The Solarians

by Norman Spinrad

  “ ‘And this is what I’m getting into,’ you are thinking,” said Linda Dortin. “Of course you’re staggered. Your entire civilization is built on a different basis than ours. But we understand…after all, how can telepaths fail to empathize? We realize how hard it will be for you. And we’ll help you as much as we can. Right now, you want to be alone to digest all this, eh?”

  “Yes,” whispered Palmer, and to his own surprise, he was not at all resentful that Linda had read his mind and spoken his thoughts for him. He recognized it for what it was—not prying, but a single act of kindness.

  As he left the table, Robin said “I’ll look in on you, Jay, when you want me to.”

  “How will you know?” He stopped himself. Of course, she would know if he wanted to see her. He understood something of the ethics of telepathy now. Max and Linda would read his thoughts only when it was necessary for the good of the Group.

  Or when he wanted them to.

  The only word for it was alien, Palmer thought, as he paced the narrow space between his bunk and the locker. It was alien to the very basic premises of the only civilization he had ever known.

  Become a part of this? Trust people from a civilization as alien as that? Was it possible, even if he wanted to?

  It was one thing to accept the Doog’s alienness—they were, after all, a non-human civilization. But the Solarians were human beings, which somehow made them even more alien than the Duglaari.

  And yet, he asked himself, must alien always equal evil? Must different always mean wrong?

  Was it not possible for an alien social structure to be better? Might not the humans of Fortress Sol be more human than the humans of the Confederation, and not less?

  Was there any objective way of knowing? If there wasn’t, there would never be any possibility of trust between the Confederation and Fortress Sol, any more than there could be peace between Man and Doog. But the Solarians were, after all, human beings, weren’t they? Men…and women….

  Perhaps if Robin….

  He felt something smile warmly within his mind, and he knew that Robin would now be on her way to his cabin.

  A few minutes later, she opened the door. It was, he realized, not necessary for her to knock.

  They sat down on the bunk, and she smiled at him, the warm, inviting smile of a beautiful woman. And yet he could not help thinking of her as a beautiful, desirable, alien woman.

  “Feeling better?” she asked, with a little twist of her head which made her soft red hair bounce provocatively. He was inanely aware that he was alone with a beautiful woman, a woman that was at once desirable and alien, warm and chillingly strange.

  “If anything, I feel worse,” he said. “More confused.”

  “About us? Or about yourself?”

  “Both, I suppose,” he answered. “There’s such a difference between us. I have no way of understanding you, I mean really understanding. At least Max and Linda are telepaths; they can get inside of me. They can know what I am, what my motives are….”

  “They could,” said Robin, “but they wouldn’t. It’s just not done, any more than you would peek into someone’s boudoir without permission.”

  “That’s some comfort, anyway,” Palmer said, “but not very much. I still can’t understand you people. It’s as if you were a bunch of Doogs.”

  “Believe me, Jay, the two of us have much more in common than either of us do with the Duglaari. Doogs are basically logical; humans are illogical, or better, alogical. Our two cultures, after all, do share millenia of the same history. We are the same race, and we do have a common enemy.”

  She laughed. “And of course, I’ve got a lot more in common with you biologically than any Doog.”

  He gave her a half-serious leer. “And how am I supposed to take that?” he asked.

  She stared at him with sly shyness. “How would you like to take it, Jay?” she said.

  “How would you like me to take it?” he said, with a little grin.

  She laughed. “Don’t you really know?” she said. She reached out slowly and stroked his head, entwining her fingers in his hair.

  He put his left hand on her shoulder, lightly and hesitantly. Then he reached up and ran his right thumb slowly and langorously across her forehead.

  “I suppose I do,” he said, drawing her to him.

  Robin Morel rolled over on the bunk, propped herself up on her elbows, smiled up at Palmer who was leaning against the headboard and said “Well, am I really so terribly alien?”

  Palmer forced a grin. “No…” he mumbled.

  “Well then what’s the matter, Jay?”

