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diff --git a/27595.txt b/27595.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41b0370 --- /dev/null +++ b/27595.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6967 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eight Keys to Eden, by Mark Irvin Clifton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Eight Keys to Eden + +Author: Mark Irvin Clifton + +Release Date: December 23, 2008 [EBook #27595] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHT KEYS TO EDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Geoffrey Kidd, Stephen Blundell +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +EIGHT KEYS TO EDEN + + + + +BY MARK CLIFTON + + + NOVELS + Eight Keys To Eden + They'd Rather Be Right* + The Forever Machine* + + NON-FICTION BOOK + Opportunity Unlimited + + NOVELETTES + Remembrance and Reflection + How Allied + What Thin Partitions** + Sense From Thought Divide + Star, Bright + Hide! Hide! Witch! + A Woman's Place + Clerical Error + What Now, Little Man? + Do Unto Others + + SHORT STORIES + What Have I Done? + The Conqueror + Kenzie Report + Bow Down To Them + Reward For Valour + Progress Report** + Crazy Joey** + We're Civilized** + Solution Delayed** + + ARTICLES + It Can't Be Done + The Dread Tomato Affliction + + * _In collaboration with Frank Riley_ + ** _In collaboration with Alex Apostolides_ + + + + + EIGHT KEYS + TO EDEN + + by + Mark Clifton + + + Doubleday & Company, Inc. + Garden City, New York + 1960 + + + + + _All of the characters in this book + are fictitious, and any resemblance + to actual persons, living or dead, + is purely coincidental._ + + + Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-9470 + Copyright (C) 1960 by Mark Clifton + All Rights Reserved + Printed in the United States of America + First Edition + + +Transcriber's Note: + + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and + typographical errors have been corrected without note. Variant and + dialect spellings remain as printed. Superscript text is preceded by + the ^ symbol, bold text is shown as =bold=, and {d} represents the + Greek letter _delta_. + + + + + To + + Charles Steinberg + + who made writing possible for me + + + + +EIGHT KEYS TO EDEN + + + + +SEVEN DOORS TO SEVEN ROOMS OF THOUGHT + + + =1= Accept the statement of Eminent Authority without basis, without + question. + + =2= Disagree with the statement without basis, out of general + contrariness. + + =3= Perhaps the statement is true, but what if it isn't? How then to + account for the phenomenon? + + =4= How much of the statement rationalizes to suit man's purpose that + he and his shall be ascendant at the center of things? + + =5= What if the minor should become major, the recessive dominant, the + obscure prevalent? + + =6= What if the statement were reversible, that which is considered + effect is really cause? + + =7= What if the natural law perceived in one field also operates + unperceived in all other phases of science? What if there be only + one natural law manifesting itself, as yet, to us in many facets + because we cannot apperceive the whole, of which we have gained + only the most elementary glimpses, with which we can cope only at + the crudest level? + + =And are those still other doors, yet undefined, on down the corridor?= + + + + +1 + + +One minute after the regular report call from the planet Eden was +overdue, the communications operator summoned his supervisor. His finger +hesitated over the key reluctantly, then he gritted his teeth and +pressed it down. The supervisor came boiling out of his cubicle, +half-running down the long aisle between the forty operators hunched +over their panels. + +"What is it? What is it?" he quarreled, even before he came to a stop. + +"Eden's due. Overdue." The operator tried to make it laconic, but it +came out sullen. + +The supervisor rubbed his forehead with his knuckles and punched +irritably at some buttons on an astrocalculator. An up-to-the-second +star map lit up the big screen at the end of the room. He didn't expect +there to be any occlusions to interfere with the communications channel. +The astrophysicists didn't set up reporting schedules to include such +blunders. But he had to check. + +There weren't. + +He heaved a sigh of exasperation. Trouble always had to come on his +shift, never anybody else's. + +"Lazy colonists probably neglecting to check in on time," he +rationalized cynically to the operator. He rubbed his long nose and +hoped the operator would agree that's all it was. + +The operator looked skeptical instead. + +Eden was still under the first five-year test. Five-year experimental +colonists were arrogant, they were zany, they were a lot of things, some +unprintable, which qualified them for being test colonizers and nothing +else apparently. They were almost as much of a problem as the +Extrapolators. + +But they weren't lazy. They didn't forget. + +"Some fool ship captain has probably messed up communications by +inserting a jump band of his own." The supervisor hopefully tried out +another idea. Even to him it sounded weak. A jump band didn't last more +than an instant, and no ship captain would risk his license by using the +E frequency, anyway. + +He looked hopefully down the long room at the bent heads of the other +operators at their panels. None was signaling an emergency to draw him +away from this; give him an excuse to leave in the hope the problem +would have solved itself by the time he could get back to it. He chewed +on a knuckle and stared angrily at the operator who was sitting back, +relaxed, looking at him, waiting. + +"You sure you're tuned to the right frequency for Eden?" the supervisor +asked irritably. "You sure your equipment is working?" + +The operator pulled a wry mouth, shrugged, and didn't bother to answer +with more than a nod. He allowed a slight expression of contempt for +supervisors who asked silly questions to show. He caught the +surreptitious wink of the operator at the next panel, behind the +supervisor's back. The disturbance was beginning to attract attention. +In response to the wink he pulled the dogged expression of the unjustly +nagged employee over his features. + +"Well, why don't you give Eden an alert, then!" the supervisor muttered +savagely. "Blast them out of their seats. Make 'em get off their--their +pants out there!" + +The operator showed an expression which plainly said it was about time, +and reached over to press down the emergency key. He held it down. +Eleven light-years away, if one had to depend upon impossibly slow +three-dimensional space time, a siren which could be heard for ten +miles in Eden's atmosphere should be blaring. + +The supervisor stood and watched while he transferred the gnawing at his +knuckles to his fingernails. + +He waited, with apprehensive satisfaction, for some angry colonist to +come through and scream at them to turn off that unprintable-phrases +siren. He braced himself and worked up some choice phrases of his own to +scream back at the colonist for neglecting his duty--getting +Extrapolation Headquarters here on Earth all worked up over nothing. He +wondered if he dared threaten to send an Extrapolator out there to check +them over. + +He decided the threat would have no punch. An E would pay no attention +to his recommendation. He knew it, and the colonist would know it too. + +He began to wonder what excuse the colonist would have. + +"Just wanted to see if you home-office boys were on your toes," the +insolent colonist would drawl. Probably something like that. + +He hoped the right words wouldn't fail him. + +But there was no response to the siren. + +"Lock the key down," he told the operator. "Keep it blasting until they +wake up." + +He looked down the room and saw that a couple of the near operators were +now frankly listening. + +"Get on with your work," he said loudly. "Pay attention to what you're +recording." + +It was enough to cause several more heads to raise. + +"Now, now, now!" he chattered to the room at large. "This is nothing to +concern the rest of you. Just a delayed report, that's all. Haven't you +ever heard of a delayed report before?" + +He shouldn't have asked that, because of course they had. It was like +asking a mountain climber if he had ever felt a taut rope over the razor +edge of a precipice suddenly go slack. + +"But there's nothing any of you can do," he said. He tried to cover the +plaintive note by adding, "And if you louse up your own messages ..." +But he had threatened them so often that there was no longer any menace. + +He spent the next ten minutes hauling out the logs of Eden to see if +they'd ever been tardy before. The logs covered two and a fraction +years, two years and four months. The midgit-idgit scanner didn't pick +up a single symbol to show that Eden had been even two seconds off +schedule. The first year daily, the second year weekly, and now monthly. +There wasn't a single hiccough from the machine to kick out an +Extrapolator's signal to watch for anything unusual. + +Eden heretofore had presented about as much of an _outre_ problem as an +Iowa cornfield. + +"You're really sure your equipment is working?" he asked again as he +came back to stand behind the operator's chair. "They haven't answered +yet." + +The operator shrugged again. It was pretty obvious the colonists hadn't +answered. And what should he do about it? Go out there personally and +shake his finger at them--naughty, naughty? + +"Well why don't you bounce a beam on the planet's surface, to see?" the +supervisor grumbled. "I want to see an echo. I want to see for myself +that you haven't let your equipment go sour. Or maybe there's a space +hurricane between here and there. Or maybe a booster has blown. Or maybe +some star has exploded and warped things. Maybe ... Well, bounce it, +man. Bounce it! What are you waiting for?" + +"Okay, okay!" the operator grumbled back. "I was waiting for you to give +the order." He grimaced at the operator behind the supervisor. "I can't +just go bouncing beams on planets if I happen to be in the mood." + +"Now, now. Now, now. No insubordination, if you please," the supervisor +cautioned. + +Together they waited, in growing dread, for the automatic relays strung +out through space to take hold, automatically calculating the route, set +up the required space-jump bands. It was called instantaneous +communication, but that was only relative. It took time. + +The supervisor was frowning deeply now. He hated to report to the sector +chief that an emergency had come up which he couldn't handle. He hated +the thought of Extrapolators poking around in his department, upsetting +the routines, asking questions he'd already asked. He hated the +forethought of the admiration he'd see in the eyes of his operators when +an E walked into the room, the eagerness with which they'd respond to +questions, the thrill of merely being in the same room. + +He hated the operators, in advance, for giving freely of admiration to +an E that they withheld from him. He allowed himself the momentary +secret luxury of hating all Extrapolators. Once upon a time, when he was +a kid, he had dreamed of becoming an E. What kid hadn't? He'd gone +farther than the wish. He'd tried. And had been rebuffed. + +"Clinging to established scientific beliefs," the tester had told him +with the inherent, inescapable superiority of a man trying to be kind to +a lesser intelligence, "is like being afraid to jump off a precipice in +full confidence that you'll think of something to save yourself before +you hit bottom." + +It might or might not have been figurative, but he had allowed himself +the pleasure of wishing the tester would try it. + +"To accept what Eminent Authority says as true," the tester had +continued kindly, "wouldn't even qualify you for being a scientist. +Although," he added hopefully, "this would not bar you from an excellent +career in engineering." + +It was a bitter memory of failure. For if you disbelieved what science +said was true, where were you? And if it might not be true, why was it +said? Even now he shuddered at the chaos he would have to face, live +with. No certainties on which to stand. + +He washed the memory out of his thought, and concentrated on the +flashing pips that chased themselves over the operator's screen. There +was nothing wrong with the equipment. Nothing wrong with the +communication channels between Eden and Earth. + +"Blasted colonists," the supervisor muttered. "Instead of a beam on +their planet, I'd like to bounce a rock on their heads. I'll bet they've +let all the sets at their end get out of order." + +He knew it was a foolish statement, even if the operator's face hadn't +told him so. Any emergency colonist, man or woman--and there were fifty +of them on Eden--could build a communicator. That was regulation. + +"You sure there haven't been any emergency calls from them?" he asked +the operator with sudden suspicion. "You're not covering up some neglect +in not notifying me? If you're covering up, you'd better tell me now. +I'll find out. It'll all come out in the investigation, and ..." + +The operator turned around and looked at him levelly. He looked him +over, with open contempt, from bald head to splayed feet. Then he coolly +turned his back. There was a limit to just how much a man could stand, +even to hold a job at E Headquarters. + +It was about time the supervisor got somebody with brains onto the job. +The sector chief should be called immediately. Supervisors were supposed +to have enough brains to think of something so obvious as that. That +much brains at least. + + + + +2 + + +The first reaction of the sector chief to the dreaded words "delayed +report" was a shocked negation, an illusory belief that it couldn't +happen to him. + +To the intense annoyance of the communications supervisor, his first act +was to rush down to communications and go through all the routines for +rousing the colonists the supervisor had tried. His worry was mounting +so rapidly that he hardly noticed the resigned expression of the +operator who knew he would have to go through all these useless motions +again and again before it was all over, and somebody did something. + +"Well," the chief said to the supervisor. "It's my problem now." He +sighed, and unconsciously squared his shoulders. + +"Yes, Chief Hayes," the supervisor agreed quickly. Perhaps too quickly, +with too much relief? "Well, that is, I mean ..." his voice trailed off. +After all, it was. + +"You understand my check of your routines was no reflection on you or +your department," Hayes said diplomatically. "It's a heavy +responsibility to alert E.H.Q., pull the scientists off who knows what +delicate, critical work--maybe even hope to get the attention of an +E--all that. I had to make sure, you know." + +"Of course, Chief Hayes," the supervisor said, and relaxed some of his +resentment. "Serious matter," he chattered. "Disgrace if an E, without +half trying, put his finger on our oversight. We all understand that." +He tried to include the nearby operators, his boys, in his eager +agreement, but they were all busy showing how intensely they had to +concentrate on their work. + +"That's probably all it is--an oversight," Hayes said with unconvincing +reassurance; then, at the hurt look on the supervisor's face, added, +"Beyond our control here, of course. Something it would take at least a +scientist to spot, something we couldn't be expected ... What I mean is, +we shouldn't get alarmed until we know, for sure. And--ah--keep it +confidential." + +"Of course, Chief Hayes," the supervisor said in a near whisper. He +looked meaningfully around at the room of operators, but did manage not +to put his finger to his lips. Those who were observing out of the +corners of their eyes were grateful for at least that. + +On his way back to his own office Chief William Hayes reflected that the +bit about keeping it confidential was on the corny side. Within fifteen +minutes he'd start spreading it all over E.H.Q., himself. Every +scientist, every lab assistant would know it. Every clerk, every janitor +would know it. E.H.Q. would have to work full blast all night long, and +some of the lesser personnel had homes down in Yellow Sands at the foot +of the mountain. + +These would be calling their husbands and wives, telling them not to fix +dinner, not to worry if they didn't come home all night. No matter how +guarded, the news would leak out, the word spread, and the newscast +reporters would pick it up for the delectation of the public. Eden +colony cut off from communication. Nobody knows ... Wonder ... Fear ... +Delicious ... Exciting.... + +Or was this the kind of thinking that had kept him from qualifying as an +E? What was it the examiner had asked? "Mr. Hayes, why do you feel it is +all right for you to view, to read, to know--but that others should be +protected from seeing, reading, knowing? What are these sterling +qualities you have that make it all right for you to censor what would +not be right for others?" + +He abruptly brought his mind back to the present. Perhaps he'd first +better prepare a news statement before he did anything else, something +noncommittal, reassuring. No point in getting the populace stirred up. + +As he sat down behind his desk, a big man in a brown suit, natural +iron-gray hair, a calm and administrative face, he began to realize that +for the next twenty-four hours, at least, he would be in the spotlight. +Well, he'd give a good account of himself. Demonstrate that he had an +executive capacity beyond the needs of his present job. More than a mere +requisition signer, interoffice memo initialer. + +For one thing the scientists would give him trouble. If he had been +deeply hurt that they thought he couldn't open up his mind enough to +become an E, what about scientists whose limits were reached still +farther along? He must remember to keep his temper, use persuasion, +maybe kid them a little. The blasted experts were almost as bad as +E's--worse, in a way, because the E didn't have to remind anybody of his +dignity, or how important the work was he was doing. + +But then, you never asked an E to drop what he was doing, and listen. +You never asked an E to do anything. He either noticed and was +interested, or he didn't notice, or wasn't interested. + +But nobody ever told an E that he must apply himself to a problem. Once +a man became a full-fledged Extrapolator he was outside all law, all +frameworks, all duty, all social mores. That was the essence of E +science, that any requirement outside of his own making didn't exist. It +had to be that way. That kind of mind could not tolerate barriers, but +spent itself constantly in destroying them. Erect barriers of +triviality, and it would waste its substance upon trivial matters. The +only answer was to remove all possible barriers for the E, lest +immersion in something trivial prevent that mind from seeking out a +barrier to knowledge, a problem of significance. + +But the scientists! Hayes sighed. If only the scientists wouldn't keep +thinking they were cut from the same cloth as the E. They had to have +restrictions, organization imposed upon them. Yes indeed! + +They'd grumble at being taken away from their work to assemble a review +of all the known facts about Eden--a dead issue as far as their own work +was concerned, for Eden had been assayed and filed away as solved. +They'd moan and groan about having to drag up the facts that had been +analyzed and settled long ago. + +He saw himself compared with the producer of a show, and theatrical +performers didn't come any more temperamental than scientists. He'd be +hearing about how much of their time he'd wasted for months to come. +Every time any administrator asked why they hadn't produced whatever it +was they were working on, it would be because Chief Hayes had +interrupted them at the most crucial moment and they'd had to begin all +over again. + +Oh, they'd drag their heels, all right, and he'd have to remind them, +tactfully, that their prime duty was to serve the Extrapolators; that +they were employed here only because someday, in some co-ordinate +system, somebody might be able to supply a key fact that some E might +want to know. + +They'd ask him, slyly, what guarantee he had that any E would be +listening if they did produce a review of the Eden complex, knowing he +could give no such guarantee. + +They'd drag their heels because, deep down, they carried a basic +resentment against the E--because, experts though they were, each of +them, somewhere along the line, had learned the bitter limits in his +mind that prevented him from going on to become an E. + +They'd drag their heels because the E's, each blasted one of them, would +regard the absolutely true facts proved beyond question by science with +an attitude of skepticism, temporarily accepting the uncontestably +immutable as only provisionary, and probably quite wrong. + +Oh, they'd grumble, and they'd drag their heels at first; but they would +get into it. They'd get into it, not because the sector chief had babied +them along, kidded them, coaxed them, but because, as surely as his +name was Bill Hayes, some unprintable E would ask a question for which +they had no answer. Or even worse, some question that made no sense, but +left the scientist feeling that perhaps it should have! + +That was the E brand of thinking which gave everybody trouble--and +without which man could never have gone on creeping outward and outward +among the stars. Every new planet, or subplanet, or sun or blasted +asteroid seemed to call for some revision of known laws. Sometimes an +entirely new co-ordinate system had to be resolved. Oh, science was +easy, a veritable snap, while man crawled around on the muddy bottom of +his ocean of air and concluded that throughout all the universe things +must conform to his then notion of what they must be. As ignorant as a +damned halibut must be of the works and thoughts of man. + +And often the E was unable to resolve the co-ordinate system--which was +simply a euphemistic way of saying that he didn't come back. And without +him, man could go no farther. An E, therefore, was the rarest and most +valuable piece of property in the universe. Whatever else man might be, +he will go to any lengths to protect the value of his property. + +All right, Bill, perhaps a part of that is true. But give the scientists +their full due. They'd work with a will once they grew aware of the need +of it, because they were just as concerned as anybody else with what +might have happened to those colonists. + +But first they would argue. + +His secretary interrupted his thought by coming in from her own office. +She had an inch-thick stack of midgit-idgit cards in her hand. + +"Here's that batch of scientists who worked on the original Eden +survey," she said. + +"So many?" Hayes asked ruefully. "Maybe I'd better send an all-points +bulletin." + +"You're the boss," she said easily. "But if I know scientists, they +don't read bulletins." + +"Yeah, sure," he agreed. "You made sure this is everybody? Nobody is +slighted? They'll scream like stuck pigs when I ask them, but they'll be +even worse if I slight anybody by not asking." + +"Double checked with Personnel's own midgit-idgit," she replied. "The +machine says if anybody is left out, it's not its fault, that it would +only be because we stupid humans forgot to inform it in the first +place." + +"Sometimes I think that machine complains more than people do," he +answered. "Certainly it is a lot more insolent." + +"Gets more work done, though," she said comfortably. "You want anything +more?" + +"Not right now." + +"Buzz if you do. The idgit is working out the supply list for that new +exploration ship, and it wants service, too," she reminded him. "It's +worse than you are," she added. + +He looked up at her familiarity with a twinkle. + +"It can't fire you," he said softly. + +"Oh?" she asked. "You think not? Just let me feed it a few wrong data +and watch what happens to your li'l ol' lovin' secretary." She winked at +him, laughed, and went back to her office. + +Sector Chief Hayes sighed, and pulled the stack of cards toward him. +First he must sort them out according to protocol because his diplomacy +wouldn't be worth the breath used in it if he called the wrong man +first. At a glance he saw that the idgit had already sorted them +correctly according to status. + +"If you're so smart," he muttered to the absent machine, "why didn't you +call them too?" + +He picked up the first card, and dialed the man's intercom number. It +would be like opening the lid of Pandora's box.... + +At that instant the red light of the E intercom flashed on. Hayes +dropped the ordinary key back into its slot, and pushed the E key to +open. He did not recognize the voice that came through. + +"How soon," the voice asked, "will we be able to get into this Eden +matter?" + +"I'm setting it up now," he said quickly. "By tomorrow morning, surely. +That is, if we haven't solved it ourselves. Something minor that +wouldn't require an E." + +"Morning will be fine. Two, possibly three Seniors will be available." + +The red light flashed off, showing the connection had been broken. He +sat back in his chair, suddenly conscious that his forehead was wet with +sweat, that his shirt was sticking to his body. Not conscious that he +was grinning joyfully. + +Now let those pesty scientists challenge him with the question of +whether any E's would be listening to their review. Two of 'em. Maybe +three. Besides, of course, all the Juniors, the apprentices, the +students. + +He dialed the first scientist again. But this time he didn't mind it +being Pandora's box. It was a terrible thing for a man to realize he +could never be an E. The scientists had to take it out on somebody. He +understood. + +"Hello, Dr. Mille," he said cordially in answer to a gruff grunt. "This +is Bill Hayes, of Sector Administration." + +"All right! All right!" the voice answered testily. "What is it now?" + + + + +3 + + +In the early dawn, out at the hangar, away from the main E buildings and +the endless discussions going on inside them, Thomas R. Lynwood moved +methodically through his preflight inspection. + +Speculative thinking was none of his concern. His job was to pilot an E +wherever he might want to go, and bring him back again--if possible. To +Lynwood reality was a physical thing--the feel of controls beneath his +broad, square hands; the hum of machinery responsive to his will. He +liked mathematics not for its own sake but because it best described the +substance of things, the weight, the size, the properties of things, how +they behaved. He was too intelligent not to realize mathematics could +also communicate speculative unrealities, but he was content to wait +until the theorists had turned such equations into machines, controls, +forces before he got excited. + +He was one who, even in childhood, had never wanted to be an E. He +didn't want to be one now. Somebody had once told him in Personnel that +was why he was a favorite pilot of the E's, but he discounted that. They +didn't try to tell him how to run his ship--well, most of them +didn't--and he didn't try to tell them how to solve their problems. + +The men around the hangar had another version of why the E's liked him +to pilot them around--he was lucky. Somehow he always managed to come +back, and bring the E with him. Well, sure. He didn't want to get stuck +somewhere, wind up in a gulio's gullet, gassed by an atmosphere that +turned from oxygen-nitrogen into pure methane without warning or reason, +and against all known chemical laws, or whiffed out in the lash of a +dead star suddenly gone nova. + +But sometimes a pilot couldn't help himself. These E's would fiddle +around in places where human beings shouldn't have gone. Most of the +time they weren't allowed even one mistake. He was lucky, sure, but part +of it might be because he'd never been sent out with the wrong E. + +There could be a first time. Luck ran out if you kept piling your bets +higher and higher. But until then ... + +He was square-jawed, a freckled man with red hair. Contrary to +superstition, he didn't have a fiery temper. He was forty and had +already built up a seniority of twenty years in deep space. He was +captain of his ship and wanted nothing more. Sure, it was only a +three-man crew--himself, a flight engineer, an astronavigator. But it +was an E ship, which meant that he outranked even the captains of the +great luxury liners. + +There was a time when the realization caused him to strut a little, but +he'd got over it. He was single, had no ties, wanted none. He had a good +job which he took seriously, was doing significant work which he also +took seriously, was paid premium wages even for a space captain, which +didn't matter except in terms of recognition. He didn't mind going +anywhere in the known universe, or how long he would be away. He hoped +he would get back someday, but he wasn't fanatic about it. + +In a routine so well-practiced that it had become ritual, he checked +over the cruiser point by point. Of course the maintenance men had +checked each item when they had, after his last trip, dismantled, +cleaned, oiled, polished, tested, and reassembled one part after +another. Then maintenance supervisors had checked over the ship with a +gimlet-eyed attitude of hoping to find some flaw, just one tiny flub, so +they could turn some luckless mechanic inside out. The Inspection +Department, traditionally an enemy of Maintenance, took over from there +and inspected every part as if it had been slapped together by a bunch +of army goof-offs who knew that pilots were expendable in peace or war +and, unconsciously at least, aided in expending them. + +Both departments had certified, with formal preflight papers, that the +ship was in readiness for deep space. But Lynwood considered such papers +as so much garbage, and went over the entire ship himself. This might +have had something to do with his so-called luck. + +He wondered if Frank and Louie had checked into the ship this morning. +Probably had; last night's outing wasn't much to hang over about. A +steak at the Eagle Cafe down in Yellow Sands, a couple of drinks at +Smitty's, a game of pool at Smiley's, a few dances at the Stars and +Moons. Big night out for his crew before they left for deep space. +Yellow Sands was strictly for young families, where bright-boy hubby +worked up on the hill at E.H.Q., and wifey raised super-bright kids who +already considered Dad to be behind the times. Their idea of sin in that +town was to snub the wrong matron at a cocktail party; or not snub, as +the case might be. Not that it mattered much, neither Frank nor Louie +was dedicated to hell-raising. + +When he at last opened the door to the generator room, he saw his flight +engineer, Frank Norton, had a couple of student E's on his hands. + +It was one of the nuisances of being stationed here at E.H.Q. that you'd +have swarms of these super-bright youngsters hanging around, asking +questions, disputing your answers, arguing with each other, and, if you +didn't watch them carefully, taking things apart and putting them back +together in different hookups to see what would happen. + +The first thing these kids were taught was to disregard everything +everybody had ever said; to start out from scratch as if nobody had ever +had the sense to think about the problem before; to doubt most of all +the opinions of experts, for, obviously, if the experts were right then +there would be no problem. Most of them didn't have to be taught it, +they seemed to have been born with it. Time was you batted a young smart +aleck down, told him to go get dry behind the ears before he shot off +his mouth. But not these days. These days you looked at him hopefully, +and crossed your fingers. He might grow up to be an E. + +Tom wondered what it would be like to doubt the realities, the very +machinery under his hands, to assume that although it had always worked +it might not work this time. He could not conceive that state of mind, +or how a man could live in it without going insane. Every time he saw +these tortured kids saying, "Well, maybe, but what if ..." he was glad +to be nothing more than a ship captain who knew his machinery was +exactly what it was supposed to be and nothing else. + +But, in a way, it was nice for the lads too. After thousands of years of +man's almost rabid determination to destroy the brightest and best of +his young, the world had finally found a place for the bright boy. + +This morning, probably because of the early dawn hour, there were only +two of them in the generator room. As expected, they were arguing over +the space-jump band. Frank was standing over to one side, observing but +not participating. His cap was pushed back on his blond head, his big +face expressionless. It was common gossip throughout flight crews +everywhere that Frank, blindfolded, could take a cruiser apart and put +it back together without missing a motion. + +"The jump band is founded on the basic of the Moebius strip," one +student E was saying heatedly. "This little gadget sends out a field in +the shape of such a strip, a band with a half twist before rejoined. Its +width is as variable as we need it, up to a light-year." + +"Only it hasn't any width at all," the other student argued. "That's the +whole point. The Moebius strip has only one edge, so it can't have +width. We enter that edge, go through a line that doesn't exist, and +come out a light-year away, without taking any longer than the time to +pass a point." + +"But that's _what_ happens, not _how_," the other shouted angrily. +"Everybody knows _what_ happens. Tell me _how_ and maybe I'll listen." + +Tom caught his flight engineer's eye and signaled with his head that it +might be a good idea to get rid of the students. Any other time it would +be all right, a part of their stand-by job, but they'd got word last +night to have the ship in readiness from six o'clock on. They might have +to wait all day, but then again, some E might get an idea and want to go +shooting out to Eden right off. + +Frank caught the signal, grinned, and began to herd the two students +toward the door. They were in such heated argument now, accusing one +another of parrot repetition instead of thinking for himself, that they +didn't realize that they were being nudged out of the ship, down its +ramp, and out on the field. + +"Don't think it hasn't been educational, and all," Frank murmured to +them as he got them off the ramp. "You get the how of it figured out, +you let me know." + +The two looked at him as if he might be an interesting phenomenon, +decided he wasn't, and wandered away, back toward the school +dormitories, still arguing. + +"Sometimes I think a quiet milk run out to Saturn would have its +brighter side," Frank muttered to Tom when he came back inside the ship. +Tom grinned at him in wordless understanding. + +There was no tension between them. They had worked together so long that +they had got over all the attraction-repulsion conflicts which operate +far beneath the surface mind to cause likes and dislikes. Now they +accepted one another in