The Unlearned

by Raymond F. Jones

his own field and was in earnest conversation withthem--in a considerably more restrained manner, however, than he hadused the previous evening with Hockley, or than Carmen was using at thepresent time.

  The entire room was abuzz with similar groups.

  The senators had tried to mingle with the others in past days, alwayswith more or less lack of success because they found themselves out ofthe conversation almost completely. Today they had no luck whatever.They were seated together at a couple of tables in a corner. None ofthem seemed to be paying attention to the food before them, but wereglancing about, half-apprehensively, at their fellow diners--who werealso paying no attention to food.

  Hockley caught sight of his political colleagues and sensed theirdismay. The field of disquietude seemed almost tangible in the air. Thesenators seemed half frightened by what they felt but could notunderstand.

  Showalter's wild waving at the far corner of the room finally caughtHockley's eye and he moved toward the small table which the assistanthad reserved for them. Showalter was upset, too, by the atmospherewithin the room.

  "What the devil is up?" he said. "Seems like everybody's on edge thismorning. I never saw a bunch of guys so touchy. You'd think they woke upwith snakes in their beds."

  "Didn't you know?" said Hockley. "Haven't you been to any of thelectures this morning?"

  "No. A couple of the senators were getting bored with all the scientificdoings so I thought maybe I should try to entertain them. We took inwhat passes for such here, but it wasn't much better than the lecturesas a show. Tell me what's up."

  Briefly, Hockley described Silvers' upset of the day before and Carmen'sexperience that morning. Showalter let his glance rove over his fellowEarthmen, trying to catch snatches of the buzzing conversation at nearbytables.

  "You think that's the kind of thing that's got them all going thismorning?" he said.

  Hockley nodded. "I caught enough of it passing through to know that'swhat it is. I gather that every group has run into the same kind ofthing by now, the fencing off of broad areas where we have already triedto do research.

  "After the first cloud of awe wore off, the first thing everyone wantedwas an answer to his own pet line of research. Nine times out of ten itwas something the Rykes told them to chuck down the drain. That advicedoesn't sit so well--as you can plainly see."

  Showalter drew back his gaze and stared for a long time at Hockley. "Youknew this would happen. That's why you brought us here--"

  "I had hopes of it. I was reasonably sure this was the way the Rykesoperated."

  Showalter remained thoughtful for a long time before he spoke again."You've won your point, I suppose, as far as this group goes, but youcan't hope to convince all of Earth by this. The Rykes will hold theiroffer open, and others will accept it on behalf of Earth.

  "And what if it's we who are wrong, in the end? How can you be sure thatthis isn't the way the Rykes have made their tremendous speed--by notgoing down all the blind alleys that we rattle around in."

  "I'm sure it _is_ the way they have attained such speed of advancement."

  "Then maybe we ought to go along, regardless of our own desires. Maybewe never did know how to do research!"

  Hockley smiled across the table at his assistant. "You believe that, ofcourse."

  "I'm just talking," said Showalter irritably. "The thing gets more loopyevery day. If you think you understand the Rykes I wish you would giveout with what the score is. By the looks of most of these guys I wouldsay they are getting ready to throttle the next Ryke they see instead ofknuckle under to him."

  "I hope you're right," said Hockley fervently. "I certainly hope you'reright."

  * * * * *

  By evening there was increasing evidence that he was. Hockley passed upthe afternoon lecture period and spent the time in the lounge doing somethinking of his own. He knew he couldn't push the group. Above all, hemustn't give way to any temptation to push them or say, "I told you so."Their present frustration was so deep that their antagonism could beturned almost indiscriminately in any direction, and he would beoffering himself as a ready target if he were not careful.

  On the other hand he had to be ready to take advantage of theirdisaffection and throw them a decisive challenge when they were readyfor it. That might be tonight, or it might be another week. He wishedfor a sure way of knowing. As things turned out, however, the necessityof choosing the time was taken from him.

  After dinner that night, when the group began to drift into the lounge,Silvers and Carmen and three of the other men came over to where Hockleysat. Silvers fumbled with the buttons of his coat as if preparing tomake an address.

  "We'd like to request," he said, "that is--we think we ought to gettogether. We'd like you to call a meeting, Hockley. Some of us have afew things we'd like to talk over."

  Hockley nodded, his face impassive.

  "The matter I mentioned to you the other night," said Silvers. "It'sbeen happening to all the men. We think we ought to talk about it."

  "Fine," said Hockley. "I've been thinking it would perhaps be a goodidea. Pass the word around and let's get some chairs. We can convene inten minutes."

  The others nodded somberly and moved away with all the enthusiasm ofpreparing for a funeral. And maybe that's what it would be, Hockleythought--somebody's funeral. He hoped it would be the Rykes.

  The room began filling almost at once, as if they had been expecting thecall. In little more than five minutes it seemed that every member ofthe Earth delegation had assembled, leaving time to spare.