  “This mission may take weeks,” he said. “I mean, the seven of us will be cooped up on this little ship for a long time….”

  “So?”

  Palmer grimaced. “Well…uh…Dirk. I mean, you and Dirk…. The situation could get awfully sticky if Dirk and I were feuding.”

  “Why should you want to feud with Dirk?” Robin said.

  “I don’t. But that doesn’t mean that he may not want to feud with me.”

  Robin sighed. “I thought we went through all that. Look, let’s get one thing straight—Dirk is my man. You’re not competing with him, and he’s not competing with you. I like you, but I don’t feel the same way about you as I do about Dirk. I know it, Dirk knows it, and I certainly hope that you know it. There’s no cause for any jealousy.̵

  Palmer scowled. “That’s all very well for you to say, Robin,” he said, not unkindly, “but you’re not a man. Men feel different about that kind of thing. You know, two deer knocking their antlers together and all that kind of thing. I know that if I were Dirk….”

  “But you’re not, Jay,” Robin said. She gave him a little smile. “And you’re not a deer, either. Neither is Dirk. We’re human beings, not animals. Know what I think you’re really afraid of?”

  “What?”

  “That Dirk won’t be jealous.”

  “Huh?” Palmer grunted uneasily. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know what it means, Jay. Be honest with yourself. It’s not your fault that you feel that way. Your whole culture has conditioned you to it. Admit it, Jay. If you can admit it to yourself, you can face it and overcome it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Palmer protested, perhaps a bit too strongly.

  “You really want Dirk to be jealous,” Robin said.

  Palmer squirmed. “Why should I want that?” he said. “I’ve got nothing against Dirk personally.”

  “Of course not. That has nothing to do with it. But in your culture, men have been taught to measure themselves against other men. If Dirk is jealous of you, then it means that you’re one up on him. But if he isn’t, it means something very bad—that you’re not even enough of a man to make him jealous of you.”

  “That’s a horrible way of looking at things!” Palmersnapped. “That’s looking at life as if it were one endless dogfight….”

  “You’re right,” Robin said quietly. “But honestly, isn’t that the way you’ve been looking at it all along? I’ve told you that Dirk wouldn’t be jealous, and Dirk has as much as told you. So doesn’t this pointless competitiveness have to be coming from inside you?“

  Palmer was silent for long moments. It was hitting home. I don’t really want to take her away from Lingo, he thought, and Lingo must know it. So why should I be jealous of him, or he of me?

  Yet when he looked at his own feelings, he was forced to admit to himself that he would feel some kind of deep sense of inferiority if Lingo was not jealous at all, almost a sense of insult. It would be as if Lingo were to say “You’re not enough of a man for me to even worry about.”

  It hurt to admit it, but Robin was probably sai.

  “Maybe…just maybe,” he muttered, “maybe you’ve got a point.”

  She smiled up at him, and layed her hand gently in his. “I know it took a lot of guts to admit that, even to yourself,” she said. “And that’s
what really makes a man a man, not butting antlers together. If you’ve really learned that, Jay, I think you can really begin to understand that there can be people who are different from you, whose entire culture and psychology and values are built on entirely different premises, and yet who are not really alien, not less human than the people of the Confederation but more human.”

  “You, eh?” he said quietly. “Well, you might just be right. Let’s go on up to the common room. As long as we’re being so honest, I’ve got to admit that I won’t be really convinced that Dirk won’t take a swing at me until he doesn’t.”

  Lingo gave Palmer a knowing smile as he and Robin entered the common room together. Bergstrom was there too, and Palmer flushed and gave the telepath a dirty look that was a half-question.

  Lingo caught the look and laughed warmly. “No, Jay,” he said, “you’ve been enjoying complete mental privacy, and you’ll continue to enjoy it for as long as you want to. Of course, if there is any…uh…particularly pleasant experience that you want to share with the entire Group, Max and Linda can link all our minds together. But that kind of thing is always strictly voluntary.”

  “You don’t…er, mind?” Palmer blurted “I mean….”