the way a man accepts his own hands--proud of +them when they do something with extra skill, making allowances when +they fumble; but never considering doing without them. + +"Wonder who the E will be this time?" Frank asked, without too much +concern. It didn't really matter. An E was an E, for better or for +worse. + +"Haven't heard," Tom answered. "Probably not decided yet. If the Senior +E's think it isn't much of a problem, they might send a Junior. Or if +they don't want to be bothered, they might send a Junior who's up for +his solo problem." + +"Whoever, or whatever, I'm sure it will be interesting," Frank commented +with a grin. Tom returned the grin. There wasn't any malice in it, nor +any of the basic enmity and destructiveness of the stupid toward the +bright, just a recognition that an E was an E. They had a vast respect +for an E, but you couldn't get around it that some of them were--well, +maybe eccentric was the word. + +"I hear there's trouble on that planet we're going to--Eden, isn't it?" +Frank commented. + +"You think we'd be hauling an E out there if there weren't?" Tom +countered wryly. + +They continued to check over each item in the generator room, their +flying fingers making sharp contrast to their slow, idle conversation. +They gave the room extra care this time because there had been some +quick-fingered students around who just might have got it into their +heads to improve the machinery. Satisfied at last that there had been no +subtle meddling, they snapped the cowl of the generator back into +position. They took one more sharp look around, then walked, single +file, up the narrow passage to the control room. Louie LeBeau was +sitting in the astronavigator's seat, checking over his star charts and +instruments. He glanced up at them as they came level with his cubicle. +He was the third man of the team, as used to them as they were to him. + +"Fourteen hop adjustments to get us past Pluto and out of the heavy +traffic," he grumbled sourly. His round face and liquid brown eyes were +perpetually disgusted. "They keep saying over at Traffic that they're +going to provide a freeway out of the solar system so we can take it in +one hop, but they don't do it. Wonder when we'll ever go modern, start +doing things scientific?" + +They paid no attention to his grumbling. That was just Louie. + +"Then how many hops to Eden, after Pluto?" Tom asked. + +"I figure twenty," Louie answered. "Can't take full light-year leaps +every time. There's stuff in the way. There's always stuff in the way to +louse up a good flight plan. Universe is too crowded. There'll be no +trouble getting _to_ Eden, no trouble _getting_ there. Make it in about +fourteen hours. Fourteen hours to go eleven lousy little light-years. +Fourteen hours I got to work in one stretch. Wait'll the union agent +hears you're working me fourteen hours without a relief. And are you +letting me get my rest now, so I can work fourteen hours? Or are you +stopping me from resting with a lot of questions?" + +"But you think there may be trouble _after_ we get to Eden?" Tom asked. + +Louie looked at him. There was no fear in the soft, brown eyes; just an +enormous indignation that life should always treat him so dirty. + +"Don't you?" he asked. + + + + +4 + + +Calvin Gray, Junior Extrapolator, stood nude before his bathroom mirror +and played a no-beard light over his chin and thin cheeks. That should +take care of the beard problem for the next six months or so. He leaned +forward and examined the fine lines beginning to appear at the corners +of his eyes. Well, that was one of the signs he'd reached the thirty +mark. One couldn't stay forever at the peak of youth--not yet, anyway. +Perhaps he should think about that sometime. + +Trouble was, there was always something more urgent.... + +He became conscious that Linda was standing in the bathroom door +watching him. He hadn't heard her get out of bed. + +"You used the no-beard just last month, Cal," she said. There was a +questioning note in her voice. + +"Want to keep handsome," he said lightly. "Never know when I might have +to run out to some other world. Wouldn't want one of my other wives to +catch me with stubble on my face." + +It was a stale joke, a childish one, but it served to introduce the +topic foremost in his mind. + +"This Eden problem. I can't plan on it, but I hope it's my solo to +qualify me for my big E. I'm due, you know." + +Linda chose to avoid coming directly to grips with it. + +"Yehudi is already at the door," she said, and made a face of +exasperation. "Someday I'm going to turn off the gadget that signals the +orderly room the minute you get out of bed, so I can have you all to +myself." + +"It's better if you get used to him," Cal cautioned. "Turn off the +signal and that turns on an alarm. Instead of one Yehudi, you'd have +twenty rushing in to see what was wrong." + +"Well, it seems to me a grown man ought to be able to take his morning +shower without an observer standing by to see that he doesn't drown +himself or swallow the soap," she commented with a touch of acid. + +"Get used to it, woman," he commanded. "There's only one observer now. +When--if I get my Senior rating, there'll be three." + +She didn't say anything. Instead she stepped over to him, pressed her +nude body against his, and tenderly nuzzled his arm. + +"Maybe if we go back to bed, he'll go away," she said, and glittered her +eyes at him wickedly. + +"He won't, but it's a good idea," Cal grinned at her. + +"You could tell him to go away," she whispered with a little pout. + +She was fighting. She was fighting with the only weapon she had to hold +him, to keep him from going away, to face an unknown. He knew it, and +the bitterness in her eyes, back of her teasing, showed she knew he knew +it. + +He took her tenderly in his arms, held her close to him, stroked her +hair, kissed her mouth. She pulled her face away, buried it in his +chest. He felt her sobbing. + +He picked her up, lightly, carried her back into the bedroom, laid her +gently on the bed, and, oblivious to the attendant who stood +expressionless inside the door, knelt down beside the bed and held her +head in his arms. + +"Don't fight it," he said softly. "It isn't the first time a man has had +to go." + +"It's the first time it ever happened to me," she sobbed. + +"You knew when you married me.... You agreed...." + +"It was easy to agree, then. There was the glamor of being known as the +wife of an E. Now that doesn't matter. There's just you, and the thought +of losing you, never seeing you again." + +"I haven't gone yet," he reminded her. "I don't know that I'll get the +job. There are three Seniors at base right now. One of them might want +it. Even if I do get the problem, who says I won't be back? You take old +McGinnis. He's eighty if he's a day. He's been an E for nigh on to fifty +years. He's still around, you'll notice." + +She was quieter now. She lay, looking at him, drinking in his dark hair, +blue eyes, handsome face, the shape of his intelligent head, the slope +of his neck and shoulders, the tapering waist, all the masculine grace +and beauty. She pressed her closed fist into her mouth. All the beauty +she might never see again, feel enfolded around her, enfold with +herself. + +"I'm a little fool," she said through clenched teeth. "Of course you'll +be back. And you'd better make it quick, or I'll come after you." + +He kissed her, rumpled her short hair, straightened her crumpled body on +the bed, pulled the sheet over her. + +"Why don't you go back to sleep," he suggested. "Rest. I'll have +breakfast in the E club room. That's where we'll be watching the Eden +briefing. Sleep. Sleep all morning." + +Gently he closed her eyes with the tip of his forefinger. Gently he +kissed her once more. This time she didn't cling to him, try to hold +him. + +He tucked the sheet in around her throat. Dutifully, she kept her eyes +closed. He stood up then, and signaled the orderly. + +"I'll take my shower now," he said. + +The orderly didn't speak, just followed him into the bathroom to stand +in the doorway and watch him through the shower glass. He was rigidly +obeying the cardinal rule of E.H.Q. + +Unless his life is in danger, never interrupt the thinking of an E. The +whole course of man's destiny in the universe may depend on it. + +How much of the future of the universe depended upon his not +interrupting the scene he had just witnessed wasn't for him to say. He +sighed. He thought of his own wife--shrewish, fat, coarse, always +complaining. He wondered what she would do if he picked her up, carried +her to bed, closed her eyes with his fingers. For once, he'd bet, she'd +be speechless. + +He must try it sometime. But first, she'd have to lose about fifty +pounds. + + * * * * * + +When Cal got to the E club room two Seniors were already there--McGinnis +and Wong. He thought their greeting was a shade more cordial, a shade +more interested than usual. They seemed, this time, to be looking at him +as if he were a person, not merely a Junior E. When he turned away from +them to greet the three Juniors, who, along with himself, ranked the +club-room privileges, he became certain of his impressions. Their faces +were frankly envious. + +Eden was to be his problem! + +He'd hoped for it. Even half expected it. Yet all the way through his +shower, dressing, coming down the elevator from his apartment, he'd been +nagged with the fear he might not be considered; that the grief of Linda +and her rise above it would lead only to anticlimax. By the time he'd +got to the club-room door, followed by his orderly, he had already +conditioned himself to disappointment. + +Now he subdued his elation while he told his orderly what he wanted for +breakfast. + +"You fellows join me in something?" he asked both Juniors and Seniors. + +"A second cup of coffee," Wong agreed. + +"A second bourbon," old McGinnis said drily. + +The Juniors shook their heads negatively. Yesterday they had been his +constant companions, only a few degrees below him in accomplishment, +pushing rapidly to become his equal competitors for the next solo. +Today, this morning, there was already a gap between them and him, a +chasm they would make no move to bridge until they had earned the +right. They seated themselves at another table, apart. + +"Of course we haven't asked you if you want this Eden problem," McGinnis +commented while orderlies placed food and drink in front of them. "We +ought to ask him, hadn't we, Wong?" + +"First I should ask if either of you want it?" Cal said quickly. "Or +perhaps Malinkoff, if he shows up." + +"Malinkoff is too deep in something to come to the briefing," Wong said. + +"Wong and I came only to help on your first solo, if we can," McGinnis +said. "Always think a young fellow needs a little send-off. I remember, +about fifty years ago, more or less ..." + +"Worst thing to guard against," Wong interrupted, "is disappointment. +This whole thing might add up to nothing. Might not turn out to be a +genuine solo at all, just something any errand boy could do. In that +case it wouldn't qualify you. You know that." + +"Sure," Cal said. Naturally the problem would have to give real +challenge. You didn't just go out and knock a home run to become an E. +You tackled something outside the normal frame of reference, something +that required original thinking, the E kind of thinking. You brought it +off successfully. A given number of Seniors reviewed what you'd done. If +they thought it was worth something, you got your big E. If they didn't, +you tried again. And you didn't get it by default, just because somebody +thought there should be a given quota of Seniors on the list. + +"Little or big," he added, "I'd like the problem." + +They said no more. He knew the score. He'd had twelve years of the most +intensive training the E's themselves could devise. He knew that +sometimes a Junior spent another ten or twelve years chasing down jobs +which anybody on the spot could have solved if they'd used their heads a +little before they ran on to something that challenged that training. +He'd be lucky if this was big enough--but not too big. + +That was in their minds, too. + + + + +5 + + +On ordinary days there were only the usual few science reporters in the +press room of E.H.Q. These held their jobs by the difficult compromise +between the scientists' insistence upon accuracy and their publishers' +equal insistence upon sensationalism. + +Since the publisher paid the salary; since rewrite men, like television +writers, maintained their own feeling of superiority to the mass by +writing down to the level of a not very bright twelve-year-old; since +the facts had to be trimmed and altered to fit the open space or time +slot; even these reporters had a difficult time of maintaining the usual +odds--that there is only a twenty-to-one chance that anything said in +the newspapers or on the air may be accurate. + +But on this morning the press room was crowded. In spite of all efforts +of journalism to stir up old animosities to make news, or to force +factional leaders into rashness which could not be settled without +violence; the various states of world government insisted upon +negotiating ethnical differences amicably, and factional leaders +persisted in keeping their heads. There had been no world-shaking +discoveries made in the last week or so; the public no longer believed +that changing a screw thread was exactly a scientific "break-through"; +no real or imagined scandals seemed of such journalistic stature as to +work the public into a frenzy of intolerance for one another's +aberrations. + +In such a dry spell, when advertisers were beginning to question +circulation figures, and editors were racking their brains for a strong +hate symbol to create interest, the delayed report from Eden came as a +summer shower, that might be magnified into a flood. + +EDEN SILENT quickly became COLONY FEARED LOST and progressed normally to +COLONY WIPED OUT. + +That there was no proof of loss or destruction bothered no one in +journalism. If it did turn out this way, they'd have been on top of the +news; and if it didn't, well, who remembers yesterday's headlines in the +press of today's new hate and panic. + +The public, with an established addiction to ever increasing daily doses +of sensationalism, and deprived of its shots through this dry spell, +snapped out of its apathy to greet this new thrill with vociferous calls +to editors, wires to congressmen, telegrams to the Administration. + +What are we doing about this colony that has been wiped out? Where is +our space battle fleet? Who is going to be punished? + +It was an overnight sensation, and on this morning following the news +leak there could even be seen some secretaries to the writers for top +commentators and columnists in the crowded press room. + +Naturally these stood in little groups apart and associated only with +each other to maintain the literary tradition of proper insulation from +the realities of what was going on in the rest of the world. Obviously +no first-rate writer could have afforded to appear in person not only +because of damage to his stature lest it be noted he was doing his own +spadework; but, more important, first-hand observation might limit his +capacity for rationalizing the situation into the mold demanded by the +bias of his commentator or columnist. It was always difficult to +maintain author integrity when the facts did not support the +sensationalism required by the employers, and best not to put oneself in +such a position. + +Now two of these secretaries could be seen over in a corner of the press +room exchanging their views, probing one another for information. No +one thought it curious they weren't trying to get the information from +source for everyone in journalism understands the importance lies in +what the competition is going to say, not in what happened. + +"How long has it been since the first message came through, or didn't?" + +"Fourteen hours, about." + +"We could have had a rescue fleet out there by now." + +"To rescue 'em from what?" + +"Whatever's wrong." + +"I understand an assistant attorney general is checking into it." + +"So Gunderson's still gunning for the E's, eh?" + +"Has he ever let up since he became attorney general? Gripes his soul he +can't arrest them for not doing what he wants, or for doing what he +doesn't want." + +"How'd they ever get immune, anyhow?" + +"Skip class that day in history?" + +"Must've." + +"Vague, myself. Right after the insurrection. Seems there were two +powers, Russia and America. The people of the world got fed up, gave a +pox to both their houses, boiled over, formed a world government. +Somehow the scientists got in their licks in the turmoil, pointed out +that scientists who have to confine their discoveries to what suits the +ideology of the non-scientists can only find limited solutions." + +"Quite a deal." + +"Could only happen in a world turmoil, when everything was fluid. +Anyhow, they got away with it, for a certain group, Extrapolators, had +to be free to extrapolate without fear of reprisal." + +"Boy, something. Imagine. Take any dame you want. Nobody can squawk. +Take any money, riches you want. Nobody can stop it." + +"Funny thing. Nothing like that happens. Idea seems to be that when you +don't have to fight against restrictions, they aren't important any +more. At least not to an E." + +"Guess that's why one of 'em pointed out that police are the major cause +of crime." + +"Whether he was right or wrong, that's what sent Gunderson into a tail +spin. I wouldn't be surprised but what he's a little hipped on that +subject. He'll get 'em one of these days. Even an E can make a mistake, +and when one of 'em does, he'll be there." + +"I dunno, the public has a lot of hero-worship for the E. Pretty tough +for any politician to buck that." + +"The public! You know as well as I do--they think what we tell 'em to +think, you and me." + +"You think that's why he's got a man out here on this Eden thing? +Looking for a mistake?" + +"Maybe. Maybe not. He just never passes up the chance that maybe this +time he can grab something." + +"Between Gunderson and the E's, I'll take the E's." + +"Your boss feel the same way?" + +"Far as I know." + +"But if your boss changed his mind, you would have an agonizing +reappraisal." + +"Well, sure. A guy's got to eat." + + + + +6 + + +The west wall of the E club room began to glow, lose its appearance of +solidity. Cal signaled his orderly to lift away his table. Now, where +the west wall had been, another room seemed to join this one, an office. +A large man in a brown suit made an entrance through the door of the +office and sat down back of the desk. His face was drawn with weariness. + +"I am Bill Hayes," he said. "Sector administration chief of the Eden +area. I am acting moderator of this review. We follow the usual rules of +procedure. I just want to say, as an aside, that the scientists involved +in this problem have been up all night reviewing every known fact about +Eden. We ask the indulgence of the E's not only for the kind of +knowledge that may prove too little, but for any strain caused by trying +to assemble such massive data into order in so short a time. + +"For the press, let me say we are aware of some questions of why we +didn't immediately send out a fleet of ships as soon as the call failed +to come through. A military man does not rush troops into battle until +he has some idea of what he must oppose; even a plumber needs to get +some idea of the problem before he knows what tools to take with him. It +would serve no constructive purpose to rush an unprepared fleet out to +rescue, and might prove the highest folly." + +All over E.H.Q., in the various buildings where anybody was directly +concerned, the same effect would be taking place as appeared here in the +club room. The tri-di screen wall would seem to join the room of the +person speaking. A pressed button signaled the desire to speak, and like +the chairman of a meeting, Bill Hayes decided whom to recognize. It was +a way to conduct a meeting of two or three thousand people as intimately +as a small conference. + +"The E's have signaled they are ready for the Eden briefing," Hayes +continued formally. He faded out his own office, and was immediately +replaced by an astrophysics laboratory. The review of Eden was under +way. + +With sky charts, pointers, math formulae and many references to +documentation, the astrophysicist established the celestial position of +Ceti relative to Earth, and its second planet Ceti II--popularly called, +he had heard, Eden. For his part, bitterly, he preferred a little less +popularizing of scientific data, a little more exactitude. He would, +therefore, continue to call it Ceti II. + +He reminded Cal of certain teachers in schools he had been asked to +leave back in his ugly duckling days. How didactically, positively, they +clung to their exactitudes--like frightened little children in a chaotic +world too big for them to face, hanging on to mother's skirts, something +safe, sure, dependable. + +The astrophysicist continued, at considerable length, to establish the +position of Ceti II to his own complete satisfaction. + +In his own mind Cal willingly conceded that, at least in terms of +third-dimensional space-time continuum, Eden could be found where the +man said it was. Then he reminded himself, sternly, that the essence +might be that Eden was there no longer; that he'd better pay closest +attention to everything said, however positive and didactic, lest he +find his own mind closed to a solution. He reminded himself that, after +all, these people had worked all night for his benefit, while he lay +peacefully in Linda's arms. + +He reminded himself that one little bit of datum, one little phrase, +carelessly heard now, might mean his success or failure. Didactic +pedantry has its place in science, and these were scientists, not +vaudeville performers. Silently, he apologized to the lot of them. + +A geophysicist took over the review. He quickly got down out of space to +the surface of Eden. Personally he didn't mind calling it Eden, just so +all the purists knew he was referring to Ceti II. This was supposed to +be humorous, and he waited until all the viewers had had a chance to +chuckle with him. + +If the astrophysicist signaled his demand for a retraction and apology +for this public ridicule, Bill Hayes apparently didn't feel it worth +breaking up the review to oblige him. + +After he had enjoyed his own humor, the geophysicist did present his +capsule of knowledge with excellent brevity. + +There were no large continents. Instead, there were thousands of +islands, so many that the land mass roughly equaled the sea surface. The +islands had not been counted, he admitted, and then needlessly explained +that Eden had been discovered only ten years ago. Since universe +exploration was expanding much faster than properly qualified scientists +could follow to catalogue conditions, details such as this had been left +for future colonists to complete. + +He took time out to complain that the younger generation was too dazzled +by glamor and wanted to become entertainment stars, sports stars, jet +jockeys exploring space, and there weren't enough going into the solid +sciences to keep up with the work to be done. + +A biophysicist interposed here and stated that his research with the +injection of uric acid into rats caused a marked rise in intelligence, +and if the Administration would just pay attention and let him have the +grant he was asking, he felt confident that research in how to change +the human kidney structure would take us a long mutant leap ahead toward +humans with super-intelligence. + +Bill Hayes cut him off as tactfully as possible and suggested that the +Eden problem was here and now, and perhaps we should get that one out +of the way first. Both scientists, by their expressions, indicated that +they did not appreciate being frustrated, hampered, driven--but they did +comply. + +Back to Eden they went. + +The climate was something like that of the Hawaiian area. Partly this +was due to the variable plane rotation that heated all parts evenly, +partly due to favorable flow of ocean currents. It had been noted that +there was such an interweaving of cool and warm currents all over the +globe that a relatively even temperature was maintained throughout. Some +differential in spots, of course, enough to cause rainfall, but no real +violence of storms, not as we classified hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes +here on Earth. + +"Probably no sudden storm to wipe out the colony before they could send +news, then," Wong suggested in an aside to Cal. + +"Or a freak one did occur and they weren't prepared because it wasn't +supposed to happen," Cal said. + +Wong and McGinnis exchanged a quick glance, and Cal knew Wong had laid a +little trap to see how easily he might be lulled into a premature +conclusion. + +The gravity was slightly less, the geophysicist was saying, but only to +the extent that man, newly arrived from Earth, walked with a springier +step, didn't tire as quickly. Not enough to cause nausea, even to the +inexperienced. The oxygen content of the air, in fact the whole make-up +of the air, was so close to Earth quality there were no breathing +adaptations necessary. + +So much for generalities. He went on to document them with exactitudes. +He teamed up with a meteorologist to explain the distribution of +rainfall in spite of lack of frigid and torrid air masses. Cal's doubt +was not appeased. Weather prediction was about on a par with race-horse +handicapping, and easy to explain after it happened. + +Eventually the geophysicist and the meteorologist completed their duet +to the accompaniment of oceanographers and geologists. + +A chorus of botanists replaced them on the tri-di screen, the major +theme of their epic being that an astonishing proportion of the plant +forms bore edible fruit, nuts, seeds, leaves, stems, roots, flowers. A +choir of zoologists joined their voices here to point out the large +number of small meat animals, fish, and crustaceans--with the whole +thing sounding like a pean of thanksgiving. + +After two hours, the condensed information added up to a most +interesting fact. In essence, due to quite _natural_ conditions--odd how +much the scientists seemed to need stressing the word "natural"--Eden +was more favorable to easy human life than Earth! + +Cal leaned forward. Here was the spot where some student or apprentice +might distinguish himself by asking an embarrassing question or so. Say +the range of easily possible conditions on any given planet was a scale +ten miles in length. Then that area on the scale where man could exist +without artificial aids would still be less than a hair's breadth. And +now to find a planet more nearly perfect for man than the one on which +he evolved.... + +Or were the students considering this too obvious to mention? He decided +to nudge them a little. Sometimes a discussion of the too obvious +brought out things not obvious at all. + +"How frequently," he asked, when Hayes had cut him in, "do we find a +mass revolving in such a manner that its poles revolve at right angles +to its forward revolution, so there is no real pole?" + +"It requires near-perfect roundness, and an even distribution of land +and water masses, such as we have on Ceti II," the first astrophysicist +answered. + +"How frequently do we find that?" Cal repeated. + +"I know of no other," the astrophysicist replied shortly. + +"Any evidence of tampering with those ocean currents to get them flowing +so beneficially?" Cal asked. + +"None yet discovered," an oceanographer cut in. + +Well, at least he hadn't stated with positiveness that there hadn't been +and couldn't be. But an anthropaleontologist inserted himself and +spoiled the effect of open-mindedness. + +"There is definitely no life form on Eden with sufficient intelligence +for that," the man said, "nor has there ever been. Such a feat would +require enormous engineering works. Such works under the ocean would be +matched by comparable works on land, and would therefore show up in our +aerial surveys, however ancient and overgrown." + +Cal sighed softly to himself. The human kind of civilization, yes, that +would have left traces. But what of some other kind? Perhaps a deep-sea +kind that had never come out upon the land? Never mind the arguments +that such a civilization could not have developed--that was looking at +it from the human point of view again. Had man grown so accustomed to +not finding comparable intelligence anywhere in the universe he had +begun to discount, or forget, there could be? + +The review went on and on. The zoologist sketched in the prevalent +animals and fish forms, showed there was nothing in land animals higher +than a large rodent, no sea mammals at all, no fish larger than the +tarpon. Nothing at all to hint at a line of primates. + +A bacteriologist exclaimed at length over the similarity of minute life +forms to those on Earth, and used the occasion to again expound the old +theory of space-floating life spores to seed all favorable matter, and +thus develop similar forms through evolution, wherever found. Quickly +and tactfully Bill Hayes nudged him back on the track before the +expected storm of controversy could break out. + +Then there was a short lunch time, but not a leisurely one. Quite aside +from the emergency of what might be happening to the colonists, there +was growing clamor from the people and pressure from various +governmental bodies to get off the dime and get going--rescue those +people, or, cynically, at least make a show of action to quell the flood +of telegrams. E.H.Q. resisted the pressures in favor of doing a +workmanlike job in preparation for a genuine rescue instead of a +haphazard show, but was mindful of them nevertheless. + + + + +7 + + +Anyone who has witnessed even so much as a traffic-court trial cannot +help but realize that "government by law instead of man" is a mere +political phrase without meaning in reality. The ascendancy of +me-and-mine over you-and-yours runs so deep in the human psyche that +abstract idealisms must always take second place where such ascendancy +is threatened. Thus we see that the belly-crawler, meek and subservient +to the judge, comes off with a token sentence while the man who attempts +to maintain his pride, his rights, his self-respect gets the book thrown +at him. + +No practical attorney is unaware that the judgment of his case depends +largely upon who presides, the whims, the prejudices, the moods, the +viewpoint of the judge; and that the law merely provides justification +for the imposition of those whims, moods, prejudices, and viewpoints. + +And ambitions. + +The announcement at E.H.Q. that a Junior E would be given this problem +gave Gunderson's man the opening he had hoped to find. A hurried call to +the capitol and a brief conversation with Gunderson himself confirmed +his conclusions. Perhaps the E was above all law, and it might not be +expedient to challenge that right now, but immunity did not necessarily +extend to the Junior E. + +In view of the known ambitions of certain judges, it should not be +difficult to make a test case of this--whether the E's had a right to +jeopardize a colony of human beings by assigning an unqualified man to +the problem. + +A question, too, of who had jurisdiction over the Juniors, the +apprentices, the students. How far down the line did the mantle of the E +extend to protect those not yet qualified? How far out did the +Administration of E.H.Q. extend to substitute for government? How much +of a state within a state had E.H.Q. become? + +Now, while the public was clamoring for action, and E.H.Q. was, instead, +droning on through a mass of inconsequential detail, now while public +sentiment was crystallizing, or could be crystallized into placing human +welfare over science procedures, now was the time. + +It was not difficult to find a judge who was predisposed to favor the +request of the attorney general. + + + + +8 + + +After lunch at E.H.Q., the colonizing administrator took over the +review. + +The precolonizing scientists had not been trapped by the obviously +favorable aspects of Eden into neglecting their full duties. No indeed +they had given the full routine of tests and had come up with exactly +nothing that might be unfavorable to man, at least not more so than on +Earth. + +Colonization had followed the usual plan. Fifty professional colonists +had been sent out to Eden. They knew their jobs. They were +temperamentally suited to the work. + +As usual, they were to live there for five years, leaning as lightly as +possible on Earth supplement. Their prime purpose was to adapt primitive +ecology to human needs, how it could be done. It was not the job of this +first colony to explore, to catalogue. They were expected to do only +what any pioneer does--endure, exist, and prove it possible. + +In honesty the colonizing administrator had to point out there had been +more than the usual dissatisfaction from this colony. The burden of +their complaint was that they found living too easy. They were +professionals, accustomed to challenge. + +They had first recommended, then demanded, that they be transferred and +the planet given over to the second-phase colonists. + +They complained they were dying on the vine, that easy living was making +farmers and storekeepers out of them, that they were getting soft, +ruined by disuse of their talents for meeting and coping with hostile +conditions. There had even been threats that one of these days they +would all pile into their ship and come back home. So far he had stopped +them by threats of his own, that he would personally see they never got +another assignment. + +He had resisted their demands. Five years was a short enough time. Some +organisms took longer than that to develop in the human body or mind, to +make their inimical presence known. Some did not show up until the +second or third generation; which was the reason for the second-phase +colonists, to live there for three generations, before the planet could +be opened to young John Smith and his wife Mary who dreamed of owning a +little chicken ranch out away from it all. He had argued that boredom +might be just the very inimical condition they were having to test. + +Cal felt a twinge of disappointment here. Perhaps the dissatisfied +colonists had merely gone on strike! Unable to get satisfaction from +their administrator, they chose not to communicate as a means of drawing +attention, getting an investigation of their plight. Drastic, perhaps, +but man had been known to do drastic things before when he felt treated +unfairly. + +This seemed such a likely solution that for a moment he let his +disappointment override his interest. Such would be an administrative +hassle, nothing to challenge an E at all, not even a Junior. + +Still, it might not be the solution. He had better listen to the whole +of the problem. + +The colonists had chosen a large island for their first settlement. In +the center was a small mountain. It had been given the name of Crystal +Palace