Shilohin nodded. "And in the past it had always been the younger generations, too naive and inexperienced to recognize the impossible when they saw it, who had been foolish enough to make the attempt. It was surprising how often they succeeded. But now, of course, there were no more younger generations."
Danchekker was nodding slowly as he listened. "They turned into a society of mental geriatrics."
"Exactly. And when they realized what was happening, they went back to the old ways. But their civilization had stagnated for a very long time, and as a result most of their spectacular breakthroughs have occurred only comparatively recently. The instant-transfer technology was developed barely in time for them to be able to intervene at the end of the Lunarian war. And things like the h-space power-distribution grid, direct neural coupling into machines, and, eventually, VISAR came much later."
"I can imagine the problem," Danchekker murmured absently. "People complain that life is too short for the things they want to do, but without that restriction perhaps they would never do anything. The pressure of finite time is surely the greatest motivator. I’ve often suspected that if the dream of immortality were ever realized, the outcome would be something like that."
"Well, if the Thuriens’ experience was anything to go by, you were right," Shilohin told him.
They talked about the Thuriens for a while longer, and then Shilohin had to return to the Shapieron for a meeting with Garuth and Monchar. Danchekker remained in the laboratory to observe some more examples of Thurien biological science presented by VISAR. After spending some time at this he decided he would like to discuss some of what he had seen with Hunt while the details were fresh in his mind, and asked VISAR if Hunt was currently coupled into the system.
"No, he’s not," VISAR informed him. "He boarded a plane that took off from McClusky about fifteen minutes ago. If you want, I could put you through to the control room there."
"Oh, er. . . . yes, if you would," Danchekker said.
An image of a communications screen appeared in midair a couple of feet in front of Danchekker’s face, framing the features of the duty controller at McClusky. "Hello, Professor," the controller acknowledged. "What can I do for you?"
"VISAR just told me that Vic has left for somewhere," Danchekker replied. "I wondered what was happening."
"He left a message for you saying he’s gone to Houston for the morning. It doesn’t go into any details, though."
"Is that Chris Danchekker? Let me talk to him." Karen Heller’s voice sounded distantly from somewhere in the background. A few seconds later the controller moved off one side of the screen, and she came into view. "Hello, Professor. Vic got fed up waiting for Lyn to get back from Washington with some news, so he called Houston. Gregg is back there, but Lyn isn’t. Vic’s gone to find out what’s going on. That’s really about all I can tell you."
"Oh, I see," Danchekker said. "How strange."
"There was something else that I wanted to talk to you about," Heller went on. "I’ve been doing a lot of looking into some parts of Lunarian history with Calazar and Showm, and it’s becoming rather interesting. We’ve some questions I’d like your answers to. How soon do you think you’ll be back?"
Danchekker muttered under his breath and looked wistfully around the Ganymean laboratory, then realized that he was getting signals through VISAR that his body was getting hungry again. "Actually I’ll be coming back now," he replied. "Perhaps I could talk to you in the canteen, ten minutes from now, say?"
"I’ll see you there," Heller agreed and disappeared with the image of the screen.
Ten minutes later Danchekker was heartily demolishing a plate of bacon, eggs, sausage, and hash browns at McClusky while Heller talked over a sandwich from the opposite side of the table. Most of the UNSA people were busy refitting one of the other buildings to afford more permanent storage facilities, and apart from some clatterings and bangings from the adjoining kitchen there were no signs of life in their immediate vicinity.
"We’ve been analyzing the rates of development of the Lunarian civilization and Earth’s," she said. "The difference is staggering. They were into steam power and machines in a matter of a few thousand years after starting to use stone tools. We took something like ten times as long. Why do you think that was?"
Danchekker frowned while he finished chewing. "I thought that the factors responsible for the accelerated advancement of the Lunarians were already quite obvious," he replied. "For one thing, they were closer chronologically to the original Ganymean genetic experiments. Therefore they possessed a greater genetic instability, and with it a tendency to a more extreme form of mutation. The sudden emergence of the Lambians is doubtless a case in point."
