impressed by the director's organizational ability and his ruthless
efficiency when it came to annihilating opposition. There were
other things, however, about which Hunt harbored mild personal
doubts.
"How's it all going, then?" he asked. His tone was neutral. It did
not escape the girl's sharply tuned senses. Her eyes narrowed
almost imperceptibly.
"Well, you've seen most of the action so far. How do you think it's
going?"
He tried a sidestep to avoid her deliberate turning around of the
question.
"None of my business, really, is it? We're just the machine minders
in all this."
"No, really-I'm interested. What do you think?"
Hunt made a great play of stubbing out his cigarette. He frowned
and scratched his forehead.
"You've got rights to opinions, too," she persisted. "Our
Constitution says so. So, what's your opinion?"
There was no way off the hook, or of evading those big brown eyes.
"There's no shortage of information turning up," he conceded at
last. "The infantry is doing a good job . . ." He let the rider
hang.
"But what . . . Hunt sighed.
"But. . . the interpretation. There's something too dogmatic- too
rigid-about the way the big names higher up are using the
information. It's as if they can't think outside the ruts they've
thought inside for years. Maybe they're overspecialized-won't admit
any possibility that goes against what they've always believed."
"For instance?"
"Oh, I don't know. . . Well, take Danchekker, for one. He's always
accepted orthodox evolutionary theory-all his life, I suppose;
therefore, Charlie must be from Earth. Nothing else is possi
ble. The accepted theory must be right, so that much is fixed; you
have to work everything else to fit in with that."
"You think he's wrong? That Charlie came from somewhere else?"
"Hell, I don't know. He could be right. But it's not his conclusion
that I don't like; it's his way of getting there. This problem's
going to need more flexibility before it's cracked."
Lyn nodded slowly to herself, as if Hunt had confirmed something.
"I thought you might say something like that," she mused. "Gregg
will be interested to hear it. He wondered the same thing, too."
Hunt had the feeling that the questions had been more than just an
accidental turn of conversation. He looked at her long and hard.
"Why should Gregg be interested?"
"Oh, you'd be surprised. Gregg knows a lot about you two.
He's interested in anything anybody has to say. It's people, see-
Gregg's a genius with people. He knows what makes them tick.
It's the biggest part of his job."
"Well, it's a people problem he's got," Hunt said. "Why doesn't he
fix it?"
Suddenly Lyn switched moods and seemed to make light of the whole
subject, as if she had learned all she needed to for the time
being.
"Oh, he will-when he gets the feeling that the time's right. He's
very good with timing, too." She decided to finish the matter
entirely. "Anyhow, it's time for lunch." She stood up and slipped a
hand through an arm on either side. "How about two crazy Limeys
treating a poor girl from the Colonies to a drink?"
chapter eight
The progress meeting, in the main conference room of the Naycomms
Headquarters building, had been in session for just over two hours.
About two dozen persons were seated or sprawled around the large
table that stood in the center of the room, by now reduced to a
shambles of ifies, papers, overflowing ashtrays, and half-empty
glasses.
Nothing really exciting had emerged so far. Various speakers had
reported the results of their latest tests, the sum total of their
conclusions being that Charlie's circulatory, respiratory, nervous,
endocrine, lymphatic, digestive, and every other system anybody
could think of were as normal as those of anyone sitting around the
table. His bones were the same, his body chemistry was the same,
his blood was a familiar grouping. His brain capacity and
development were within the normal range for Homo sapiens, and
evidence suggested that he had been right-handed. The genetic codes
carried in his reproductive cells had been analyzed; a computer
simulation of combining them with codes donated by an average human
female had confirmed that the offspring of such a union would have
inherited a perfectly normal set of characteristics.
Hunt tended to remain something of a passive observer of the
proceedings, conscious of his status as an unofficial guest and
wondering from time to time why he had been invited at all. The
only reference made to him so far had been a tribute in Caldwell's
opening remarks to the invaluable aid rendered by the
Trimagniscope; apart from the murmur of agreement that had greeted
this comment, no further mention had been made of either the
instrument or its inventor. Lyn Garland had told him: "The
meeting's on Monday, and Gregg wants you to be there to answer
detailed questions on the scope." So here he was. Thus far, nobody
had wanted to know anything detailed about the scope-only about the
data it produced. Something gave him the uneasy feeling there was
an ulterior motive lurking somewhere.
