well-nigh impossible. Once a code of ritual and of social behaviorhad been set up, it became permanent."

  "For example?" Yoritomo urged.

  "Well, shaking hands, for example," Stanton said after a pause. "Westill do that, even if we don't have it fixed solidly in our heads thatwe _must_ do it. I suppose it would never occur to a Nipe not to performsuch a ritual."

  "Just so," Yoritomo agreed vigorously. "Such things, once established inthe minds of the race, would tend to remain. But it is a characteristicof a ritual-taboo system that it resists change. Change is evil. Changeis wrong. We must use what we know to be true, not try something thathas never been tried before. In a ritual-taboo system, a thing which isnot ritual is, _ipso facto_, taboo. How, then, can we account for theirhigh technological achievements?"

  "The pragmatic engineering approach, I imagine," Stanton said. "If athing works, then go ahead and use it. It is usable. If not, it isn't."

  "Approximately," said Yoritomo. "But only approximately. Now it is myturn to lecture." He put his pipe in an ashtray and held up a long, bonyfinger. "Firstly, we must remember that the Nipe is equipped with afunctioning imagination. Secondly, he has in his memory a tremendousamount of data, all ready at hand. He is capable of working out theoriesin his head, you see. Like the ancient Greeks, he finds no need to testsuch theories--_unless_ his thinking indicates that such an experimentwould yield something useful. Unlike the Greeks, he has no aversion toexperiment. But he sees no need for useless experiment, either.

  "Oh, he would learn, yes. But once a given theory proved workable, howresistant he would be to a new theory. Innovators, even in our ownculture, have a very hard time working against the great inertia of arecognized theory. How much harder it would be in a ritual-taboo societywith a perfect memory! How long--how _incredibly_ long--it would takesuch a race to achieve the technology the Nipe now has!"

  "Hundreds of thousands of years," said Stanton.

  Yoritomo shook his head briskly. "Puh! Longer! Much longer!" He smiledwith satisfaction. "I estimate that the Nipe race first invented thesteam engine not less than ten million years ago!"

  He kept smiling into the dead silence that followed.

  After a long minute, Stanton said: "What about atomic energy?"

  "At least two million years ago," Yoritomo said. "I do not think theyhave had the interstellar drive more than some fifty thousand years."

  "No wonder our pet Nipe is so patient," Stanton said with a touch of awein his voice. "How long do you suppose their individual life-span is?"

  "Not so long, in comparison," said Yoritomo. "Perhaps no longer than ourown at the least, or perhaps as much as five hundred years. Consideringthe tremendous handicaps against them, they have done quite well, Ithink. Quite well, indeed, for a race of illiterate cannibals."

  "How's that again?" Stanton realized that the scientist was quiteserious.

  "Hadn't it occurred to you, my friend, that they must be cannibals?"Yoritomo asked. "And that they must be very nearly illiterate?"

  "No," Stanton admitted, "it hadn't."

  "The Nipe, like man, is omnivorous," Yoritomo pointed out."Specialization tends to lead any race up a blind alley, and dietaryrestrictions are a particularly pernicious form of specializ
ation. Alion would starve to death in a wheat field. A horse would perish in abutcher shop full of steaks. A man will survive as long as there issomething around to eat--even if it's another man."

  Yoritomo picked up his pipe and began tapping the ashes out of it."Also," he went on, "we must remember that Man, early in his career ofbecoming top dog on Earth, began using a method of removing the unfit.Ritual traces of it remain today in some societies--the Jewish BarMitzvah, for instance, or the Christian Confirmation. Before andimmediately after the Holocaust, there were still primitive societies onEarth--in New Guinea, for instance--which still made a rather hardordeal out of the Rite of Passage, the ceremony whereby a boy becomes aman--if he passes the tests."

  Yoritomo was filling his pipe, a look of somber satisfaction on his leanface. "A few millennia ago, a boy who underwent those tests was killedoutright if he failed. And was eaten. He had not shown the ability tooverrule with reason his animal instincts. Therefore, he was not a humanbeing, but an animal. What better use for a young and succulent animalthan to provide meat for the common larder?"

  "And you think the same process must have been used by the Nipes?"Stanton asked.

  Yoritomo nodded vigorously as he applied a match flame to the tobacco inhis pipe. "The Nipe race must, of necessity, have had some similarritualistic tests or they would not have become what they are," he saidwhen he had puffed the pipe alight. "And we have already agreed thatonce the Nipes adopted something of that kind, it remained with them.Not so? Yes.