  “Why should I?” Lingo said, giving Palmer a smile of deep and genuine friendship. “I haven’t lost a thing, and I can see that you’ve gained a lot. Why shouldn’t I be happy for you? You’re feeling ten times better than you did, more relaxed, calmer. I can see it myself. It sticks out all over you.”

  “I don’t think I look any different,” Palmer mumbled.

  “Jay, to a trained eye like mine, it’s written all over you. For instance, your muscles are all more relaxed—I’ll bet your neck size, for one thing, is at least a sixteenth of an inch smaller now than when you came aboard. You’re walking differently too—more flatfooted; before, you were way up on the balls of your feet. In dozens of little ways, you’re different now. More relaxed, less tense, less hostile.”

  Palmer laughed nervously. “But you scare me more than ever, Dirk,” he said, and he meant it more seriously than not. Only after Lingo had pointed them out, did he notice the changes in his posture and muscle-tone. It must be part of what they called the “Leadership Talent.” How many more unknown abilities did these Talents imply?

  “You still find us pretty alien,” said Bergstrom, “which is understandable. But I think you’ve come to realize that alien doesn’t have to mean wrong. A subtle change, but a significant one. And we can prove it to you. Come on over to the telekinesis table.”

  Bergstrom, Lingo, Robin and Palmer gathered around the table.

  “We know a hell of a lot more about what telepathy can do, than we do about why,” Bergstrom said. “But we do know that state of mind and emotional calmness do affect performance, somehow. You remember, when you tried the ‘sand’ before, you were only able to move a few grains. Raul, who has only the minimal amount of latent telepathic Talent that you do, was able to spell out his initials. Of course, some small part of the difference was simply practice, but the fact that Raul felt a part of an Organic Group was what really made the difference. There is something about degree of involvement in a Group that effects performance.”

  “Go ahead, Jay,” Robin said. “Try the green grains. Just try to flatten the pile out. You’re in for a little surprise.”

  Palmer grinned self-consciously, and fixed his attention on the conical pile of micro-polished steel balls. One, two, three, four grains trickled down the slope of the pile. Five…nine…fifteen….

  He strained his mind as hard as he could, willing the particles of steel to tumble down the slope, somehow drawing on the desire of the others to have him succeed. Twenty-five…thirty…fifty….

  Palmer exhaled deeply, in exhaustion and satisfaction, and looked up from the table.

  The green pile was nearly flat.

  “I’ll be damned!” he muttered. “It works!”

  Robin kissed him with great mock ceremony on both cheeks. “I hereby dub thee honorary Solarian and member of our Group,” she laughed.

  Palmer grinned and made a little mock bow. He really did feel accepted, though, and he found himself accepting the acceptance.

  Yet there was something very peculiar about the whole thing. An Organic Group was apparently a very tight-knit social unit. In a very real sense, these Solarians were a family, or at least the Solarian equivalent.

  So why should they be so willing to accept an outsider into the Group? Why should they, moreover, go to such pains to see to it that the outsider did join the Group?

  There had to be some ulterior motive. But what? It couldn’t be fear—there was obviously nothing he could do to harm them, not with two telepaths around. It had to be something involved with the mission itself. But what was the real mission in the first place?

  Personally, his attitude towards the Solarians had softened, but the original mystery remained.

  Palmer strolled in the corridor past Lingo’s cabin. He noticed that the door was open. Lingo was sitting in a chair, reading a book. He was alone. Maybe this was the chance he had been waiting for….

  “Dirk?” Palmer said, stepping inside. “Got a moment?”

  “Sure, Jay,” Lingo said, laying the book down open on his lap, “Sit down.”

  Palmer sat down on the edge of the bunk.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Dirk,” he said. “Personally I like you, but I still don’t trust you, and I don’t trust what you’re doing. Not that I don’t trust you personally, but I don’t trust the motives of Fortress Sol.”

