A few minutes later Starn was put aboard a flier which carried him south almost to the Hard Line that guarded the Olsapern border. The craft set down at a small complex of buildings and the pilot ushered him into one of them. An older Olsapern than Starn had seen before greeted him.
"My name's Richhold, and I'm an anthropologist if that means anything to you," the man said. "I understand I'm supposed to give you an illustrated lecture, in the company of an old friend of yours. Holden, send that telepath in."
The pilot went out and a few moments later Rob of Pack Foser entered.
"Rob!" exclaimed Starn. "It's good to see you!"
Rob stared at him, gasped, and backed away. "W-what are you?" he stuttered in terror.
"Why . . . I'm Starn, Rob! I know I don't look exactly like I did, but I'm still me!"
"But I c-can't read you! I can't even know you're there!"
"You mean I'm a blank?" asked Starn in amazement. Rob gulped and nodded.
Starn could guess what must have happened. The Olsaperns had some means of screening a brain against telepathy, and they had built the screen into his artificial skull. This was a numbing thought, because Starn had never heard of such a thing, and was, therefore, inclined to doubt if it could have come out of the Science Age. If it had, it would have been used before now, and there would be legends about it.
And it was completely unacceptable that either the ancient scientists or their diehard followers, the Olsaperns, had devised a counter to telepathy that even outdid his own Gene-given sense!
The Olsapern Richhold fidgeted impatiently while Starn and Rob discussed these thoughts. "Never mind that!" the old man snapped at last. "You don't know what you're talking about, anyway! You're here to learn a few things, and this telepath was talked into coming so he could verify that what I tell you is the truth, so far as I know it. So let's get started!"
He waved his hand and a wall of the room vanished to display a series of projections and exhibits. Richhold spoke boredly about what was being shown, as if this were elementary stuff that he had recounted a hundred times before.
The lecture proceeded backward through the history of man, starting with a typical Olsapern figure and modifying it step by step, back to a creature Richhold called "the link." Each modification was justified by the replica of a skeleton which he said originated in the era being described.
"You don't see people today who look like the link," said Richhold when the backward journey was completed. "But let's come forward and look again at some later models."
The projection revealed a squat, scraggly-haired creature with a near-gorilla face and a sharply-receding forehead. "Higgins said he wanted you to take a good look at this one. Resemble anyone you know?"
Starn grimaced with annoyance but nodded. Higgins' intentions in exposing him to this lecture were obvious, because the projection looked like Nornt, except Nornt's forehead was higher and straighter.
"All right," said Richhold, "let's move several thousand years closer to the present." He chuckled and glanced at Rob when the new image appeared.
"My head's not that low!" snarled the telepath.
"True," agreed Richhold, "but look at the shape of your jaw, and the form and stance of your body!"
"Hold on!" said Starn. "People come in all shapes and sizes, and you know it! Higgins is a large man; you're small! The pilot who brought me here is thin; one of the men at the hospital is fat! And your faces and heads have different shapes!"
"We're dealing with averages!" snapped Richhold crossly.
"But that's not all!" said Starn. "How do you get off calling us apemen when you can see our brains are much bigger than those you've been showing us?"
Richhold shrugged. "Cave bats go blind in a comparatively few generations, but keep their eyes much longer. Land animals which return to live in the sea keep vestiges of their legs for millions of years, and seldom lose their lungs at all. So in man the brain grew and developed slowly as he became more advanced; now the portion of the race that is regressing isn't losing its big brain immediately. You won't be exactly the same on the way down as you were on the way up. You'll carry remembrances of what you were. But the big brain will finally go."
"You claim to be so all-knowing about the direction we're going," sneered Starn, "but your whole theory depends on that stupid idea Higgins told me about—that the unconscious mind can communicate with the chromosomes. How do you know that nuclear radiation didn't cause the mutations of the Pack men, aside from the ones authored by the Sacred Gene to give us our senses? There was radiation when Science fell, wasn't there?"
"Radiation had its effects, certainly," rapped Richhold, "but they were doubtless random in direction, seldom even viable. Don't argue with facts, young man! There is evidence in plenty that Pack mutations have been in a regressive direction.
"As for that 'stupid idea' as you call it, of a linkage between the unconscious and the genetic structure, its existence has been rigorously demonstrated by a means I can't expect you to understand. The ancients almost discovered it, but they were looking in the wrong direction and for something else at that time. They were trying to find a cure for the aging process, of all things!"
"They discovered that the cells of normal human tissue can subdivide through only sixty cell-generations or thereabouts, before the cells lose their functionality and die out. They were very interested in discovering the reason for this, hoping thereby to make their cells, and thus themselves, practically immortal.
"The reason is obvious, of course, to anyone who knows communication theory. In repeated transmissions any message suffers a loss of information. That's entropy, young man, and it's unavoidable. When a cell divides, it must, in a real sense, transmit its genetic message to both new cells. The information loss is unimportant through many subdivisions, but becomes critical in human cells after about fifty generations. After that the cells, the tissues, the human body in general, must go downhill at a rather rapid rate.