"I’m not convinced that it explains it," Heller replied slowly. "You’ve said yourself a few times that tens of thousands of years isn’t enough to make a lot of difference. I got VISAR to do some calculations based on human genetic data that ZORAC acquired when the Shapieron was on Earth. The results seem to bear it out. And the pattern was already established long before the Lambians appeared. That was only two hundred years before the war."
Danchekker sniffed as he buttered a piece of toast. Politicians had no business playing at being scientists. "The Lunarians would have found a profusion of remnants of the earlier Ganymean civilization on Minerva," he suggested. "The knowledge gained from sources of that nature gave them a flying start over Earth."
"But the Cerians who came to Earth were from a civilization that was already advanced," Heller pointed out. "So that balances. What else made the difference?"
Danchekker wrinkled his nose up and scowled. Female politicians playing at being scientists were intolerable. "The Lunarian culture developed during the deteriorating environmental conditions of the approaching Ice Age," he said. "That provided additional pressures."
"The Ice Age was here when the Cerians arrived, and it lasted for a long time afterward," Heller reminded him. "So that balances too. So again-what caused the difference?"
Danchekker stabbed his fork into his meal in a show of exasperation. "If you wish to doubt my word as a biologist and an anthropologist, you have of course every right to do so, madam," he said airily. "For my part, I see no justification whatsoever for elaborating any hypothesis beyond the simple minimum required to account for the facts. And what we already know is perfectly adequate for that purpose."
Heller seemed to have been expecting something like that, and didn’t react. "Maybe you’re thinking too much like a biologist," she suggested. "Try looking at it from a sociological angle, and asking the question the other way around."
Danchekker’s expression said that there couldn’t be any other way around. "What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Instead of telling me what speeded the Lunarians up, try asking what slowed Earth down."
Danchekker stared darkly down at his plate for a few seconds, then raised his head and showed his teeth. "The upheavals caused by the Moon’s capture," he pronounced.
Hdller looked at him in open disbelief. "And regressed them to a point that needed tens of thousands of years to recover from? No way! A few centuries at the most, maybe, but not that much. I couldn’t buy it. Neither could Showm. Neither could Calazar."
"I see." Danchekker looked a bit taken aback. He attacked his bacon in silence for a while and then said, "And what alternative explanation, if any, are you offering, might I ask?"
"Something you haven’t mentioned so far," Heller answered. "The Lunarians developed rational, scientific thinking early on, and relied on it totally from the beginnings of their civilization. By contrast Earth went off into thousands of years of believing that magic, mysticism, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy would solve its problems. It only started to change comparatively recently, and even today there’s still a lot of that around. We got VISAR to estimate the effects, and it eclipses all the other factors put together. That’s what caused the difference!"
Danchekker thought abo
ut it for a while, then replied a trifle grudgingly, "Very well." He thrust his chin out defensively. "But I fail to see the need for any melodramatic suggestion that it poses a different question. It’s as valid to argue that the early adoption of rational methods accelerated one race as it is to say that its absence retarded the other. What point are you making?"
"I’ve been thinking a lot about it since I talked to Calazar and Showm, and asking what the reason was. Vic says everything has to have a reason, even if it takes some digging to find it. So what would the reason be for a whole planet clinging obstinately to a lot of nonsense and superstitions for thousands of years when even a little bit of observation and common sense should have shown it doesn’t work?"
"I think perhaps you underestimate the complexities of scientific method," Danchekker told her. "It takes centuries-scores of generations to evolve the techniques necessary to distinguish reliably between facts and fallacies, and truth and myth. Certainly it couldn’t happen overnight. What else did you expect?"
"So why didn’t that stop the Lunarians?"
"I have no idea. Have you?"
