by Five Odd
The psychologist was silent for some seconds. "The point might be this," he said suddenly. "After my talk with McAllen this morning, I ran an extrapolation on the personality pattern defined for Chard five years ago on the basis of his background. Results indicate he went insane and suicided within a year."
"How reliable are those results?" Fredericks inquired absently.
"No more so than any other indication in individual psychology. But they present a reasonable probability . . . and not a very pleasant one."
Fredericks said, "Oliver wasn't unaware of that as a possible outcome. One reason he selected Base Eighteen for the experiment was to make sure he couldn't interfere with the process, once it had begun.
"His feeling, after talking with Chard for some hours, was that Chard was an overcondensed man. That is Oliver's own term, you understand. Chard obviously was intelligent, had a very strong survival drive. He had selected a good personal survival line to follow—good but very narrow. Actually, of course, he was a frightened man. He had been running scared all his life. He couldn't stop."
Simms nodded.
"Base Eighteen stopped him. The things he'd been running from simply no longer existed. Ollie believed Chard would go into a panic when he realized it The question was what he'd do then. Survival now had a very different aspect The only dangers threatening him were the ones inherent in the rigid personality structure he had maintained throughout his adult existence. Would he be intelligent enough to understand that? And would his survival urge—with every alternative absolutely barred to him for five years—be strong enough to overcome those dangers?"
"And there," Simms said dryly, "we have two rather large questions." He cleared his throat "The fact remains, however, that Oliver B. McAllen is a good practical psychologist —as he demonstrated at the meeting."
"I expected Ollie would score on the motions," Fredericks said. "How did that part of it come off?"
"Not too badly. The first motion was passed unanimously. A vote of censure against Dr. McAllen."
Fredericks looked thoughtful. "His seventeenth—I believe?"
"Yes. The fact was mentioned. McAllen admitted he could do no less than vote for this one himself. However, the next motion to receive a majority was, in effect a generalized agreement that men with such . . . ah . . . highly specialized skills as Barney Chard's and with comparable intelligence actually would be of great value as members of the association, if it turned out that they could be sufficiently relieved of their more flagrant antisocial tendencies. Considering the
160 I FIVE-ODD
qualification, the psychology department could hardly avoid backing that motion. The same with the third one—in effect again that Psychology is to make an unprejudiced study of the results of Dr. McAllen's experiment on Base Eighteen, and report on the desirability of similar experiments when the personality of future subjects appears to warrant them."
"Well," Fredericks said, after a pause, "as far as the association goes, Ollie got what he wanted. As usual." He hesitated. "The other matter—"
"Well know that shortly." Simms turned his head to listen, added in a lowered voice, "They're coming now."
Dr. Stephen Spalding said to Simms and Fredericks: "Dr. McAllen agrees with me that the man we shall be looking for on Base Eighteen may be dead. If this is indicated, well attempt to find some evidence of his death before normal ecological operations on Eighteen are resumed.
"Next, we may find him alive but no longer sane. Dr. Simms and I are both equipped with drug-guns which will then be used to render him insensible. The charge is sufficient to. insure he will not wake up again. In this circumstance, caution will be required since he was left on the Base with a loaded gun.
"Third, he may be alive and technically sane, but openly or covertly hostile to us." Spaulding glanced briefly at each of the others, then went on, "It is because of this particular possibility that our contact group here has been very carefully selected. If such has been the result of Dr. McAllen's experiment, it will be our disagreeable duty to act as Chard's executioners. To add lifelong confinement or further psychological manipulation to the five solitary years Chard already has spent would be inexcusable.
"Dr. McAllen has told us he did not inform Chard of the actual reason he was being marooned—"
"On the very good grounds," McAllen interrupted, "that if Chard had been told at the outset what the purpose was, he would have preferred killing himself to allowing the purpose to be achieved. Any other human being was Chard's antagonist. It would have been impossible for him to comply with another man's announced intentions."