"But instead of asking why human cells deteriorate, the ancients should have been asking a far more important question: Why do other types of living cells fail to deteriorate? Why do one-celled animals go on subdividing for millions of years without apparent loss of genetic information? Is the code transmission mechanism in these creatures perfectly error-free?
"The answer is that it can't be; no such process is perfect! There has to be a corrective agent, something completely outside all the redundancies and other corrective processes of the transmission mechanism itself, something that 'knows' when the message is getting garbled, and can step in and clear it up.
"The word 'consciousness' is as good a description for that agent as I can expect you to understand. One-celled animals have it. So do many kinds of cells in plants, and in other animals.
"But it is missing in the cells of humans, and in other animals that stop growing when they reach maturity. Why is it missing? Because in these creatures 'consciousness' has become concentrated in special organs, to serve the needs of the animal as a whole. This is a kind of sacrifice cells are often called on to make when they become components of a more complex organism. They give up their abilities to respond as individuals to environmental stimuli—to light, to heat, to contact, even to the presence of nourishment.
"But that old cellular consciousness of the genetic message is not completely lost when the consciousness becomes concentrated. It is still there, almost totally buried in the unconscious mind of the human, but functional to a limited extent. The mind can direct it at times, provided the mind maintains the same desire with sufficient intensity through a sufficiency of human generations.
"Thus, when the post-Science environment told the average human 'Retreat!' the message got through. And your genes retreated! Back to primitivism!"
Starn gazed at Richhold for a long moment after the scientist fell silent. Then he said, "This 'consciousness' you speak of sounds to me like an Olsapern version of the Sacred Gene. What does it do that the Sacred G
ene cannot?"
"Nothing," shrugged Richhold. "The only difference is that the 'consciousness' is real. Probably so!"
Starn glanced a question at Rob, but got no response. He had forgotten the telepath couldn't read him. "Does he believe all that nonsense?" he had to ask aloud.
Rob nodded. "As far as he knows, he's telling it straight. And the Olsaperns think he's very wise about such things." His voice took on a whining tone. "He's got me all confused! I can't go back to the Pack halfway believing the stuff he's said! They'd kick me out!"
"We're not novices in dealing with such trivial mental problems!" snorted Richhold. "You'll be hypnoed into forgetting everything you've experienced here! It's a shame in a way to send you back as ignorant as you came, but that's our policy, and a necessary one."
Rob looked relieved.
The stunning thing to Starn was not that Rob had found the mind of Richhold honest, but that, after looking behind the man's thoughts as they were expressed, the telepath had been forced to believe them!—or if not to believe, then at least to doubt the eternal truths of the Sacred Gene and the Ultimate Novo!
The whole matter was so completely absurd!
In a mental turmoil, he scarcely realized his interview with Richhold was over, and that Rob was rather nervously shaking his hand and saying, "Great Gene, Starn, I'm glad I won't have to remember this, or seeing you all vacant inside!"
He remained in a distracted state all the way back to the hospital-prison, where he was vaguely relieved not to find Higgins waiting for him in his room. He was in no condition to talk to the Olsapern or to anybody else.
7
Higgins stayed away for two days, until Starn came out of his shocked stupor. When he appeared, Starn glowered at him.
"I've got one question to ask you Olsaperns, Higgins: Where do you think you're going? You have no belief in the Gene, so how do you find any purpose or direction in your lives? What are you good for?"
Higgins smiled at him. "Old Richhold really shook you up, didn't he? Where are we going? The same place you think you are! Toward a more advanced human species! The difference is that we define the superman quite a bit differently than you.
"Take these Novo senses, for instance. Did Richhold tell you the theory that apemen had some of them a million years ago?"
"I've heard that one before," growled Starn.
"Of course, it's only a theory and can't be proved. Some of Richhold's colleagues say the Novo senses are just make-work activity for your left-over big brains, but others suspect that the dawn men needed those special senses to survive in a savage environment, full of enemies stronger and faster—and at that time probably just as bright—than they were.
"That may be right. At any rate, the Novo senses can't be the next step up for man, because they make a specialist out of him! Man's whole strength is his lack of specialty, his ability to find ways to live anywhere, eat anything, do anything! Specialists are so loaded with their special equipment that they can't change! They're static, inflexible!
"What would your Ultimate Novo be, Starn? Telepathic, premonitorial, perceptional, and maybe hypnotic like Nornt? All right, what would he do with all those abilities? Would he use them to build a marvelous civilization?"
"Certainly!" replied Starn.
"I'm not so sure he would," chuckled Higgins, "but let's say you're right. He builds his Ultimate civilization, but what does he do then?"
"He lives in it, naturally!"
"Forever?"
"Well . . . " Starn hesitated, suspecting a trap.
"Ah, there's the rub!" trumpeted Higgins. "Forever's a long time! And what will keep your Ultimate Novo from asking himself the same question you asked me? Where will he be going, Starn?"
"Perhaps there will be more Novo senses to develop, senses we don't know about now," Starn replied.
"Ah! Then he won't be the Ultimate until he's acquired them all! You're begging the question! Once the ultimate Ultimate comes, where does he go from there?"