  "Also, it can be considered extremely unlikely that the Nipecivilization--if such it can be called--has any geriatric problem. No,indeed. No old-age pensions, no old folks' homes, no senility. No, norany specialists in geriatrics, either. When a Nipe becomes a burdenbecause of age, he is ritually murdered and eaten with all duesolemnity."

  Yoritomo pointed his pipestem at Stanton. "Ah. You frown, my friend.Have I made them sound heartless, without the finer feelings of which wehumans are so proud? Not so. When Junior Nipe fails his puberty tests,when Mama and Papa Nipe are sent to their final reward, I have no doubtthat there is sadness in the hearts of their loved ones as the honoredT-bones are passed around the table."

  He put the pipe back in his mouth and spoke around it. "My ownancestors, not too far back, performed a ritual suicide by disembowelingthemselves with a long, sharp knife. Across the abdomen--_so!_--and upinto the heart--_so!_ It was considered very bad form to faint or diebefore the job was done. Nearby, a relative or a close friend stood witha sharp sword, to administer the _coup de grace_ by decapitation. It wasall very sad and very honorable. Their loved ones bore the sorrow withgreat pride."

  His voice, which had been low and tender, suddenly became very brisk."Thank goodness it has gone out of fashion!"

  "But how can you be _sure_ they're cannibals?" Stanton asked. "Yourargument sounds logical enough, but you can't be basing your theory onthat alone."

  "True! True!" Yoritomo jabbed the air twice with a rapid forefinger."Evidence for such a theory would be most welcome, would it not? Verywell, I give you the evidence. He eats human beings, our Nipe."

  "That doesn't make him a cannibal," Stanton objected.

  "Not _strictly_, perhaps. But consider. The Nipe is not a monster. He isnot a criminal. No. He is a gentleman. He always behaves as a gentleman.He is shipwrecked on an alien planet. Around him, he sees evidence inprofusion that ours is a technological society. But that is acontradiction! A paradox!

  "For _we_ are not civilized! No! We are not rational! We are not sane!We do not obey the Laws; we do not perform the Rituals. We are animals.Apparently intelligent animals, but animals nevertheless. How can thisbe?

  "_Ha!_ says the Nipe to himself. These animals must be ruled over byReal People. It is the only explanation. Not so?"

  "Colonel Mannheim mentioned that," Stanton said. "Are you implying thatthe Nipe thinks there are other Nipes around, running the world fromsecret hideouts, like the villains in a Fu Manchu novel?"

  "Not quite," said Yoritomo, laughing. "The Nipe is not at all incapableof learning something new. In point of fact, he is quite good at it, aswitness the fact that he has learned many Earth languages. He picked upRussian in less than eight months simply by listening and observing.Like our own race, his undoubtedly evolved a great many languages duringthe beginnings of its progress--when there were many tribes, separatedand out of communication with each other. It would not surprise me tofind that most of these languages have survived and that our distressedastronaut knows them all. A new language would not bother him in theleast.

  "Nor would strangely shaped intelligent beings make him unhappy. Hisrace should be aware, by now, that such things must exist. But it isvery likely that he equates _true_ intelligence with technology, and Ido not think it likely that he has ever met a race higher than thebarbarian level before. Such races were not, of course, human--by hisdefinition. They showed possibilities, perhaps, but they had not by anymeans evolved far enough. And, considering the time span involved intheir own progress toward a technological civilization, it is not at allunlikely that the Nipe thinks of technology as something that evolves ina race in the same way that intelligence does--or the body itself.

  "So it would not surprise him to find that the Real People of thissystem were humanoid in shape instead of--ah--Nipoid? A bad word, but itwill do for the nonce. To find Real People of a different shape issomething new, but he can absorb it because it does not contradictanything he _knows_.

  "_But--!_ Any truly intelligent being that did not obey the Law andfollow the Ritual _would_ be a contradiction in terms. For our Nipe hasno notion of a Real Person without those characteristics. Without thosecharacteristics, technology is, of course, utterly impossible. Since hesees technology all around him, it follows that there must be RealPeople around somewhere that have those characteristics. Anything elseis unthinkable."

  "It seems to me that you're building an awfully involved theory out ofpretty flimsy stuff," Stanton said.

  Yoritomo shook his head. "Not at all. Not at all. Every scrap and shredof evidence we have points toward it. Why, do you suppose, does the Nipeconscientiously devour his victims, often risking his own safety to doso? Why do you suppose he never uses any weapon but his own hands tokill with?"

  Yoritomo leaned forward and speared out at Stanton with a long, bonyforefinger. "Why? To tell the Real People that he is a gentleman!"

  He sat back with a satisfied smile and puffed complacently at his pipe,remaining silent while Bart Stanton considered his last remark.