~rter aweiiing on Charlie's computerized, mathematical sex life,
the chair considered a suggestion, put forward by a Texas
planetologist sitting opposite Hunt, that perhaps the Lunarians
came from Mars. Mars had reached a later phase of planetary
evolution than Earth and possibly had evolved inteffigent life
earlier, too. Then the arguments started. Martian exploration went
right back to the 1970s; UNSA had been surveying the surface from
satellites and manned bases for years. How come no sign of any
Lunarian civilization had showed up? Answer: We've been on the Moon
a hell of a lot longer than that and the first traces have only
just shown up there. So you could expect discovery to occur later
on Mars. Objection: If they came from Mars, then their civilization
developed on Mars. Signs of a whole civilization should be far more
obvious than signs of visits to a place like Earth's Moon-
therefore the Lunarians should have been detected a lot sooner on
Mars. Answer: Think about the rate of erosion on the Martian
surface. The signs could be largely wiped out or buried. At least
that could account for there not being any signs on Earth. Somebody
then pointed out that this did not solve the problem-all it did was
shift it to another place. If the Lunarians came from Mars,
evolutionary theory was still in just as big a mess as ever.
So the discussion went on.
Hunt wondered how Rob Gray was getting on back at Westwood. They
now had a training schedule to fit in on top of their normal daily
data-collection routine. A week or so before, Caldwell had informed
them that he wanted four engineers from Naycomms fully trained as
Trimagniscope operators. His explanation, that this would allo
w
round-the-clock operation of the scope and hence better
productivity from it, had not left Hunt convinced; neither had his
further assertion that Navcomms was going to buy itself some of the
instruments but needed to get some in-house expertise while they
had the opportunity.
Maybe Caldwell intended setting up Navcomms as an independent and
self-sufficient scope-operating facility. Why would he do that? Was
Forsyth-Scott or somebody else exerting pressure to get Hunt back
to England? If this was a prelude to shipping him back, the scope
would obviously stay in Houston. That meant that the first thing
he'd be pressed into when he got back would be a panic to get the
second prototype working. Big deal!
The meeting eventually accepted that the Martian-origin theory
created more problems than it solved and, anyway, was pure
speculation. Last rites in the form of "No substantiating evidence
offered" were pronounced, and the corpse was quietly laid to rest
under the epitaph In Abeyance, penned in the "Action" columns of
the memoranda sheets around the table.
A cryptologist then delivered a long rambling account of the
patterns of character groupings that occurred in Charlie's personal
documents. They had already completed preliminary processing of all
the individual papers, the contents of the wallet, and one of the
books; they were about half way through the second. There were many
tables, but nobody knew yet what they meant; some structured lines
of symbols suggested mathematical formulas; certain page and
section headings matched entries in the text. Some character
strings appeared with high frequency, some with less; some were
concentrated on a few pages, while others were evenly spread
throughout. There were lots of figures and statistics. Despite the
enthusiasm of the speaker, the mood of the room grew heavy and the
questions fewer. They knew he was a bright guy; they wished he'd
stop telling them.
At length, Danchekker, who had been noticeably silent through most
of the proceedings and appeared to be growing increasingly
impatient as they continued, obtained leave from the chair to
address the meeting. He rose to his feet, clasped his lapels, and
cleared his throat. "We have devoted as much time as can be excused
to exploring improbable and far-flung suggestions which, as we have
seen, turn out to be fallacious." He spoke confidently, taking in
the length of the table with side-to-side swings of his body. "The
time has surely come, gentlemen, for us to daily no longer, but to
concentrate our efforts on what must be the only viable line of
reasoning open to us. I state, quite categorically, that the race
of beings to whom we have come to refer as the Lunarians originated
here, on Earth, as did the rest of us. Forget all your fantasies of
visitors from other worlds, interstellar travelers, and the like.
The Lunarians were simply products of a civilization that developed
here on our own planet and died out for reasons we have yet to
determine. What, after all, is so strange about that? Civilizations
have grown and passed away in the brief span of our more orthodox
history, and no doubt others will continue the pattern. This
conclusion follows from comprehensive and consistent evidence and
from the proven principles of the various natural sci
ences. It requires no invention, fabrication, or supposition, but
derives directly from unquestionable facts and the straightforward
application of established methods of inference!' He paused and
cast his eyes around the table to invite comment.
Nobody commented. They already knew his arguments. Danchekker,
however, seemed about to go through it all again. Evidently he had
concluded that attempts to make them see the obvious by appealing
to their powers of reason alone were not enough; his only resort
then was insistent repetition until they either concurred or went
insane.
