by Isaac Asimov
“On the contrary, we feel it would be better to close the compensator and to completely enclose any such creations in the future,” the alien replied. “Although the emissions from the creation that Wohler-9 calls a city have been brought under control, we are still concerned, for the city may merely be a harbinger of worse things yet, things that lie off-world and are yet to be inflicted upon us.”
“I can assure you that no such dire things exist. We merely want to share this planet with you and are quite willing to go to great lengths to insure our mutual compatibility.”
“That would be more reassuring if it were to come from a leader. That would be a member of your he clan, if I downloaded Wohler-9 correctly.”
Another male chauvinist like Wohler-9, Ariel thought. This big bat had to be a male. Clearly.
The entire universe was filled with insufferable males.
“Not necessarily. Women — our she clan as you describe them — have often been leaders, and able leaders, functioning quite as well as men — our he clan.”
“But most leaders are still members of the he clan. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Ariel was forced to reply.
The discussion was certainly not going well. Ariel decided to risk her only bargaining chip in an effort to turn things around.
Without giving the other a chance to respond, she said, “But let’s get back to the main points of our discussion, the things we have been doing that are disturbing to you. We do not wish to disturb you in any way and are willing to go far to insure that that does not occur.
“For instance, we can change our modulation of hyperwave from discrete to continuous so as not to disrupt your listening comfort.”
A small flame of irritation shot from beneath his eyes, smaller than the day before, but still a respectable, quite noticeable, luminous green jet.
“Sarco!” he said like he was uttering a curse. “That hyperwave disturbance is not important enough to discuss here. My esteemed colleague is a music lover and prone to give those minor disturbances more attention than they deserve.”
She had shot her wad, and at the wrong alien.
“Still,” she said, “that does show how far we are willing to go to avoid disturbing your people. That should reassure you as to our intentions.”
“Proper reassurance can only be supplied by your leader.”
With strangely mixed emotions — longing and irritation inexplicably intertwined — she thought, I am the leader here, mister bat, and you’re stuck with me. But I wish my darn partner were here instead of way off cruising down some alien cornfield.
She didn’t stop to question where that strange image came from — the vision of Derec at the other end of a green, green cornfield; the yearning for Derec was too intense; and then the answer to the dome problem struck her with that marvelous insight that can come only from one brain hemisphere communicating with the other, passing on the subconscious machinations of the one that are hidden from the other.
For the first time, she felt in command of the situation.
Chapter 10
NEURONIUS STRIKES
SYNAPO WAS GROWING impatient with the she alien. The discussion was becoming tedious and unrewarding, and at the same time had not yet provided a suitable circumstance for embarrassing and discrediting his striking subordinate, Neuronius.
It was becoming more and more obvious that the small alien was in no sense a leader; that Synapo must somehow contrive to bring to his world a true leader of the aliens. In the meantime, he would have to direct Sarco to close the compensator and to start construction of the next one if, as he suspected, they were beginning to construct a second city on the other side of The Plain of Serenity.
Those were the thoughts that had led up to his last remark, and now the small, tedious alien was speaking again.
“There is no need to bring another leader to this world. You are looking at one. I had hoped to continue with the construction of our city, but that appears now to be impossible in view of your irrational fear that we have some insidious and covert plan to irrevocably disturb this planet.”
The manner and bearing of the little alien had changed; her voice had taken on a different timbre. Had Neuronius noticed the subtle changes?
He discounted her attempt to belittle them by use of the adjective irrational. Disparagement was a not uncommon diplomatic ploy that was sometimes effective, but not often so, yet still worth the gamble in her case. He recognized that, but would the haughty Neuronius recognize her ploy and properly discount it? Or would he let irritation distort his analysis?
And would Neuronius recognize those subtle changes in her demeanor that were pure telepathy, transmitting information more effectively than the spoken word.
“We have other, more compatible methods of cohabitating with you on this planet,” she continued. “The city under the dome in its present state would be essentially deactivated and serve merely as a coordination and communications center for the new effort.”
She had switched diplomatic techniques, discarding the superior, haughty manner — every bit as haughty as Neuronius — and was now the companionable, friendly tactician. That was indeed the sign of a genuine leader. Would Neuronius recognize that and be able to switch tactics himself?
She had abandoned her mission’s preferred goal, apparently, and was regrouping around an alternative; again the sign of a true leader with full authority to make important field decisions.
“Please describe this compatible method of cohabitation,” Synapo said.
“Let me first ask a question. Do I, by myself, constitute a weather node, or my companion Jacob here, or our vehicle here with us in it?”
She had inclined her head toward the servant and pointed to the creation behind her, the vehicle.
“No,” Synapo replied. “None of those entities, singly or together, create a weather node. The thermal disturbance is too small and quickly dissipates.”
