The City of the Sun

by Stableford, Brian

  “Why?” I replied. “If it hadn’t been for the accident....”

  “We’d have guessed,” he said flatly. “All the evidence is there, all pointing in this direction. If it hadn’t been for a natural predisposition in our thinking we’d have seen it right away. That barrier couldn’t have held up for twenty days.”

  “I don’t see that it changes things much,” said Mariel. “Surely the central problem remains. Does the parasite have independent sentience or not? Is it active in the group consciousness or passive? Are the people being controlled...governed...manipulated...or not?”

  “That may still be the central question,” said Conrad pensively. “But it may now be more difficult. I don’t mean more difficult for us to answer, because we had little enough chance of finding the answer anyhow, but more difficult to ask. It may have lost a lot of its meaning. While we were thinking about individual human minds, like our own, it was easy enough to visualize a situation of freedom and a situation of subservience to an external force or controlling sentience. We were assessing the situation relative to ourselves—using our own existential situation as a kind of baseline.

  “Now that baseline is no longer relevant. We’re talking now about a single collective entity...a Self-with-a-capital-S, with all that that implies. If we say now: is the human element of the collective dominant or subservient? we’re trying to decide between two states which are, so far as we’re concerned, just about unimaginable. The question has been removed entirely into the realms of the speculative. How can we discuss it meaningfully?”

  “Come on,” said Karen. “That’s all high-sounding crap. Never mind philosophical hair-splitting. The question was and is simple enough to ask, even if it isn’t easy to answer. Are the people in control, or aren’t they?”

  “No, Karen,” I said, quietly. “Conrad’s right. It was simple enough to say ‘are the people in control?’ when we thought we knew what we meant by ‘the people’...that is, an assembly of individuals, the plural of ‘person.’ But now we don’t know that any longer. ‘People’ is no longer plural, it’s singular. The Self isn’t just a fancy metaphor...it’s something real. We now know that the individuals in the city are subservient—that they’re dominated by a consciousness not their own individual consciousness. But we don’t know and can’t know what sort of consciousness that is or how complete its control is. We don’t know that there’s any difference between the kind of hive-mind they have and the kind of alien slave master control we hypothesized. Is one really the same as the other? Is the one just as bad, as evil, or just as good and beneficent as the other? What Conrad is trying to point out is that our judgment of the situation is no longer meaningful, because we have no basis on which to judge. Of individual slavery or freedom we can meaningfully say that ‘this is bad’ or ‘this is good,’ because we have our own situation and experience as a standard for comparison. Here, we no longer have that.”

  “What you’re saying, in effect,” said Karen, “is that it no longer matters whether the parasite’s in control or not. Even if it isn’t, these people are still enslaved...puppets dancing on their little black strings.”

  “That’s an emotionally loaded, metaphor,” I said. “But yes, what we’re saying is something along those lines.”

  “Then our situation is surely clarified,” she said. “We no longer have to worry about whether the parasite is sentient. It doesn’t matter. We go all out to destroy it anyhow.”

  “No,” I said. “Quite the reverse. We no longer have the ability to make judgments in this situation. We can’t decide to destroy this thing...even if we could.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Nathan. “Don’t start digging trenches around the disputed territory just yet. Let’s try to work it out a little further. As I see it, Alex, the people in the city were attempting to trick us. Their intention was to persuade us that it would be safe for one or more of us to allow ourselves to be parasitized, because the process would be reversible. Then they intended to induct the volunteer into the Self, at which point he or she would become available as an agent of the city. The ultimate aim would be to seize the ship and take us all into the Self.”

  “Yes,” I said, half-reluctantly. “I guess that was their plan.”

  “And we have to remember that this thing didn’t take root here in every member of the population simultaneously. It grew. Now in a colony full of individuals imbued with the pioneer spirit, can you imagine each and every person deciding that he’d like to become part of a collective mind and meekly submitting to parasitism? How do you suppose the Self co-opted the entire colony, Alex? They didn’t have plastic suits or a solid steel hidey-hole.... It would have been easy. But the important question is whether the Self called for volunteers or whether it went all out to co-opt everybody regardless of individual choice. What do you think?”

  “I guess there was a coup d’état,” I said. “The Self followed its own priorities. It didn’t encourage dissenters.”

  “That’s the way I see it, too,” he said. “Now, the point of all this—as you must surely have realized—is that the Self obviously doesn’t feel inhibited when it comes to the matter of making judgments. It doesn’t worry about whether it’s morally or logically entitled to make decisions relative to individual states of consciousness—it just gobbles them up. You say that we can’t take a decision in this matter, because we’re not in a position to understand what has happened here. But I suggest to you that we must be prepared to make a judgment, because to make no judgment at all is simply to condone the kind of judgment the Self makes.

  “Maybe that doesn’t matter here and now. We can go home right now and leave this thing to its own devices. But there won’t always be one city...and maybe not even one world. In a couple of hundred more years the Self could build starships of its own. It could send out its own colonies. It could send a Daedalus mission back to Earth, to offer us help. You know what that help would be, Alex. Induction into the Self.