Simms nodded. "Ill go along on that point, doctor."
Spalding resumed, "It might be a rather immaterial point by now. In any event, Chard's information was that an important five-year-plan' of the association made it necessary to restrict him for that length of time. We shall observe him
closely. If the indications are that he would act against the association whenever he is given the opportunity, our line will be that the five-year-plan has been concluded, and that he is, therefore, now to be released and will receive adequate compensation for his enforced seclusion. As soon as he is asleep, he will, of course, receive euthanasia. But up to that time, everything must be done to reassure him.''
He paused again, concluded, There is the final possibility that Dr. McAHen's action has had the results he was attempting to bring about.. Ollie, you might speak on that yourself
McAllen shrugged. "I've already presented my views. Essentially, it's a question of whether Barney Chard was capable of learning that he could live without competing destructively with other human beings. If he has grasped that he should also be aware by now that Base Eighteen is presently one of the most interesting spots in the known universe."
Simms asked: "Do you expect hell be grateful for what has occurred?"
"We-e-11," McAllen said judiciously, turning a little pale, "that of course, depends on whether he is still alive and sane. But if he has survived the five years, I do believe that he will not be dissatisfied with what has happened to him. However"—he shrugged again—"let's get ahead with it Five years has been a long time to find out whether or not I've murdered a man."
In the momentary silence that followed, he setted himself in the chair Fredericks had vacated, and glanced over at Simms. "You stay seated, Mel," he said. "You represent Psychology here. Use your chair scanner. The plate's still showing no indications of clearing, John?"
"No," said Fredericks. "In another two hours we might have a good picture there. Hardly before."
McAllen said, "We wont wait for it Simms and I can determine through the scanners approximately what has been going on." He was silent a few seconds; then the blurred red globe in the plate expanded swiftly, filled two thirds of the view space, checked for a moment, then grew once more; finally stopped.
McAllen said irritably, "John, I'm afraid youll have to take over. My hands don't seem steady enough to handle this properly."
A minute or two passed. The big^plate grew increasingly indistinct, all details lost In a muddy wash of orange-brown shades. Green intruded suddenly; then McAllen muttered, "Picking up the cabin now."
There was a moment of silence, then Fredericks cleared his throat. "So far so good, Oliver. We're looking into the cabin. Can't see your man yet—but someone's living here. Eh, Simms?"
"Obviously," the psychologist acknowledged. He hesitated. "And at a guess it's no maniac. The place is in reasonably good order."
"You say Chard isn't in the cabin?" Spalding demanded.
Fredericks said, "Not unless he's deliberately concealing himself. The exit door is open. Hm-m-m. Well, the place isn't entirely deserted, after all."
"What do you mean?" asked Spalding.
"Couple of squirrels sitting in the window," Simms explained.
. "In the window? Inside the cabin?"
"Yes," said Fredericks. "Either they strayed in while he was gone, or he's keeping them as pets. Now, should we star
t looking around outside for Chard?"
"No," Spalding decided. "The Base is too big to attempt to cover at pin-point focus. If he's living in the cabin and has simply gone out, hell return within a few hours at the most, Well wait and see what we can deduce from the way he behaves when he shows up." He turned to McAllen. "Ollie," he said, "I think you might allow yourself to relax just a little. This doesnt seem at all bad!"
McAllen grunted. "I dont know," be said. 'You're overlooking one thing.**
"What's thatr
"I told Chard when to expect us. Unless he's smashed the clock, he knows we're due today. If nothing's wrong— wouldn't he be waiting in the cabin for us?"
Spalding hesitated. "That Is a point He seems to be hiding out. May have prepared an ambush, for that matter. John—"
"Yes?" Fredericks said.
"Step the tubescope down as fine as it will go, and scan that cabin as if you were vacuuming it There may be some indication—"
"He's already doing that," Simms interrupted.