“Good,” she said. “We will switch, then, from an urban, energy-intensive mode to an agricultural, labor-intensive mode; from a centralized society to a dispersed society; from industrial products to agricultural products; from robot cities, which you feel compelled to cover with domes — your node compensators — to robot farms that you will find completely benign.”
Wohler-9 had not provided the agricultural and farm terminology, so Synapo could not immediately translate the small alien’s words. He had to extrapolate from all that he had been told by her and by Wohler-9 and from all the previous data he had acquired by monitoring the aliens’ hyperwave transmissions, but still it took him only a moment.
“By agriculture you mean the intentional cultivation of grasses and other plants like those growing on The Plain of Serenity and in The Forest of Repose; and by farms you mean the land subdivisions where this takes place. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” the small alien replied.
“We have been exceedingly patient with your invasion of our world. You did not inquire whether this was a reasonable thing to do, nor negotiate ahead of time a suitable program for doing so, and when it did not prove to be reasonable, and we took steps to isolate the disturbance in as minimal a way as possible, you killed two of our people.
“Yes, we have been patient beyond any reasonable translation of that word, and now I’m going to ask that you be as patient with us today as we have been with you these many days past. Your patience will be tried, not by violence and death — as ours has been — but by boredom and ennui as we carry out, as we must, the rituals of our government as they were set up uncounted millennia ago.
“At that time an ancient Cerebronian philosopher by the name of Petero observed that all of our levels of government were filled by incompetents, that indeed government officials rose to their ultimate level of competence and then one level beyond, where they then remained, incompetent, for lack of ability to advance further.
“The observation was so striking and so self-evident that it became know
n as Petero’s Principle, and all government was immediately reorganized to include the strike factor, whereby any official may be declared incompetent and displaced merely by a subordinate showing greater competence at that higher level.
“That, by definition, proves that the former official was incompetent, that is, not as competent as he could have been; and the process of proof, whatever form it takes, is known as striking for the higher position.
“So I now turn responsibility for these proceedings over to my subordinate, Neuronius, so that he may evaluate and respond to your proposal.”
As he made the last statement, Synapo graciously gestured in Neuronius’s direction and carefully watched his subordinate for involuntary reflexes, the body language, the telepathy that would tell him what was going through his subordinate’s mind.
And if Axonius were competent for command, he would also be studying the mindset that Neuronius would be bodycasting — broadcasting with his body. And Axonius would take that into consideration when he finally rendered his detailed analysis and final judgment of Neuronius in a caucus of the Cerebron elite.
So in a sense, not only Neuronius and Synapo, but Axonius as well, was on trial, for it would be the Cerebron elite, in caucus, who would render the final judgment that would restructure the government of the Cerebrons, if this immediate negotiation proved to be a decisive node in their history.
And in that negotiation with the aliens, Axonius must be the tie splitter — on the spot — if Synapo and Neuronius disagreed. Axonius could be placed in a quite delicate position. He could literally be dumped from the elite if he made a wrong decision, no matter how the contest between Synapo and Neuronius came out.
However, Axonius did have one factor going for him: he had nine votes in a caucus that would exclude Synapo and Neuronius. Each member of the elite had votes corresponding in number to his position in the hierarchy.
So now, all of this was surely going through the minds of the other two Cerebrons as Synapo turned to Neuronius to obtain his response.
The bodycast was not good. Neuronius radiated confidence, and that must surely have an effect on Axonius, which could make things difficult for Synapo if Neuronius took a contrary course.
“Miss Ariel Welsh, you plead a good case for the cause of your people,” Neuronius said. “Perhaps I do not fully understand all that you said, but my mentor is an excellent instructor who has never failed me thus far, so I’m reasonably sure I understood the gist of your remarks.
“You radiate confidence and sincerity and all the other aspects essential to the execution of leadership, so you can surely not be found at fault in that regard
“And your proposed change to the labor-intensive mode of agriculture seems — on the surface — benign, as you so eloquently describe it.
“The node compensator is operating at ninety-nine-point-two percent efficiency, and that has proved acceptable in Cerebron caucus, so that certainly is a point in your favor.
“And neither you nor your servant, taken individually, nor the small collection represented by one of your loaded vehicles — all small thermal emitters — constitute a weather node, as my mentor has concluded.
“Those are all positive arguments that weigh in your favor, but we must counterpose on the scale the few negative things which argue against your proposal before we can assess which way the scale finally tips.
“And surely weighing in against your proposal are the deaths of our two colleagues, and in the particular case of the last fatality, the passive state of our colleague before his death — in tether, a grim way to die without being able to defend one’s self. How many more deaths of Ceremyons lie in the future?
“Yet those deaths — which can be largely attributed to misunderstandings by incompetent servants — and the small likelihood of more deaths in the future, do not tip the scale against you.
“Now we must weigh the true nature of the agricultural mode and the supporting, partially compensated, city nodes, and there is where we stumble.