  "Just one thing," Stanton said after a minute. "It seems to me that hewould be able to judge that some races have different Laws and Ritualsthan he does. Wouldn't they have a science comparable to ouranthropology?"

  Yoritomo grinned. "Nipology, shall we say? Well, he might, but it wouldnot tell him what our anthropology tells us.

  "Consider. How have we learned much of our knowledge of the earlyhistory of Man? By the study of ritual-taboo cultures. The so-called'primitive' cultures. It is from these tribes that we have learned themultifarious ways in which a group of human beings can evolve a cultureand a society. But does the Nipe have any such other tribes to study?"

  "Why wouldn't he?" Stanton asked.

  "Because there are none," Yoritomo said. "How could there be? Consideragain. Once a race has evolved a fairly high technological level, it iscapable of wiping out races which have not achieved that level. If thetechnologically advanced tribe is still at the ritual-taboo level, itwill consider that all tribes which do not use the same Laws and Ritualsas it does must be animals--dangerous animals that must be wiped out.Take a look at the history of our own race. In a few short centuries, wefind that the technologically advanced civilization and culture ofRenaissance Europe has spread over the whole globe. By military,economic, and religious conquest, it has, in effect, westernized themajority of Mankind.

  "The same process would take place on the Nipe's world, only morethoroughly. The weaker tribes would vanish, the st
ronger wouldamalgamate."

  "That process would take a lot of time," Stanton said.

  "Indeed! Oh, yes, indeed," Yoritomo agreed. "But they have had the time,have they not? Eh? What Western European Man has partially achieved inless than a thousand years, surely the Nipe equivalent could haveachieved in ten thousand thousand. Eh?"

  "But I'd think that the Nipe would have realized, after ten years, thatthere is no such race of Real People," Stanton said. "He's had access toour records and books and such things. Or does he reject them all aslies?"

  "Possibly he would, if he could read them," Yoritomo said. "Did I notsay he was illiterate?"

  "You mean he's learned to speak our languages, but not to read them?"

  The psychologist smiled broadly. "Your statement is accurate, my friend,but incomplete. It is my opinion that the Nipe is incapable of readingany written language whatever. The concept does not exist in his mind,except vaguely."

  Stanton closed one eye and gave Yoritomo the glance askance. "Aw, come_awwn_, George! A technological race without a written language? That'simpossible!"

  "Ah, no. No, it isn't. Ask yourself: What need has a race with a perfectmemory for written records? At least, in the sense that we think ofthem. Certainly not to remember things. What would a Nipe need with amemorandum book or a diary? All of their history and all of theirtechnology exists in the collective mind of the race.

  "Think, for a moment, of their history. If it is somewhat analogous tohuman history--and, as we have seen, there is reason to believe thatthis is so--then we can, in a way, trace the development of writing.We--"

  "Wait a minute!" Stanton held up his hand. "I think I see what you'redriving at."

  "Ah. So?" Yoritomo nodded. "Very well. Then _you_ expound."

  "I can give it to you in two sentences," Stanton said. "One: Their firstwriting was probably pictographic and was learned only by a selectpriestly class. Two: It still is."

  "Ahhhh!" Yoritomo's eyes lit up. "Admirable! Most admirable! Andsuccinctly put, too. And, to top it off, almost precisely correct. Thatis what happened here on Earth; are we wrong in assuming that such mayhave happened elsewhere in the Universe? (Remembering always, my dearBart, that we must not make the mistake of thinking like our friend, theNipe, and assuming that everybody else in the Universe has to be like usin all things.)

  "You are correct. That is why I hedged when I said he was _almost_illiterate. There is a possibility that a written symbology does existfor Nipes. But it is used almost entirely for ritualistic purposes, itis pictographical in form, and is known only to a very few. For othersto learn it would be taboo.

  "Remember, I said that there is only one society, one culture remainingon the Nipe planet. And remember that history is a very late developmentin our own culture, just as written language is. One important event inevery ten centuries of Nipe history would still give a Nipe historianten thousand events to remember just since the invention of the steamengine. What, then, does Nipe history become? A series of folk chants,of _chansons de geste_."

  "Why?" Stanton asked. "If they have perfect memories, why wouldhistories be distorted?"

  "Time, my dear boy. Time." Yoritomo spread his hands in a gesture offutility. "When one has a few million years of history to learn, it_must_ become distorted, even in a race with a perfect memory.Otherwise, no individual would have a chance to learn it all in a singlelifetime, even a lifetime of five hundred years, much less to pass thatknowledge on to another. So only the most important events are reported.And that means that each historian must also be an editor. He mustexcise those portions which he considers unimportant."