Mountain because it was crested with an outcropping of +amethystine quartz-crystal structures in _natural_ pillars, domes, +arches, spires. + +Like spokes of a wheel radiating out from the hub, ridges fell away +from this mountain, and in between the ridges there lay fertile valleys +watered by perpetual streams. + +It was in one of these valleys, about halfway between the mountain and +the sea, that the colonists settled. Some bucolic wit had named the +first settlement Appletree, because there they would gain knowledge, and +everybody knows that the apple was the Garden of Eden's fruit of +knowledge. No one quite knew when the name Eden was first applied to the +planet. Suddenly, during the first scientific expedition, everyone was +referring to it that way. + +"For exactitude," the administrator said diplomatically. "Of course we +still designate it as Ceti II." + +As was customary, the colony had communicated multitudes of progress +pictures over the space-jump band. Here was the valley before they had +started to fell trees. Here it was in progress of clearing. Here they +were converting the trees into lumber for houses. Here were the first +houses so that some could move out of the living quarters in the ship. +Here they were uprooting the stumps, turning the sod, planting Earth +seed. These were barns for the cattle and horses sent with them from +Earth. + +A collection of community buildings came next in the series of +photographs, and finally there was the whole village of Appletree, with +a collection of small farms surrounding it. The pictures showed it all +as ideal for man as a distant view of a rural valley in Ohio. +Productive, progressive, and peaceful--from a distance. + +But back of the post-card scene, human psychology progressed normally +also. + +The reporting psychologist was most emphatic on this issue. His +department would have been most alarmed had differences and schisms +_not_ developed. _That_ would have been an abnormality calling for +investigation. + +Differences in outlook became apparent in spite of the common +temperament and experience of the group. Little personal enmities +developed and grew. Sympathizers drew together in little groups, each +group considering its stand to be the right one, and therefore all who +disagreed wrong. + +The psychologist said he was sure all viewing would remember the +classical picture of primitive Earth man at first awareness. He stands +upon a hill and looks about him. There comes the astonishing realization +that he can see about the same distance in all directions. + +"Why," he exclaims to himself, "I must be at the very center of +creation!" + +His awe and wonder was to grow. Wherever he went, he found he was still +at the center of things. There could be only one conclusion. + +"Because I am always at the center of things, I must be the most +important event in all creation!" + +Still later comes another realization. + +"Those who are with me, and are therefore a part of me-and-mine, are +also at the center of things and share my importance. Those who are not +with me, and not a part of me-and-mine, are not at the center of things, +and are therefore of an inferior nature!" + +It could readily be seen--the psychologist was allowing a note of +dryness to enter his comments--that the bulk of man's philosophy, +religion, politics, social values, and yes, too often even his +scientific conclusions, was based upon this egocentric notion; the +supreme importance and rightness of me-and-mine ascendant at the center +of things, opposed to those who are not a part of me-and-mine, on the +outside, and therefore inferior. + +There must have been a signal from Bill Hayes, for the psychologist left +the generalities behind and came back to the issue. + +The very ease of living on Eden fostered the growth of schisms, for +there was no common enemy to band the group into one solid me-and-mine +organism--the audience would recall that when Earth was divided into +nations it had always been imperative to find a common enemy in some +other nation; that this was the only cohesive force man had been able +to find to keep the nation from disintegrating. + +Another nudge. + +Factions took shape on Eden and clashed in town meetings. At last, as +expected, some dissident individuals and family groups could no longer +tolerate the irritation of living in the same neighborhood with the +rest. These broke off from the main colony, and migrated across the near +ridge to settle in an adjacent valley. + +Psychologically, it was a most satisfactory development, playing out in +classical microcosm the massive behavior of total man. For, as everyone +knew, had men ever been able to settle their differences, had man been +able to get along peacefully with himself, he might have developed no +civilization at all. + +Man's inability to stand the stench of his own kind was the most potent +of all forces in driving him out to the stars. + +Bill Hayes, a weary and red-eyed moderator now, apparently decided he +could no longer stand the stench of the psychologist and abruptly cut +him off. He himself took over the summation. It boiled down to a simple +statement. + +The colonists had reported everything that happened, of significance or +not. These reports had all been thoroughly sifted in the normal course +of E.H.Q.'s daily work as they were received. They had been collated and +extended both by human and machine minds to detect any subtle trends +away from norm. + +There had been nothing, absolutely nothing. The reports might as well +have originated somewhere near Eugene, Oregon. They were about as +unusual as a Saturday night bath back on the farm. + +Then silence. Sudden, inexplicable silence. + + + + +9 + + +"It bothers me, it bothers me a lot," Cal said to the two E's, following +the review, "that Eden should be more favorable to effortless human +existence than Earth." + +He snapped on the communicator and asked the ship be in readiness for +take-off. + +McGinnis and Wong looked at one another. + +"You think it might have been the original Garden of Eden?" Wong asked. +His face was impassive. "It fits, you know. Man was banished from an +ideal condition and forced to live by the sweat of his brow." + +"Not that so much," Cal said. "Not unless the whole concept of evolution +is haywire, and we're reasonably sure it isn't that far off. Probably +the colonists have gone on strike, but I still keep thinking that when +we want to catch rats we set a trap with a better food than they can get +normally." + +There was a twinkle in McGinnis's eye. + +"You think Eden is an alluring trap, especially baited to catch human +beings?" he asked. + +"I don't exactly think that. I just keep wondering," Cal answered. + +They were interrupted by a diffident yet insistent knock on the door. +This in itself was such a violation of E.H.Q. rules, never to interrupt +the thinking of an E, that all three stopped talking. The three Juniors, +who had been sitting by, listening, arose from their seats and stood +facing the door. The orderlies looked to the E's for instruction. At a +nod from McGinnis, one of them walked over to the door and opened it. + +Bill Hayes was standing there, flushed with embarrassment. + +"Your pardon, E's," he said hurriedly. "I'm just an errand boy, under +instruction from General Administration. We have been served with a +court injunction to prevent assignment of a Junior to the Eden matter." + +Cal froze in alarm and disappointment. At the last moment to have his +chance snatched away from him. He should have gone immediately the +review was over, without waiting for any advice McGinnis and Wong might +care to give. Now ... + +McGinnis caught his eye and gave a slight nod toward a door that opened +on another hallway. He flashed a command with his eyes to get going, +then turned back to Hayes. + +"I was unaware that the E's must heed court orders," he said frostily. + +"It's a question of where civil jurisdiction stops and E jurisdiction +takes over," Hayes explained nervously. "While the colonists are +employed by E.H.Q., and under their direction, it is held they are also +Earth citizens, with citizen rights. Civil authority feels it must +answer for their welfare." + +"I thought restrictions upon the E were removed by act of World Congress +some seventy years ago," Wong said mildly. + +"The injunction makes it clear there is no restriction upon the Senior +E; just the Junior, who really isn't an E yet." + +"It is the decision of the E's that a Junior will handle this problem," +McGinnis said, and turned his back as if that settled the matter. + +Hayes cleared his throat nervously. + +"I'm sorry," he said. "If it were up to me ... Well, the argument before +the court ran this way: That where there is no restriction upon the E in +arriving at a solution, there is also no compulsion upon civil +authority to adopt that solution. They cited instances ... Well, any +number of instances. It seems ..." + +Cal heard no more. He had been pacing the room, and now, while Hayes's +perspiring attention was focused imploringly on Wong and McGinnis, he +slipped out the door. + +The orderly at that door raised a finger in salute, and at Cal's request +quickly wheeled a hall-car from a storage closet. + +"Take me out to the Eden ship," Cal said quietly. "You know where it +is?" + +"Yes," the orderly answered. He took his place at the controls and Cal +slipped into the seat beside him. + +They sped through the halls at maximum speed, out the rear exit of the E +building, down the maze of ramps and out across the landing field to the +entrance of the ship. + +Cal expected to see guards posted there to enforce the injunction, but +none were in evidence. As they drew up to the open door, he saw Lynwood +and Norton, pilot and engineer, standing just inside waiting for him. +There was no strain in their faces to show they had received orders not +to take off with him. + +He climbed out of the car, and with another nod the orderly drove it +back to the E building. Henceforward the ship's crew would be the E's +orderlies. + +Cal climbed the short ramp and entered the ship. + +"You have clearance to take off at once?" he asked Lynwood. + +Lynwood nodded. "Since early morning," he answered. + +"Fine. Let's get going," Cal said. "I'm in a hurry, of course," he added +with a grin. + +"Of course," the two men answered, then seeing his grin, relaxed and +returned it. Apparently this E was human. + +It took only a minute for them to reach the control room, where Louie +sat in his navigator's cubby; and only ten more seconds for the ship to +lift clear. And still no command came over the radio to halt them. + +Someone in civil authority had slipped. Had Gunderson really felt that a +simple injunction would stop everything, that the E's would not +challenge this encroachment? Was he playing some deeper game, allowing +the Junior to slip through his fingers in the hope he would louse up the +Eden rescue, add strength to the campaign to bring the E's back under +civil control--his control? + +Or had someone genuinely slipped? + +The command to halt, turn around, and return to base did not come until +their second hop had brought them into the Mars orbit. Then it came from +space police in charge of shipping traffic at that point. + +"I am under orders from E.H.Q. to proceed," Tom answered, after a quick, +questioning look at Cal. + +"The attorney general's office orders you to halt," the voice commanded. + +Tom looked at Cal again, questioning. This was bucking the federal +government, his license wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on if +he ignored the order. To say nothing of any other punishment they might +choose to hand him. + +"Keep going," Cal answered shortly. "And make your next jump as quickly +as you can." + +"I am under orders to keep going," Tom answered the police. If he +refused the request of an E, a lifetime of work would go down the drain. + +Over in his seat, Frank Norton's fingers were speeding through the +intricate pattern of setting up the next jump. He and Louie were working +as one man. + +"I am under orders to disable you if you refuse," the police warned. + +"We have an E on board," Tom answered. "You'd be risking a lot." + +"I am advised he is a Junior E," the voice said in clipped speech. "Not +such a risk." + +"Far as I'm concerned," Tom answered laconically, "he's an E. I have to +follow his orders." + +He nodded to Frank who touched the jump switch. There was an instant +silence. They were at the approach to the asteroid belt. + +"They can get us here," Louie spoke up. "We have to give over controls +so they can take us through. No chart can keep up to the microsecond on +these asteroid movements. They have to calculate a path in short hops, +and take us through a step at a time. I keep saying there ought to be an +expressway out of the solar system, but ..." + +"What about a good long jump at right angles?" Cal asked. "Get over it +instead of through it?" + +"It's illegal," Louie complained. + +"Our necks are already out," Tom said quietly. + +"Okay, you're the boss. But I'll have to figure it. It takes time to +figure it." + +"Well, get going on it." + +"There's stuff all over," Louie explained. "Not just a band, like most +people think. The asteroids have moved at right angles, too. Not so +thick, but there's a globe of stuff, not just a belt. Maybe a bunch of +little jumps." + +"We can't start making them until you figure them, Louie," Frank +reminded him. + +The radio gave its hum of life, and a voice came through. + +"We have orders from space police not to escort you through, to turn you +back." + +"This is an E ship, with an E on board. His command is to come through," +Tom said. + +"I just work here," the voice answered as if it were bored and tired. "I +take my orders from Space Control." + +Tom looked over at Louie. Louie apparently caught the look out of a +corner of his eye, and impatiently waved a finger not to bother him. His +other hand was speeding through the movements of manipulating the +astrocalculator. Then he nodded his head, still not looking up, and the +co-ordinates flashed in front of Frank. Now, as rapidly as Louie, Frank +set up the pattern of the jump band. + +"I take my orders from the E's," Tom answered in a voice that matched +the boredom, tiredness. Then with a nod from Frank, "Now!" he said. + +There was silence again. + +"It's going to add at least an hour," Louie complained. "I've got to +pick my way through this muck." + +"We've got time now," Tom answered easily. "Not likely they can find us +out here, away from the regular lanes." + +"Not unless we run across a prowl ship," Louie said. "You know there's +some smuggling, and now and then a shipping company thinks it can beat +the rap, not pay the toll, by doing the same thing we're doing. The +prowl patrol is on to all the tricks. We're not the first ones to try +it." + +"Just keep figuring, Louie," Tom said. + +"All right, all right!" Louie quarreled back. + +Tom looked at Cal and grimaced. + +"Louie's all right," he said. "Just has to complain." + +"I'm sure of it," Cal answered with a grin. + +It took closer to two hours. They had no way of knowing how many times +the space police had made a fix on their position only too late to catch +them hovering there. There must have been some fix made and a pretty +careful calculation of where they could go next, for as they neared the +outer moons of Jupiter the radio crackled into life again. + +"This is your last warning. We intend to board you and take over. We +will disintegrate your ship if you resist." + +Cal took the microphone in his own hand to answer. + +"We intend to keep going," he said. "This is a jurisdictional dispute +between the attorney general's office and E.H.Q. We will not allow you +to board us, and I suggest you get confirmation of orders to +disintegrate us directly from the attorney general in person. Meanwhile +you can pass the buck to your Saturn patrol if those orders are +confirmed." + +Tom nodded to Frank, and the next jump key was pressed. + +In the Saturn field, still another voice came through. "Orders from the +attorney general himself are to allow you to proceed. Say, Lynwood, what +is this all about?" + +"Some sort of petty squabble over who gives orders to who," Lynwood +answered. "I just work here," he added tiredly. + +"Well," said the voice. "So do I. Guess they'll fight it out in the +courts now. You understand, we had our orders." + +"You understand, so did I." Tom answered. + +"Sure," the voice answered, and cut out. + +Cal wondered whether the orders to disintegrate had been a bluff. Would +the attorney general have dared disintegrate a ship with even a Junior E +on board? Maybe it had been just a threat of the local police, one they +didn't expect to have called. + +Or maybe he had played directly into the attorney general's hands by +defying him, and getting that defiance on record was what the man had +wanted. + +Whatever it was, the Eden matter had become bigger than merely finding +out what had happened to some colonists. Whatever it was, he'd better +find a successful solution, because the attorney general was counting on +him to fail. And if he did fail, certainly the position of the Junior E +would be altered, and possibly a deep thrust into the very heart of the +Senior E position, as well. + + + + +10 + + +Louie was right. After they cleared the solar system there was no +trouble getting _to_ Eden. And there was no trouble circumnavigating the +globe while still in space. + +Closer, but still outside the atmosphere in their surveying spiral, they +had no trouble in locating the island with Crystal Palace Mountain at +its center. There was only one such spot on Eden, and in their telescope +viewer its crystalline spires and minarets sparkled back at them like a +diamond set in jade. + +The trouble began when they hovered over the location, when they +amplified their magnification to get a close look at the Appletree +village before dropping down to land. + +Louie found the right valley. He said it was the right valley, and he +stuck to his claim stubbornly. + +But there was no settlement there. No sign there had ever been. + +Louie could see that for himself, they told him. There was nothing but +virgin land. The trees were undisturbed, and old. There were splashes of +rolling meadows spotted here and there by other trees, untilled meadows +sloping downward from the ridges to the river. And not a blemish nor +scar to show that man had ever landed there. + +"Fine thing," Norton chaffed him. "Fine navigation, Louie. Get us clear +across the universe in great shape, and then you can't even find the +landing field." + +But Louie was in no mood for banter. He wished Tom would go back and +hold the manual controls of the ship instead of letting it hover on +automatic. He wished Cal would go back to his stateroom and think. He +wished Frank Norton would shut up. He wished they wouldn't all stand +over him, reading his charts over his shoulder. + +In irritated silence he reduced the viewscope dimensions to scale, and +snapped a picture of the whole island. He took the fresh picture, still +moist from its self-developing camera, and laid it beside the chart. +Wordlessly, for the benefit of them all, he traced his pencil over the +outlines of the chart and their duplicates in the picture. As in +comparing fingerprints, he flicked his pencil at the points of identity. +There were far too many to ignore. He poked the point of his pencil at +Appletree where it was located on the chart. Then he picked out the same +location in the picture. + +It was not the science of navigation that was wrong. + +"It's just one of those dirty tricks life plays on a fellow," Tom said +over Cal's shoulder. "You got us in the right place, Louie, but probably +in the wrong time slot. You've warped us right out of our own time, and +Eden hasn't been discovered yet. Maybe won't be for another million +years. Maybe, back on Earth, man is just discovering fire." + +"Yeah," Norton agreed. "Or maybe in the wrong dimension. You and your +fancy navigation. Now you take a midgit-idgit navigating machine. It +wouldn't know how to pull such fancy short cuts. Take a little longer, +maybe, but when we got there we'd be there." + +They were both talking nonsense and knew it. Time and dimensional travel +were still purely theoretical. Louie ignored the ribbing with elaborate +patience. + +"You know what I think," he asked seriously. "I think the whole thing's +a hoax. I'll betcha there never was any settlement there. I'll betcha +the colonists have pulled a whingding all the way through." + +"There's a whole raft of pictures to show they were there," Frank +reminded him. + +"Pictures!" Louie answered scornfully. "You think they couldn't fake +pictures?" He thought for a moment. "And where's their ship, their +escape ship?" he asked as a clincher. "They didn't like it here and have +gone off somewhere else, and then covered up by sending reports and +pictures on how things would have developed if they'd stayed." + +There was a sense of unreality in the whole conversation. Cal let the +talk flow on, knowing it was a reaction to shock. What if a modern ocean +liner pulled into the harbor of New York--to find an untouched Manhattan +Island in its virgin state? + +It couldn't happen, therefore it wasn't to be treated seriously. + +"Better set up communication with Earth," Cal said quietly. + +In E science the unpredictable, the incredible, the illogical could +happen at any time. With a mind more open to acceptance of this, he had +felt the run of shock sooner. For them, the shock impact was delayed +since their minds rejected the illogical as unreal. For him the human +shock came at once, and then, as E thinking took over, passed off. + +"Sure, Cal," Lynwood agreed. It was a measure of their acceptance that +they had quite normally fallen into using his first name. + +On the emergency signal it took less than three minutes to clear through +eleven light-years to E.H.Q.--and then sixteen minutes for the operator +at base to find Bill Hayes. + +"Sector Chief Hayes here," the voice said at last through the speaker. + +"Gray here, on the Eden matter," Cal answered. "Any other E's +available?" + +"Hm-m," Hayes answered. "Wong has picked up on a problem in the Pleiades +sector, and left this morning. Malinkoff has given out word not to +disturb him if the whole universe falls apart. That leaves McGinnis, +who, I believe, is spending his time working on the defense against the +injunction by Gunderson. An example of the way petty restrictions can +bring a fine mind down to trivial problems. But he said call him if you +need him." + +"Please," Cal said. "And you might stay on while I talk to him, if +you're not busy." + +"Sure, E Gray, sure," Hayes answered. "I'm flashing the operator to +locate McGinnis. Seen anything of the police ship, yet? I understand one +is following to observe what you do." + +"I'm sure it will be a big help," Cal said drily. "Not that it matters, +so long as it doesn't get in the way." + +McGinnis came on at that point. + +"I'm not yelling for help, yet," Cal told him. "But here's what it is +like at this end." He sketched in the details, and heard a sharp gasp at +the other end from Hayes. + +"Now I'd like to stay on this problem," he concluded his brief summary. +"But somewhere there's fifty colonists in trouble because this whole +thing is out of focus. I'm not a full E, and maybe their lives are more +important than my ambition to do a solo job. Certainly more important. +Then, trivial as it is, we'd be playing right into Gunderson's hands if +we've sent out a boy to do a man's job." + +"Dismiss the Gunderson side of it," McGinnis said drily. "It's +inconsequential to the main issue. As for that, I don't know any more +than you do. There's never been anything like this. Colonists have been +wiped out on other planets, sure; but what happened left traces. This +one is an oddball, and I'd say you're as well equipped to handle it as +anybody else." + +"I don't--I don't understand this at all," Hayes said in a worried +voice. + +"Who does?" Cal asked. "I'd say set up for continuous communication. +I'll leave it wide open here, so that everything we say will come +through. Then, if anything should happen to us, you'll have the record +up to that point." + +"It's the only thing we can do," Hayes agreed. + +"If you think I should come out there to stand by, I'll do it," McGinnis +said. But the tone of his voice said he hoped Cal would shoulder the +full responsibility, not weaken out of a chance at a real solo. + +"I'm not crying uncle, yet," Cal said. "But I may have to take you up on +the offer. I hope not." + +"But do you _know_ anything is wrong?" Hayes asked incredulously. He was +having the same trouble facing the reality as the ship's crew. + +"If you were flying to Los Angeles and found only desert where the city +is supposed to be, you might assume something was wrong," Cal answered +drily. "But I don't know what it is. Do you have a recorder set up, so I +can begin trying to find out?" + +"Yes, yes, E Gray," Hayes said hurriedly. He was suddenly conscious that +he had been interrupting an E conversation, not once but several times. +"Pardon the intrusions. It was just that ..." + +"I understand," Cal reassured him. + +When Cal stood up from the communicator, the eyes of the crew were on +him. Overhearing his conversation with Earth had sobered them, made +reality come closer. + +"You think it might be a mirage?" Tom asked. "Some freak air current +reflecting from another island and superimposing over this one?" Then he +answered himself. "No. I guess it isn't. There aren't enough +discrepancies." + +"Let's pan down to the ground with the scanner," Cal said. "Take it slow +over the area where the village is supposed to be." + +Glad to be doing something with his hands, Lynwood twisted the controls +to take them instantly, in magnification, to a distance slightly above +the tops of the trees. The automatic pilot caused the ship to drift with +the rotation of the planet, keeping them in fixed relative position. + +They scanned the ground rod by rod. There were expanses of heavy tree +and bush growth that they could not penetrate. Some of these trees grew +where the pictures showed cleared fields, buildings, truck gardens, +cattle pastures. + +"Those big trees didn't grow up in a month, since the last colonist +report," Louie said positively. He still clung to his belief that it was +all a hoax. + +Cal made no comment. He was intent on the scanner screen. There were +heavy foliage spots, but there were also bare areas covered by a soft, +springy turf and patches of wild flowers. But there was no sign of man +or his works. There was not so much as a board, the glint of a nail, not +a furrow, not even the scar of a campfire. And no indication that there +had ever been. + +In the sandy patches along the banks of the small meandering river, +there was not even a footprint. + +They swept the scanner down the valley. + +"Wait a minute," Cal said. "There are some cows and horses." He held the +scanner fixed while they studied the animals. In two small herds, the +animals grazed contentedly near a patch of woods. + +"We're in the right time slot, then," Tom said, with an attempt to pick +up the spirit of treating it lightly. "They've been here. Else the cows +and horses wouldn't be." + +"Funny thing about those horses," Frank commented in a puzzled voice. "I +grew up on a farm. Those are work horses, but field horses always have +harness marks on them where the hair gets rubbed off or the skin gets +calloused. If they used these horses for work, there ought to be collar +and hames rubs on their necks. There ought to be worn streaks left by +the traces on their sides. There isn't. Far as the evidence shows, they +might have been wild all their lives." + +"Whatever happened didn't seem to hurt them any," Cal agreed. + +He swept the scanner on down the valley to the sandy shore of the sea. +They were close enough to pick up the brown streaks of beached seaweed. +A flock of shore birds were busy running up the sand away from the +gentle, beaching waves, then following the water line back down to dig +their beaks into the soft, wet sand for food. The birds showed no alarm, +no sign of lurking presence near them. + +Cal brought the scanner back up the valley and over to one of the +ridges bordering it. High on the crest of the ridge, the undergrowth was +less luxuriant than down in the valley. + +And it was here they caught their first glimpse of a human being. + +He was hunkered down behind some rocks at the crest, peering over them +at the valley below. From the shape of his shoulders and back, the set +of his head, they knew it to be a man. As far as they could tell, he had +no clothes on. Apparently they had caught him at the moment of his +arrival at the crest. + +They watched him turn his head as he looked quickly, then searchingly, +up and down the valley. They watched his hand come up to shade his eyes +against the light from Ceti as he attempted to see into the dark patches +of foliage where the village ought to be. + +What he saw, or did not see, seemed to stun him. He squatted, as frozen +as a statue for long moments. Then, on hands and knees, they saw him +back away from the crest. Now they saw he did not wear even so much as a +breechclout. When the height of the ridge concealed him from the other +side, he sprang to his feet and began to run, zigzagging in the manner +of an obstacle racer to avoid the bushes. + +"Looks like they've decided to make a nudist colony of it," Lynwood +commented. + +"And faked the pictures so nasty-minded old Earth people wouldn't come +out to break it up," Louie persisted. + +"Then why should he be so scared?" Frank asked. + +"Notice that patch of bare dirt he's crossing?" Cal asked. "See the +little spurts of dust when he puts his feet down? Now look behind him." + +The three crewmen leaned closer to look over his shoulder at the +scanning screen. Cal adjusted it minutely, to get a sharp focus on the +ground. + +"No footprints!" Lynwood exclaimed. "He doesn't leave any footprints!" + +The three of them looked at Cal, wide-eyed. Cal didn't like what he saw +in Louie's eyes. The habitual irritation and annoyance with life's +little petty tricks was gone. + +The look had been replaced with fear, and something more. + + + + +11 + + +The naked man, running frantically down the side of the slope, +disappeared momentarily under some taller growth, came out the other +side of it still running. He leaped over a small ravine, stumbled, +recovered himself, and disappeared again beneath a larger growth of +trees. Below him, on his side of the ridge, there lay another valley +with its own stream. + +They caught one more fleeting glimpse, a mere flash of sunlight on tan +skin. He was still heading downward in the direction of the stream. It +was their last sight of him. They watched for a while longer, but he did +not reappear under the green canopy of forest. + +"Just a guess," Cal said. He spoke matter-of-factly in the hope the +casualness would wash the fear and awe from Louie's eyes. "That's +probably one of the dissident men who broke away from the main colony +and set up housekeeping in this adjacent valley. Apparently the same +things have happened to him as happened to the main colony, whatever it +was. + +"I'd guess it came as pretty much of a shock and he's just now worked up +courage to scout the main valley. From that I'd say whatever happened +wasn't very long ago, not more than a week. Just a guess." + +None of the crew answered him. It was obviously not the case of a voyeur +spying on others--not with the kind of excitement the running man had +shown. Running away--that is. + +"Let's drop down into the atmosphere," Cal suggested. "I'd assume it is +breathable from the fact we've seen earth animals and a human being. +Still we'd better make tests." + +"Yeah," Louie said unexpectedly. "If the man isn't making any footprints +maybe he isn't breathing, either." He tried to make it a joke, to fight +his fear with self-derision. He didn't succeed. Nobody laughed. He +swallowed hard and studied the charts again for no apparent reason. + +Cal glanced quickly from Tom to Frank. A look at Norton's face showed +him Frank wasn't very far behind Louie in the progress of shock. +Perhaps, as with himself, it was Lynwood's sense of responsibility for +his crew that was helping the pilot to maintain a better control. But +there was a white line around Lynwood's mouth, running up the line of +his jaw. Caused by clenching his teeth too tightly? Clenched, to keep +them from chattering? + +However experienced a man became, however dependable the reactions, one +never knew how to predict reaction in the face of the completely +unknown. Yet Cal knew that even if he asked any of the men if they +feared to take him down it would be an insult never forgotten. It was +their job to take an E where he wanted to go. It wouldn't be the first +time they had gambled their lives on the judgment of an E. + +"Oh-oh," Tom exclaimed. "We have company." He pointed to an indicator on +the panel. + +They swept the space around them with the scanner, and hovering off to +one side they picked up another ship. They watched it for a while, as it +hovered there. It made no move to come closer, no move to communicate +with them. + +"From its markings," Tom said at last, "I think that's a special +investigation ship from the attorney general's office. Wonder what +they're doing here?" + +"To make first-hand observation of my failure," Cal said shortly. "Let's +get on with our work." + +Perhaps it helped the crew to realize they were not alone, that +whatever might happen to them would not only be heard on the E.H.Q. +channel back to Earth, but would also be seen by these special +observers. Perhaps it bucked them up a little to know that they were +being watched, that faltering uncertainty would be noted and scorned. +Perhaps it was the mechanical routine of air sampling and testing as +they lowered the ship by degrees. + +Norton grew more relaxed, more sure of himself. Lynwood handled the ship +on manual control with ease, almost with flourish. But Louie's hands, +gripping the edges of the chart table, still showed bloodless white at +the knuckles. Perhaps because there was nothing for him to do at the +moment, he alone wasn't snapping out of it. + +The tests showed normal atmosphere. It checked exactly with the readings +for this altitude established by the surveying scientists. To complete +the record, Cal repeated them aloud each time so the open communicator +would carry the information back to Earth where, by now, not only +McGinnis and Hayes would be listening, but probably a group of +scientists as well. Perhaps their hands, too, gripped the edges of +tables, showed bloodless at the knuckles? + +To wait, helplessly, eleven light-years away might create more tenseness +than being right on the scene. Yet no voice came through the ship's +speaker, either from Earth or from the observer's ship. + +Perhaps McGinnis, forgetting his eighty years, wished now he were at +Eden instead of Cal. Perhaps, mindful of his years, he