(4/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IV: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  Baker closed the book. "Nothing more?" he asked Fenwick.

  "Nothing. We thought maybe you had found out something else when he worked to save your life."

  * * * * *

  Baker kept his eyes on the ceiling. "I found out a few things," he said. "I could scarcely believe they were true. I have to believe after hearing your story."

  "What did you find?"

  "Sam Atkins came from--somewhere else. He went back in the ship he had hidden in the silo."

  "Where did he come from? What was he doing here?"

  "I don't know the name of the world he was from or where it is located. Somewhere in this galaxy, is about all I can deduce from my impressions. He was here on a scientific mission, a sociological study. He was responsible for the crystals. I suppose you know that by now?" Baker glanced at Ellerbee.

  Jim Ellerbee nodded. "I suspected for a long time that I was being led, but I couldn't understand it. I thought I was doing the research that produced the crystals, but Sam would drop a hint or a suggestion every once in a while, that would lead off on the right track and produce something fantastic. He knew where we were going, ahead of time. He led me to believe that we were exploring together. Do you know why he did this?"

  "Yes," said Baker. "It was part of his project. The project consisted of a study of human reaction to scientific processes which our scientific culture considered impossible. He was interested in measuring our flexibility and reaction to such introductions."

  Baker smiled grimly. "We sure gave him his money's worth, didn't we! We really reacted when he brought out his little cubes. I'd like to read the report he writes up!"

  "Why did he leave so suddenly?" asked Fenwick. "Was he through?"

  "No, that's the bad part of it. My reaction to the crystals was a shock that sent me into a suicidal action--"

  Fenwick stared at him, shocked. "You didn't--"

  "But I did," said Baker calmly. "All very subconsciously, of course, but I did try to commit suicide. The crystals triggered it. I'll explain how in a minute, but since Sam Atkins was an ethical being he felt the responsibility for what had happened to me. He had to reveal himself to the extent of saving my life--and helping me to change so that the suicidal drive would not appear again. He did this, but it revealed too much of himself and destroyed the chance of completing his program. When he gets back home, he's really going to catch hell for lousing up the works. It's too bad."

  Jim Ellerbee let out a long breath. "Sam Atkins--somebody from another world--it doesn't seem possible. What things he could have taught us if he'd stayed!"

  Fenwick wondered why it had to have been Baker to receive this knowledge. Baker, the High Priest of the Fixed Position, the ambassador of Established Authority. Why couldn't Sam Atkins--or whatever his real name might be--have whispered just a few words of light to a man willing to listen and profit? His bowels felt sick with the impact of opportunity forever lost.

  * * * * *

  "How did the crystals trigger a suicidal reaction?" asked Fenwick finally, as if to make conversation more than anything else.

  Baker's face seemed to glow. "That's the really important thing I learned from Sam. I learned that about me--about all of us. It's hard to explain. I experienced it--but you can only hear about it."

  "We're listening," said Fenwick dully.

  "I saw a picture of a lathe in a magazine a few months ago," said Baker slowly. "You can buy one of these lathes for $174,000, if you want one. It's a pretty fancy job. The lathe remembers what it does once, and afterwards can do it again without any instructions.

  "The lathe has a magnetic tape memory. The operator cuts the first piece on the lathe, and the tape records all the operations necessary for that production. After that, the operator needs only to insert the metal stock and press the start button.

  "There could be a million memories in storage, and the lathe could draw on any one of them to repeat what it had done before at any time in its history."

  "I don't see what this has got to do with Sam and you," said Fenwick.

  Baker ignored him. "A long time ago a bit of life came into existence. It had no memory, because it was the first. But it faced the universe and made decisions. That's the difference between life and nonlife. Did you know that, Fenwick? The capacity to make decisions without pre-programming. The lathe is not alive because it must be pre-programmed by the operator. We used to say that reproduction was the criterion of life, but the lathe could be pre-programmed to build a duplicate of itself, complete with existing memories, if that were desired, but that would not make it a living thing.

  "Spontaneous decision. A single cell can make a simple binary choice. Maybe nothing more complex than to be or not to be. The decision may be conditioned by lethal circumstances that permit only a 'not' decision. Nevertheless, a decision is made, and the cell shuts down its life processes in the very instant of death. They are not shut down for it.

  "In the beginning, the first bit of life faced the world and made decisions, and memory came into being. The structures of giant protein molecules shifted slightly in those first cells and became a memory of decisions and encounters. The cells split and became new pairs carrying in each part giant patterned molecules of the same structure. These were memory tapes that grew and divided and spread among all life until they carried un-numbered billions of memories.

  "Molecular tapes. Genes. The memory of life on earth, since the beginning. Each new piece of life that springs from parent life comes equipped with vast libraries of molecular tapes recording the experiences of life since the beginning.