Hunt leaned back in his chair, took a cigarette from a box lying
nearby on the table, and tossed his pen down on his pad. He still
had reservations about the professor's dogmatic attitude, but at
the same time he was aware that Danchekker's record of academic
distinction was matched by those of few people alive at the time.
Besides, this wasn't Hunt's field. His main objection was something
else, a truth he accepted for what it was and made no attempt to
fool himself by rationalizing: Everything about Danchekker
irritated him. Danchekker was too thin; his clothes were too
old-fashioned-he carried them as if they had been hung on to dry.
His anachronistic gold-rimmed spectacles were ridiculous. His
speech was too formal. He had probably never laughed in his life. A
skull vacuum-packed in skin, Hunt thought to himself.
"Allow me to recapitulate," Danchekker continued. "Homo
sapiens-modern man-belongs to the phylum Vertebrata. So, also, do
all the mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles that have
ever walked, crawled, flown, slithered, or swum in every corner of
the Earth. All vertebrates share a common pattern of basic
architecture, which has remained unchanged over millions of years
despite the superficial, specialized adaptations that on first
consideration might seem to divide the countless species we see
around us.
"The basic vertebrate pattern is as follows: an internal skeleton
of bone or cartilage and a vertebral colunm. The vertebrate has two
pairs of appendages, which may be highly developed or degenerate,
likewise a tail. It has a ventrally located heart, divided into two
or more chambers, and a closed circulatory system of blood made up
of red cells containing hemoglobin. It has a dorsal nerve cord
which bulges at one end into a five-part brain contained in a head.
It also has a body cavity that contains most of its
vital organs and its digestive system. All vertebrates conform to
these rules and are thereby related."
The professor paused and looked around as if the conclusion were
too obvious to require summarizing. "In other words, Charlie's
whole structure shows him to be directly related to a million and
one terrestrial animal species, extinct, alive, or yet to come.
Furthermore, all terrestrial vertebrates, including ourselves and
Charlie, can be traced back through an unbroken succession of
intermediate fossils as having inherited their common pattern from
the earliest recorded ancestors of the vertebrate
line"-Danchekker's voice rose to a crescendo-"from the first boned
fish that appeared in the oceans of the Devonian period of the
Paleozoic era, over four hundred million years ago!" He paused for
this last to take hold and then continued. "Charlie is as human as
you or i in every respect. Can there be any doubt, then, that he
shares our vertebrate heritage and therefore our ancestry? And if
he shares our ancestry, then there is no doubt that he also shares
our place of origin. Charlie is a native of planet Earth."
&nb
sp; Danchekker sat down and poured himself a glass of water. A hubbub
of mixed murmurings and mutterings ensued, punctuated by the
rustling of papers and the clink of water glasses. Here and there,
chairs creaked as cramped limbs eased themselves into more
comfortable positions. A metallurgist at one end of the table was
gesturing to the man seated next to her. The man shrugged, showed
his empty palms, and nodded his head in Danchekker's direction. She
turned and called to the professor. "Professor Danchekker . . .
Professor . . ." Her voice made itself heard. The background noise
died away. Danchekker looked up. "We've been having a little
argument here-maybe you'd like to comment Why couldn't Charlie have
come from a parallel line of evolution somewhere else?"
"I was wondering that, too," came another voice. Danchekker frowned
for a moment before replying.
"No. The point you are overlooking here, I think, is that the
evolutionary process is fundamentally made up of random events.
Every living organism that exists today is the product of a chain
of successive mutations that has continued over millions of years.
The most important fact to grasp is that each discrete mutation is
in itself a purely random event, brought about by aberrations in
genetic coding and the mixing of the sex cells from different par-
ents. The environment into which the mutant is born dictates
whether it will survive to reproduce its kind or whether it will
die out. Thus, some new characteristics are selected for further
miprovement, while others are promptly eradicated and still others
are diluted away by interbreeding.
"There are still people who find this principle difficult to accept
-primarily, I suspect, because they are incapable of visualizing
the implications of numbers and time scales beyond the ranges that
occur in everyday life. Remember we are talking about billions of
billions of combinations coming together over millions of years. "A
game of chess begins with only twenty playable moves to choose
from. At every move the choice available to the player is
restricted, and yet, the number of legitimate positions that the
board could assume after only ten moves is astronomical. Imagine,
then, the number of permutations that could arise when the game
continues for a billion moves and at each move the player has a
Giant Series 01 - Inherit the Stars Page 7