  Lingo smiled. “In your position,” he said, “I’d feel the same way. You’re a soldier, and according to what Max and Linda read of your mind, a damned good one. By now, you must know that we knew quite a bit about you before that General Staff meeting, and we wanted you to come with us on this mission all along. As I say, though, I can sympathize. After all, if it came down to it, the Confederation would gladly sacrifice Fortress Sol to win The War, wouldn’t they?”

  Palmer squirmed uncomfortably. He knew it was the truth.

  Lingo laughed. “Don’t let it bother you,” he said. “The Confederation would be right, if it had the opportunity to make such a choice. As some ancient once said: War is hell.’ What’s really bothering you is….”

  “Is that I think you could be on your way to Duglaar to make a deal with the Kor,” Palmer blurted. “Now I’ve said it, and I’m glad to have it out in the open. After all, it makes sense. The Doogs agree to let Sol alone, and Sol agrees to stay out of The War, maybe publicly declares its neutrality. You know that if Sol openly declared that the Confederation could never expect The Promise to be fullfilled, all the fight would go out of us. With the way our propaganda has stressed the myth of Sol, the Doogs must know it too. Wouldn’t letting one lone human system survive be a price the Doogs would be willing to pay for such an easy victory?”

  Lingo grimaced and shook his head. “You don’t understand Sol, Jay,” he said, “and you certainly don’t understand the Duglaari.”

  “How could we?” snapped Palmer. “You left us to fight and die, to make all the sacrifices, while you sat safe and isolated….”

  A dark shadow crossed Lingo’s face, and bitter lines came into his mouth. “So you made all the sacrifices, eh?” he said savagely. “We’ve had it easy, huh? Yet you’ve seen an Organic Group, and you know that Sol has undergone a great social change. You think such changes come about painlessly? MacDay understood the nature of The War, all right. He was a great man, how great you can never begin to imagine. He saw that Mankind w logically doomed. The Doogs had everything their way. Not just material and population advantages—they had forced Man into fighting The War on Duglaari terms completely. Their superior computation made the entire Duglaari Empire one hundred percent efficient. Man had to achieve the same efficiency or be swept from the Galaxy in decades, not centuries. So they tried to make men into better Doogs than the Doogs. Not better men, Jay, better Doogs.
They turned The War over to Computers, like the Doogs. They began fighting in a perfectly logical manner, like the Doogs. But the Duglaari are a perfectly logical race, and Man is basically alogical. Man can never be a better Doog than the Duglaari. This is what MacDay saw—that the entire war effort was futile, that it was doomed from the beginning.”

  “We all know that,” Palmer said. “But some of us haven’t just laid down and waited to die, some of us are at least trying!“

  “Bah!” Lingo spat, his eyes shooting fire. “Only a fool dedicates himself to a lost cause. MacDay was no fool—he saw that there was still one great unknown in The War—the why of it! Why did the Doogs start The War? Why did such a completely logical race throw its entire might against Man, when all logic showed that Man could never beat them, that men were no real danger, that the Duglaari Empire was growing at a rate twice that of the human race, that if they simply isolated Man for a few centuries, they would outnumber us not four to three, but four or five to one? Yet they did attack! Why didn’t they wait?“

  “I…never thought of that. It seems so obvious, yet….”

  “Of course you never thought of it! No one else did. There was only one—MacDay! He knew the answer, the obvious answer: the Duglaari are afraid of Man, deathly, mortally afraid!’

  “What?”

  “Think, man, think!” Lingo cried, pounding his fist on the open book in his lap. “The Doogs are one hundred percent efficient. Yet even the most casual study of human history shows that, under great enough stress, men can become more than 100% efficient! When he is not busy denying his own nature, Man can literally do the logical impossible. History proves it. Man’s basic nature is alogical! Men will try things that no Doog would attempt, because the Doog would know that they were impossible. Yet men will try anyway, and sometimes, despite all odds, he will succeed! This is what the Duglaari fear. They fear it because they can never understand it. That’s why they must consider us Vermin.’ Because to them, we must either be vermin…or gods!”

  “But…but how does that explain MacDay’s isolating Sol?”