“We know nothing about the agricultural mode except your reassurances of its serene harmlessness, nor do we know what additional emanations may find their way out of the opening in the city compensator.
“You term our fears irrational, when any rational being, considering your past performance, must judge your actions to be frightening and such fears to be well founded.
“We mourn our dead colleagues, and we are ever so uncertain concerning the nature of your proposal, so we have no choice but to vehemently oppose your further occupation of our planet. We do not consider your intentions benign, Miss Ariel Welsh, not by a hooked eye.”
Neuronius hunched his wings and fell silent.
The fool, Synapo thought. He has just cast himself from the elite. There is little doubt of that. And just as I suspected. he reacted to the small alien’s haughty disparagement when she used the term “irrational.” It weighed in heavily with the fool’s own irrationality. his basic paranoia. which I have long suspected.
Thank god for the level-headed Axonius.
Now it was time for Synapo to cast his own vote.
If he agreed with Neuronius, he would only have to say so, and Axonius would be off the hook. For Synapo to register his opposition, he had only to ask Axonius for his opinion.
Which he did.
“And how say you, Axonius?”
For the second time that morning, Synapo felt some misgivings. Axonius’s body language showed fear and irresolution when he should have been exuding confidence and decisiveness.
“Clearly,” Axonius said, “Neuronius has properly assessed the situation and has come to a remarkably astute conclusion.”
Synapo was stunned. His clever strategy had backfired completely. His attention this past year had been too much on the paranoia of Neuronius, and he had failed to properly assess Axonius, who had always seemed such a reliable lieutenant. That was where Synapo had gone wrong, perhaps: the difficulty of properly assessing someone you basically like and who invariably agrees with you.
It was a mere formality now. Synapo was foremost a statesman and a loyal Ceremyon; and a politician only when it wouldn’t hurt the tribes.
He could have opposed his two subordinates, and the elite might grudgingly have supported him, but then he would have presented to the aliens the picture of a race and a government in disarray. It was more the position of the elite to acknowledge that disarray after the fact and to show magnanimity toward the aliens and flexibility in government by reversing the decision of their agents.
“We agree, then,” he said. “It pains me, Miss Ariel Welsh, but your proposal cannot be accepted. In our short acquaintance, I have come to admire and respect you — your forthrightness and courage and unfailing good humor. May all those attributes stand you in good stead as you take this painful decision back to your people.”
He was finished as the leader of the Cerebrons unless he could get this decision reversed in caucus — and in a caucus truncated to nine members with the nine votes of Axonius weighing in against him.
Chapter 11
S. O. S.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE meeting, Ariel and Jacob returned to the apartment. Jacob started toward his storage niche, but Ariel forestalled him.
“Fix a large garden salad, Jacob,” she said, “with thousand island and a couple of glasses of milk. Set the table for two. And then join me. It won’t hurt you to. act human for a change, like you’re enjoying my company. That’s an order.”
“That is an order not difficult to comply with,” Jacob said.
“Do you like thousand island dressing?” Ariel asked.
“Whatever pleases you, Miss Ariel. Lacking true taste buds, I really have no preference.”
“What a shame. You’re missing half the pleasure of life.”
“Experiencing the pleasure of taste has never been my privilege. But of course,” he added swiftly, so as to preclude generating displeasure for Ariel, “neither have I missed it.”
“My positronic potentials registered a sharp disturbance when it was apparent that the aliens were not going to endorse your proposal. I was reacting, however, not to a subjective or objective analysis, but to the knowledge that you were going to be intensely disappointed and in a quandary as to how to proceed.”
“You have certainly analyzed my reaction correctly. Quandary is the operative word. I’ve held off calling Derec until now because I wanted to be able to tell him what he had to do rather than have him tell me what I had to do.”
Jacob keyed the food processor and received a head of lettuce, two tomatoes, a cucumber, a handful of mushrooms, a block of cheddar cheese, a block of ham, a package of bacon bits, and a package of croutons. Derec had done a great deal to improve food processor technology while he was on Robot City.
“I really had a darn good chance of being in the driver’s seat,” Ariel continued. “When that farm inspiration came to me, I really thought it was the answer. I really thought old Synapo would buy it.”
She didn’t say anything more then. The vision of green Auroran truck farms and golden wheat fields had come to mind. She could see the robots moving down the green, weedless rows, harvesting lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, the very things Jacob was taking from the food processor.
Those same farms would flourish equally well right here on Oyster World. This world could be the breadbasket for this part of the developing galaxy. And without interfering with the aliens at all. There would be no need for expensive and energy-wasting food processors in this part of the galaxy if all one wanted was a simple green garden salad.
She had failed to create the same image in Synapo’s mind. But how could she have succeeded? How was he to understand something that was as alien to him as his government was to her? She had been expecting too much.