didn't. He made +no comment. + +Tom dropped the ship lower and lower, each time pausing for an air +sample. Each time they scanned the valley where the village of Appletree +should be. There was no change. Now the unlikely idea of a superimposed +mirage was dispelled. The disappearance of the colony was no trick of +vision. The ship hovered, at the last, not more than fifty feet from the +ground. + +"Let's set her down, Tom," Cal said quietly. + +Tom shrugged, as if that were the only thing left to do. + +"You're the E," he said. His glance at Louie showed he was placing the +responsibility not so much to avoid consequences for himself, nor so +much to assure they were willing to follow an E's orders without +question, as to remind Louie that there was, after all, an E with them. +And if he were willing to face this unknown, they could hardly do less +themselves. + +But Louie's eyes were fixed in unblinking stare upon the ground below +them. He was frozen and unheeding. + +The actual landing was so flawless that Cal, involuntarily, glanced out +of the port to confirm that they were no longer hovering. + +"Might as well open up," he said. "Nothing has happened to us, so far." + +Norton pushed a button. The exit hatch slipped open and the ramp +unfolded and slid down to touch ground. Cal, flanked by Tom and Frank, +looked through the opening into the woods beyond. + +And while they looked, a man came from behind the screening protection +of some shrubbery. He was followed by two other men. All of them were +completely naked. + +"You three stay inside the ship until I signal you to come out," Cal +instructed. "If anything unusual happens to me, stand off from the +planet until help can come from Earth. Don't be foolish and try to help +me." + +"You're the E," Tom repeated. When a man is outside his own knowledge, +heroics might do more harm than good. + +Cal stepped through the exit and walked slowly down the ramp. + +The three colonists seemed in no panic. They walked toward him, also +slowly, obviously in attempt at dignified control. Yet their faces were +breaking into broad grins of relief and welcome. + +Cal stepped off the ramp, took a step toward them, then it happened. + +He heard breathless grunts of surprise and pain behind him. He whirled +around. The three crewmen were lying awkwardly on the ground. There was +no ship. The three crewmen were completely naked. + +Cal felt the stirring of a breeze, and looked down quickly at his own +body. He also was nude. + +He turned back to face the colonists. They had stopped in front of him. +Their joyous grins had been replaced by grimaces of despair. + +Behind him the crewmen were in the act of getting to their feet. A quick +glance showed Cal none was hurt. Louie looked around, dazed and +uncomprehending. There was not so much as a bent blade of grass to show +where the ship's weight had pressed. Louie sank down suddenly on the +ground and buried his face in his hands. + +Tom and Frank stood over him, in the way a man would try to shield some +wounded portion of his own body, instinctively. + +A fact obvious to all of them was that their own communication with +Earth had been shut off. In this daylight they could not see the +observer ship hovering out in space, but its occupants had no doubt seen +them, seen what had happened. It, no doubt, was telling Earth what it +had seen--the attorney general's office, at any rate. Doubtful that it +was including E.H.Q. in its report. Problematical that the attorney +general would tell E.H.Q. what had happened. + +Cal hoped the observers would have enough sense not to try to land. + + + + +12 + + +A second shock, powerfully magnified, hit him then. Because he was +personally involved? + +For what seemed an interminable time, Cal's mind ceased to function +rationally, and like an animal suddenly faced with the unknown he froze, +shrank within himself, stood motionless. Yet far down within his mind, +there was still detached observation, as if a part of him were removed +from all this, still in the role of disinterested observer. + +The crew behind him was likewise frozen in tableau. And the colonists in +front of him. A balance in number, with himself in between, a still +picture from a modernist ballet. + +Or a charade. Guess what this is! + +He felt laughter bubbling to his lips, recognized it for the beginning +of hysteria, and the impulse was washed away. + +With that portion of detached curiosity he watched his mind functioning, +darting frantically here and there for rational explanation, and +momentarily taking refuge in irrationality. It was all being done with +trick photography! Such a sudden transition could take place in a motion +picture, a transition from reality into a dream sequence lying discarded +on the cutting-room floor. + +Reversion to the primitive, accounting for the phenomena by devising a +mind more powerful than his own. The childhood view of the omnipotent +parent, reality's disillusionment, the parent substitute, the creation +of a god in his parent's image without the weakness of his parent, so +that he might go on in perpetual irresponsibility since he could now +place responsibility outside himself. + +Or this was a fairy story in which he lived. This was the spell of +enchantment. This was magic. And at the first concept of magic, the +first lesson of E sharpened into focus once more. + +"Anything is magic if you don't understand how it happens, and science +if you do." + +In that odd, detached portion of his mind he deliberately used the +statement as a foundation. Upon it he reconstructed the science of E. +The universe and all in it is logical, logical at least to man because +he is part of that universe, of its essence. There can be nothing in the +universe that is wrong, or out of place, except and only as the limited +interpretation of man who sees a force in terms of a threat to the +ascendancy of himself-and-his at the center of things. This is the sole +basis of morality, and prevents man's appreciation of total reality. + +He had been trapped in the first concept, and was accepting these +phenomena as a statement of Eminent Authority. But what if this were not +the whole of reality, what then? + +Once begun, his mind progressed rapidly through the seven stages of E +science, and in the seventh he found rationality. If there is only one +natural law, and we see it only in seemingly unrelated facets because of +our ignorance, because we cannot apperceive the whole, then this, too, +is no more than another facet. + +Perhaps it was this which broke the spell. Perhaps it was the movement +of the colonists. They were moving, withdrawing, walking backward step +by step. Their faces were masks of despair, and in them Cal read the +knowledge that what had just happened to him, his men, his ship, had +previously happened to them. + +Slowly they backed away, backed out of the open space, sought the +shelter of a great and spreading tree at the edge of the clearing. There +they paused. + +It was a return to ballet, a gravely executed change in the proportions +of the tableau. They stood, a drooped and huddled group, cowering +beneath the tree, in nude dejection, in the suggestion of a wary crouch, +uncertain whether to flee precipitously, or freeze to make themselves as +small and inconspicuous as possible. + +In the same grave choreography he turned to look at his crew. And at the +turning, as if on signal, on musical cue, Tom and Frank began the +pantomime of urging Louie to his feet. Louie looked at the two standing +men alternately. With bloodless lips he tried to grin wryly, +apologetically, for what his nervous system was doing to his body +against his will. + +The old flash of an expression which seemed to say, "This is just the +kind of dirty trick life always plays on me," came back into his eyes +for an instant, and he tried to grin. But the attempt was a grimace of +terror. He cowered back down at their feet, his courage swamped in funk. + +"Let's get him under the tree," Cal said, and wondered why he had spoken +in such a low voice, almost a whisper. That, too, was a part of the +classical pattern of fear, to make no noise. As was getting him under +the tree, an animal's instinct to hide from the eyes of the unknown. + +As the four of them approached the tree, with Tom and Frank +half-carrying, half-dragging Louie--and he still trying to make his legs +behave, support him--the colonists made a fluttering movement of +uncertainty, as if to bolt, to run in panic, farther and farther back +into sheltering protection of the deep forest. + +But they stood their ground, in acceptance. The seven men came together +under the protecting branches of the tree. Protection? From what? + +Louie sank down gratefully, and clutched the trunk of the tree, as if, +on a high place, he feared falling. + +"Sorry," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Just can't help it." + +One of the colonists answered first, the tall, leather-faced, +spare-framed one. Stamped on his face was his origin, the imperishable +impression of the West Texan, grown up in a harsh land that can be made +responsive to man's needs only through strength, his will to survive +against all odds. + +"It figgers," the man said in his quiet drawl. "We've all been like that +for days, maybe a week or more. Lost count. You're doin' all right. +Better than some." + +Cal drew a deep breath, consciously squared his shoulders, fought off +the urge to like dejection. + +"Then everybody's still alive?" he asked. + +"Oh yeah, sure. Nobody's kill't. Just hidin' out in the woods, and +mostly from each other. It's a turrible thing." He looked down at +himself with a wry grimace. "Not outta shame," he added. "We've seen +naked bodies before. Just plumb scared, I guess." + +To talk, to hear himself talking, and that to strangers, to tell +somebody about it, seemed to restore some confidence in himself. +Something of quiet dignity came back over him, a knowledge of +responsibility for leadership. He straightened, as if silently reminding +himself that he was a man. + +"I'm Jed Dawkins," he said. "Sort of the kingpin of the colony, I reckon +you might say. Mayor of Appletree, or what was Appletree. I don't +rightly know if I'm mayor of anything now. This here is Ahmed Hussein, +and this miserable hunk o' man is Dirk Van Tassel. Manner of speakin'," +he amended. "He ain't no more miserable than the rest of us." + +"I'm Calvin Gray," Cal answered. He indicated his crew. "This is Tom +Lynwood, Frank Norton, Louie LeBeau. They're all good men. Just under +the weather right now." + +"You should'a seen us when it first happened," Jed said with feeling. "I +reckon you're the E? Come to find out why we didn't communicate?" He +spread his open hands and waved them to indicate the area around him. +"Now you see why we didn't. Hollerin' loud as we could wouldn't do the +job, and that's all we got left." + +Somehow the introductions relaxed them all a little, as if the familiar +formality provided some kind of normalcy in an incredible situation. + +"Don't seem right hospitable, just standin' here," Jed added with a +shrug. "But there ain't no house, nor camp, nor fire to share with you." + +"We're not suffering at the moment, except mentally," Cal reassured him. +Involuntarily he glanced up at the spreading branches of the tree, as if +to reassure himself also; then grinned in self-consciousness at the +pantomime of fear. "First thing is to find out what happened." + +"Might as well hunker down right here on the ground," Jed said. "One +place is good as another right now." + +The men all crouched or sat on the dead leaves which carpeted the +ground. Cal suddenly realized he was glad to take the strain from his +legs, as if he had been maintaining stance through sheer will. + +"It is a poor greeting to visitors from home," Ahmed spoke up, then +cleared his voice in surprise to hear himself speaking. "We cannot even +provide a cup of coffee." + +"Cain't have no fire," Dawkins explained. "See?" + +He picked up two dead twigs laying on the ground near him. He began +rubbing them together, in the ancient way of creating fire. The two +sticks flew apart and out of his hands. + +"Try it," he invited Cal. + +Curious, even unbelieving, Cal picked up two broken branches. He started +to rub them together. He felt them twisted, wrenched, and pulled out of +his hands. He saw them flying through the air with a force he had not +provided. He got up, picked them up again, sat back down, and held the +sticks very tightly in his hands. He tried to bring them together. +Suddenly, he simply lost interest. + +"Oh to hell with it," he said unexpectedly, and dropped the sticks. His +astonishment at himself was a shock. + +There was a kind of chuckle from Van Tassel, one without mirth. "Kind of +gets you, doesn't it?" he said. + +Cal looked at his hands, and at the sticks laying beside him. + +"Now why would I do that?" he asked. "All at once it seemed unimportant +to start a fire, or even try. What's happened here? What's been going +on?" + +"Cain't explain it," Dawkins said. "Sort of hoped you bein' an E, and +all ..." + +"Maybe if you told me just what happened, started at the beginning when +everything was normal...." + +"Something else you should tell him, Jed," Ahmed spoke up. He looked at +Cal, and explained himself. "We don't think easily," he added. "Can't +keep our minds on anything for more than a minute or so. In fact, I'm a +little surprised that we've been able to carry on the conversation this +long. From the way we've been behaving, I would have expected more that +we'd have wandered away back into the woods before now--simply left you +to your own devices without interest in you. Strange." + +"Yeah," Jed confirmed, "I was thinkin' that, too. Funny thing. Right now +I feel like I could tell the whole yarn. I feel like ... Well, while I'm +in the mood I'd better git it said. Don't know how long I can keep +interested. + +"Well, there we were, one day, seems like it ought to be about a week +ago, give or take a couple of days. Anyway, I remember it was around +noon...." + + + + +13 + + +It was one day around noon. + +Jed Dawkins had come in early from his experimental field to get his +dinner, well, city folks would call it lunch, and so he'd be ready +afterwards for a talk with the colony committee. He'd eaten his lunch, +all right, a good one. There was never any scarcity of food on Eden. +Always plenty, and wide variety. If anything, a man ate too much and +didn't have to work hard enough to get it. That was the main thing that +had been wrong with Eden, right from the start. Man was ordained to earn +his bread by the sweat of his brow, and there's no reason to sweat for +it on Eden. + +He was lying on the hammock that was stretched between two big trees in +the front yard of his house. The house was set a little way off from the +rest of the village, oh maybe five hundred yards more or less, not so +far he couldn't be handy when he was needed by the colony, but still far +enough to give a man some space. + +The domestic sound of rattled pots and pans came from the kitchen window +where his wife Martha was washing up after dinner. It was a drowsy, +peaceful time. Honeybees they'd brought from Earth were buzzing the +flowers Martha had planted all around. A bird was singing up in the +trees above him. A man ought to be pretty contented with a life like +that, he remembered telling himself. Ought to be. + +He felt like taking a nap, but made himself keep awake because the +committee was coming right over, and he didn't want to wake up all +groggy, the way a man does when he sleeps in the daytime. Couldn't +afford to be groggy because the committee was all set up to scrap out +something that was splitting the colony right down the middle. + +He remembered looking out at the fields where the grains and vegetables +were growing, thinking how easy it was to farm here--plenty of rain, +plenty of sun, no storms to flatten and ruin the crops, not even enough +insect pests to worry a man. He looked out at the fenced pastures where +the colony's community stock grazed. + +The horses had eaten their fill and were ambling up from the drinking +pond, getting ready to take a siesta of their own in the shade of some +trees at the corner of their pasture. The cows were already lying down +in a grove of trees and were sleepily chewing their cuds. The green +grass around them was so tall he could barely see their heads and backs. + +His house was on top of a little hill, knoll you might call it. Martha, +like himself, had been raised in West Texas where all you could see, as +the city feller said, was miles and miles of miles and miles. She never +could stand not being able to see a long ways off, and she'd picked out +this spot herself. They could see all the valley and the sea, and some +dim shapes of islands in the distance. Right nice. + +Yes, it was all very peaceful--and tame. + +That was the main trouble in the colony. Too tame. Some of them got +restless. They argued the five-year test was all right for most planets. +You needed every bit of it to prove that man could make it there, or +couldn't, or how much help he would need from Earth, maybe for a while, +maybe always. + +On Eden you didn't have to prove anything. There wasn't anything to make +a man feel like a man, proud to be one. Maybe that would be all right +for ordinary folks, but for experimental colonists it was a slow +death--almost as bad as living on Earth. + +Sure, they'd made their complaints to Earth. Half a dozen times or maybe +more. They'd asked for an inspector to come out and see for himself, and +see what it was doing to the colonists. Jed put it right up to E.H.Q. +that they were plumb ruining a prime batch of colonists with this easy +living. + +A man had to stretch himself once in a while if he expected to grow +tall. + +Some of the colonists were getting so lazy they'd stopped bitching and +were even talking about maybe just staying on here after the +experimental was over--maybe getting a doctor to reverse the operation +so they could have kids--which, of course, you couldn't have in an +experimental colony. + +And that was bad. What with easy living and wanting kids as was normal +to most, experimental colonists weren't so plentiful that Earth could +afford to lose any. + +Some of the colonists wanted to leave this--well, they called it a Lotus +Land, whatever that was--right away, before everybody went under, got +plumb ruined. They were all for taking the escape ship and hightailing +it back to Earth. Sure, they knew there'd be a stink, and they'd get a +little black mark in somebody's book for not obeying orders to stick it +out. But that was better than losing their trade, their desire to follow +it. Maybe there'd be a penalty and they'd be marooned to stay on Earth +for a while. But they'd bet there was a hundred planets laying idle +right now because there weren't enough experimentals to go around. + +They'd get a black mark, but after a while they'd get another job too. +Anyway, living on Earth couldn't be any worse for them than living here. + +Half of them wanted to stay here permanently. The other half wanted to +leave right now. That was what the committee was going to decide today. +He'd done some checking around, and it looked like they were going to +vote to go. He'd also checked with them who wanted to stay permanently, +and it looked like, in a showdown, they'd come along. They were proud to +be men, too, men and women. Everybody would join. He'd been pretty sure +of it. + +Even the dissenters who'd moved away across the ridge. That was the +trouble with them. There hadn't been enough hardship to bind the +community together. People forgot how to be kind to one another and get +along when there wasn't any hardship to share among themselves. + +It would mean deserting the planet entirely. Even though his sympathies +were with the ones who wanted to go, Jed felt there was something wrong, +real bad, about deserting the planet. Still and all, if they voted to go +he couldn't stop them. + +Maybe Earth would let the three-generation colonists come on out without +the total test period. But maybe not. Maybe E.H.Q. would decide that +Eden was too hard to colonize because it was too easy. Maybe they'd +abandon the planet entirely. There'd be no more humans here, and no more +coming. + +That was when he hit the ground with a solid thump! + +He first thought the hammock had somehow twisted out from under him, and +he looked up at it resentfully, the way a man blames something else for +his own fault. There wasn't any hammock. + +At the same time, he heard Martha cry out. He craned his neck quickly in +the direction of the house. There wasn't any house. Martha was standing +there on bare ground, and there wasn't a dad-blamed thing else, not a +stove, nor a chair, a dish, nothing. + +And Martha didn't have a stitch of clothes on her! + +His first thought was that she ought to have more sense than to stand +right out in the yard plumb naked. What was the matter with her anyhow? +He peered quickly down toward the village to see if anybody was looking +up in this direction. + +The whole thing hit him like a blow on top the head. There wasn't any +hammock. There wasn't any house. + +There wasn't any village. + +He saw a whole passel of people squirming around down there where the +village ought to be. They were standing, or crouched, or lying around as +if they'd fallen down. + +And every one of the crazy galoots was plumb naked. + +And so was he! He'd just realized it. + +It had all happened so quietly that that fool bird up in the tree was +still singing. Hadn't missed a note. Funny how a thing like that stood +out above all the rest. Still singing. + +Jed got up on his knees, scrambled to his feet, and dodged behind a +tree. Fine lot of authority he'd have as village mayor if anybody saw +him standing out in his front yard naked as a jay bird. + +The reminder of his responsibility caused him to sweep his eyes beyond +the sight of the village to where their spaceship should be in its +hangar, always ready for instant escape if anything should go wrong, +real wrong, that is. This ship wasn't there. The hangar wasn't there. +Nothing. + +For a little bit he thought he must be looking in the wrong direction. +He'd got turned around or something in the confusion, because there was +a grove of trees where the hangar ought to be. And it was the same grove +they'd cleared away over two years ago. He recognized one of the trees +because it had a peculiar shape. + +And he remembered feeding the trunk of that very tree into the power saw +for lumber. It was twisted and gnarled, and Martha had asked him to save +the wood for furniture because it was real pretty. That was the tree, +there on the edge of the grove. + +He felt drunk, in a daze. He turned the other direction and looked out +where the experimental fields ought to be. They'd cleared that whole +area of timber and brush because it was a good, flat land. Only they +hadn't, because that was virgin forest, too. + +Maybe he'd gone insane? He felt a flood of relief. Sure, that was it. +He'd just gone insane, that was all. Everything else was all right. + +"The calves have got loose to the cows and they're going to take all the +milk, Jed." + +He turned around and looked at Martha. If he was crazy, so was she. Her +eyes showed it. Her words showed it, at a time like this to be worrying +about them fool calves getting out. It took all the comfort away from +him. Her face was white, her eyes were dazed. + +"You got some dirt on your cheek, Martha," he heard himself saying. "And +for Pete's sake, woman, put on some clothes. The committee's coming +over, and you running around like that!" + +He thought he had the solution then. He'd fallen asleep in the hammock +after all, while he was waiting for the committee, and he was dreaming. +Of course, he ought to have known all along. This was just the way +things happened in a dream--even him and Martha running around naked. He +even chuckled to himself. He must be a pretty moral kind of fellow after +all, because even in a dream it was his own wife that was next to him +there, naked--not some other man's. + +The fool things a man can dream! Might as well make the most of it. He +took her into his arms, and she clung to him. + +Must have got the sheet tangled around his throat to choke him, and he +was dreaming it was her arms. But there hadn't been any sheet in the +hammock when he went to sleep. + +And he wasn't dreaming. + +"What's happened, Jed?" she whispered. Even her whisper was shaking with +fear, and her arms were wound around his neck so tight now he could +hardly breathe. + +"Now, now, Martha," he cautioned. "Don't you go getting hysterical." + +"What has happened?" she asked again. + +"I don't know," he said. They were both talking in low tones. + +"It's some kind of a miracle," she whispered. + +"Now there's a woman's thinking for you," he chided her fondly, joshing +her a little. "Nothing of the sort. It's just plain ... Well any +scientist would tell you that ..." And then he stopped. He was pretty +sure the frameworks of science, as he knew them, wouldn't be able to +tell you. + +He guessed that while they stood there clinging to one another, they +both went a little nuts. It was sort of like drowning, he guessed. You'd +have the feeling of sinking down and down, and there'd be nothing but +blinding, swirling chaos all around you. Then you'd kind of come to for +a minute, and there'd be the trees, the sky, the farm animals, the sea +in the distance. + +You'd look down toward the village, and make a mental note, almost +absently, that people were getting to their feet now, some of them +clinging together the way you and Martha were--and then back down into +mental chaos you'd go again. + +That went on several times, he remembered, before he'd begun to snap out +of it a little. + +"But the funniest thing of all," Jed said, and looked at Cal quickly, +penetratingly. "I had the feeling all the time that we were being +watched!" + +Cal said nothing. + +"You know," Jed explained. "Like catching an animal in a trap? Then +watching it, to see what it will do?" + +Cal nodded, without speaking. + +"It was just another crazy thought, I guess," Jed said deprecatingly. +"Plumb crazy." + +But, clearly, he didn't believe it was. + + + + +14 + + +At E.H.Q. on Earth communication had been working fine. The operator sat +back and listened with trained ear alert for flaw or fade. A glance at +the adjacent recording instrument told him it was taking down everything +said--had been for hours. + +Nice deal about those naked colonists. Maybe the astronavigator on the E +cruiser had been right. Maybe they'd all just gone back to nature, all +the way back. + +He wondered if there were any pretty young female colonists. And how far +did that word experimental take you? Some experiment! He realized his +interest was running deeper than that of a detached technician's concern +for well-operated equipment--mechanical, that is. Well, let it. Live a +little once in a while. At least dream. + +The department supervisor hovered near the back of the operator's chair, +breathing down his neck. He gnawed at the knuckles of his hand, and +hoped nothing would go wrong this time. That astronavigator, Louie +LeBeau, was probably right. Those colonists had turned nudist, and were +afraid to report what they'd done back to Earth! + +Well! + +He looked around guiltily, wondering if he'd exclaimed it aloud. He +decided he hadn't. + +If _he_ were out there, instead of that E, _he'd_ make them put their +clothes back on, on the double. Getting everything all upset, causing +all this trouble, getting everybody excited, all of E.H.Q. aroused, +taking up the time of an E--just because they wanted to frolic around +without any clothes on! + +If they were going to act like irresponsible children, they should be +spanked like irresponsible children. + +He wondered if there were any young pretty female colonists who ought to +be spanked. + +"... E Gray has just stepped off the landing ramp," the pilot out there +was reporting. "He is walking toward the three colonists. Now they have +started walking toward him. They do not seem hostile. They seem glad to +see us. My crew and I are still at our stations, ready for ..." + +Silence. + +The set simply didn't register anything more except that faint sigh of +uncompleted force fields in space. + +"What now? What now?" the supervisor pushed the operator to one side, +and barely restrained the impulse to cuff him on the side of the head. +"Now what did you do? Why did you meddle with it when it was coming in +so clear and strong? What's happened?" + +"I didn't do anything. I didn't meddle with it. I don't know what's +happened," the operator flared back. "The signal just stopped. That's +all." + +There was an imperative flashing of the signal light on the line that +had been rigged to give direct connection of the running report to +Hayes's office. The operator hesitated, then flipped open the key, as if +he were touching a rattlesnake. + +"What's happened down there?" Hayes complained abruptly, without +diplomatic softness. "This is a very crucial point!" + +"I don't know what happened. I don't know," the supervisor quarreled +back. "The signal just stopped coming. We weren't doing anything to the +equipment." + +He looked up at the continuously changing tri-di star map which made +the far wall appear to be a view into a miniature universe. "There's no +reason for an occlusion," he said to Hayes. "And the set here is alive. +It must be at the other end." + +He turned to the operator, and said loudly, "Bounce a beam on Eden's +surface. Just see if any booster has gone out between here and there." +Most of it was making a show of efficiency for Hayes. + +"Here we go again," the operator mumbled to himself, and pressed down a +key. The returning pips showed the signal was getting through to Eden. + +"Pilot Lynwood! Pilot Lynwood!" the supervisor nagged into the mike. +"Speak up! Do you hear me?" + +The operator sighed deeply. His panel partner grimaced something halfway +between a grin and a sneer of disgust. + +"They don't answer," the supervisor said at last to Hayes. "It's the +same as before." + +"Here we go again," Hayes groaned, but not only to himself. "All right," +he said wearily, after a moment's hesitation. "Keep the channel open. +Keep trying to contact them. Let me know if signal resumes." + +But he already felt the conviction that it would do no good. It was too +much of the same pattern as before. What could have happened? + +There'd have to be another review, he supposed. A longer and more +detailed one. There must be, had to be, something they'd overlooked in +the first one. Had he been right in freezing out so many who wanted to +speculate in that first one? But in the interests of time! + +The scientists would grumble, even worse than before, because now each +one of them would be worried lest it was his own field of knowledge that +had failed. Hunting a needle in a haystack was easy. At least you knew +what a needle looked like, could recognize it when you saw it. + +It would probably all end with nothing solved. E McGinnis would go out +in a rescue ship. He'd already told E Gray that he would be available +in an emergency, and this looked like an emergency. And that would leave +E.H.Q. without a single E in residence. + +Why didn't General Administration get busy and qualify more E's? It +shouldn't be so difficult as all that to teach people to think! There +was something mighty wrong with the way kids were brought up if only one +in a million could still think by the time he was grown. Less than one +in a million could qualify as an E. + +A boy had to be a natural rebel to start with, because if he believed +what people said he wouldn't get anywhere, no farther than the people +who said it. And if he didn't believe what they told him, they punished +him, outcast him, whipped him, violenced him into submission if they +could. If they couldn't they shut him up in a prison, labeled him +dangerous to society. + +It was a wonder that any were able to walk the thin line between +rebelliousness and delinquency! And if a few were able, they were still +of no use unless they learned what science had to offer as a base. Ah, +there was the rub. How to keep alive the curiosity, the inquisitiveness, +the skepticism; and at the same time teach him the basics he must have +for constructive thought? For if he were not beaten into submission by +the punitive methods of society, he was persuaded into it by his +teachers, who were ever so sure of their facts and proofs. + +Now you take this Eden problem. Probably wouldn't be tough at all if a +guy could just think. But what could have happened? + +He understood there was an observer ship out there, sent out by the +attorney general's office. Why wasn't it reporting? Probably was--to the +attorney general's office. Fine lot of good E.H.Q. would get out of +that. He was no fool. He knew the attorney general would gladly +sacrifice the whole lot of colonists, if it would give him a weapon to +fight E.H.Q. + +Why hadn't E.H.Q. sent along an observer ship also? These cocky E's! +Probably hadn't thought it necessary. Always ready to assume they could +handle the situation by themselves! + +He wondered if he dared voice that criticism during the review, get it +on record. He thought about it, and decided in favor of playing it safe. +Maybe that was the trouble. Everybody was too concerned with his own +skin, too willing to play it safe. But an employee of E.H.Q. to make a +public criticism of an E! No, better play it safe. + +He sighed heavily, and asked the operator to please see if E McGinnis +would talk to him. + +He suspected that E McGinnis would just stand off from the planet and +wait for E Gray to get in touch. Nothing seemed to have happened while E +Gray's cruiser was out in space. It must be something connected with +landing, being on the surface of the planet. + +But E Gray could signal to E McGinnis. Those pesky colonists! Why hadn't +they signaled to E Gray? Why hadn't they come out of their bushes and +signaled the danger? Surely they must know what it was. They were alive +and healthy, three of them at least. Why hadn't they used their stupid +heads? + +But then, how could they have known E Gray was out in space, or even in +their stratosphere? Well, they had telescopes, didn't they? Or did they? +Sure they did. No matter what happened to the buildings, they must have +all sorts of equipment hidden under the trees, or in caves. + +Why hadn't E Gray been more cautious about landing? Rushing in there +like a green school kid, without even rudimentary precautions. That's +what came from sending out a boy to do a man's job. Maybe the attorney +general's office had been right in its attempt to prevent a Junior from +going. What was the use of all that E training, if the boy didn't have +enough sense ... + +At least E McGinnis would have enough sense to stand off, not go rushing +in blindly. Grand old man, E McGinnis. Now there was a _real_ product of +E science, the veritable dean of the E's. + +E Gray would probably have enough sense to know he'd be