  The senators still wore their looks of puzzlement and half-frightenedanxiety, which had intensified if anything. There was no puzzlement onthe faces of the scientists, however, only a set and determinedexpression that Hockley hardly dared interpret as meaning they had madeup their minds. He had to have their verbal confirmation.

  Informally, he thrust his hands in his pockets and sauntered to thefront of the group.

  "I have been asked to call a meeting," he said, "by certain members ofthe group who have something on their minds. They seem to feel we'd allbe interested in what is troubling them. Since I have nothing inparticular to say I'm simply going to turn the floor over to those ofyou who have. Dr. Silvers first approached me to call this discussion,so I shall ask him to lead off. Will you come to the front, Dr.Silvers?"

  The mathematician rose as if wishing someone else would do the talking.He stood at one side of the group, halfway to the rear. "I can do allright from here," he said.

  After a pause, as if coming to a momentous decision, he plunged into hiscomplaint. "It appears that nearly all of us have encountered an aspectof the Ryke culture and character which was not anticipated when wefirst received their offer." Briefly, he related the details of the Rykerejection of his research on the Legrandian Equations.

  "We were told we were going to have all our questions answered, that theRyke's science included all we could anticipate or hope to accomplish inthe next few millenia. I swallowed that. We all did. It appears we wereslightly in error. It begins to appear as if we are not going to findthe intellectual paradise we anticipated."

  He smiled wryly. "I'm sure none of you is more ready than I to admit hehas been a fool. It appears that paradise, so-called, consists merely ofa few selected gems which the Rykes consider particularly valuable,while the rest of the field goes untouched.

  "I want to offer public apologies to Dr. Hockley, who saw and understoodthe situation as it actually existed, while the rest of us had our headsin the clouds. Exactly how he knew, I'm not sure, but he did, and verybrilliantly chose the only way possible to convince us that what he knewwas correct.

  "I suggest we do our packing tonight, gentlemen. Let us return at onceto our laboratories and spend the rest of our lives in some degree ofatonement for being such fools as to fall for the line the Rykes triedto sell us."

  Hockley's eyes were on the senators. At first there were white facesfilled with incredulity as the mathematician
proceeded. Then slowly thischanged to sheer horror.

  When Silvers finished, there was immediate bedlam. There was a clamor ofvoices from the scientists, most of whom seemed to be trying to affirmSilvers' position. This was offset by explosions of rage from thesenatorial members of the group.

  Hockley let it go, not even raising his hands for order until finallythe racket died of its own accord as the eyes of the delegates came torest upon him.

  And then, before he could speak, Markham was on his feet. "This isabsolutely moral treachery," he thundered. "I have never heard a morevicious revocation of a pledged word than I have heard this evening.

  "You men are not alone concerned in this matter. For all practicalpurposes you are not concerned at all! And yet to take it uponyourselves to pass judgment in a matter that is the affair of the entirepopulation of Earth--out of nothing more than sheer spite because theRykes refuse recognition of your own childish projects! I have neverheard a more incredible and infantile performance than you supposedlymature gentlemen of science are expressing this evening."

  He glared defiantly at Hockley, who was again the center of attentionmoving carelessly to the center of the stage. "Anybody want to try toanswer the Senator?" he asked casually.

  Instantly, a score of men were on their feet, speaking simultaneously.They stopped abruptly, looking deferentially to their neighbors and atHockley, inviting him to choose one of them to be spokesman.

  "Maybe I ought to answer him myself," said Hockley, "since I predictedthat this would occur, and that we ought to make a trial run beforeturning our collective gray matter over to the Rykes."

  A chorus of approval and nodding heads gave him the go ahead.

  "The Senator is quite right in saying that we few are not alone in ourconcern in this matter," he said. "But the Senator intends to imply amajor difference between us scientists and the rest of mankind. This ishis error.

  "Every member of Mankind who is concerned about the Universe in which helives, is a scientist. You need to understand what a scientist is--andyou can say no more than that he is a human being trying to solve theproblem of understanding his Universe, immediate or remote. He isconcerned about the inanimate worlds, his own personality, his fellowmen--and the interweaving relationships among all these factors. Weprofessional scientists are no strange species, alien to our race. Ouronly difference is perhaps that we undertake _more_ problems than doesthe average of our fellow men, and of a more complex kind. That is all.

  "The essence of our science is a relentless personal yearning to knowand understand the Universe. And in that, the scientist must not beforbidden to ask whatever question occurs to him. The moment we put anyrestraint upon our fields of inquiry, or set bounds to the realms of ourmental aspirations, our science ceases to exist and becomes a mereopportunist technology."

  Markham stood up, his face red with exasperation and rage. "No one istrying to limit you! Why is that so unfathomable to your minds? You arebeing offered a boundless expanse, and you continue to make inanecomplaints of limitations. The Rykes have been over all the territoryyou insist on exploring. They can tell you the number of pretty pebblesand empty shells that lie there. You are like children insistent uponexploring every shadowy corner and peering behind every useless bush ona walk through the forest.

  "Such is to be expected of a child, but not of an adult, who is capableof taking the word of one who has been there before!"