"Why do you think he'll have to go anywhere?" stormed Starn. "We don't know what he'll be like! Maybe he wouldn't need a purpose in life of the kind we understand!"
"Very good!" approved Higgins wryly. "That's the kind of unanswerable supposition that makes further debate futile! But it leaves one question open: Is such an unstriving Ultimate man the kind of goal you striving Pack people consider worthy of your centuries of toil and deprivation? Can you really devote yourself to achieving that kind of result?"
Starn shrugged. What was the use of arguing with an Olsapern who thought he knew all the answers?
After a pause Higgins went on: "Striving, like generalizing, is a basic feature of man, Starn. Make man a specialist and he'll be less than human. And if something ever stopped him from striving the same thing would happen.
"You call us infidels because we don't take your Sacred Gene seriously, except as a scientific principle. And you consider us obsolete, partly because we don't have Novo senses but more because we refuse to disdain the Science Age as an era of rampant evil. Certainly the Science Age brought its own destruction with it, and nearly destroyed man in the process! But that was because it was too much like the civilization you dream of for your Ultimate Novo! It built itself a super structure of interdependent techniques and specialties, social orders, and economic mores that had to become increasingly rigid simply to support itself, the bigger and more complex it grew. It couldn't create answers to the kinds of problems it faced because it was unable to accept those problems. Its rigidity led to its final ruin when it had to change, but couldn't.
"We're not trying to recreate the Science Age, Starn! We know of too many things that were wrong with it! But we do recognize that science was a tremendous step forward for man. Whereas your people have opted for its total rejection, we have tried to retain it, not as a divine revelation or a way of life never to be modified, but as what it was—a step forward.
"In the last analysis, Starn, the mistake of the Science Age was the same one you're guilty of, and the same one the Christian priests made in pre-Science times—the same one practically all civilization-builders have made. You strive for an end to strife—for permanence, either now or in some dreamed-of future, despite the fact that permanence is against the nature of man and the world." Starn remarked, "Then you think man's real future lies in ceaseless change?"
"Yes."
"But you're opposed to change in man himself!" Starn shot back. "You find excuses to treat Novo senses as a dead end, and you refuse to see them when you have them yourselves! You may be right about a lot of things, but you're wrong about the Packs being subhuman, and Novo senses worthless!"
"Why are we wrong? Where's the flaw in our picture?"
"I don't know," Starn admitted angrily, "but the flaw is there somewhere!"
Higgins laughed and replied patiently, "What's the better means of communication, Starn, a language or telepathy? Remember that telepathy has no privacy, as Nornt recently demonstrated to your Pack's dismay. Remember, too, that language can be transmitted over vast distances, and that if it is well-structured and effectively used, it can carry almost precisely the message the sender intends, with no unwanted and perhaps embarrassing side-disclosures."
Starn recalled with a slight wince the anguish of his childhood, when he had to force himself to control his odd thoughts and wild daydreams to avoid the censuring laughter of his telepathic playmates. Of course his childish thoughts were probably worthless, but . . .
But Higgins was continuing: "What's the better means of exploring your surroundings, Starn, special devices we can imagine and create, or your perception? You've noticed, I suppose, that a perceptor detects only objects in motion, and usually only objects moving toward him. Did you know that your weak 'danger sense' is a form of perception that works only when something is moving up behind you? You're not much of a Novo, Starn, with just that one weak sense."
Starn tended to forget his "danger sense" because it proved useful t
o him so seldom. But Higgins was wrong in saying that was his only Novo sense. He was about to protest when Higgins again interrupted his train of thought.
"And what about premonition? Isn't it far better to understand the functionings of man and nature, so well as to predict what they are likely to do next, than to depend on the spotty, over-emotionalized glimpses of the future your premonitors can produce?
"And the same is true, I think, of any other Novo sense you might propose. With a little effort and creative imagination, we can come up with something better! And with us, it's an open-ended process! Creative imagination knows no ultimate limit, Starn, and has no ultimate goal. It just keeps going! If anything can give man unending existence in a changing universe, his creative mind will do it!"
When Starn finally replied, his question sounded like a non sequitur, but Higgins did not treat it as such.
"Why didn't you let me die?"
The Olsapern smiled. "Because I was using my creative imagination! Sure, we could dream up some means of hunting Nornt down without your help, but that sort of dreaming can take time, and we want Nornt stopped quickly.
"As I told you before, there are methods we refrain from using. I suppose I can explain that to you now. We try not to reveal our capabilities too fully to the Pack people. We use almost nothing in our defenses that was not known to the Science Age, and the only members of our society who allow themselves within reading distance of your telepaths are . . . well, they're our lower-intelligence citizens who don't know—and don't care to learn—just what our capabilities are. You remember that Rob's memories of contact with Richhold had to be erased? Also, it would be bad for the Packs to learn of your artificial body.
"The reason for all this is that we don't want to give the Pack people's morale another shock that would hasten their evolutionary retreat! The past has made them all too susceptible to that kind of damage!
"So you can see why you're the weapon we need, Starn. If you kill Nornt, we will not need to display ourselves to the detriment of the Pack people. Also, we won't run the risk of making a martyr of that madman, which is something else we want to avoid!
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