followed by a +rescue ship as soon as something went wrong. And between an E out in +space and another on the ground, they shouldn't have any trouble in +working it out. He wondered if he should suggest that to E McGinnis as +soon as the operator located him. Even if the grand, lovable old man +thought of it for himself, he'd compliment Hayes for thinking it, +reasoning it all out! + +The intercom operator came on his line. + +"Sir," she said, and cleared her throat. He could hear her gulp. Her +voice was very small, thin. "Sir," she began again. "I contacted E +McGinnis. He said some things. He told me to tell you exactly what he +said, word for word. I took it down in shorthand, so I could." + +"Well! Well!" he exclaimed impatiently. His brusqueness seemed to give +her courage. + +"Sir," she said a little stronger. "E McGinnis won't talk to you. He +says the foggy, rambling way that review was conducted was a disgrace. +He says why don't you get on with what you have to do instead of +bothering people. He says not to waste any more of his time unless you +can come up with something he doesn't already know. He says he doubts +you'd know what that was even if it hit you in the face. He said to tell +you the exact words, so I took it down in shorthand, so I could. +Because--he said to." + +She was all but wailing, as she finished. + +"All right," Hayes sighed tiredly. Senile old devil! No wonder things +were going to pot, if this was a sample of E training. "Send me your +notes so I can follow them carefully," he told the operator. + +"So you can tear them up before they get spread all over the joint," she +mumbled, but she had already thrown the key so he couldn't hear her. + +Resignedly, because he knew he was going to catch it from the scientists +just as bad, because he was feeling very sorry for himself that he must +always be in the middle of things, he began to arouse the scientists. + +He felt so sorry for himself that he dropped his tentative plan to have +the midgit-idgit check the personal attributes of the individual +colonists out there--to see if some of them might be young, pretty, +female--34-24-34. + +As if the idea were now red hot, he dropped the plan of telling General +Administration that, since Eden was in his sector, perhaps he should go +out there, personally. + + + + +15 + + +The observer ship, with an assistant attorney general aboard was, +indeed, reporting directly to the attorney general's office--to +Gunderson in person. On their own secret channel, of course. Had to be +secret. All right for them to know, because they were very special +persons, but the people should not be told. + +"Gray is coming out of the ship," the assistant was saying. "He is +starting down the ramp. He is alone. He has no apparent weapons. Making +a grandstand play of it. Far as we can tell, the crew isn't covering +him. Now he is at the foot of the ramp. The three unclothed men are +moving toward him, spread out a little, crouching, obviously going to +attack. The stupid fool doesn't seem to realize it. He's ... + +"Wait a minute. I don't believe it...." + +"Well, what?" Gunderson exploded from his end. + +"Sir," the assistant gulped, "the ship disappeared, just like that." + +"Nonsense!" + +"No, sir. It did. The three crewmen are sprawled on the ground. Now two +of them are getting up. There isn't a sign of the ship, the ramp, or +anything." + +"Can't be. Has to be around somewhere." + +"No, sir. Isn't. Sorry to contradict you, sir. It isn't anywhere." + +"They probably set controls to send the ship back into space, and +jumped out before it took off. Search space. You'll find it. Ships don't +just disappear." + +"I'll search, of course. But this ship just disappeared." + +"All right, what's going on? What else?" + +"They're naked. Naked as the day they were born. All four of them. Same +as the colonists." + +"Keep track of where they put their clothes. Photograph it. Get the +evidence." + +"Sir, their clothes disappeared right off their bodies. First they were +fully dressed, Gray was, anyhow. Maybe the crew could have undressed +inside the ship, but Gray was fully dressed--and then he wasn't. Just +like that." + +"Hm-m." + +"Shall I land, sir? Place them under arrest?" + +"Wait a minute. Let's think of a good charge. Something to stand up in +court. Have to make this airtight right from the beginning in case some +stupid judge decides to make a show of independence." + +"Indecent exposure, sir? Lewd public behavior?" + +"Pretty weak, in view of what's involved." + +"A suggestion, sir. Maybe a morals charge is the most effective weapon +we could have. Attack the E structure on the grounds of bad scientific +judgment, and every egghead on Earth will feel compelled to rise up in +their defense--except, of course, those employed by the government. But +on a morals charge there wouldn't be one voice raised--fear of being +tarred with the same brush. Except maybe a few radicals that are already +discredited. Any other charge might get public sentiment aroused against +us, but a morals charge--think of the backing we'd get from the women's +clubs, P.T.A., all the pressure groups determined to dictate to the rest +of the world how it should behave. It's worked for hundreds of years, +sir. Never fails." + +"Hm-m," Gunderson mused. "You may be right." + +"Shall I land, sir, make the arrest?" + +"You've got plenty of photographic evidence?" + +"All we'd need, sir, at least for the lewd, public indecent exposure +charge." + +"Wait a minute. How about the colonists? Got pictures of them?" + +"The three men, sir. No others." + +"Let's don't rush into this," Gunderson said slowly. "Without a ship +they're not going to get far. Hold off, and keep taking pictures. Maybe +we can get something stronger on Gray than just an indecent exposure, or +at least get some pictures that could be interpreted as more than just +that. Get pictures of as many colonists as possible, too, in case +they've gone nudist." + +"You'd want to prosecute the colonists, too?" + +"Might be a smart idea. That way, nobody could claim we'd been gunning +for the Junior E. Make it impartial, play no favorites. Hm-m, even if we +decided not to prosecute, we'd have the pictures in their dossiers, so +that anytime in the future, for the rest of their lives, if any of them +gave us any trouble, we could quietly let them know what we've got, and +they'll just fold up and quit. That's worked for hundreds of years, +too." + +"Yes, sir. Smart thinking, sir." The assistant knew that already +Gunderson had adopted the idea as his own, and to hold his job he'd +better let Gunderson go on thinking so. Of course, if the idea should +backfire, then Gunderson would remember quickly enough where it had +originated. + +"Hm-m, you know," Gunderson was saying. "This could work out all right. +If their ship's gone they're not communicating with E.H.Q. And if +they're not communicating, E.H.Q. will send out another ship to see why. +Maybe there'll be an E on it. I hear the only one available is +McGinnis--that guy who's planning to fight us on that injunction. + +"Now suppose he landed. Suppose he went nudist, or we could make +pictures look like he did. The guy would have to undress sometime, take +a bath. Slap a morals charge on him. Nobody with a public reputation +ever fights a charge like that, guilty or innocent. They pay up or +knuckle under to keep it quiet. Have, for hundreds of years; always +will, as long as a bunch of fat, old, ugly biddies, male and female, who +nobody wants that way are viciously resentful that they can't have what +somebody else is enjoying. Young ones, too, so twisted and warped with +frustrations they don't dare try what they daydream about. They're even +worse. Yeah, a morals charge is the way to get at him." + +"But I understood there was a law, that we couldn't charge an E for any +offense." + +"We can try him in the newspapers, can't we? On the televiewers. That's +the whole point. We can't charge an E now, but wait until we get things +stirred up on a morals basis. That law'll be changed in a hurry, because +any legislator that tried to hold out against changing it would be drawn +and quartered by his constituents--and has enough sense to know it. + +"Hm-m," he breathed in satisfaction. "That's the way to go about it. +Don't know why I haven't thought of it before. If you guys would read +your history of how police enforcement officers got things back under +control each time some idealist started squawking about human rights, +you'd think of these things, too. + +"Now don't go off half-cocked. Just stand by. Keep me posted on every +move. If I've got to do the thinking on how to get those E's back under +police control, the way scientists were before, I've got to have +information. + +"And keep taking pictures!" + + + + +16 + + +"After everything disappeared, the buildings, the escape ship, +everything," Cal reviewed, "and you, with your wife, found yourself +crouching under the trees in what had been your front yard, without any +clothes on--what then?" + +"That was the beginning of it," Jed Dawkins answered. He looked toward +his two companions as if for confirmation. He looked at the three +crewmen, at Cal, all sprawled or crouched there beneath the tree at the +edge of the clearing. "We thought it was the end of everything," he said +in retrospect, "but we found out quick that things had just begun." + +Cal nodded. Dawkins had told his tale simply, without fictitious +emotionalism, without straining to get the horror of it across--and +thereby succeeded. He glanced at his three crewmen, to see how they were +faring. Louie seemed to have gained some control over his nerves, and +yet the way he sat there staring at nothing showed he was enduring some +special horror of his own. Frank Norton shifted his position, pulled a +dry stick from beneath the leaves, looked at it resentfully, and tossed +it aside. He settled back down and indicated by his expression that now +he could be more comfortable. + +One grateful fact, the day was warm, the breeze under the tree was +gentle, the ground on which they sat was not too wet for comfort. +Except for custom, for modesty, clothes weren't really needed; and +perhaps the shock of being without them would pass. Nudists, on Earth, +claimed that one very quickly lost all self-consciousness if no one were +clothed; that such was part of the value; that sex, for instance, became +less of an issue instead of more because, without concealment, one could +see instead of imagining, and the sight more often discouraged than +enticed. Cal wondered what the militant moralists would make of the idea +that clothes encouraged immorality. + +"It was a hard thing to believe," Jed was saying. "It wasn't like a +natural thing--like a cyclone, or earthquake, or fire, or flood. Nothin' +like that. Them things a man can understand. Even if he's dyin', at +least he knows, he understands, what's killin' him. I never thought I'd +hear myself say it would be a comfort to know what you was dyin' of, +but, believe me ..." + +He broke off and stared in front of himself. His voice took on a note of +perplexity. + +"Only nobody died. Nobody even got hurt. We was like little kids +screamin' at the top of their lungs when they ain't hurt at all--only +scared." He looked abashed. "I got to tell you, real truthful," he said, +"most of the yellin' came from the men. The women, by and large, was +real swell. + +"Fact is," he continued, "come to think of it, I don't recollect ever +seein' a woman in real hysterics. Plenty of fake, of course. Say she's +tryin' to hook some man into protectin' her; or lay public blame on him +for not doin' it. Other times, in real danger, womenfolks, our kind of +womenfolks, anyhow, they pitch right in and help. It takes a man to make +a jackass outta himself at the wrong time." + +Cal nodded and smiled. There was an attempt at a hollow laugh from +Louie, as if the shoe had fit. Jed didn't seem to realize it, and made +no apology about present company being excepted. + +"It wasn't like the aftermath of a storm, either," Jed said, "where you +begin pickin' up the pieces to start over. We--we couldn't pick up any +pieces." + +They couldn't pick up any pieces. In a way, that was worse than the +disappearance of things. In a catastrophe, after taking care of those +that are hurt, first thing a man does is gather the materials and tools +to fix things up again. The women, after soothing them that's hurt, +taking care of them as much as possible, first thing they think of is +making hot coffee, maybe hot soup. + +That was when they began to realize this was more than the desolation +following a cyclone or other freak of nature. + +Cal wanted to know what happened? Well, there he was, still sort of +hiding behind his tree. It was Martha who snapped out of it first, who +insisted that clothes or no clothes it was their plain duty to get down +to the village where they could help somebody. He'd need other men to +help him get things back in shape; she could help the other women take +care of the needy. + +And still he hung back, ashamed of his nakedness. She scolded him then, +pointed out that if everybody was naked, their being naked too wasn't +likely to start up a passel of gossip. + +He gave in to her scolding, because she was right, and came out from +behind his tree. It seemed more than passing strange to be walking down +that slope naked, in plain sight of everybody. Thing that helped was +that nobody seemed of a mind to stop and stare at them. + +Everybody had his mind on his own problems, and then a funny thing +happened. Maybe, Jed reasoned, it was seeing that everybody else was +naked too. Anyway, the self-consciousness disappeared all of a sudden, +and they didn't think any more about it--not right then, anyhow. + +By the time they'd got to the foot of their hill and into the crowd of +people, he forgot all about it. There was plenty of other things to +think about. Martha pitched right in, the way he ought to have done. She +was the one who thought of giving the men something to do, get them over +their hysterics. + +"Why don't some of you men get a fire going!" she called out, as soon as +they got to the edge of the crowd. "Something hot to drink is what we +need most. Hot water, in case anybody is hurt." + +Of course she wasn't thinking straight, not entirely. They didn't have a +pot to heat water in. Or maybe she was, because right away he heard her +asking other women if any of them knew where there might be some dried +gourds. He remembered then an old pioneer trick--cutting open a gourd, +scooping out the seed, filling it with water, dropping hot stones into +it until it boiled, Indian style. + +It might seem funny to city women, always protected against everything, +that Martha wasn't more excited, and helpless. First place, she had her +man already, and didn't need to put on such a show. Second place, she +was a colonist woman, an experimental colonist woman, trained all her +life to take care of the unexpected; and for the experimentals something +unexpected was always happening. + +Under her influence, and maybe a little under his, Jed acknowledged, now +that he'd been set straight by Martha's example, everybody began to +settle down a little, like they would after the first shock of a fire or +flood. It was all over. Now it was time to start picking up the pieces, +rebuilding. + +Only it wasn't all over. + +That's when they found out they couldn't build a fire. + +Easiest way, without matches, is to string a bow and twirl a stick in a +hole punched into another stick. Next easiest way is to find a piece of +flint, strike two pieces together to make sparks and hope one will set a +wad of punk on fire. If no other way, rubbing two dry sticks together +will do it if you can rub them fast enough, get them hot enough to make +the powdered fibers burst into flame. Or if they'd had some of those +quartz crystals from the top of the mountain to focus sun rays.... + +But they couldn't make a bow, or strike two stones together, or rub two +sticks together. It couldn't be done. Well, Cal had seen for himself +what happened when it was tried. All the men were trying it, and for a +little bit everybody thought it was only happening to him, that he must +have lost the knack, or something. For a little bit there the men were +more worried about how their wife would bring it up for weeks or +months, how he had let the rest of the men show him up when it came to +building a fire. + +One of the men tore it then. + +He yelled out that somebody he couldn't see was watching him over his +shoulder, that it wasn't meant they should have fire. + +Cal looked quickly at Louie at that point of the story. Louie was +staring, with mouth open, at Jed; and in his eyes was confirmation of +that same feeling. But Jed didn't notice the effect, and went on with +the telling. + +Everybody stopped and listened to the man, because they were having the +same feeling. Jed knew it. Him, too. The crowd might have panicked right +there if the man had let it rest, but he started explaining it, the way +a man does, and makes himself ridiculous. + +He kept on yelling how the men shouldn't listen to the women. That it +was in the first Garden of Eden that man had made the mistake of +listening to woman; that it was Eve who had egged Adam into eating that +apple because a woman was never satisfied to leave well enough alone. +And now, he said, in this new Eden, man was being given another chance. +If he was smart, if he's learned anything at all, this time he wouldn't +listen to no woman. + +Somebody bust out laughing when he said that, and it kind of eased the +tension a little. + +A woman said, real disgusted, that if the men was too helpless to start +a little fire, least they could do was scrape up some dry leaves because +in a few hours it would get dark. Magic or no magic, watchers or no +watchers, night would fall, and she for one liked a soft bed. That +caused them to look up at the sky, and sure enough the sun, Ceti, was +already half way down the sky from where it had been at noon. At least +the world was turning and time was moving. That, at least. About three +hours had passed in what seemed like minutes. + +Somebody else, one of the men this time, said why didn't they go a +little farther than scraping up some leaves. Why didn't they get busy +and knock together some shelters in case it rained during the night--the +way it often did. + +Now any one of them, man or woman, ought to have been able to put up a +small shelter in less time than it takes to tell about it, even without +no tools. Break off a limb, or take a sharp stone, dig holes in the +ground with it. Take straight saplings, trim them, stick them upright in +the ground, tamp in the dirt good and hard, lash them together with +vines, lash other poles together to make the frame of the roof, lift +that onto the poles and lash them all together with braces. Thatch it +with grass, and there you were. + +But there they weren't. They couldn't do it. + +Things just wouldn't behave. They dug a hole, and it filled right up +again. They couldn't cut down a sapling, because the sharp stone, the +only tool they had, would fly out of their hands. They even tried +lashing some saplings together where they grew, and the saplings were +like things alive. They wouldn't be bound. The vines slithered out of +their hands and dropped to the ground, and the saplings sprang up again +straight. + +Not only that. They could scrape together some leaves into a pile, all +right, but when anybody tried to lie down in them the leaves would +scatter as if blown by a wind. Only there wasn't any wind. + +Some of the women got pretty disgusted with their menfolks. They tried +it themselves, and the same things happened. After that, they was a +little more forgiving. + +A couple more hours had passed while they were trying that. The sun got +low. People began to realize they were getting hungry, and they began to +realize there wasn't any way to cook supper. + +Now there wasn't any real hardship, not physical. Nobody'd been hurt. +Shook up a little, scared for sure. But not hurt. + +The river was still flowing good, clean water. All they had to do was go +down to the river bank and cup the water in their hands, lift it to +their lips; or even better, lie down on the bank and lower their faces +into the water. They could do that. It helped a little to know they +could. + +The wild bushes and trees all around had plenty of fruit and nuts to +eat. One thing you could say for Eden, the fruit didn't seem to depend +on seasons. There was always something ripe, and plenty of it. + +The people wandered off from the village site then, to forage their +supper, for all the world like animals grazing in a pasture. They sort +of hung together, in herds, glad to be together--then. + +By dark they all came back and sat around in a circle, the way people in +the wilds sit around a campfire. It seemed funny without a campfire. The +darker it got, the funnier it felt. The more you thought about it, the +stranger it got. The excitement had begun to wear off, and people were +starting to think a little. It got stranger and stranger. In the dusk +you could see the same thought in all the gleaming eyes. + +They couldn't have fire! + +Maybe the strangest thing of all, nobody was trying to explain what had +happened. Now you take mankind, he's always right in there with an +explanation for everything. Maybe it's not the right one, maybe, looking +back, it's a silly one--but at the time he believes it, and that's a +comfort. + +But this was like being in a dream, knowing it's a dream, knowing it +can't happen this way, and so it doesn't have to be explained. And yet, +isn't that the worst part of a bad dream? No explanation for what's +happening in it? Nothing you can do about it, either? + +Somebody said, it being dark and all, they should get some sleep. +Somebody mentioned being thankful there weren't any children. That was +one of the hardships of being an experimental colonist, you couldn't +have children. Wouldn't be right to expose children to hardships they'd +have to suffer helpless. Only here, the way kids were, he wouldn't have +been surprised if kids would have taken to it a lot easier than the +grown folks. + +The people sort of bedded down all together, the way a herd of animals +take shelter, each, even in its sleep, taking comfort from the presence +and protection of the others. They bedded around on the ground, making +themselves comfortable as possible. One thing you could say, +experimental colonists might not be long on brains, the way scientists +are, but they weren't picked for that. They were picked for endurance, +and the brainy will often crack up under a strain that the enduring kind +hardly notices. Far as endurance went, physical, this wasn't bad. + +Up through the leaves, and in between the trees, the stars were as +bright as ever--brighter because there wasn't no fire to dim their glow. +They couldn't see Earth, of course, but everybody knew right where to +look for Sol. There it was, a tiny little spot of light in its +constellation. It was still there. + +Somebody said into the darkness that it was only two more days until the +regular monthly communication with Earth was due. That as soon as E.H.Q. +didn't hear from them, there'd be a rescue party out here in nothing +flat. So, at worst, it meant living this way only five or six more days. + +That made everybody feel better. It was a comforting thing to look up +through the leaves, to see Sol in the sky, to know they weren't +forgotten back home; that on Earth people would soon be buzzing around +like a disturbed hive of hornets, with stingers cocked and ready as soon +as the message didn't get through. + +Yep, somebody said, just like the museum collection of Western movies +where the U.S. cavalry always got there in time. At least they weren't +being attacked by no Indians, somebody said. + +Or were they? Maybe everybody asked that to themselves, but nobody said +it. + +Most everybody got some sleep. No one really suffered, any discomfort +just showed them how soft they were getting with easy living. +Considering everything, they were coming along just fine. And in a few +days everything would be all right again. They went to sleep thinking +that even if there was some equivalent to the old-time Indians attacking +them, rescue would soon be here and they would be safe. + +Because man always wins. + +Most people were wide awake by dawn. Some had slept in little bits, +waking often enough to keep a sense of continuity. Others, those who +slept better, awoke with a start; looked around themselves wildly, +realized they were lying out in the open plumb naked in front of other +people; maybe wondered for an instant what kind of party they'd been to +the night before; and nearly bolted in panic before they remembered. + +Most everyone felt sort of surprised that things weren't back to normal, +with yesterday being something soonest forgot soonest mended. It takes +time for folks to realize--things. + +Not having a hot drink for breakfast was another little hardship, a +reminder of how soft they'd got. But nobody complained. Seemed like +everybody had woke with a determination to make the best of things and +help one another do the same. Everybody was pitching in together to make +the best of things. Once they bit into the cool fruit on the trees +around them, even not having a hot drink to start the day didn't seem to +matter. + +Some of the women got together and decided it would help things get back +to normal if the people covered their nakedness, or least parts of it. +It might be all right just among themselves, they said, because +everybody was in the same fix and knew what happened--but how would they +feel when the rescue ship landed and they had to walk out in front of +strange men with nothing on? + +They picked some big green leaves without any trouble. But when they +strove to pin them together with thorns, the thorns just slipped out and +fell to the ground. Then they tried sewing the leaves together with +bindweed. Same thing. The bindweed slithered out and fell to the ground. + +One woman figured to stick some leaves together with thick mud from the +river and paste them with more mud on her body. It wouldn't stick, +peeled right off like she was oiled. One man said he could do it without +leaves, just cover himself with mud. He lay down in a muddy pool and got +himself covered with wet clay. + +He was a sight. All at once he looked vulgar, obscene. And nobody had, +before. That did it. Somebody said they were humans, not pigs, and if +the men on the rescue ship had never seen a naked body before it was +time they did. What was so wrong about the human body, anyhow? + +They made the muddy man go bathe himself in the river, and gave up +trying to cover themselves. All at once the desire to cover themselves +was a nasty kind of thinking, something to be ashamed of. + +Midmorning somebody got to wondering if the ten colonists who'd broken +off from the main colony and moved across the ridge were all right. + +Soon as he reminded them, everybody began to laugh. What fools they'd +all been. Showed you how a bit of trouble could keep a man from thinking +straight. Here they'd been eating and sleeping like animals when, all +the while, just across the ridge there'd be houses and beds, fires and +clothes. Sure, those folks might differ in some opinions, but humans +always stood ready to help one another in distress, differences +forgotten. + +In a body, they started for the ridge. Everybody knew just where the +dissidents had built their homes. But when they got to the top of the +ridge there weren't no houses there. Nothing but virgin woods, same as +this side. That shook them up. They'd been so sure. + +Maybe it was the jolt of that, maybe it was a measure that we still +weren't thinking straight, something--they didn't go on down and join +forces. Nobody thought of it, somehow. They went back down and +congregated around where the village had been. Maybe it was the +beginning of something that would come later, something Cal would see +for himself. That they were already not thinking the way humans do. +Thinking and behaving more the way dumb animals do. + +Nothing else worth mentioning happened that day, nor the next. In some +ways it was still like a dream. The way people were just accepting +things, without question, maybe without curiosity. Jed remembered one +time an E had said there was a wider gap between the thinking man and +the average man than there was between that average man and the ape. +He'd resented it at the time, of course, but now he thought of it again +and began to realize what the E had meant. + +Two or three people commented on how easy it was to go back to nature, +wondered why they hadn't all done it before. How stupid it was for man +to knock himself out chasing all over the universe, undergoing such +hardships, when all a man could ever want was right here. + +Jed tried to put down this kind of talk when it came up. He reminded +them it was Lotus Land thinking, and would be the ruination of a prime +bunch of colonists. He reminded them they'd been through hardships worse +than this, and had ought to keep their wits about them. + +Funny thing, though. He couldn't get very excited about it. Just did it +because it was his duty. Maybe not even that strong, maybe because once +upon a time, long ago, hardly remembered, it had been his duty. + +It was the next day that things got real rough. + +Somebody, in a clearer-thinking moment, said they couldn't be sure when +the rescue ship would get here; that when the rescuers came and didn't +see any village they wouldn't know what to think--maybe they'd just go +away. Shows we weren't thinking so straight after all, to believe that +you'd go away just because you didn't find our village. + +Anyhow, hadn't we ought to work out some kind of a message? Maybe scrape +some kind of a message on the ground? They decided the smooth sand above +the tide line down on the sea shore was the best place for it. + +Nobody had anything else to do, so the whole colony, all forty of them, +walked the couple of miles down to the seashore. They picked out a nice +stretch of white sand, and with a broken piece of driftwood they started +to scratch a message, just a big SOS. The driftwood wriggled out of +their hands like a snake. Nobody could hold it. Several men tried +together, made no difference. + +Somebody started scooping out a furrow with his hands. The furrow +closed up and smoothed out right behind him. Somebody tried piling up +sand, first in letters, then in code signals. Made no difference. Sand +smoothed right out again. + +Then somebody got a bright idea. All right, he said. Didn't need to use +a stick, or scoop out a furrow, or pile up the sand. They had their bare +feet, didn't they? They could tromp out the letters that way. +Footprints, close together, would be as good as a furrow. + +That's when it happened. + +Jed tried it himself. And his footprints disappeared. They just weren't +there. Everybody looked behind himself, where he'd been walking. Nobody +was leaving any footprints. + +That's when they bolted in panic. + + + + +17 + + +Jed looked quickly at Cal when he told him how the colonists had +spooked, bolted in panic. As if he expected disbelief. + +"Maybe that seems funny to you," he commented. "After taking so much +we'd spook like crazy animals and hightail for the woods over not making +footprints." + +"Pretty fundamental thing," Cal said with a shrug. "Animals are aware of +spoor long before they are aware of tools. It hit deep down into +fundamental being, a thing like that." + +Jed looked relieved. Hussein and Van Tassel exchanged glances, as if +confirming their belief that an E would understand their problems. Cal +appreciated the confidence expressed in that glance, but did not feel it +was justified. It was now pretty obvious that this was some alien +co-ordinate system, never before encountered by man. But how to get hold +of it? How to reconcile with it? Coexist with it? + +Never before encountered by man? What if the myths of early man be true? +And too authentic the legends of his being a pawn to the will of the +gods? Could there have been some factual basis for the gods? And not, as +was supposed, rationalizations dreamed up by man to account for the +control of phenomena at a level beyond his own power to control? + +"It's been bad since then," Jed continued. "Seems like once they got +the wind up, the whole thing hit them all over again. Like cattle in a +stampede, they didn't have a lick of sense. They didn't even stay +together. They scattered in all directions, hid out in the bushes from +each other. + +"You could hunt for 'em, call for 'em, yell your lungs out. You could +pass within ten feet of one of 'em, callin', pleadin', and they wouldn't +say a word. Just stand there and watch you like a hunted animal, not +even breathin' lest you discover them. + +"After a couple of days, some of us kind of pulled ourselves +together--me and Martha, Ahmed and Dirk here. Maybe a dozen of us now +have got together again. Funny thing though, even so, all we want is to +hide. Can't get over hidin', somehow. That's why you didn't see us from +the air. We was hidin' from you. + +"Martha, couple other womenfolks, they practically had to push us out of +the woods to come greet you, lead you to us. They wouldn't come +themselves, being naked and all. They told us, first thing was to get +some clothes for them from the ship. + +"We was countin' on the arrival of your ship to bring the rest of the +colonists back to their senses. Some ain't been found yet, not since the +footprint thing. If they were watchin' you from hidin' places, if they +also saw your ship disappear--well now, I just don't know." + +"There'll be another ship from Earth," Cal said. "In a matter of fifteen +or twenty hours at most. We were communicating at the time. They'll know +we didn't cut out through choice." + +"Yes," Tom Lynwood confirmed. "As I remember, I got cut off in the +middle of a sentence. They'll know something was wrong." + +"There's another ship out there right now," Cal added. "Not an E.H.Q. +ship, but one that would have seen what happened. We'll not count on +anything from them, but an E.H.Q. ship will be here soon, probably with +an E on board--McGinnis." + +"Don't know what good it would do," Jed said despondently. "That ship +might disappear, too, soon as it landed. And the next, and the next." + +"I don't plan to let it land," Cal told them. "You'll notice nothing +happened to us until we touched ground. I'll find a way to talk to the +ship, keep it from landing until we've got a line on whatever this is." + +"You figger to solve this one?" Jed asked curiously, unbelieving. + +"I'm going to try," Cal said with more confidence than he felt. "It's +what I'm here for. Maybe I can't solve it, but I can try." + +"I don't know how you're going to start," Dirk spoke up. "We're just +like animals here. We can't use tools." + +"But animals do use tools," Cal answered after a moment. "Materials, +anyway. Birds build nests using sticks, grass, clay. Monkeys and apes +throw sticks and