  "There are two things wrong with your argument," said Hockley. "First ofall, there is no essential difference between the learning of a childwho must indeed explore the dark corners and strange growths by which hepasses--there is no difference between this and the probing of thescientist, who must explore the Universe with his own senses and withhis own instruments, without taking another's word that there is nothingthere worth seeing.

  "Secondly, the Rykes themselves are badly in error in asserting thatthey have been along the way ahead of us. They have not. In all theirfields of science they have limited themselves badly to one narrow fieldof probability. They have taken a narrow path stretching betweenmagnificent vistas on either side of them, and have deliberately ignoredall that was beyond the path and on the inviting side trails."

  "Is there anything wrong with that?" demanded Markham. "If you undertakea journey you don't weave in and out of every possible path that leadsin every direction opposed to your destination. You take the directroute. Or at least _ordinary_ people do."

  "Scientists do, too," said Hockley, "when they take a journey.Professional science is not a journey, however. It's an exploration.

  "There is a great deal wrong with what the Rykes have done. They haveassumed, and would have us likewise assume, that there is a certain veryspecific future toward which we are all moving. This future is built outof the discoveries they have made about the Universe. It is made of thesystem of mathematics they have developed, which exclude Dr. Silvers'cherished Legrandian Equations. It excludes the world in which exist Dr.Carmen's series of unique compounds.

  "The Rykes have built a wonderful, workable world of serenity, beauty,scientific consistency, and economic adjustment. They have eliminatedenormous amounts of chaos which Earthmen continue to suffer.

  "But we do not want what the Rykes have obtained--if we have to paytheir price for it."

  "Then you are complete fools," said Markham. "Fortunately, you cannotand will not speak for all of Earth."

  Hockley paced back and forth a half dozen steps, his eyes on the floor."I think we do--and can--speak for all our people," he said. "Remember,I said that all men are scientists in the final analysis. I am verycertain that no Earthman who truly understood the situation would wantto face the future which the Rykes hold out to us."

  "And why not?" demanded Markham.

  "Because there are too many possible futures. We refuse to march down asingle narrow trail to _the_ golden future. That's what the Rykes wouldhave us do. But they are wrong. It would be like taking a trip through agalaxy at speeds faster than light--and claiming to have seen thegalaxy. What the Rykes have obtained is genuine and good, but what theyhave not obtained is perhaps far better and of greater worth."

  "How can you know such an absurd thing?"

  "We can't--not for sure," said Hockley. "Not until we go there and seefor ourselves, step by step. But we aren't going to be confined to theRykes' narrow trail. We are going on a broad path to take in as manybyways as we can possibly find. We'll explore every probability we cometo, and look behind every bush and under every pebble.

  "We will move together, the thousands and the millions of us,simultaneously, interacting with one another, exchanging data. Mostcertainly, many will end up in blind alleys. Some will find data thatseems the ultimate truth at one point and pure deception at another. Whocan tell ahead of time which of these multiple paths we should take?Certainly not the Rykes, who have bypassed most of them!

  "It doesn't matter that many paths lead to failure--not as long as weremain in communication with each other. In the end we will find thebest possible future for us. But there is no _one_ future, only amultitude of possible futures. We must have the right to build the onethat best fits our own kind."

  "Is that more important than achieving immediately a more peaceful,unified, and secure society?" said Markham.

  "Infinitely more important!" said Hockley.

  "It is fortunate at least, then, that you are in no position toimplement these insane beliefs of yours. The Ryke program was offered toEarth, and it shall be accepted on behalf of Earth. You may be sure of avery poor hearing when you try to present these notions back home."

  "You jump to conclusions, Senator," said Hockley with mild confidence."Why do you suppose I proposed this trip if I did not believe I could dosomething about the situation? I assure you that we did not come just tosee the sights."

  Markham's jaw slacked and his face became white. "What do you mean? Youhaven't dared to try to alienate the Rykes--"

  "I mean that there is a great deal we can
do about the situation. Nowthat the sentiments of my colleagues parallel my own I'm sure they agreethat we must effectively and finally spike any possibility of Earth'sbecoming involved in this Ryke nonsense."

  "You wouldn't dare!--even if you could--"

  "We can, and we dare," said Hockley. "When we return to Earth we shallhave to report that the Rykes have refused to admit Earth to theirprogram. We shall report that we made every effort to obtain anagreement with them, but it was in vain. If anyone wishes to verify thereport, the Rykes themselves will say that this is quite true: theycannot possibly consider Earth as a participant. If you contend that anoffer was once made, you will not find the Rykes offering much supportsince they will be very busily denying that we are remotely qualified."

  "The Rykes are hardly ones to meekly submit to any idiotic plan of thatkind."

  "They can't help it--if we demonstrate that we _are_ quite unqualifiedto participate."

  "You--you--"

  "It will not be difficult," said Hockley. "The Rykes have set up aperfect teacher-pupil situation, with all the false assumptions that gowith it. There is at least one absolutely positive way to disintegratesuch a situation. The testimony of several thousand years' failure ofour various educational systems indicates that there are quite a