  “There’s no neutral ground any more, Alex. You must see that. In view of what you’ve told us we have to act. We have a simple choice...either we try to destroy this thing here and now or we report back and pass the buck to Pietrasante. It will come to the same thing in the end. You know as well as I do that the UN doesn’t take chances. They won’t be content with destroying the parasite in the city. They’ll destroy the world. They’ll sterilize it completely. In fact, that’s what they’ll probably do anyhow, unless we can take back conclusive proof that the menace is averted.”

  For a few moments, I just couldn’t speak. There was a foul taste in my mouth.

  “I think you’re wrong,” said Conrad, in the meantime. “They wouldn’t order the destruction of a world. Not on evidence like this. There’d be an outcry. There are people in the UN who wouldn’t be prepared to admit that this was any kind of danger. There’d be people who’d find the idea of the Self very attractive. Earth is a sick world right now.... The search for alternatives has reached desperation pitch. They couldn’t keep this a secret...it’d leak out. The UN’s committees are too large and too heterogeneous to allow secrecy. Bombing this life system out of existence is something that could never be made acceptable to the world at large.”

  “That would depend,” said Nathan, calmly, “on how the situation was put to the people. If the threat were imagined in the right terms.... It’s all a matter of public relations.”

  “You’re insane!” I said. “You want this to happen?”

  “No,” he replied. “No, I don’t. I’m just pointing out that this is the alternative. Perhaps, as Conrad says, it’s not absolutely certain. But it’s a possible alternative, a plausible alternative, and to my mind a probable alternative.”

  “Alternative to what?” asked Karen.

  “Alternative to our making our own judgment, of course. That’s what I’m arguing for. I’m saying that we must judge, because if we don’t someone else will. And we’re in the position that counts. We’re the ones wh
o can make a judgment most accurately. We’re here, dealing with the reality. The UN is at home, dealing with possibilities. What I’m proposing is that we should make a decision and then take it home in order to justify it. If we present the UN with a firm decision that we’ve made and carried through then we can make that decision stick. What I want to do is to destroy the parasite, if possible, without destroying the people or the world. Conrad has already pointed out how that might be done—find a gene group that will stop the parasite infecting new hosts. Protect the next generation from infection. Then the Self will slowly die with the present generation.”

  I knew even as he said it that it was a hopeless cause. It simply wouldn’t work. Sure, we might design an artificial chromosome segment and a carrier virus to transmit it through the population of the city. Sure, it would render the newborn immune from infection. But for how long? The parasite community had countless billions of individual cells, each one an entity in its own right, with a generation time measurable in hours. What kind of mutation rate would be necessary for it to find a way round the immunity? Nathan had no conception of the rate at which the parasite could evolve if faced with a challenge. It wouldn’t need sentience...just time.

  But I wasn’t going to tell him that. No way. I only hoped that Conrad and Linda would keep their mouths shut.

  “You say that we have to make a judgment,” I said. “You say that if we make up our minds, we can take back a fully prepared case and can argue until doomsday in support of our actions. All we have to do is stick to our guns, right?”

  “If we make a decision here and stick to it,” he agreed, “we have every chance of making it stick back home. That’s much better from every point of view than if we pass the buck back. It’s better in terms of the present situation...and it also gives us a slim chance of following through with the purpose of the mission. We have to show that we’re capable of handling this problem and all the problems that men are likely to meet out here in the star worlds. While we maintain that image of complete competence we still have a chance of getting the colony project restarted...and that’s what we were commissioned to do.”

  “Then let’s not rule out the third alternative,” I said, ignoring the second part of his statement, which was pitched artfully at my sympathies. “Suppose that we did pass judgment here, and decided that the city should be left alone, and that the people should be allowed to get on with their little existential experiment. Suppose we took that decision home with us and fought tooth and claw to defend it. Couldn’t we make that stick? You say yourself that it’s basically a matter of public relations...just a matter of choosing the right words, applying the correct emotional resonances. You’re supposed to be a real hotshot in the persuasion business...couldn’t the great Nathan Parrick sell that to a bunch of clumsy, confused UN committees?”

  He drummed the tabletop with his fingers for a few seconds. Nobody else jumped into the gap. We were between rounds in a title fight, and everyone recognized that it wasn’t a free-for-all. Not just at this moment.

  “Maybe I could,” he said finally, “if I had some ammunition to use. But first you’ll have to convince me. I think this thing is dangerous. Terribly dangerous. I want to see it stopped. I’d rather do it my way than the big bomb way. But at present I’d rather do it the big bomb way than take the kind of risk you want to take for the kind of reasons you have. Your conscience is a liability, Alex. You’re the kind of man who’d think twice about killing a tiger while it was charging you. When you can’t square a decision with your morality your immediate reaction is to let well alone...to withdraw. That’s a kind of cowardice, Alex. You’re saying that because we don’t fully understand this thing we should let it be. It’s not for us to decide. Then who is it for? Not the UN.... You don’t want to pass it back to them, because they’re likely to be tougher than I am. Who, then? God? But we know whose side God’s on, Alex, and it isn’t ours.