stones. Even insects use materials. Basic difference +between man and the rest is that man gives special shapes to tools, +where mainly the rest use whatever falls to hand. But all higher, +organized protoplasmic life uses tools in one form or another." + +"We ain't allowed to," Jed said emphatically. "Not even what's at hand. +Somebody, or somethin', is bound and determined we ain't goin' to." + +At that moment Cal felt close to a solution, or at least an +understanding of the nature of the problem, which is the first step +toward solution. But like the specter seen in twilight from the corner +of the eye, as soon as he tried to focus on the problem, the concept +disappeared. Something about protoplasmic life using materials. +Non-protoplasmic life? Could there be, and still meet the definitions of +what constitute life? As compared with our evolution, from its earliest +beginning finding some other approach to the manipulation of the +physical universe? A totally alien kind of science? Come to think of it, +the use of material to affect other material was a cumbersome, indirect, +awkward way of going about it, as compared with ... + +Compared with what? + +The concept would not yet allow him full focus upon it. He filed it away +for future contemplation. + +He saw Dawkins and the other colonists looking at him defiantly, as if +interpreting his silence to be doubt of their veracity about the taboo +on tools. Their eyes challenged him to disbelieve them, to find out for +himself. + +"Other than the feeling of being watched," he said carefully, "have you +had any sign, any other evidence or indication of somebody, or +something? I know about the feeling, because I feel it too. And very +strongly, right now. But any specific evidence?" + +Jed Dawkins looked relieved at the confession. + +"Everything's the evidence. Everything that's happened. What more +evidence would you want?" he said. + +"One of the strongest arguments in favor of something, or some kind of +intelligence," Cal said slowly, "is that nobody's been hurt. All natural +law hasn't been canceled. We still have light radiation, heat radiation, +gravity, water still flows, the planet still turns. Trees still grow and +fruit still ripens. We can talk and be understood, using our tongues and +minds as tools. We can still eat and drink. We can still know. + +"This is no chaotic co-ordinate system that defies all natural law. This +is a deliberate manipulation of some natural laws to get a result. Man +manipulates natural laws by the use of tools and materials, but he +doesn't suspend them. Here, apparently without tools, at least tools we +can perceive, natural law is manipulated, but not suspended. + +"When the village disappeared, no one was hurt. A lot of people were +caught in awkward positions and fell, some of them several feet. There +should have been at least a few broken bones, pulled ligaments. There +weren't. Our ship landed safely. We were a long time in the atmosphere +of Eden, and for a few minutes there on the ground we were still using +tools of a high order. It was only when danger of real harm to us was +past that the ship disappeared." + +"I reckon it's comfortin' to know we ain't meant to be hurt," Jed said, +and looked at his two companions. "I guess it is," he repeated +doubtfully. "Maybe it ain't something as nice and familiar as a cyclone, +or a den of rattlesnakes, something you could understand, but you got +to admit we ain't been hurt yet." It was as if he were arguing the point +with his companions. + +"Something I've been noting, Jed," Ahmed spoke up. "A discrepancy of a +sort that has me puzzled. Sun reckoning, we've been able to keep our +minds on this subject for over two hours now. As if, whatever this is +manipulating natural laws can also manipulate the way our minds work." + +"Yeah," Jed admitted slowly, his face thoughtful. He turned to Cal. +"Like I said at the start. Our minds have sort of wandered of late. +Start to do something, and first thing y'know, we're doin' something +else. Can't keep our minds on one thing very long--like animals." + +"That might be no more than the aftermath of deep shock," Cal said. + +"It's for a purpose!" + +Startled at the outburst, they all turned and looked at Louie. + +"It's for a purpose," Louie repeated in a kind of rapture. "They want us +to understand we are being watched over, cared for. That colonist you +all laughed at was right. This is the first Garden of Eden, where man +lived in complete innocence. Now man has been returned to it, to live +again in complete innocence. You do not think straight because there is +no reason. You will be cared for. Woe unto him who seeks to despoil it +again by seeking vain knowledge!" + +His eyes were wild, his face contorted with a mixture of exaltation and +condemnation. + +"Shut up, Louie," Tom said in a low, firm voice. + +"We understand," Jed said tolerantly. "Some of the colonists are talkin' +the same way. He's got plenty of company." + + + + +18 + + +All the rest of that day, and throughout the following, Cal and Tom +worked with Jed in trying to round up the colonists, get them living +together again. + +By agreement, Ahmed and Dirk stayed with the small band of colonists +that had overcome their fears enough to mingle together again. Louie +frankly deserted his shipmates, and spent all his time with the +colonists. Frank, as if reverting to his childhood farming days, +occupied himself with trying to round up the stock. He tried to keep the +cows separated from their calves so the colonists would have milk to +drink, but without ropes or corrals it was hopeless. He finally gave up +his attempt to husband the stock, and he too seemed content then to +mingle with the colonists. + +The marked change in Louie could not be ignored, for he was not idling +away his time in lazy feeding and sleeping. He had dropped his lifelong +pose of superficial complaint that the fates always gave him the dirty +end of the stick, and now he spent his time preaching to the little band +of colonists. Or wandering through the forests and undergrowth calling, +praying, comforting. + +Cal felt no condemnation for him. He was not the first man, seemingly +dedicated to science, who, confronted with mysteries beyond his power to +comprehend, reverted to childlike superstitious awe for an explanation. +In the face of mystery or catastrophe, it takes a faith beyond the +capacity of most to continue believing that the universe has a rational +order to its laws that can be comprehended if man persists. It is +temptingly easy for man to revert back to the irresponsibility of +childhood, assuming that the control of phenomena is in the hands of +those stronger, wiser than he. It takes a strength, in the face of this +temptation, to go on believing that man _can_ know, that it is not +morally wrong for him to know. + +No blame then for Louie. + +Tom was torn in his loyalties. He frequently remembered that away from +E.H.Q. the crew become the E's attendants, and that their first duty is +always to the E. But separation from the other two men of his crew was +like the loss of a part of himself. To these also he had a duty. He +tried to solve his problem by alternating his time, spending part of it +with Cal, the remainder with his crew. + +Cal and Jed made a trip the following morning across the ridge, and +found the dissident group huddled together in abject terror. They had +seen the ship coming down through the atmosphere and, all together, they +had climbed the ridge, where one of their scouts had recently gone, to +watch the ship's landing--and its disappearance. + +Once they were found, it took little persuasion to convince them they +should return to the other colonists, that differences of opinion meant +nothing now as against the need of human beings to cling together in the +face of catastrophe. + +But they too were having trouble thinking in a straight line, and even +though they first appeared eager to join the other colonists, it took +some doing to keep them all together and moving forward to cross the +ridge, to come down the other side, to assemble again at the site of the +village with the others. + +And yet, within minutes, neither band seemed to remember that they had +ever been separated. + +By the time they had returned, it was apparent that Louie was succeeding +where Jed had failed in finding the colonists. In the few hours that +had elapsed, the nucleus had tripled in size. Louie's wandering through +the brush, calling, pleading with them to follow him, promising there +was no danger if they would allow him to watch over them, intercede for +them with Those who had caused all this, had indeed coaxed them from +their hiding places, calmed their fears. + +And still through the day he toiled, finding them, bringing them back +into the fold, one and two and three at a time, until, at last, by Jed's +count, all were there, no more missing. + +And yet, in spite of his success, there was a kind of hurt and +disappointment in Louie's eyes. For once back, they not only forgot +their fears, they seemed also to forget him. They coalesced into a +placid herd, without memory of their panic. Without memory of the +shepherd who had found the lost sheep and returned them to the fold. + +They wandered among the trees and bushes, picking fruit and nuts, eating +leaves and stems and flowers of plants. They wandered down to the river +to lie prone on the sand, dip their faces into the clear cold water to +drink. During the heat of the day they bathed in the river, and as they +lay on white sand or grassy slopes to dry, they slept contentedly. + +The phenomenon was not as startling to Cal as it might have seemed to +others. + +On Earth, gradually learned through trial and error, experimental +colonists were not picked for their jobs because of flexible, incisive, +or brilliant minds. Quite the contrary. The basic test of a successful +colonist was endurance--the endurance of hardship, privation, the stoic +indifference to conditions of discomfort, monotony, pain, uncleanliness, +immodesty--conditions which would send a more imaginative or sensitive +temperament into a downward-spiraling syndrome of failure. They were the +kind of men and women who, on Earth in an earlier time, had been able to +endure the harshness of the sea, of arctic cold, jungle disease, desert +heat; to make those first steps in taming a hostile environment, so that +men with less endurance, but with more delicately poised and sensitive +minds, following them might then endure. + +It was characteristic of such men and women, even under Earth +conditions, that they seldom questioned their reasons for these things. +They simply went, and endured, and tamed. Even on Earth, when the taming +had been done, they moved on. This was the stuff of the experimental +colonist. + +Now, here, that temperament still persisted. They had fled in panic, but +now they had returned to their original purpose--to endure. It was +enough. + +Louie was to learn, in disappointment, that failure to be curious about +scientific reasoning was usually accompanied by an equal failure to be +curious about philosophical implications. They listened idly to his +exhortations, but their eyes did not light with fire nor cloud with +doubt. They simply wandered away after a time and ate or slept. + +In the evening of that second day, Cal sat with Tom and Jed down by the +bank of the river where the sky was clear and the stars beginning to +shine. They were talking quietly of home, of Eden, of the colonists who, +more and more, seemed to take on the character of a contented herd of +animals. So far there had been no attempt of the old males to drive the +young ones out of the herd, destroy them, but that might come in time; +as surely as the old males on Earth by tacit agreement on both sides, +were always able to work up a war for the purpose of weeding out and +destroying lusty young male competition. + +They were talking of the curious fact that all three of them seemed able +to continue thinking in a straight line, hold their minds to a subject, +while all the rest grew more vague, less retentive, more content to live +from moment to moment, without concern for past or future. + +Except Louie. He too seemed able to hold his thinking in a straight +line, one tangential to theirs. He seemed, in these hours, to have +turned wholly mystical, to a stronger belief that they were being +watched and cared for by some higher power, and that this was for a +purpose. Yet not so tangential, for Cal had come to the same conclusion, +although his interpretation differed. + +"I can't doubt that there is an intelligent direction of this peculiar +co-ordinate system," he said to Tom and Jed. "But I must doubt it is +supernatural in the way Louie interprets. Anything appears to be magic +when we don't understand how it happens, and becomes science when we +do." + +He paused, and looked at his companions' faces in the starshine. They +were quiet, reposed, listening. + +"Ever since man got up off the bottom of his ocean of air," he said, +"and out into space, we've been prepared to run into some form of +intelligence which doesn't behave the way we do. Not prepared to do +anything about it, you understand," he said with a shrug. "Just +theoretically prepared that it might happen. It was a possibility. Now +it does seem to have happened. E McGinnis asked me, before I left Earth, +if I thought Eden was an alluring trap, especially baited to catch some +human beings. It begins to appear that it is." + +"I've caught many a wild animal in my day," Jed said slowly, +thoughtfully. "I've pinned 'em up in cages, watched how they behaved. I +guess scientists do that all the time. Don't want to hurt 'em, fact make +'em as comfortable as they can--just want to know about 'em. Sometimes, +after I watched them awhile I'd turn 'em aloose and watch 'em scoot back +to their natural world. That could happen to us. Sometimes they'd die, +and I wouldn't know why. That could happen. Some animals won't bear +young in captivity. We can't because of an operation. Maybe whatever's +holdin' us don't know that, and might turn us aloose when, after a time, +we don't bear any young." + +He paused and looked even more thoughtful. + +"Sometimes," he added slowly, "after I studied 'em, found out how they +would behave no matter what, I had to kill 'em, because they was too +dangerous to let run around among humans. That could happen." + +"I haven't done much trapping," Tom said. "But in zoos I've watched +animals in cages. The thought always came to me that if they could think +the way we do, they could just open their cages and walk away." + +"Now you take turkeys," Jed answered. "Pin 'em up with a high fence, +they'll back up, take off and fly over it. But pin 'em with a low fence, +and they won't. Seems like they know they have to fly over a high +obstruction, but don't figger on it for a low one. Sometimes they +flutter up against it, or try to push it over, but most of the time they +just walk around and around in the yard lookin' for an opening." + +"Natural survival pattern," Cal commented. "In the woods, in their +natural state, when they came up against a fallen log, it took more +effort to lift their heavy bodies in flight over it than it took to walk +around the log. It became a fixed pattern of behavior to walk around +it." + +"That's what they do with a low fence then," Jed said. "They just keep +tryin' to walk around the obstruction. Not enough sense to treat it like +a high fence, because it ain't high, see? No use tryin' to tell 'em it's +high, because they know it ain't. So they can't solve it. Seems awful +stupid, somehow, a little low fence, all that blue sky above 'em, and +they can't figger it out." + +"I suspect that's what's happening to us," Cal said. "We've always +argued that wherever there is matter and energy in the universe, certain +natural laws will prevail. We've learned ways to take advantage of those +natural laws, to do certain things that will make them work for us +instead of against us. + +"We've always argued that for any kind of intelligence to arise in the +universe it, too, would have to become aware of these natural laws; that +it, too, would have to do these same certain things to take advantage of +those laws; that because the laws and what to do about them would always +be similar man would have a lot in common with that other intelligence, +and a means of communicating because of that similarity. + +"We'd argue that whatever its evolutionary physical shape, this wasn't +so important as its mental evolution--because that mental evolution +would follow the same course as ours. They wouldn't be truly alien, +because science would be a common denominator. + +"Now it appears we could be wrong. Maybe our concept of science is too +narrow. Maybe we're like the turkey. We've become so fixed in our +pattern of solving a problem we can't change, can't back off and take +another look, see the problem not as it appears but as it really is." + +"But isn't that the science of E?" Tom asked curiously. "To be able to +extrapolate any co-ordinate system? I'm not criticizing," he added +hastily. "Just asking." + +"I suspect even our means of extrapolation are too limited, too based on +the relationship of things and forces to each other, too set in the +notion that only physical tools can affect physical things. We may be +looking at a low fence, calling it a log, and therefore not able to +understand why we can't walk around the obstruction in the usual +manner." He stopped, and added with a shrug. "Stupid, maybe. Or like the +turkey, the yard is so big that he never gets a picture of it as a whole +enclosure. By the time he's wandered down this side of the fence he's +forgot what he found on the other side. Never can put the whole thing +together in his mind. That's my trouble, anyhow. So far, I'm not able to +put the whole thing together, see it all as one piece. + +"When I do, if I do, then maybe like a caged animal I'll see how to +unlock an opening, or maybe realize the only way out is to fly." + +There beside the softly flowing river, where water was obeying natural +law without any trouble, the three men broke off their discussion when +they saw a bright flash high in the sky above them. All three knew what +it meant. + +Another E ship had arrived. + +No doubt the ship would expect light signals from the colonists in +acknowledgment of their space flare. + +If the ship had come while this portion of the planet was still in +daylight, they would have seen there was no village, no ship, no +equipment for direct communication. They may even have reasoned there +was no means of signaling with artificial light. + +But there was nothing to tell them that those on Eden could not build a +fire. + +As if they were present on the ship themselves, the three men could +anticipate what must be happening there. Right now they would be +anxiously waiting for signal flares to light up, to spring up like +signal fires on a lonely island where a marooned man has, at last, +sighted a ship on the horizon. + +The colonists were no longer hiding, but were freely wandering in open +spaces. If the ship had arrived before dusk they would have seen the men +and women in the viewscopes. If after dusk, they still might have +spotted them in the infrared viewers which picked up the heat +differentials and gave a fair approximation of shapes. + +The men on the ship would be waiting and looking at their watches. How +long, they would be asking, does it take those colonists, that E down +there, to get a signal fire going? + +About five minutes passed, and another flare lighted the heavens. + +"Get off the dime down there!" it seemed to say. "Acknowledge us!" + +Cal took the chance that they might have an infrared viewscope directly +on him, and he waved his arms above his head. But apparently they had +not spotted him, for there was no answering flare. + +At intervals of five minutes at first, then later cut to fifteen +minutes, throughout the long night the flares continued to light the +sky. + +"Talk to us," the flares begged. "Surely you were expecting us. Surely +you would not all be sleeping so soundly that our light could not rouse +you." + +Several times the three men stood up and waved their arms, but it +brought no answer from the ship. In the darkness perhaps the equipment +wasn't good enough. Perhaps in the night breeze bushes and trees also +swayed with movement. + +Once there was a rustle in the brush, and in the starlight they +recognized the figure of Louie approaching them. + +"This has got to stop," he said worriedly as he came up to them. "That +light is an unnatural thing. It will anger Them. It is not meant for the +peace of Eden to be disturbed by any artificial thing. And if They +should turn Their wrath upon us--woe, woe!" + +His face was stricken in the light of a new flare, and as suddenly as he +had come to object, he left, plunged back under the trees to seek his +people, be beside them, comforting them when disaster struck down. + +After a time the three men gave up trying to wave their acknowledgment +of the flares in darkness. They watched for an hour or so, and then +tried to sleep. The periodic flares continued to come throughout the +long night, as if now no longer pleading for acknowledgment, but rather +reassuring men in such deep distress that they could not answer. +Reassuring them that help was at hand and morning would come. + +They tried to sleep, and although fitfully disturbed by the continuing +flares, they did sleep. But at the first hint of dawn, Cal awoke and +aroused his two companions, and by the time there was enough light for +the ship to see clear detail upon the ground, the three men were ready +for a better attempt at answering the ship's signal. + +They went up to the village site, where the colonists were sleeping in +the way a herd is bedded down together. They awoke Frank and Martha, +Ahmed and Dirk, and told them of their plan. Louie, too, awoke, heard +the plan, and tried to warn them against it. Any attempt, he said, to +communicate with those not on Eden would surely increase the wrath of +Those who wanted only the natural state here--a wrath still withheld +because of superhuman mercy, but which must not be tried too far. + +In spite of his warnings, Cal, and those co-operating with him, got +together enough colonists to carry out his plan. + +Good-naturedly, the colonists did as they were told, but with the +attitude that it was something amusing, that there was nothing they'd +rather be doing at the moment. Any sense of urgency about communicating +with home seemed to have been washed from their minds. + +In a clear space, on the soft grass, Cal got the colonists to sit or lie +in certain positions. Checked against Tom's knowledge of ancient signal +patterns, those certain positions took the shape of space-navy patterns. + +Three men lay in a triangle. Next to that, six men sat in a circle, and +last three more men lay in another triangle. Cal hoped someone on the +ship would be able to read the ancient message. + +"Keep clear of me. I am maneuvering with difficulty." + +The signal had no more than formed when there was a flash from the ship +so bright that it could be seen in the morning sky. They had read his +signal, and now they began a series of flashes, of questions. "What's +going on down there?" was the essence of their questioning. + +It was well the ship had caught the first signal, for the colonists lost +all interest in the game which had no point. They simply stood up and +wandered away in search of their breakfasts from the trees and bushes. + +Louie, who had stood to one side glowering, now took charge of them +again and shepherded them to a grove of trees where the fruit seemed +especially large and succulent. + +But now that the ship had spotted him, Cal could signal alone. He lay +down on the ground, himself, to move his arms in semaphore positions. +But even as he lay back, he became conscious that he, too, could hardly +care less. With a detached interest that amounted to amusement at such +childish, primitive things, he watched his arms spell out one more +message. + +"Keep off! No mechanical science allowed in this co-ordinate system." + +He stood up then, and made a farewell gesture toward the ship. + +At that instant he felt strangely that he had passed into another stage +of growth, completed a task, cut himself off from an environment that +had held him back. What the ship did, in response to his warnings, no +longer mattered. If it landed, its personnel too would join the +colonists. If it obeyed the request of an E, it might circle there +indefinitely. + +Indefinitely watching the turkeys circle inside their low fence, unable +to aid them, release them. + +He did not particularly care what they did. + +They could go on, spluttering out their signals, trying to question him. +He didn't even try to read their messages. It didn't matter. Their +science had nothing to do with him, nothing to offer him. Through it he +could not reach a solution. + +Somehow he knew that already. + + + + +19 + + +"This time," the communications supervisor said with all the firmness he +could muster, "this time there must not be any interference with +communication. There just absolutely must not be!" + +"Well, it wasn't my fault," the operator retorted with an exasperation +that blanketed prudent restraint. "You heard what E McGinnis said--that +they could identify E Gray, and the ship's crew, and many of the +colonists, but that there was no sign of the ship that took them there. +If there wasn't any ship there couldn't be any communication. It's not +my fault. I can't receive something that wasn't sent." + +"I know, I know," the supervisor said, and then, worried that he may be +giving the appearance of backing down, commanded savagely, "just watch +it, that's all!" He chewed violently at his knuckle and glared at the +operator. + +"Just watch it," the operator mumbled bitterly. "Just watch it, the man +says. And what will I watch if the message stops coming?" + +"Now, now, now, now," the supervisor nagged, "we'll have no +insubordination, if you please." + +And upstairs this time more than Bill Hayes, sector chief, were +monitoring the message. The top administrative brass of E.H.Q. were +assembled in their big plush conference room used for arriving at major +policy decisions that sometimes affected the whole course of man's +progress and direction in occupying the universe. + +They sat in worried silence as E McGinnis reported the two messages he +had received from Junior E Gray. + +First: Keep clear of me. I am maneuvering with difficulty. + +Then: Keep off. No mechanical science allowed in this co-ordinate +system. + +They looked at one another under beetled brows. They wondered, at first +privately and then openly if that Junior E had blown his stack. They had +looked at many a problem finally solved by the E's, but never before had +such a ridiculous situation come up. + +And right at the time, too, when the civil government had decided to +place a curb on E.H.Q.'s freedom of movement, its control over the +experimental phases of planet development. The injunction to halt a +Junior E from taking over the Eden problem fooled none of them. They +knew that Gunderson wasn't concerned for those colonists out there, that +he was merely using the public furor to advance his own personal power. +They knew that the police worked unremittingly, unceasingly, always and +ever to bring every phase of human activity under their control. They +knew it was a centuries-old tactic to wait for the right situation to +arise, so that the lawmakers could be stampeded into passing some law +which seemed only to apply to this given condition but in actuality +broadened police powers over a wide area of man's actions. + +Yes, there was far more at stake here than the fate of fifty colonists. +In a sense E.H.Q. itself was the stake. The whole science of E was at +stake. + +And E McGinnis had played right into Gunderson's hands. It was he who +had been the E influence in deciding to allow a Junior to handle the +problem in the first place. It was he who was standing off from the +planet, not landing and taking over things as he should. + +There was obviously no danger. By his own report, the people on Eden +were in good health, and from their apparent actions, not even +distressed. + +This message about no mechanical science being allowed, for example. Did +the Junior mean the colonists wouldn't allow it? Must mean that. What +else could prevent it? But when an E, a real E, took charge in an +experimental colony, the colonists had nothing further to say about the +matter. True, when the five-year experimental period was over and the +three-generation colonists took over a planet, then it came more under +civil control, and E.H.Q. largely withdrew with the provision that it +could step back in at any time the problem seemed not to have been +solved after all. + +But while under the five-year test ... The E was the final word, or +should be. The colonists knew it. The E knew it, or should know it. +Obviously then it was weakness on the part of the Junior if he allowed +the colonists to dictate that there could be no mechanical science. +Proof of his inability to handle the job. + +A perfect setup for Gunderson! + +They decided they were forced to take a strong hand with McGinnis. +Ordinarily the E was the final word, not only with the colonists, but +with the administration at E.H.Q. But maybe there were times when he +shouldn't be. Yes, definitely they should take a hand. After all, Gray +was still a Junior, hardly more than a boy. Was it right that a mere boy +could stop investigation by anyone except himself? Tell Earth with all +its power and might what to do? + +Definitely there was a time when an exception to general E policy should +be made. Definitely this was that time. If nothing else, they must take +a strong hand to prevent Gunderson from moving in with his police +powers. Protect the E science from Gunderson, or at least salvage what +they might. + +Their conference over, they asked for a connection with McGinnis. + +"We assume you will land and take charge, E McGinnis?" the board +chairman asked. + +"Certainly not," McGinnis snapped back. "An E has forbidden it." + +"Well now," the chairman argued, and sweat began to come out on his +forehead. "He's only a Junior. We have decided his judgment isn't mature +enough for this problem." + +"I have every confidence in Junior E Gray," McGinnis said acidly. "And +every E in the system will back me. It makes no difference what you have +decided. Either the science of E means something, or it doesn't. Either +we have complete freedom to handle a problem, or we don't. Let me remind +you, gentlemen, this isn't the first time that laymen have decided the E +is a fool and tried to take matters into their own hands. Do you want to +repeat past disasters?" + +"If we don't land a ship, E McGinnis"--the chairman was all but pleading +now--"Gunderson's police will. We feel we must land a ship to take a +firmer control over the situation. Public sentiment demands it. Policy +demands it. Perhaps the whole future of E demands it." + +A new voice cut into the communications hookup, a feminine voice. + +"Gentlemen," she said, "this is Linda Gray. I requested that I be cut in +on any communication concerning my husband, and E McGinnis made it an +order before he left. If another ship does land, I must be on it. I want +to be with my husband." + +"I will not be landing on Eden, Linda," E McGinnis said firmly. "An E +has forbidden it. That is enough for any other E in the universe. No +other E will land. Your husband is all right. He is in good health, and +apparently mentally sound. At least sound enough to warn us against +landing. He must have a reason. We don't know, yet, what it is. + +"Now he has stopped communicating, we don't know why. He must have a +reason for that, too. It is probably a sound reason. E science has been +drilled into him until it is a part of his every mind cell, perhaps even +every body cell. + +"I assume he is not communicating because we can't help him, because +communicating with us distracts him from solving the problem. If E.H.Q. +decides to send out a ship on its own, and risk landing in an unknown +co-ordinate system, against the orders of two E's, which will become the +combined orders of all E's in the universe, that is their decision. If +you wish to be on it, that is your decision. + +"I am cutting off now. It will be no accident that E.H.Q. cannot connect +with me. I'm cutting out because I don't want to be distracted any +further. I'm trying to think." + +The acid rebuff of the old E left the administrative board hanging in a +vacuum of indecision, frustration. Angry determination to do something, +anything. + +They were caught between the intransigence of the E fraternity it was +their duty to serve and from whom they should be able to expect help, +and the obvious determination of Gunderson to use this incident as his +means of regaining control over the E's and E.H.Q. for civil authority. +Didn't the stupid E see the danger? Wasn't it the same danger that men +of science had always faced, the same mistake they had always +made--leaving out the human element in a problem? + +The eternal blind spot in men of science! The average man doesn't give a +tinker's damn for progress or knowledge, not really. He wants only that +he and his shall be ascendant at the center of things, the inevitable, +the only possible goal of the non-science mind. Surely the history of +science versus non-science should have made this evident long ago! +Surely there had been enough incidents in history.... + +Very well, it was up to them to help the E in spite of himself. If he +refused the see the clear danger to his whole structure--and their own +ascendant position at the center of it--it was their clear duty to +protect him nonetheless. + +They would send out another ship, a large one, a floating laboratory, a +miniature E.H.Q., at least to be there on the scene; to help in any way +they could, perhaps to counter the moves Gunderson's police might make, +at least to stand by. + +At least, in the face of all this public clamor about Eden, to show +their concern. The chairman of the board rationalized it masterfully, +without once mentioning that their real concern was to remain ascendant +at the center of things at all costs, and thereby maintained the +tradition of all non-science endeavors. + +"Gentlemen," he said in summary, "we have a grave responsibility not +only to the E structure, but to all mankind as well. In every system, in +every rule, there must be provision for the exception. Gray is only a +Junior E. Herein lies the weakness of our position. Herein lies +Gunderson's strength, his weapon for swaying the sentiment of the +people. A Junior E is not mature enough to make the decisions affecting +the life or death of fifty people. More than that, perhaps the future +progress of mankind. + +"May I point out, gentlemen, that in a showdown, if it should become +necessary for us to land a ship to rescue those colonists, in spite of +the Junior's demand that we stay clear of the