  "Life forms as complex as mammals could not exist without this tape library to draw upon. The bodily mechanisms could not function if they came into existence without the taped memories out of the ages, explaining why each organ was developed and how it should function. Sometimes, part of the tapes are missing, and the organism, if it endures, must live without instructions for some function. One human lifetime is too infinitesimally small to relearn procedures that have taken aeons to develop.

  "Just as the lathe operator has a choice of tapes which will cause the lathe to function in different ways, so does new life have a choice. The accumulated instructions and wisdom of the whole race may be available, except for those tapes which have been lost or destroyed through the ages. New life has a choice from that vast library of tapes. In its inexperience, it relies on the parentage for the selection of many proven combinations, and so we conclude certain characteristics are 'dominant' or 'inherited,' but we haven't been able to discover the slightest reason why this is so.

  "A selection of things other than color of eyes, the height of growth to be attained, the shape of the body must also be made. A choice of modes of facing the exterior world, a choice of stratagems to be used in attaining survival and security in that world, must be made.

  "And there is one other important factor: Mammalian life is created in a universe where only life exists. The mammal in the womb does not know of the existence of the external universe. Somewhere, sometime, the first awareness of this external universe arises. In the womb. Outside the womb. Early in fetal life, or late. When and where this awareness comes is an individual matter. But when it comes, it arrives with lethal impact.

  "Awareness brings a million sensory invasions--chemical, physical, extrasensory--none of them understood, all of them terrifying.

  "This terrible fear that arises in this moment of awareness and non-understanding is almost sufficient to cause a choice of death rather than life at this point. Only because of the developed toughness, acquired through the aeons, does the majority of mammalian life choose to continue.

  "In this moment, choices must be made as to how to cope with the external world, how to understand it so as to diminish the fear it inspires. The library of genetic tapes is full of possible solutions. Parental experience is examined, too, and the very sensory impacts that are the source of the terror are inspected to a greater or lesser extent to see how the
y align with taped information.

  "A very basic choice is then made. It may not be a single decision, but, rather, a system of decisions all based on some fundamental underlying principle. And the choice may not be made in an instant. How long a time it may occupy I do not know.

  "When the decision has been made, reaction between the individual and the external universe begins and understanding begins to flow into the data storage banks. As data are stored, and successful solutions found in the encounter with the world, fear diminishes. Some kind of equilibrium is eventually reached, in which the organism decides how much fear it is willing to tolerate to venture farther into areas of the unknown, and how much it is willing to limit its experience because of this fear.

  "When the decision has been made, and the point of equilibrium chosen, a personality exists. The individual has shaped himself to face the world.

  "And nothing short of a Heavenly miracle will ever change that shape!"

  "You have said nothing about how the crystal caused you to attempt suicide," said Fenwick.

  "The crystal invalidated the molecular tape I had chosen to provide my foundation program for living. The tape was completely shattered, brought to an end. There was nothing left for me to go on."

  * * * * *

  "Wait a minute!" said Fenwick. "Even supposing this could happen as you describe it, other programs could be selected out of the great number you have described."

  "Quite true. But do you know what happens to an adult human being when the program on which his entire life is patterned is destroyed?"

  Fenwick shook his head. "What is it like?"

  "It's like it was in the beginning, in that moment of first awareness of the external universe. He is aware of the universe, but has no understanding of it. Previous understanding--or what he thought was understanding--has been invalidated, destroyed. The drive to keep living, that was present in that first moment of awareness, has weakened. The strongest impulse is to escape the terror that follows awareness without understanding. Death is the quickest escape.

  "This is why men are inflexible. This is why the Urbans cannot endure the Galileos. This is why the Bill Bakers cannot face the Jim Ellerbees. That was what Sam Atkins wanted to find out.

  "If a man should decide his basic program is invalid and decide to choose another, he would have to face again the terror of awareness of a world in which understanding does not exist. He would have to return to that moment of first awareness and select a new program in that moment of overwhelming fear. Men are not willing to do this. They prefer a program--a personality--that is defective, that functions with only a fraction of the efficiency it might have. They prefer this to a basic change of programs. Only when a program is rendered absolutely invalid--as mine was by the crystal communicator--is the program abandoned. When that happens, the average man drives his car into a telephone pole or a bridge abutment, or he steps in front of a truck at a street intersection. I drove into a gully in a storm."

  "All this would imply that the tape library is loaded with genetic programs that contain basic defects!" said Fenwick.

  Baker hesitated. "That's not quite true," he said finally. "The library of molecular tapes does contain a great many false solutions. But they are false not so much because they are defective as because they are obsolete. All of them worked at one time, under some set of circumstances, however briefly. Those times and circumstances may have vanished long since."

  "Then why are they chosen? Why aren't they simply passed over?"

  "Because the individual organism lacks adequate data for evaluating the available programs. In addition, information may be presented to him which says these obsolete programs are just the ones to use."