There was silence again for almost two minutes. Forefinger and thumb of Fredericks' right hand moved with infinite
care on a set of dials on the side of the scanner; otherwise neither he nor Simms stirred.
"Oh-hoo-hoo-hawl" Dr. John Fredericks cried suddenly. "Oh-hoc-hoo-HAW! A message, Olliel Your Mr. Chard has left you a... hoo-hoo... message."
For a moment McAllen couldnt see clearly through the scanner. Fredericks was still laughing; Simms was saying in a rapid voice, "It's quite all right, doctor! Quite all right. Your man's sane, quite sane. In fact you've made, one might guess, a one hundred per cent convert to the McAllen approach to life. Can't you see it?"
"No," gasped McAllen. He had a vague impression of the top of the desk in the main room of the cabin, of something white—a white card—taped to it, of blurred printing on the card. "Nothing's getting that boy unduly excited any more," Simms' voice went on beside him. "Not even the prospect of Beeing visitors from Earth for the first time in five years. But he's letting you know it's perfectly all right to make yourself at home in his cabin until he gets back. Here, let me—"
He reached past McAllen, adjusted the scanner. The printing on the card swam suddenly into focus before McAllen's eyes.
The message was terse, self-explanatory, to the point: GONE FISHING,
Regards, B. Chard
BIG ANCESTOR
. F. L. Wallace
People who still believe that man was created supreme among the beasts, as Adam was created master of all he surveyed (except Eve), blithely close their eyes to the anthropological, embryological, and paleontológica! evidence. Most modern scientists worth their salt believe that the direct ancestors of man were exremely humble animals.
The dominant scientific school of thought, probably the most valid on the present evidence, holds that those ancestors lived and evolved through the eons of the Great Reptiles—tyrannosaurs and the rest—because they were small, skulking, and only a nuisance to the dominant life-form of the time. They could scuttle in the lush undergrowth or scamper through the high prehistoric trees, keeping well out of the way of the monster saurian "elites" that ruled the roost for hundreds of thousands of years. And thus they survived—an occasional meal for their "betters," but more usually a mere pest. Vermin.
So now the question arises, evolution being an inexorable creator of change, what is to follow man? Mr. Wallace has some pungent ideas on this: so pungent, indeed, that the amiable alien he dreams up doubts whether his human companions can stand the news, once it is revealed to them. It turns out that they can, but it is a hard lesson, for them and for us readers-of-today. A hard but salutary one, engendering a sense of proportion which is essential if a truly civilized humility is to be achieved. Unfortunately, many people find it hard to be that civilized....
IN REPOSE, TAPHETTA THE RIB BONE ER RESEMBLED A FANCY giant bow on a package. His four flat legs looped out and in, the ends tucked under his wide, thin body, which constituted the knot at the middle. His neck was flat, too, arching out in another loop. Of all his features, only his head had appreciable thickness and it was crowned with a dozen long though narrower ribbons.
Taphetta rattled the head fronds together in a surprisingly good imitation of speech. "Yes, I've heard the legend."
"It's more than a legend," said Sam Halden, biologist The reaction was not unexpected—non-humans tended to dismiss the data as convenient speculation and nothing more. There are at least a hundred kinds of humans, each supposedly originating in strict seclusion on as many widely scattered planets. Obviously there was no contact throughout the ages before space travel—and yet each planetary race can interbreed with a minimum of ten othersl That's more than a legend—one hell of a lot more!"
"It is impressive," admitted Taphetta. "But I find it mildly distasteful to consider mating with someone who does not belong to my species."
That's because you're unique," said Halden. "Outside of your own world, there's nothing like your species, except superficially, and that's true of all other creatures, intelligent or not with the sole exception of mankind. Actually, the four of us here, though it's accidental, very nearly represent the biological spectrum of human development
"Emmer, a Neanderthal type and our archeologist, is around the beginning of the scale. I'm from Earth, near the middle, though on Emmer's side. Meredith, linguist is on the other side of the middle. And beyond her, toward the far end, is Kelbum, mathematician. There's a corresponding span of fertility. Emmer just misses being able to breed with my kind, but there's a fair chance that I'd be fertile with Meredith and a similar though lesser chance that her fertility may extend to Kelbum."