"That was the question I was leading up to." Heller leaned forward to look at him intently across the table. "What do you think of this for a suggestion: The reason that belief in myths and magic became so deeply rooted in Earth’s cultures and persisted for so long could be that, in the earliest stage of our first civilizations, it did work?"
Danchekker gagged over the mouthful of food that he had been about to swallow and colored visibly. "What? That’s preposterous! Are you suggesting that the laws of physics that dictate the running of the Universe could have changed in the last few thousand years?"
"No, I’m not. All I’m-"
"I’ve never heard such an absurd suggestion. This whole matter is already complicated enough without introducing attempts to explain it by astrology, ESP, or whatever other inanities you have in mind." Danchekker looked about him impatiently and sighed. "Really, it would take far too long to explain why if you are unable to distinguish between science and the banalities dispensed in adolescent magazines. Just take my word that you are wasting your time. . . . mine too, I might add."
Heller maintained her calm with some effort. "I am not suggesting anything of the kind." An edge of strain had crept into her voice. "Kindly listen for two minutes." Danchekker said nothing and eyed her dubiously across the table as he continued eating. She went on, "Think about this scenario. The Jevlenese have never forgotten that they’re Lambians, and we’re Cerians. They still see Earth as a rival and always have. Now put them in the situation where they’ve been taken to Thurien and are making the most of the opportunity to absorb all that Ganymean technology, and the rivals on Earth have just been sent back to square one by the Moon showing up. They’ve gained control of the surveillance operation, and probably by this time they can do their own instant moving of ships and whatever around the Galaxy because they’ve got their own independent computer , JEVEX, on their own independent planet. Also they’re human in form-physically indistinguishable from their rivals." Heller sat back and looked at Danchekker expectantly, as if waiting for him to fill in the rest himself. He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth and gaped at her incredulously.
"They could have made magic and miracles work," Heller went on after a few seconds. "They could have put their own, shall we say, ‘agents’ into our culture way back in its ancient history and deliberately instilled systems of beliefs that we still haven’t entirely recovered from-beliefs that were guaranteed to make sure that the rival would take a long, long time to rediscover the sciences and develop the technologies that would make it an opponent worth worrying about again. Meanwhile the Jevlenese have bought themselves a lot of time to become established on their own system of worlds, expand JEVEX, milk off more Ganymean know-how, and whatever else they’ve been up to." She sat back, spread her hands, and looked at Danchekker expectantly. "What do you think?"
Danchekker stared at her for what seemed a long time. "Impossible," he declared at last.
Heller’s patience finally snapped. "Why? What’s wrong with that theory?" she demanded. "The facts are that something slowed Earth’s development down. This accounts for it, and nothing that you came up with does. The Jevlenese had the means and the motive, and the answer fits the evidence. What more do you want? I thought science was supposed to be open-minded at least."
"Too farfetched," Danchekker retorted. He became openly sarcastic. "Another principle of science, which you appear to have overlooked, is that one endeavors to test one’s hypotheses by experiment. I have no idea how you intend testing this far-flung notion of yours, but for suggestions I recommend that you might try consulting the illustrators of Superman comics or the authors of the articles one finds in those housewives’ journals found on sale in supermarkets." With that he returned his attention fully to his meal.
"Well if that’s your attitude, enjoy your lunch." Heller rose indignantly to her feet. "I heard that Vic had a hell of a time getting you to accept that the Lunarians existed at all. I can see why!" She turned and marched out of the room.
Karen Heller was still fuming thirty minutes later as she stood by one of the buildings on the edge of the apron watching a UNSA crew installing a more permanent generator facility. Danchekker came out of the door of the mess hall some distance away, saw her, then walked slowly off in the opposite direction, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped at the perimeter fence and stood for a long time staring out across the marshes, turning his head every now and then to glance back at where Heller was standing. Eventually he turned and paced thoughtfully back to the door of the mess hall. When he was almost there he stopped, looked across at her again, hesitated for a few seconds, then changed direction and came over to her.