planet, we will not be +overriding the decision of an E, but of a boy who has not yet proved his +capacity to merit an E. + +"We have to draw the line somewhere. I am forced to agree with Gunderson +on that. If we must honor the command of the Junior E, then why not the +Associate E? Why not the student E? Why not the apprentice student E? +Why not any kid in the universe who thinks he is extra smart? + +"The line of demarcation, the point at which civil control over the +individual gives way to immunity from civil control has never been +clearly drawn. We may regret that the issue has arisen at all, but it +has arisen. Gunderson's purpose is clear. He intends to bring the E +structure back under civil control. We must salvage what we can. Perhaps +if we concede his control over the Juniors on down, we can maintain the +immunity of the Senior E. We must work to save at least that much." + +The floating laboratory, which might have to become a rescue ship, left +six hours later. + +Linda was on it. + + + + +20 + + +There was no frustration, no uncertainty in Gunderson's mind. + +His course was now clear. His observer ship had also read the messages +spelled out by the placement of naked bodies on the grass, and in the +semaphore wavings of the Junior E's arms. The photographs taken were all +the evidence he needed to prove the morals charges he intended to bring. + +It might not be wise to allow the total photographs to show in the +newspapers, on television, for there were ex-navy men here and there who +might interpret the code. But enlarged pictures of the individuals, +separated from the total, disporting themselves in lewd, naked positions +would do the job. + +Clearly the police must put a stop to this. He would have every +organization in the universe dedicated to dictating the morals of others +on his side. No politician would have the guts to stand up in +opposition. + +There remained only one thing to do. Go out and get that Junior E, place +him under arrest, bring him back for trial. Perhaps it might be wise to +let the colonists off easy--he could easily show that it was the +influence of the Junior which had made a disgusting orgy develop there +on Eden. Never mind that they were naked before the Junior arrived. The +public could always be razzle-dazzled about the nature of the evidence, +its order and meaning. It was an old police, prosecution, and political +trick to separate a few items from the total context, but still a good +one; for the public never bothered to know the whole context of +anything. An old trick to fasten on phrases and slogans to fix an +attitude in the public mind, for a phrase or slogan was about all the +public was able to master. Anyone who had ever served on a jury, +observed its deliberations, knew that out of all the welter of evidence, +only certain isolated statements or facts, often minor and +insignificant, penetrated the juror's mind, and around these bits he +formed his conclusions. Any smart lawyer knew that, and tried to set up +his case accordingly. + +His own course was clear. + +His orders to the selected captain of his police ship were equally +clear: + + _1. Proceed at once to Eden, the scene of the crime._ + + _2. Ignore any protests from the E ship already out there, or any + other ship E.H.Q. might have sent._ + + _3. Ignore any signals from the Junior E on the planet._ + + _4. Land on the planet at the site of Appletree, the main site of + the lewd and obscene crime._ + + _5. Place Junior E Calvin Gray under arrest._ + + _6. Place the crew of the Junior E's ship, Thomas Lynwood, Franklin + Norton, Louis LeBeau, under arrest._ + + _7. Place any colonist who opposed the police under arrest._ + + _8. Place the remainder of the colonists in detention under + protective custody._ + + _9. Place E McGinnis under arrest if he interfered in any way with + the police in carrying out the foregoing orders._ + +The police captain raised his eyebrows when he read the final order. + +Place a Senior E under arrest? + +Certainly, a Senior E. It was one thing to allow these birds to wander +around, free as air to do as they please. It was one thing to let them +get away with making such statements as "The police attitude toward the +people is the major cause of crime." It was something else, and time the +E's found it out, for them to make any overt move to interfere with the +police in their performance of duty. + +Personally, he hoped the old E would be fool enough to resist. It would +strengthen his case. + +The police captain obeyed the first of the orders without a hitch. He +proceeded to the scene of the crime. + +He obeyed the second order. He ignored the command of E McGinnis, +received over the ship's communicator when they arrived at the scene of +the crime, to stand clear of the planet. What policeman moving in to +make an arrest for an illegal act--and certainly running around stark +naked, posing in lewd and indecent postures in full view of the public, +was an illegal act--would pay any attention to the request of an +onlooker which amounted to "Aw, let 'em alone, copper"? + +There was no communication at all from the Junior E on the planet's +surface, so the third order did not apply. + +It was in trying to execute the fourth order that he ran into trouble. + +He passed inside the orbits of the three other ships now circling the +planet, the police observer ship, the E McGinnis ship, the E.H.Q. +floating laboratory. He gave orders to lower his ship into Eden's +atmosphere. + +The proper buttons were pushed, the proper levers pulled. + +And nothing happened. + +It was as if some invisible shield held him back. He could not lower the +ship into the atmosphere gently, taking the normal precautions against +crashing. Very well then, not so gently. Full power. And nothing +happened. They lowered not another inch. + +A thrust. A thrust at tangent to the surface. Once past whatever this +barrier was, they could skim the surface and come back to land on the +proper site. They backed the ship farther out into space. They made +their thrust with full speed and momentum. + +There was no sensation when they hit the barrier, but they did not +penetrate it. It was as if a flat stone had been skipped across slick +ice, and they shot back out into space again. The tangent penetration +would not do. + +Very well, then. A direct thrust, full power, straight down. Be prepared +to put braking forces into immediate power, lest they crash the ship at +full power against the surface. + +And again, no sensation. Against all natural laws of inertia, they came +to a full stop at the given level outside the atmosphere without any +feeling of jar or opposing pressure at all. + +What now, Mr. Gunderson, sir? + +Reluctantly, Gunderson ordered the police captain to contact E McGinnis. +E science apparently had some kind of shield which they'd kept secret +from the people--and wouldn't there be a stink over that one, once he +released that information! Contact E McGinnis and find out! + +"Why sure," E McGinnis cackled with derisive laughter, "sure there's a +shield. I didn't make it. I wouldn't know how. No, I don't know what's +causing it. But I'll tell you what I think. I think They've caught the +specimen They want. There's an E down there. + +"So, naturally, the trap door is closed." + + + + +21 + + +Cal didn't know, couldn't have known, that his efforts to signal +McGinnis not to land were unnecessary. Didn't know, couldn't have known, +that he himself was the specimen They had hoped to catch. That having +caught what They wanted They would naturally close the door to the trap +to prevent any possibility of escape, as yet, or any interference with +their experiment. + +From the moment he walked away from the grassy slope where he had +signaled the outer ship, he moved and thought as someone detached from +ordinary existence. As he walked away from the slope, ignoring the +frantic signals from the ship out in space, he felt he was also walking +out of a shell of superficial cerebration and into a deeper sense of +reality. It was as if, in spite of E training, for the first time in his +life, he could commit himself wholly, in all areas of his being, to the +consideration of a problem. + +His conviction was complete that the ship could give him nothing he +needed, that all Earth's mechanical science could give him nothing he +needed. That it could not provide the key to unlock the door which led +into this new area of reality. He must find, must define, some new +concept of man's relation to the universe. He must again travel that +road, that million-year-long road man had traveled in trying to +determine his position in reality. + +He wandered down to the river, climbed to the top of a great boulder +that overhung a pool, and sat down with his feet hanging over the edge. +He watched some young colonists wade through the pool to drive fish into +the shallows where they could pin them, with their legs, catch them with +their hands. In their need for protein, the colonists were finding, as +many Earth peoples had found, raw fish were excellent in flavor and +texture as food. + +At the beginning of the road man had traveled first there was awareness, +awareness of self as something separate from environment. There was +awareness of self-strength, ability to do certain things to and with +that environment. There was awareness of self always at the center of +things, and therefore awareness of his importance in the scheme of +things. But there was awareness of more. + +There was awareness of things happening to his environment which he, in +all his strength and importance, could not do. Awareness gives rise to +reason, reason gives rise to rationalization. If things happened in his +environment which he himself could not do, then there must be something +stronger and more important than he. + +To be ascendant at the center of things, to remain ascendant, meant that +all things of lesser importance, outside the center, must be made +subservient to him, else that ascendancy was lost. And if they would not +assume positions of subservience, they must be destroyed. + +If there were unseen beings, stronger and more important than he, who +could do unexplained things to his environment; then it was plain that +he must assume positions of subservience to those beings, lest he +himself be destroyed. + +So man created his gods in his own image, with his own attributes +magnified. + +Was this a wrong turning of the road? No-o.... Awareness carries with it +its commands and penalties. A problem must have an answer. Conscious and +willful beings beyond his own strength and importance became the only +answer open to him at that stage of his mental evolution. And served the +important need of bringing order to chaos. Let all things he could not +do, and therefore could not understand, be attributed to those higher +beings. Without such an answer, awareness without resolution would have +driven him into madness. Without such an answer, man could not have +survived to remain aware. + +But answers also carry in themselves their commands and their penalties. +The penalty being that when one thinks he has the answer he stops +looking for it. The command being that he must conduct himself in accord +with the answer. + +The long, long road that led him nowhere. That today still leads untold +millions nowhere. For the penalty of a wrong answer is failure to solve +the problem. That non-science had failed to provide any answer beyond +the primitive one was self-evident. + +To some, then, it became evident that the question must be reopened. +Through the long written history of man, here and there, by accident +often, sometimes by cerebration, the use of the brain with which he was +endowed, man found on occasion he could do things to his environment +that heretofore had been the province of the gods--and in the doing had +not become a god! To the courageous, the brave, the daring, the +foolhardy questions then that demanded new answers. + +Perhaps the most daring and courageous question of all time was asked by +Copernicus: What if man is not at the center of the universe, the reason +for its creation? + +He personally escaped the penalties for asking it. The question was too +new, too revolutionary for the men of his day to grasp, for the +non-science leaders, secure in their ascendancy at the center of things, +to see in it the threat to their ascendancy. It was on his followers, +those who saw sense in the question, that the wrath of non-science +descended. Non-science used the only method it had ever devised to +achieve the only result it had ever been able to countenance--torture +and force to make dissidents kneel in subservience. + +But the question had been asked! And once asked, it could not be +erased! + +Still, it was almost an accidental question. For the method of science, +as something understood and communicable, as a calculated point of view, +had not yet been discovered. The key that would unlock its door had not +yet been found. + +Cal lay back on the rock to bathe in the warm rays of Ceti, almost to +doze, yet with thought running clear and unimpeded. The splashing and +the laughter of the colonists below the rock were no more than +accompanying music. + +The key which opened the door to physical science was not discovered +until 1646 by a bunch of loafers, ne'er-do-wells, beatniks, who hung +around the coffee shops of London. Later, because non-science always +persecutes those who dare ask questions and thereby demonstrate some +subversion to subservience, many had to flee to Oxford which, at that +time, was sanctuary for those who differed from popular thought. + +As he lay there drinking in the sun, the peacefulness, he sent his +vision back through the card index of his mind to find the reference, +the key that opened the door to physical science, the pregnant point of +view that would give birth to a whole new concept of man's relationship +to the universe. He found the passages in Thomas Sprat's _History of the +Royal Society of London (1667)_. + +"... to make faithful records of all the works of nature, or art which +can come within their reach ... They have stud'd to make it, not only an +enterprise of one season, or of some lucky opportunity; but a business +of time; a steddy, a lasting, a popular, an uninterrupted work." + +He stirred restlessly and changed his position to lay his head on one +arm. Not quite, not yet the key. Ah, here it was, perhaps the most +significant sentence ever written by man. + +"They have attempted to free it from the artifice, and humors, and +passions of sects; to render it an instrument whereby mankind may obtain +a dominion over _Things_, and not only over one another's judgements." + +That was it. That was the essence of its difference from non-science, +for the only method ever discovered until then was the non-science +method of making its judgments prevail over all others. + +Once this answer was discovered, it too could not be erased in spite of +all the efforts of non-science. With that answer, man had come this far. + +And now? + +Could it be that science, as with non-science, was only a partial +answer? Only another stage? Only a section of the road man must travel? +Something as limited in its way as non-science was limited? Something +too narrow to contain the whole of reality? Something also to be left +behind? A milestone passed, instead of the goal? + +What comes after science? What new door must be opened into a still +newer point of view? What pregnant new concept of his relationship to +reality must man now discover before he could continue his journey down +the long road toward total comprehension? + +He could ask the question, but it was not the right question; for it +contained no hint of an answer. He felt an irritation in himself, almost +as if some teacher in the past had shaken his head in disapproval. + +For a moment he welcomed the distracting shout from one of the +colonists, and sat up. In the shallows of the river one of the men had +caught a foot long fish and was holding it up in his hands. Delightedly, +the others acknowledged his victory, and renewed their efforts. He lay +back down again, and stretched his cramped muscles. + +Too fast! He had come down the long, long road too fast. He had missed +something, something early. Something man had known in pre-science, and +had forgotten in science. + +These colonists. Would they grow in awareness? Now they seemed only to +be a part of their environment, without curiosity, their fears of even +the day before forgotten. Wiped away, as though it had never been, was +their memory of a previous existence to this. They were wholly at one +with their environment--unaware. + +Were they to begin the long road? To telescope its distance? Would they +be able to continue living without peopling the trees, the streams, the +clouds, the winds, with spirits benign and vengeful--created in their +own image? Could they continue to live alone in the universe? + +Yes, that was the thing he had missed. Loneliness. + +In separating himself from the animals, man had cut off his kinship with +them. And so he found companionship with the gods. And cutting himself +off from the gods ... + +Loneliness. + +Was man the only thing aware throughout the universe? What purpose then +his exploration of it? What might he find that he had not already found? + +Already, like a minor thread almost unheard in the symphony of exploding +exploration, the questions of the artists were already finding +themselves woven into music, painting, literature. + +"Are we alone? In all this glittering, sterile universe, are there none +other than we who are aware?" + +The theme would expand as the purposelessness of colonizing still more +and more worlds became wider known. The minor would become major, the +recessive dominant. The endless aim of non-science to make all others +subservient had lost its purpose for those who could still think. The +dominion over things instead of people, the goal of science--was that +also to lose its purpose for those who could still think? Until man, +defeated by purposelessness, sank back in apathy, lost the very +willingness to live--and so died? + +What if some other awareness did inhabit the universe, sentient--and +lonely? What if, farther along in its explorations, it was feeling that +apathy? Facing that dissolution? + +When one is lonely, the sensible thing is to seek companionship! To +discover in companionship purpose not apparent to the alone--or at least +hope to discover it. + +For companionship there must be communication. And yet the exasperation, +the futility of trying to communicate with a friend who always +interpreted everything one said and did as meaning something entirely +different from the intent. + +Some other friend was the normal answer. But what if there were no +other? Wouldn't one extra effort, a final attempt to break through that +closed mind be made? + +All right. + +Communication, then. That was wanted. He would try. But if Their +frameworks were so different from his that They misinterpreted all his +efforts? + +He was interrupted by the soft pad of footsteps, bare feet on grass that +sprang up to leave no sign it had been trod upon. A young colonist and +his wife, hand in hand, laughing gaily, were coming toward him. The man +was carrying a fresh-caught fish. They came to a stop at the base of his +rock and looked up at him, the Ceti light glinting on their smiling +faces. + +"We gave Louie a fish because he said it was our duty," the young man +said. "I don't remember why it is our duty. Perhaps it is our duty to +give you one too." + +At least they were being impartial. + + + + +22 + + +When he had pulled the scaled skin of the fish away from the flesh, the +flesh away from the bones, and eaten his fill, Cal lay back on the rock +again, to doze, to continue his search for a means of communicating. + +He was now sharply aware of Their presence, of Their urgency, of Their +long patience. Awareness! Once man had got over his greedy delight in +occupying more and more of the universe simply because he could, to +protect himself against the cosmic loneliness that must follow, he too +would be searching for awareness. + +But he would define it in his own terms, and pass it by if it did not +meet those terms. + +That there was some other intelligence which had found man instead, Cal +did not doubt. The experiment of Eden, the manipulation of natural laws, +the denial of physical tools--for what purpose? To clear away the debris +which prevented communication of awareness as They defined it? + +There was a trace, a minor trace of awareness in man not dependent upon +the tools and artifacts of physical science--extra-sensory perception, +psi. Underdeveloped, because with physical tools its development had +been made unnecessary? Because having found the answers with physical +tools, man stopped looking for answers other than these? + +Was there, then, a science of controlling things, forces, without the +use of physical tools? Was there a road of transition from the crude +manipulation of things and forces through tools to a manipulation +without them? There was precedent in man's science. The elaborate +wirings of the first bulky and crude electronic sets, that gave way to a +printed diagram of such wirings on a card to obtain the same result? + +A step farther? The visual picture, the mental image of the diagram to +obtain the same result? But how? + +To one whose total orientation is through the use of physical tools (for +the material printed on the card diagram was the physical carrier of the +current) how to cause the current to follow the mental image of that +diagram? With voice and music bathing one's senses simply because one +thought of the diagram of a receiver? How? + +He felt like the turkey come up against the obstruction of a fence too +low to justify the effort of flying over it. Instead of flying, he was +walking around and around, looking for an opening, walking in an endless +circle. + +Circle? + +Excitedly, he climbed down from the rock and headed for a patch of bare +sand at the river's edge. + +In every framework of thought which man had ever devised, the circle was +prominent, vital. It played its part in every creed of every race, of +every time. It was as essential to the ancient arts of magic as to the +current methods of science. It played its part in the movement of +planets, the shape of stars, perhaps the essence of the total universe. + +Man might be too didactic in requiring that awareness develop a physical +science comparable to his own, but surely awareness, whatever form it +took, would know the circle. + +He sank down on his haunches beside the smooth sand, and with the tip of +his finger he quickly drew a circle. + +The furrow, scratched in the sand, did not close or smooth out! + +He sat back and waited. Nothing happened. It was almost as if the +invisible intelligence were saying, "All right. You are aware of a +circle. That was obvious to us from your artifacts. What else do you +know?" + +He leaned forward, and as nearly as he could estimate, he dotted the +center of the circle with a finger, then scratched a radius to the +perimeter. It stayed. To one side he drew another line, approximating +the radius and in parenthesis he drew a small 2. Beside this he wrote +R^2. He drew an equals sign. He scratched the pi sign. + +Then he drew another circle and with the palm of his hand he smoothed +all its interior. That should be plain enough. The symbols stayed. They +understood his mathematics, then. The equation seemed undisturbed, yet +there was something wrong with it. He had to look closely at the sand +before he saw what it was. + +The = had changed to : ! + +Why had they changed the meaning by substituting "proportionate to" for +"equals"? He felt a flash of exasperation. Well sure, without tools he +could not draw a perfect circle, nor two of them entirely equal. It was +pedantic of them to split hairs over that? He must practice, without +tools, to draw a perfect circle? + +Or was that running around inside his low fence? + +He looked down at the sand, and saw the entire scratching was now +smoothed out. Apparently he was on the wrong track. Hadn't got what they +meant. + +He wrote again in the sand: "pi = 3.14159265...." + +Again = changed to : . + +Again he felt his flash of exasperation. It must be obvious by his +string of dots that he knew pi had never been exactly resolved. They +were being too pedantic. He must exactly resolve it? Yet the numbers +could be continued to infinity and never exactly resolved. He looked +down again, and the equation was gone. + +Wrong track again. + +He sat forward, hugged his knees, and stared into the water. + +The equation had never been exactly resolved, yet man used it as a +constant, an absolute. An obvious fallacy. Was the difference between +physical science and psi science based in this insignificant difference +in exactness? Try something else. See what happens. There was an +equation which had proved its effectiveness, upon which the whole +science of atomics was based. + +"E = MC^2," he wrote. + +Again = changed to : . + +What were they saying? That the fallacy lay in using the equals sign? +That the science of psi was one of proportion. But equals was one of the +possible proportions. Had we become walled in our low fence because we +were too dependent upon the exact balance? Been satisfied to find that +answer, and therefore stopped looking for the possibilities inherent in +unbalanced equations? + +He looked down at the symbols again half expecting to see them erased. +But they were still there. So he was starting on the right track. But +wait. + +Before his eyes he saw the C^2 smooth out, disappear. Only "E : M" +remained. Were they saying that dependence upon constants was the low +fence? That man must learn to do without his firm absolutes? That was +the ultimate in relativity: Energy is proportionate to matter. But so +all-inclusive as to be too vague for use. + +For more than three centuries now, controversy had raged over Einstein's +use of C^2 in his expression. Some held that it was a product of his +time, that he was able to make only one step beyond classical physics +where all things must be related to a fixed value. Others held that its +inclusion was a deliberate fallacy; that Einstein, by his other work, +had shown he knew it was a fallacy; that, tongue in cheek, he inserted +it into his equation in full knowledge that his fellow scientists of his +day could not even bear to think of the awesome concept of things +without orientation to an absolute; that he knew they would reject him +entirely, refuse even to consider his thought unless he catered that +much to their superstitions. + +The need of the absolute was not mathematical or scientific, but +emotional. Man was still tortured by his determination to be the center +of things, himself the fixed absolute! The need of a familiar, fixed +cave where he might run and hide, close himself in securely when the +chaos of storm outside became too frightening to bear. The need of a +fixed absolute, whether in philosophy or science, a fixed spot that +would not shift. + +The science of psi, then, was based in a willingness to shift? + +He looked down at the equation, to see if he were still on the track. + +It had changed again. Now it read "E{d}M": The form of the function of +energy to matter is variable. + +Quickly, another change. "Df(em)": The form of the function and the +independent variable of the function vary together. + +Still another: "E = f(M)": There is a general relationship of energy to +matter. + +And then: "F(e,m) = 0": There is a general unspecified relationship +between energy and matter. + +He slapped his hand down on the sand in frustration. + +"All right," he said. "You've made your point. And it means about as +much as if I said to the turkey, 'All you have to do is fly'." + +There was a stir behind him. He turned his head and saw Louie. A deep +sigh, almost a sob came from Louie as he stared down at the symbols in +the sand. + +"They talked to _you_," Louie said brokenly. "I wanted only to serve +Them, but it was to _you_ They talked." + +And all the tragedy of his life was contained therein. + +Cal sprang to his feet, and put his arms around the other man's +shoulders. The two of them, the bitter and the sympathetic, looked down +at the sand. The symbols were still changing, and now read "There is an +infinity of relationships between matter and energy, an infinity of +forms to be taken by matter as you control the energy." + +The signs were wiped out, and the sense of Their presence was gone. Cal +felt the withdrawal, the sense of a lesson being over. He did not +regret it, he had enough to think about. But first, there was Louie, +racked with broken sobbing. + +Here was a man whose life had been a search for certainties, absolutes +that would not shift under the weight of his questioning. No doubt in +his youth he had turned to the religions of the day--and found them a +tissue of rationalizations without contact in reality. Then to +science--and found it, too, constantly shifting in its interpretations, +making new evaluations as evidence discounted the old. The shock of +landing on Eden to drive him back into childhood interpretations +again--at last, the clear evidence that had been denied his belief in +youth. + +Wholehearted in his belief of Them, yet it was not to him They had +talked. + +"Louie," Cal said slowly. "If you were lonely, very lonely, if you had +searched through the years for companionship, and thought you might have +found it, would it please you to have that companion drop to his knees, +grovel before you? Would this be your idea of companionship? + +"What manner of monstrous egotism would require that? What but the +incredible vanity of primitive man, to whom life meant nothing more than +conquering or being conquered, could imagine such conduct would be +pleasing to another intelligence? + +"We are men, Louie. If, in our loneliness, we found another +intelligence, wouldn't we want an equal exchange instead of abasement? +The use of that intelligence to know, to understand, instead of a denial +of it?" + +Louie twisted out of Cal's embracing arm, and ran stumbling toward the +depths of the forest. + + + + +23 + + +For another week, perhaps ten days or more, since time measurement had +lost its meaning, Cal lived among the colonists, watched their complete +retrogression into a state of unawareness. Even the speech which they +had retained seemed now to thin and falter as the simplifying of their +idea-content no longer required its use. + +Only Tom and Jed seemed to retain their orientation to the past, the +clarity of awareness. These two spent much time together, seemed always +available when Cal needed them, yet did not intrude upon his thought. +Frank now seemed one with the colonists. Louie lived on the outskirts of +the herd, near the colonists but not of them. He had ceased to exhort, +warn, command, argue. His face was closed, told nothing of what he was +thinking. + +And he had ceased to demand his tithe as intercessor. He was gathering +his own food, catching his own fish. + +And he seldom let Cal out of his sight. + +Tom and Jed helped as best they could by maintaining contact with the +old reality. They spent much of the daytime with the colonists. At night +they turned their faces to the dark sky to watch the ships, now grown to +four, bathed in the light of Ceti like a constellation of bright stars +above them. They read the intermittent flashes of light from McGinnis, +and from the E.H.Q. laboratory. McGinnis told of the police ship's +attempts to break through the barrier surrounding Eden, and its +failure. The laboratory told of Linda's presence on board, and now and +then flashed out a message to Cal from Linda of her love, her nearness, +her faith in him, her desire to be with him, her patience in waiting. + +McGinnis told of the arrival of a fifth ship, carrying Gunderson in +person. He had been unable to believe his police captain. Unable to +believe that the ship could not land at will. He had come in person to +take charge, and apparently fumed his frustration in idleness, unable to +do anything with the situation, unwilling to go back to Earth and leave +it alone. + +Tom and Jed told Cal the content of these messages, but to Cal the +reports of the police activity seemed noises heard from far away and +unrelated to himself. The messages from Linda seemed the haunting +strains of a song remembered from long ago. + +For his mind was wholly enrapt with the problem. He had been given the +key--reality is a matter of proportion, change the concept of proportion +and you change the material form--but he had not found the lock and the +door it would open. He knew it, but he couldn't do it. + +Perhaps Tom might help? Tom was well-grounded in math, had to be for his +job as pilot. + +"Look, Tom," Cal said one morning after they had given him the night's +messages from the ships. He squatted on the ground and brushed away some +leaves from an area of dirt. "Watch the equals sign." He scratched a +formula in the dirt: + + "2 + 2 = 4" + +The = changed to : . Then to {d}. Then through the series of variable +relationships. + +Tom leaped to his feet from the log where he had been sitting. + +"That's crazy," he exclaimed. "It isn't just proportionate, it isn't +variable. It equals." + +Jed was looking from one to the other, obviously at a loss. + +"Well," Cal said drily, "I'm much more interested in what They have to +say than in trying to convince Them that They're wrong." + +"But if everything were only proportionate and variable," Tom argued, +"then you'd have nothing fixed, constant. Why the proportionate +relationship might be dependent solely upon choice. Nothing would be +solid, dependable." + +"Not even the footprints under your feet," Cal answered softly. "Not a +house, nor a field of grain, nor a spaceship. Simply alter the choice of +proportion--and they aren't there anymore." + + + + +24 + + +Throw a key at the feet of a turkey and it is useless to him. Show him +the lock it fits, and it is still useless without the knowledge of how +to insert the key and turn it. Unlock it for him, and still it is +useless without the knowledge of how to push or pull the door. + +This was the essence of why so few mastered the simple steps of physical +science, the essence of why so few were able to get beyond step two of E +science. Anyone could disagree with a statement, but in answer to "What +if it not be true, how then to account for the phenomena?" most bogged +down at that point, unable to demonstrate with evidence the validity of +some other answer. + +Everyone knew the equation E = MC^2, but few could implement it to build +an atomic power plant. + +Perhaps the reactions of Tom, that taking away the concept of a balanced +equation destroyed all certainty, and therefore was not to be +countenanced, was a reflection of his own reaction, willing though he +might be to consider something else. + +In his wanderings about the island, picking fruits and nuts, stems and +leaves, catching fish when he hungered, drinking the clear water of the +stream when he thirsted, yet