Taphetta rustled his speech ribbons quizzically. "But I thought it was proved that some humans did originate on one planet, that there was an unbroken line of evolution that could be traced back a billion years."
"You're thinking of Earth," said Halden. "Humans require a certain kind of planet. It's reasonable to assume that if men were set down on a hundred such worlds, they'd seem to fit in with native Life-forms on a few of them. That's what happened on Earth; when Man arrived, there was actually a manlike creature there. Naturally our early evolutionists stretched their theories to cover the facts they had.
"But there are other worlds in which humans- who were there before the Stone Age aren't related to anything else there. We have to conclude that Man didn't originate on any of the planets on which he is now found. Instead, he evolved elsewhere and later was scattered throughout this section of the Milky Way."
"And so, to account for the unique race that can interbreed across thousands of light-years, you've brought in the big ancestor," commented Taphetta dryly. 'It seems an unnecessary simplification."
"Can you think of a better explanation?" asked Kelburn. "Something had to distribute one species so widely and it's not the result of parallel evolution—not when a hundred human races are involved, and only the human race."
"I can think of a better explanation." Taphetta rearranged his ribbons. "Frankly, no one else is much interested in Man's theories about himself."
It was easy to understand the attitude. Man was the most numerous though not always the most advanced—Ribboneers had a civilization as high as anything in the known section of the Milky Way, and there were others—and humans were more than a little feared. If they ever got together—but they hadn't except in agreement as to their common origin.
Still, Taphetta the Ribboneer was an experienced pilot and could be very useful. A clear statement of their position was essential in helping him make up his mind. "You've heard of the adjacency mating principle?" asked Sam Halden.
"Vaguely. Most people have if they've been around men."
"We've got new data and are able to interpret it better. The theory is that humans who can mate with each other were once physically close. We've got a list of all our races arranged in sequence. If planetary race F can mate with race E back to A and forward to M, and race G is fer
tile only back to B, but forward to O, then we assume that whatever their positions are now, at one time G was actually adjacent to F, but was a little further along. When we project back into time those star systems on which humans existed prior to space travel, we get a certain pattern. Kelburn can explain it to you."
The normally pink body of the Ribboneer flushed slightly.
The color change was almost imperceptible, but it was enough to indicate that he was interested.
Kelburn went to the projector. "It would be easier if we knew all the stars in the Milky Way, but though we've explored only a small portion of it, we can reconstruct a fairly accurate representation of the past"
He pressed the controls and stars twinkled on the screen. "We're looking down on the plane of the Galaxy. This is one arm of it as it is today and here are the human systems." He pressed another control and, for purposes of identification, certain stars became more brilliant There was no pattern, merely a scattering of stars. "The whole Milky Way is rotating. And while stars in a given region tend to remain together, there's also a random motion. Here's what happens when we calculate the positions of stars in the past."
Flecks of light shifted and flowed across the screen. Kelburn stopped the motion.
"Two hundred thousand years ago," he said.
There was a pattern of the identified stars. They were spaced at fairly equal intervals along a regular curve, a horseshoe loop that didn't close, though if the ends were extended, the lines would have crossed.
Taphetta rustled. "The math is accurate?"
"As accurate as it can be with a million-plus body problem."
"And that's the hypothetical route of the unknown ancestor?"
'To the best of our knowledge," said Kelburn. "And whereas there are humans who are relatively near and not fertile, they can always mate with those they were adjacent to two hundred thousand years ago!"
"The adjacency mating principle. I've never seen it demonstrated," murmured Taphetta, flexing his ribbons. "Is that the only era that satisfies the calculations?"