  "But wouldn't that very limitation induce them to record history?"Stanton asked. "Right there is your inducement to use a writtenlanguage."

  Yoritomo looked at him with wide-eyed innocence. "Why? _What good ishistory?_"

  "Ohhh," said Stanton. "I see."

  "Certainly you do," Yoritomo said firmly. "Of what use is history to theritual-taboo culture? Only to record what is to be done. And, with amemory that can _know_ what is to be done, of what use is a historian,except to remember the _important_ things. No ritual-taboo culture looksupon history as we do. Only the doings of the great are recorded. Allelse must be edited out. Thus, while the memory of the individual maybe, and _is_, perfect, the memory of the race is not. _But they don'tknow that!_"

  "What about communications, then?" Stanton asked. "What did they usebefore they invented radio?"

  "Couriers," Yoritomo said. "And, possibly, written messages from onepriestly scribe to another. That last, by the way, has probably survivedin a ritualistic form. When an officer is appointed to a post, let'ssay, he may get a formal paper that says so. The Nipes may use symbolsto signify rank and so on. They must have a symbology for thecalibration of scientific instruments.

  "But none of these requires the complexity of a written language. I daresay our use of it is quite baffling to him.

  "For teaching purposes, it is quite unnecessary. Look at what televisionand such have done in our own civilization. With such tools as that athand--recordings and pictures--it is possible to teach a person a greatmany things without ever teaching him to read. A Nipe certainly wouldn'tneed any aid for calculation, would he? We humans must use a piece ofpaper to multiply two ten-digit numbers together, but that's because ourmemories are faulty. A Nipe has no need for such aids."

  "Are you really positive of all this, George?" Stanton asked.

  Yoritomo shrugged. "How can we be absolutely positive at this stage ofthe game? Eh? Our evidence is sketchy, I admit. It is not as solidlybased as our other reconstructions of his background, but it appearsthat he thinks of symbols as being unable to convey much information.The pattern for his raids, for instance, indicates that his knowledge ofthe materials he wants and their locations comes from vocalsources--television advertising, eavesdropping on shipping orders, andso on. In other words, he cases the joint by ear. If he could understandwritten information, his job would be much easier. He could find hismaterials much more quickly and easily. And, too, we have never seen himeither read a word or write one. From this evidence, we are fairlycertain that he can neither read nor write any terrestrial language--oreven his own." He spread his hands again. "As I said, it is not proof."

  "No," Stanton agreed, "but I must admit that the whole thing makes forsome very interesting speculation, doesn't it?"

  "Very interesting, indeed." Yoritomo folded his hands in his lap, smiledseraphically, and looked at the ceiling. "In fact, my friend, we are nowso positive of our knowledge of the Nipe's mind that we are prepared toenter into the next phase of our program."

  "Oh?" Stanton distinctly felt the back of his neck prickle.

  "Yes," said Yoritomo. "Mr. Martin feels that if we wait much longer, wemay run into the danger of giving the Nipe enough time to complete hiswork on his communicator." He looked at Stanton and chuckled, but therewas no humor in his short laugh. "We would not wish our friend, theNipe, to bring his relatives into this little tussle, would we, Bart?"

  "That's been our deadline all along," Bart said levelly. "The object allalong has been to let the Nipe work without hindrance as long as he didnot actually produce a communicator that would--as you put it--bring hisrelatives into the tussle. Have things changed?"

  "They have," Yoritomo acknowledged. "Why wouldn't they? We have beenworking toward that as a _final_ deadline. If it appeared that the Nipewere actually about to contact his confederates out there somewhere, wewould be forced to act immediately, of course. Plan Beta would go intoeffect. But we don't want that, do we?"

  "No," said Stanton. "No." He was well aware what a terrible loss itwould be for humanity if Plan Beta went into effect. The Nipe would haveto be literally blasted out of his cozy little nest.

  "No, of course not." Yoritomo chuckled again, with as little mirth as hehad before. "Within a very short while, if we are correct, we shall,with your help, arrest the most feared arch-criminal that Earth has everknown. I dare say that the
public will be extremely happy to hear of hisdeath, and I know that the rest of us will be happy to know that he willnever kill again."

  Stanton suddenly saw the fateful day for which he had been so carefullyprepared and trained looming terrifyingly large in the immediate future.

  "How soon?" he asked in an oddly choked voice.

  "Within days." Yoritomo lowered his eyes from the ceiling and lookedinto Stanton's face with a mild, bland expression.

  "Tomorrow," he said, "the propaganda phase begins. We will announce tothe world that the great detective, Stanley Martin, has come to Earth torid us of the Nipe."