  “This is no time for going weak at the knees and bleating that we have no right to pass judgment. We have every right—and we must. Because we’re here. And as far as I can see that decision can only be one way. You know how it feels to be faced with destruction, Alex. Out there today you were under the jaws of a wolf. What did you feel just before that arrow killed the beast? And what did you feel just after? Remember that the wolf was only doing what nature intended, following its instincts blindly. Who are you to judge, who have no instincts to speak of, and are dominated by reason—black reason that grips your mind like a parasite? Who are you to judge, when you can’t possibly understand? We have a wolf here, Alex, and I want to kill it. I intend to kill it.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” I said. “It’s no wolf. Your analogy is vicious rubbish. What we have here is human. Maybe it’s not like you or me, but it’s human at least in part. It has its own morality. We don’t have to destroy it...we can try to come to terms with it. Maybe that won’t be easy. Maybe it will be very, very difficult. It might be impossible. But we have to try. My reluctance to judge isn’t cowardice, Nathan. It’s courage. It’s the courage which allows us to face up to our own ignorance and lack of understanding, so that we don’t have to think in black-and-white terms or in crude and stupid analogies. That’s cowardice—the refusal to face the universe on its own terms, but to impose upon it the fictions of our own narrow minds. I won’t let you destroy this thing, Nathan. And without my help, you can’t.”

  Nathan didn’t say anything immediately. He didn’t drum his fingers on the table, either. He was frozen into stillness. He was angry, but only the hardness of his muscles was showing that fact.

  “We have a present for you, Alex,” he said, very softly. “Linda?”

  Linda got up and went into the lab. My eyes followed her. Nathan’s gaze remained fixed on my face.

  She came back with a sealed tube. Inside the tube was a black smear. There was no need to ask what it was.

  “Where did you get it?” I whispered.

  “From a rabbit,” said Nathan. “While you were away...we thought it best to begin work on the main problem. Conrad and Linda have been doing thorough analyses for most of the two days you were gone. I think you’ll find they’ve accomplished quite a lot.”

  “As soon as I was gone,” I said, with something of a croak in my voice, “you agreed on this...all of you?”

  “I was against it,” said Mariel, gently. “But the vote....”

  “You make your decisions first, and then you try to justify them...even before you knew the whole truth. You’ve always been determined to destroy this thing. Because it’s strange.”

  “Because its inhuman, Alex,” said Nathan firmly. “We want to save the people of the colony. We didn’t have much time...only twenty days. We thought we ought to learn all we could.”

  “I trapped the rabbit,” said Linda. “No one saw me. They don’t know we have the specimen. It’s the right species.”

  I looked at Conrad. “Even you?” I said.

  He shrugged. “We need all the information we can get,” he said. “Whatever we decide to do. I’m not necessarily advocating destruction...but I think we need to have the knowledge and the capability anyhow.”

  “But you did it behind my back...while I was out of the way.”

  “Nobody sent you away,” said Nathan. “It was your idea. You can’t expect everything here to stop while we wait for your return. We’re pressed for time and we took the decision. We’ve begun work...and we need your help. I didn’t want this to blow up into a full-scale confrontation, and I’m sorry it has. But you have work to do. We have the specimen...and it’s up to you to find out everything you can about it. Including how to fight it. It is a fait accompli, Alex. You can’t pretend now that we haven’t got it.”

  “No,” I said. “No, I can’t.”

  I stood up.

  “Where are you going?” asked Mariel.

  “Out,” I said. “I have to get out of this damned suit. I have to wear it inside, for your protection. But
after spending most of today with a rip the size of a shark’s mouth connecting me with the outside world I don’t think I need it out there. I want some air.”

  And so saying, I went out. Even on a mere five minutes’ reflection it came to seem like a pretty stupid and rather inglorious exit, but I felt the need. After all that had been piled up on me in a few nasty minutes I desperately wanted to relieve the pressure.

  And so I left my suit in the lock, and went out to face the cool night air of Arcadia on its own terms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I didn’t go far...just far enough to feel that I was apart from the ship, on my own. It was a clear night and the sky was full of stars. The Milky Way slanted across the limitless black field away to the south-east. I sat down on a cushion of the soft, waxy grass, and felt the stems with my fingertips, gently.

  It was very quiet.

  In my head, I made up stories. Scenarios, as the devotees of the science of prognostics call them. Scenario one looked like this:

  On the planet Arcadia, in a pleasant country of temperate climate, colonists from Earth discover a miraculous herb which makes them healthy in body and allows them to link their minds together in mystical communion, achieving a supernatural harmony in the unity of a hyper-mind. They achieve the perfect democracy, with the collective will of the people responsible for all decisions, which it takes wisely and morally. The people build a magnificent city where they live a Utopian existence. Because of the nature of their experience in direct mental communion with one another they perceive that the isolation and loneliness of the individual sentient mind estranged from its universe is unnatural, and that there is a unity in all things, an integrity that binds every particle of the universe into a great system and a great scheme. They become aware—directly aware—of the existence of a divine plan, and they imagine a divine will which is the collective mind of the entirety of creation. Thus, they know God. They live as God always intended that man should live—as all intelligent life should live—in harmony, unaggressively, taking up arms only against the carnivores that prey on the flesh of other animals. They are happy.