  Fenwick leaned against the bed and shook his head. "How could a crazy thing like that come about?"

  "Cultures become diseased," said Baker. "Sparta was such a one in ancient times. A more psychotic culture has scarcely existed anywhere, yet Sparta prevailed for generations. Ancient Rome is another example. The Age of Chivalry. Each of these cultures was afflicted with a different disease.

  "These diseases are epidemic. Individuals are infected before they emerge from the womb. In the Age of Chivalry this cultural disease held out the data that the best life program was based on the concept of Honor. Honor that could be challenged by a mistaken glance, an accidental touch in a crowd. Honor that had to be defended at the expense of life itself.

  "Pure insanity. Yet how long did it persist?"

  "And our culture?" said Fenwick. "There is such a sickness in our times?"

  * * * * *

  Baker nodded. "There's a disease in our times. A cultural disease you might call the Great Gray Plague. It is a disease which premises that safety, security, and effectiveness in dealing with the world may be obtained by agreement with the highest existing Authority.

  "This premise was valid in the days when disobedience to the Head Man meant getting lost in a bog or eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Today it is more than obsolete. It is among the most vicious sicknesses that have ever infected any culture."

  "And you were sick with it."

  "I was sick with it. You remember I said a molecular program is chosen partly on the basis of data presented by parental sources and the spears of invasion from the external world. This data that came to me from both sources said that I could deal with the world by yielding to Authority, by surrounding myself with it as with a shell. It would protect me. I would have stature. My world-problems would be solved if I chose this pattern.

  "I chose it well. In our culture there are two areas of Authority, one in government, one in science. I covered myself both ways. I became a Government Science Administrator. You just don't get any more authoritative than that in our day and time!"

  "But not everyone employs this as a basic premise!" exclaimed Fenwick.

  "No--not everyone, fortunately. In that, may be our salvation. In all times there have been a few infected individuals--Pope Urban, for example. But in his time the culture was throwing off such ills and was surging forward under the impetus of men like Galileo.

  "In our own time we are on the other end of the stick. We are just beginning to sink into this plague; it has existed in epidemic form only a few short decades. But look how it has spread! Our civil institutions, always weak to such infection, have almost completely succumbed. Our educational centers are equally sick. Approach them with a new idea and no Ph. D. and see what happens. Remember the Greek elevator engineer who did that a few years ago? He battered his way in by sheer force. It was the only way. He became a nuclear scientist. But for every one of his kind a thousand others are defeated by the Plague."

  Fenwick was grinning broadly. He suddenly laughed aloud. "You must be crazy in the head, Bill. You sound just like me!"

  Baker smiled faintly. "You are one of the lucky ones. You and Jim. It hasn't hit you. And there are plenty of others like you. But they are defeated by the powerful ones in authority, who have been infected.

  "It's less than fifty years since it hit us. It may have five hundred years to run. I think we'll be wiped out by it before then. There must be something that can be done, some way to stamp it out."

  "Well," said Fenwick. "You could give Clearwater enough to get us on our feet and running. That would be a start in the right direction."

  "An excellent start," said Baker. "The only trouble is you asked for less than half of what you need. As soon as I get back to the office a grant for what you need will be on its way."

  * * * * *

  William Baker stayed in the hospital two more days. Apart from his family, he asked that no visitors be admitted. He felt as if he were a new-born infant, facing the world with the knowledge of a man--but innocent of experience.

  He remembered the days before the accident. He remembered how he dealt with the world in those days. But the methods used then were as impossible to him now as if he were paralyzed. The new methods, found in that bright portal to which Sam Atkins had h
elped guide him, were untried. He knew they were right. But he had never used them.

  He found it difficult to define the postulates he had chosen. The more he struggled to identify them, the more elusive they seemed to become. When he gave up the struggle he found the answer. He had chosen a program that held no fixed postulates. It was based on a decision to face the world as it came.

  He was not entirely sure what this meant. The age-old genetic wisdom was still available to guide him. But he was committed to no set path. Fresh decisions would be required at every turn.

  A single shot of vaccine could not stem an epidemic. His immunity to the sickness of his culture could not immunize the entire populace. Yet, he felt there was something he could do. He was just not sure what it was.

  What could a single man do? In other times, a lone man had been enough to overturn an age. But William Baker did not feel such heroic confidence in his own capacity.

  He was not alone, however. There were the John Fenwicks and the Jim Ellerbees who were immune to the great Plague. It was just that William Baker was probably the only man in the world who had ever been infected so completely and then rendered immune. That gave him a look at both sides of the fence, which was an advantage no one else shared.

  There was something that stuck in his mind, something that Sam Atkins had said that night when Baker had been reborn. He couldn't understand it. Sam Atkins had said of the molecular program tape that had been broken: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.

  The last thing in the whole world William Baker wanted now was to be Authority. But the thought would not leave his mind. Sam Atkins did not say things that had no meaning.