"I, er-I apologize," he said. "I think you may have something. Certainly your conclusions warrant further investigation. We should contact the others and tell them about it as soon as possible."
Chapter Twenty-Three
"She what?! "
Hunt caught Caldwell’s arm and drew him to a halt halfway along the corridor leading toward Caldwell’s office at the top of the Navcomms Headquarters Building.
"He told her to give him a call next time she was in New York to see her mother," Caldwell said. "So I told her to take some vacation and go see her mother." He lifted Hunt’s fingers from the sleeve of his jacket and resumed walking.
Hunt stood rooted to the spot for a second, then came to life once more and caught up in a few hurried paces. "What in hell? . . . You can’t do that! She happens to be very special to me."
"She also happens to be my assistant."
"But. . . . what’s she supposed to do when she sees him-read poetry? Gregg, you can’t do that. You’ve got to get her out of it."
"You’re sounding like a maiden aunt," Caldwell said. "I didn’t do anything. She set it up herself, and I didn’t see any reason not to use the chance. It might turn up something useful."
"Her job description never said anything about playing Mata Hari. It’s a blatant and inexcusable exploitation of personnel beyond the limits of their contractual obligations to the Division."
"Nonsense. It’s a career-development opportunity. Her job description stresses initiative and creativity, and that’s what it is."
"What kind of career? That guy’s only got one track in his head. Look, it may come as kind of a surprise, but I don’t go for the idea of her being another boy-scout badge for him to stitch on his shirt. Maybe I’m being old-fashioned, but I didn’t think that that was what working for UNSA was all about."
"Stop overreacting. Nobody said a word about anything like that. It could be a chance to fill in some of the details we’re missing. The opportunity came out of the blue, and she grabbed it."
"I’ve heard enough details already from Karen. Okay, we know the rules, and Lyn knows the rules, but he doesn’t know the rules. What do you think he’s going to do-sit down and fill out a questi
onnaire?"
"Lyn can handle it."
"You can’t let her do it."
"I can’t stop her. She’s on vacation, seeing her mother."
"Then I want to take some special leave, starting right now. I’ve got personal emergency matters to attend to in New York."
"Denied. You’ve got too much to do here that’s more important."
They fell silent as they passed through the outer office and into Caldwell’s inner sanctum. Caldwell’s secretary looked up from dictating a memo to an audiotranscriber and nodded a greeting.
"Gregg, this is going too far," Hunt began again when they got inside. "There’s-"
"There’s more to it than you think," Caldwell told him. "I’ve heard enough from Norman Pacey and the CIA to know that the opportunity was worth seizing when it presented itself. Lyn knew it too." He draped his jacket on a hanger by the door, walked around the other side of his desk, and dumped the briefcase that he had been carrying down on top of it. "There’s a hell of a lot about Sverenssen that we never deamed of and a lot more we don’t know that we’d like to. So stop being neurotic, sit down and listen for five minutes, and I’ll give you a summary."
Hunt emitted a long sigh of capitulation, threw out his hands in resignation, and slumped down into one of the chairs. "We’re going to need a lot more than five minutes, Gregg," he said as Caldwell sat down facing him. "You wait till you hear about the things we found out yesterday from the Thuriens."
Four and a half thousand miles from Houston, Norman Pacey was sitting on a bench by the side of the Serpentine lake in London’s Hyde Park. Strollers in open-necked shirts and summery dresses making the best of the first warm days of the year added a dash of color to the surrounding greenery topped by distant frontages of dignified and imposing buildings that had not changed appreciably in fifty years. That was all they had ever wanted, he thought to himself as he took in the sights and sounds around him. All that people the world over had ever wanted was to live their lives, pay their way, and be left alone. So how had the few with different aspirations always been able to command the power to impose themselves and their systems? Which was the greater evil-one fanatic with a cause, or a hundred men free enough not to care about causes? But caring about freedom enough to defend it made it a cause and its defenders fanatics. For ten thousand years mankind had wrestled with the problem and not found an answer.
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