so enrapt that he was unaware he was taking +care of his body's needs, Cal built up whole structures of alien +philosophies on the nature of the universe, and saw them topple of their +own weight. + +Until, at last, he realized the basic flaw in all his reasoning. He was +too well-grounded in the essence of physical science, and all physical +science was built on the balanced equation. Even in trying to consider +the unbalanced equation, he had been attempting to determine the exact +nature of the unbalance, and to supply it as an X factor on the other +side of the equation to restore balance. + +To restore balance was to maintain the status quo of physical reality. +To turn the key in the lock, to open the door, he must change the +physical reality to balance the equation, rather than supply the X +factor to keep reality unchanged. + +But how to do it still eluded him. + +At times, as if seeing partial diagrams, he seemed very close to a +solution. At times it seemed the printed card of an electronic wiring +was necessary only because the human mind could not visualize the whole +without that aid, that music did not come through because in incomplete +visualization some little part was left dangling, unconnected. And the +long history of non-science belief in the magic properties of cabalistic +signs and designs rose up to taunt him, to goad him with the possibility +that perhaps man had once come close to the answer of how to control +physical properties without the use of tools; that the development of a +physical science had taken man down a sidetrack instead of farther along +the direct route toward his goal. + +Or that man had once been shown, and never understood, or forgot. Yet +kept alive the memory that physical shifts could be changed if he could +only draw the right design. + +Through his wanderings, one fact gradually intruded upon his mind. It +seemed the farther inland he roamed, the closer he came to grasping the +problem; the nearer the seashore, the more it eluded him. + +One morning he looked up at the glittering heights of Crystal Palace +Mountain, and suddenly he resolved to climb it. Perhaps the winds of +the mountain being stronger, the fuzziness of his thought would be blown +away? Perhaps the arrangement of the crystalline structures, the arches +and spires, might catch his brain waves, modulate them, transform them, +strengthen them, feed them back, himself a part of the design instead of +outside it? + +In the framework of physical science a nonsense notion. But what harm to +try? + +He sought out Tom and Jed, the two who would miss him, the two who would +care. + +"There ain't no water up there, far as I know," Jed said. "And you can't +carry none, now. Me and a party scouted the mountain once. It's mighty +purty, but useless. The quartz ain't valuable enough to cover its +shipping costs back to Earth. The ground is too rocky to farm. Not much +in the way of food growing there. So we never went back." + +"The scientists surveyed it when the planet was first discovered," Cal +said. "One of the first places they went because it was so outstanding. +But they found nothing interesting and useful either. Still, I think +I'll go." + +"Well," Jed said with a shrug. "You can't get lost. If you should lose +your bearings, just walk downhill and you'll come to food and water. +Follow the shore line until you get back, either direction. And, I +reckon, the way things go now, you ain't goin' to hurt yourself. We +won't worry about you none. We're all gettin' along all right, so you +needn't worry about us either." + +"You want me to come with you, Cal?" Tom asked. + +"No," Cal answered, "I think better if I'm alone." + +He left them then, went past some colonists who were picking berries and +eating them, and on up the valley that ran between two ridges. + +It was only a few miles to the foothills, a gradual rise of the valley +floor, a gradual shallowing and narrowing of the stream, a gradual +drawing in of the spokelike ridges until the valley at last became a +ravine. The morning air was clear and still, the scent of flowers and +ripening fruit was sweet. + +Before he left the ravine to begin his climb he ate some of the fruit, +and washed the lingering sweet taste from his mouth with a long, cool +drink of water from one of the many springs that fed the stream. + +He looked up at the mountain above him, and his eye picked out the most +likely approach to its summit. It was not a high mountain, not in terms +of those tremendous, tortured skin folds of other planets. Hardly more +than a high hill in terms of those. Nor, as far as he could see, would +the climb be difficult or hazardous. + +The fanciful thought of Mount Olympus on Earth came into his mind, +although this one was not so inaccessible, so parched and barren. The +gods of Greece would have found this a pleasanter place, although they +might not have lived so long in the minds of man, since the mountain was +more easily climbed, and therefore man would have been the more easily +convinced after repeated explorations that no gods lived there after +all. + +Would the Greeks, as with the later religions, have placed the site of +heaven farther and farther away, retreating reluctantly, as man explored +the earlier site and found no heaven there? Retreat after retreat until +at last the whole idea was patently ridiculous? + +Dead are the gods, forever dead, and yet--to what may man now turn in +rapture? In ecstasy? In communion? What, in all physical science, filled +the deep human need of these expressions? + +The climb of the first slope, up to the crest of the ridge he intended +to follow, was quickly done. He turned there and looked behind him, at +the valley of the colonists below, and far down where the valley merged +into the sea, and far on out at the hazy purple line of another island. +As he started to turn back again, to resume his climb, his eye caught a +flash of something moving in the ravine below him, sunlight on brown, +bare skin. + +He waited until he caught another glimpse through the trees. As he had +suspected it was Louie, still trying to keep him always in sight. + +His first impulse was to call out, to wait for Louie, ask him to join in +the climb. He discarded the impulse. His need was to get away from all +others. And sympathetic and compassionate though he might be, the +confusion in Louie's mind seemed to intrude upon his own. Nor had his +earlier attempts to comfort Louie met success. + +Let Louie follow if he willed. Perhaps the clean air would clear his +mind as well. He feared no physical harm, even if Louie's tortured mind +intended it. There were no tools to strike at him from a distance. Even +a boulder pushed from a height above him would not strike, for that +would be the physical use of a tool to gain an end. He feared no bodily +attack from ambush, for his own strength and knowledge were dependable. + +He began his climb again, followed the crest of the ridge where it swept +upward to buttress the side of the mountain. The going was not +difficult. The trees and shrubs grew thinner here, and provided clear +spaces for him to wind among them. The stones, at first a problem to his +bare feet, bothered him less and less until he forgot them. He felt no +physical discomfort, neither from tiredness nor thirst, nor from the +branches scraping his bare skin, nor anything to drag his mind into +trivialities. + +Nor tortured theories such as had plagued him in trying to reason out +the new concepts of a proportionate, variable reality. + +Instead, there was a sense of well being, anticipated completeness, a +merging of the often quite separated areas of thought, intuition, and +appreciation. + +Although at no great height, now the trees no longer grew so tall that +they obscured his vision of the heights above. As he climbed they were +replaced by shrubs shoulder high, then waist high, then merely low, +creeping growths which his feet avoided without mental direction. + +A curve of the ridge brought him to the first outcroppings of +crystallized quartz. On them he saw no signs of scar left by the +geologist's hammer, no imperfections where nodes may have been broken +away. They were complete, singularly unweathered. + +There was no path, nor hint of one, nor sign that either scientist or +colonist had ever passed this way. + +The ridge swung back into line, and still he climbed, effortlessly and +without consciousness of passing time. Time and space and matter seemed +to have receded far into the background of consciousness. Man's +star-strewn civilization was no more than a dream. It was as if he, +alone and complete, occupied the whole of the universe, encompassed it +as he was encompassed by it. + +Yet not alone! Their presence, which seemed so evanescent on the valley +floor, was closer now, more clearly sensed. Almost as if, at any +instant, the veil of blindness would disperse and They would stand +revealed. + +Now up the final slope of the mountain he threaded his way through +higher outcroppings of a more perfectly formed quartz, with deeper +amethystine hue scintillating in the Ceti sun's light, diffracted not +only in the purples but into greens and reds and blues. + +As he came around the base of one of these, there towering above he +caught his first full view of the greater spires, pinnacles, buttresses, +and arches of the mountain's crest. + +It was the crystal palace. + +The climb had been steep, steeper than it had appeared from below, yet +his breathing was not labored, his mouth was not dry from thirst, nor +were his muscles protesting the effort. He did not need to stop and +rest, to gather his energy for the last steep assault upon the peak. + +Far below him he saw Louie toiling up a slope, then dropping with every +appearance of exhaustion when he came to each level place. Still he +would rest no more than a minute, and always his head was turned to keep +sight of Cal above him. He would push himself to his knees, then to his +feet; and slowly, step by step, begin his climb again. + +As if from far away, Cal felt a pity at the uselessness of the +self-torture, the senseless need of man to punish himself for the guilt +of imagined wrongs; and felt a wonder if the strangely developed moral +sense of man had not, after all, done more harm than good. For in the +ordered universe, where everything fitted into the whole, what could be +either good or bad, right or wrong, except as a reflection of man's +inadequacies in his imaginings? Rightness and good, wrongness and evil, +these could not possibly be other than assessments of furtherance or +threat to the ascendancy of me-and-mine at the center of things, and had +no meaning beyond that context. + +He turned from watching Louie, pitying him, and made the last sharp +climb with no more effort than the whole had been. Now he drew near to +the towering structures of the crest, now he was beside them. Now he +walked beneath and through an arch which seemed almost a gothic +entrance. + +And stood transfixed in ecstasy. + +Magnificent the dreams of man that took form in steel and stone and +glass, yet none matched the lightness, the grace, the intricacy, the +sublime simplicity of these interwoven crystalline structures where +light from the noonday sun separated prismatically until it filled the +air with myriads of living, darting, colored sparks of fire above him. +Where the breeze that blew through the vibrating spires made blended +sounds the ear could barely endure in rapture. + +As once, in childhood, he had stood in a grove of giant trees that laced +their limbs in gothic splendor above him, now again he stood, lost in +time and space and being, lost in vision and in music which neither had +nor needed form nor beginning nor end. + +And knew it was a simple tool; Their concession to the mind of man, to +bridge the gap between Their minds and his. + +Without wondering more, he sank down upon the mossy turf of the floor +and lay supine to gaze upward, to follow line to blended line until they +seemed mirrored into infinity. + +The darting lights above him whirled, spiraled up, then down, clockwise, +then counterclockwise, reminding him ... reminding him ... + +... the internal structure of crystals.... + + + + +25 + + +Across the universe, two billion years ago, there too a planet coalesced +from the mutually attracted vortices of twisted space; gases compelled +by gravitational forces solidifying to hardened matter, forming a crust +over a molten core. In the soupy atmosphere of metallic salts and gases, +tortured and rent by electrical storms of incalculable fury, among the +vibrating crystals one formed that was aware. + +Not in the sharp awareness of later times, but at the first only +ill-defined, perhaps no more than the awareness of acid chains of +molecules that formed into non-crystalline viscid protoplasm on another +planet across the universe. No distinct line of cleavage where affinity +to other chemicals left off and sentient selectivity began marked the +distinction here as in that protoplasm. + +As with its cousin across the universe, the one-celled amoeba, these +crystals too were sensitive to light, to heat, to cold--to food. +Ill-defined, but distinct already from the non-sentient crystals about +them, these life forms grew through absorbing from the rich and soupy +atmosphere those elements necessary to growth, to branching, to cleavage +into new individuals. + +What is awareness? At what point even in protoplasmic life does it +appear? The amoeba avoids pain, seeks food, reproduces itself, and +blunders blindly through its environment in search for condition more +favorable to its continuance. + +In the monotony of a purposeless existence, most humans do no more than +that. + +Must awareness, too, be defined in terms of the consciousness of +me-and-mine? Defined only by what me-and-mine can feel, know? A +protoplasmic growth feeling awareness, excluding all possibility of +awareness in other kinds of growth because they are not a part of +me-and-mine, therefore too inferior to know awareness? + +Each crystal structure has its own vibration characteristic, and on that +planet, in time, one special vibratory rate knew awareness of self. +Mutation here too gave added complexity to the structure, and +self-awareness took on that added growth of awareness of surroundings. + +Through eons of time, and the mutations brought by time, awareness of +self and surroundings grew into awareness of wider peripheries, to +sensing their world, its structure, its nature. + +Another mutant leap and there was comprehension of other worlds, of +other stars. Theirs was a vibratory awareness, directly akin to the +vibrating fields of force which compose the material universe, and the +vibrations of fields of force can be altered. To change their +surroundings to a more suitable environment through vibration rates of +things led surely to negation of distance. To change from crystal form +to fields of energy and back again combined with negation of +distance--they too spread out and out among the stars. + +At first it was enough. But awareness is never still. Questions form. + +In all the universe were they the only sentient thing? Did any cry but +theirs rise to the stars, seeking to know? Because of the nature of +their being their search was unconcerned with the outer shape of things +which could be changed by them at will, but rather with the inner +vibratory rate which would signal sentience, awareness. + +They found no more than unconscious interaction of forces. Water runs +down hill without knowing that it does, without the internal structure +to provide the vibratory rate which would permit knowing. + +For long eras they too were imprisoned within the confines of a +me-and-mine envisioning, and it took a major leap for them to conceive +that other structures than the crystalline might have a form of +awareness. Alien to their kind, perhaps, yet a kind which must be +acknowledged. + +For they found something, at last, in a viscid non-crystalline +substance, protoplasm. + +On one distant planet this substance was already differentiated and +specialized to a high degree. From the simplest to the most complex of +its organization there were degrees of awareness, and in the most +complex of these there was undeniable evidence of sentience outside of +self. + +Joy! Unparalleled ecstasy! + +Recognition is not wisdom. With the unwisdom of inexperience in +communicating with an unlike thing, not realizing that the values of +their kind of awareness might not be the values of this differing kind, +they rushed in with all their powers and forces, a joyful rapturous +pyrotechnical display of material manipulation to show this new life +form that they too were aware--to communicate that the loneliness of one +might now be softened by the presence of the other. + +And man fell down to the ground and groveled his face in the dust. + +His awareness was of the outer shapes of things, his security lay in +adapting himself to those shapes, his certainties lay in the +dependability of those shapes. A rock was a rock. + +But no! The crystals were delighted that they had brought something +which they could share with this new life form. The rock could be a +tree! See! + +And lo, the rock was a tree. + +And the people were sore afraid. + +For that which had been certain and sure was no longer so. This +mountain wall which had formed an impassable barrier to migration into a +new and richer valley was rent asunder, so! And beyond, the new valley +beckoned. But the people huddled in their caves and dared not venture +forth. + +The vibrating entities, no longer dependent upon their crystalline +forms, withdrew to confer among themselves. To one life form, awareness +composed of the outer shape of things, the relationship of those shapes, +security in the unchanging shape. To the other life form, awareness +composed of the inner vibration, the relationships of those vibrations, +with outer shapes changed at will, and therefore meaningless. + +Yet even this protoplasmic life must see the changing shapes of things. +The clouds that formed and disappeared; the seed that became root and +stem and leaf and flower; the infant that became man, and man that +decomposed as corpse. Surely this life form must see an inner cause! +Surely they must see that even the permanent rock changed slowly into +dust, that the eternal sea was restless, never still; that stars moved +in the vault of heavens, warmth changed to cold and night to day. How +did they account for changes in these outer forms if not by inner cause? + +They changed the shapes of things themselves, these men; the seed ground +into meal, the moving animal shot down with stick or stone and stilled +and changed to food, the moving of the smaller rocks, erection of a +dwelling made of poles and thatch to change environment for the man +inside. Change, then, man knew; why fear the greater change, the easier +one? Why tug and lift and strain to move the boulder from the path, when +all was needed was to shift proportion in one tiny way, rebalance the +equation of relationship with one slight thought, and lo, the stone no +longer barred the way? + +Too long ago, lost in the distant past, the crystals had forgot their +own once-orientation of all other things to me-and-mine, forgot to +credit it to man. To lift the boulder with one's strength to serve a +purpose was within the ken of man, a thing that he could do. To see it +lifted, moved, without his strength, bespoke a greater strength than +his, and purpose that he could not understand. And man fell to his knees +in fear and awe. + +For man knew only one relation to all things--to conquer if he could, +and force acknowledgment of superior strength and purpose. To kill if +that acknowledgment was not given. To survive by giving that +acknowledgment to a stronger one than he. + +Man groveled in the dust, the only pattern of survival that he knew when +strength beyond his own was shown. But even while he knelt, to scheme a +way that he-and-his might find ascendancy in future days. The one +invariable pattern persisting from the cave man dressed in furs to +diplomat in striped pants, the only pattern possible while me-and-mine +ascendant is the aim and goal. + +To show another pattern then, the crystals aim. Ascendancy of +me-and-mine was meaningless, belonged to orders of awareness lower than +intelligence that they could meet in partnership. Instruct them, then. +No joy or purpose in conquering them. No companionship in these +disgusting grovelings. Show them the inner forces that controlled the +outer shapes of things. + +Once crystals, now divorced from hardened form, the outer shape of +things was no longer a consideration in their life; but for this form of +life, still dependent for that life upon the maintenance of material +form, no doubt the shapes and forms of things were paramount to them. +Well then, show them the true relationship, sketch out upon the sands +the diagram of how the forces that control the shapes of things are +interwoven, interact. + +Before the kneeling men, the cabalistic diagrams took shape, and lo, a +spring of water flowed from dry and barren stone. + +But man saw only shape of diagram, its cabalistic lines and form. A +sacred thing, a magic thing, a sign that he might draw with finger in +the air or in the sand, protection from the evil forces that surrounded +him. + +The sentient fields of force withdrew. Too soon, too soon. Man was not +ready for communication. Too soon, too soon. + +But man did not forget, the memory lived on. And fathers spoke to sons, +and made the outer forms of gestures, drew the cabalistic signs, and +told of magic things and powers that these signs could do. To some, one +diagram was shown, a way to build a house of stone that better weathered +the storms of Earth. The house of stone became a holy place, a thing +existing in its own right, and not, as was intended, an example of one +use to which this arrangement of forces might be put. + +And to some other man another diagram was shown, this time to slay an +animal for food. And men fought wars over these differing symbols, each +side determined to make its symbol ascendant over the other. + +Deep within the Asian land where contact had been made, the memories +lived on, and some of the meaning of the diagrams beyond their outer +shape had gained sway. The racial memory persisted, and in the latter +Pleistocene epoch the knowledge of altering shapes through force of mind +became a racial memory, coalesced into cults of belief, degenerated into +forms and phrases; but from generation to generation the memory was kept +alive that once, when the world was new, the form of things was indeed +changed by thought. This holy man, far away and long ago, had pointed +his finger at a tree, and lo! a beautiful nymph had stepped forth clad +in jewels and coins to make him rich. This hero climbed a mountain and a +voice spoke unto him, and proof of this were letters cut in stone. +Well-witnessed, this divine one changed some water into wine, and fed a +multitude from five small loaves and fishes. + +A kind of radiation of its own, always the cults who sought the inner +meanings formed within that Asian land and spread outward through the +world. + +But out on the periphery, and not exposed to thought of inner meanings, +another cult took shape. Here concern was solely with the outer shape +and size and weight and measurement of things, and how the size and +shape and weight of one interacted with another. The Dravidian culture, +which grasped only the idea but not the method of how the inner +vibration could change the outer shape receded and became submerged in +the Western cult that found a method in the measurement of shape and +weight of things to make them change. + +It was Rabindranath, centuries later, who described the essential +difference between the Indian and the Grecian civilization as that +between a forest culture which had known no walls, and a city culture +where everything has limit and every inch must be mapped. + +But perhaps, also, the Greeks had never seen this tree changed into +bird, this cloud changed into flower. Not trapped by memories grown into +tradition that must not die, they hit upon an approach that man could +master. For it was the Greek beginnings which led to the Oxford +definition of how to make scientific inquiry into the properties of +things. + +Inquiry into the properties, at first the outer shapes and weights, led +inevitably straight back to vibrations. All matter is merely a specific +vibration of energy, a range of vibrations feeling solid to the senses, +as a range of light vibrations translate into color through the eyes. + +E = MC^2! + +It took man far. He too began an exploration of the stars! + +Failure in their first attempt had brought a wisdom to the sentient +fields of force. This time they did not rush in with pyrotechnic +displays to show the wondrous power they knew. Observing patiently +through the centuries, by now they knew man well. They knew his +weakness, yet by making thing react with thing, he'd proved his +strength. For here he was among the stars. + +Perhaps by now he might communicate? Perhaps, by now, he would not +prostrate himself and grovel in the dust, if someone said, "Hello!" + +But careful, perhaps he would. + +There had been a man by name of Galileo, with the first crude telescope +he'd made, who first saw the rings of Saturn. But not as rings, but +rather in the planet's tilting, he had seen a spot of light on either +side. And sometime later, when he looked again, the tilting of the +planet back had made the rings edge on, and so they disappeared. He +never looked again, nor told of what he'd seen; for legend had it that +the god Saturn periodically devoured his own children, and this +phenomenon he'd seen, if it became widely known, would be interpreted as +the proof the legend was correct--and do incalculable damage to +scientific inquiry. He'd known the temper of his fellow man well enough +to take no chances of this kind, to note the experience in his works, +perhaps discuss it with a cautious friend or two, but to add no further +fuel to the raging fires of superstition that consumed men's minds and +seared out possibility of rational thought. + +So walk with care. For superstition still is paramount, despite the fact +that some men know how to reach the stars. + +To communicate this time, the fields of force took a sere planet, of +barren, blistered rock, and with a concept made it into the garden of +man's dreams. On one island, they set up a crystalline structure, a +thing, this much concession to the mind of man; a tool, to amplify and +clarify their thought to reach the still rudimentary but nevertheless +present centers of man's mind--some certain man who might be ready to +receive that thought. + +Placed in man's exploratory path, the waiting was not long until man +found it. They had not led him to it through any intuitive change of +course that he might find suspect. The explorers landed, claimed it for +Earth, and went away. None among them felt any pull from the crystal +tool upon the mountaintop. + +The scientists came to make their measurements. Their busy minds were +full of weight and size and the relationship of thing to thing. Perhaps +by now they too were so committed to the use of a thing to act upon +another thing that they could not countenance the thought that thought +could act upon a thing direct. They measured the crystal tool, and +recorded all their measurements, but found no meaning in its arches and +its spires. If any felt the impact of the thinking of the fields of +force, he made no sign nor gave response. Indeed, to preserve his +status and reputation with his fellow scientists he'd not have dared +admit a meaning that could not be measured with his instruments. +Forevermore he'd be outcast, if he but hinted that he thought their +science was insufficient to capture everything of meaning there. And to +scientist most of all, his status with his fellow man means more than +truth. At least to most. But are there some to whom the truth is +paramount? + +Yes, for had not scientist after scientist through the years risked and +lost his status through his questioning? And then perhaps today there +are such men. + +So walk with care, and wait. + +The colonists came, and as the scientists' minds had been filled with +measurements and weights and analyses; the colonists' minds were filled +with cabins, fields, food. + +Surely, among men somewhere, there must be those not wholly captured on +the one hand by formless superstition; and on the other hand not bound +within the tightly narrowed circle of weight and measurement! Surely man +must know by now he could not capture the inner meaning of a thing +through a description of its outer surface. + +But as long as man got by, and did great things by using physical things +to act upon other physical things, even in considering the universal +energy as a thing, he would look no farther. + +All right then, a little nudge in another direction. Change the concept +of the planet slightly, so that one thing cannot act upon another, no +tool be used except this crystal set to act as intermediary. Let that +happen, and out from Earth a man would come, perhaps a dozen men, +perhaps a hundred ships, a thousand men, and all to find their ships, +their tools, were gone. But someday there would come a man with mind +trained in the ability to conceive that there might be a road to truth +outside the useless superstitions that sent man to groveling in the dust +at each small breath that blew, and also one who would not quit because +he had no weather vane to test the direction of that breath. + +And they would know when that mind came. + +The first man came. Take away his tools and wait. He did not fall to +earth in awe nor freeze in fear. His mind searched curiously. Enough. +The man was here. Shield off the planet from the rest that he be +undisturbed in his thought. + +Could he go farther? Conceive the purpose of this lack of tools, that it +was by design? And still not grovel in the dust? They'd made their move. +Could he respond? + +He drew a circle in the sand! + +Joy! Ecstasy! + +This time there might be surcease to the loneliness, and two +intelligences so unlike commune. The very unlikeness of each bringing to +the other thought not yet considered, and together going on to find ... +to find ... + +Now let him see the fallacy of such strict measurement. Now let him +think, to realize that measuring the balance of the status quo of things +in only one relationship of an infinity of possibilities, to realize +that he can change his measurements to balance an equation designed to +express the status quo, or with equal truth, at his desire, he can +change the status quo, the shape of things, to fit the equation he +desires. + +Let him wander, puzzled, worrying on this. Let him work it out himself, +for experience from long ago had taught them that if man was not ready +to accept an alien thought he could not, would not, accept but in his +own interpreting. + +Now, at last, at his readiness to make things fit the equation he +conceives, instead of making the equation fit the things as they are, +bring him closer in the range of the amplifier, the crystal tool, that +communication might be direct. + +He holds the key. + +He knows the lock. + +He finds the door. + +Show him the one small step remaining--the diagram, the design, the +movement of the forces of his mind. + +To turn the key. + +Unlock the lock. + +Throw wide the door. + + + + +26 + + +As one awakened from a deep sleep, a hypnotic trance, Cal opened his +eyes. + +Man's ancient thought filled his being, the subject of man's dreams, of +yearnings, of philosophies. In ancient eidetic memory, the unbroken +thread persisted: If I could only grasp this elusive thing, always just +barely beyond my reach, I would not need the ox, the wagon, the train, +the plane, the spaceship to transport me from here to there. + +And now, at last, the thought was in Cal's grasp. Express the things and +forces balanced in equation to describe them as they are; or, equally, +to alter the things and forces instead to fit the equation balance one +had in mind; purely a matter of choice. Each was the use of natural law. +No chaos here, no magic, one as much true science as the other. + +How long had he slept, and dreamed? A few minutes? An hour? Or by chance +was he another Rip Van Winkle, doomed to find the colonists aged or +dead? + +But why wonder? + +A short distance first, just outside the amphitheater, just a small +test. He first rearranged the relative position of himself to the +amphitheater, to be outside instead of in it. He diagrammed the forces +in his mind that would alter the relationship, connected them. + +He was standing outside the entrance arch. + +With a hoarse cry, Louie, who had been watching all the while through +the open arch, shrank back away from Cal, wavered in uncertainty, then +fell to his knees, then groveled in the dust. + +"Forgive me!" he cried. "In my blind, senseless vanity, I did not know +you were a Holy One. I was going to kill you, I confess. Woe! Woe! I saw +you lying there in Their temple, defaming it in blasphemy by your sleep. +But when I tried to enter, I could not. Their will prevented me. Some +shielding force protected you. And then I knew you were a Holy One. +Forgive me. Let me live to expiate my sin." + +"Louie, Louie," Cal said sadly. + +As if in tangled ball, the thought stream of Louie, twisted and warped +by the false reasonings and interpretations fed to him in childhood, +seemed clearly revealed to Cal. Again a change in concept of +relationship to reality, the schematic of forces visualized, the +untangling, straightening of thought. + +Louie scrambled to his feet, a rueful grin on his face. + +"Sorry, Cal," he said. "I must have gone nuts there for a while, shock +and all. I'm all right now. Don't worry anymore about me. I'll get on +back to the rest." + +"Sure, Louie. See you there," Cal agreed. + +A rearrangement of relationships, and Cal walked out from behind a bush +to approach Jed and Tom. + +"You must not have gone all the way to the top," Jed said when he looked +up and caught sight of Cal. "It's just barely past noon, I reckon. +Didn't expect to see you back until nightfall." + +"I took a short cut," Cal said with a grin. "Little past noon," he +continued, as if musing with a thought. "About the same time of day that +everything happened a couple of weeks ago." + +"Yeah, about the same time of day," Jed said, and looked at him +curiously. + +Tom had arisen to his feet and was staring at Cal curiously, sensing a +difference in the E. Now Jed felt it too, and looked at Cal with +puzzlement on his face. + +"There's something important about it being around this time of day, +Cal?" he asked. + +"Not really," Cal said, "but I thought it might be helpful. I could +restore the village, the fields, the escape ship, everything just as it +was; make it feel like a continuation of the same day to the people. It +being the same time of day would help the illusion that no time had +passed, nothing had happened." + +Tom's eyes narrowed in speculation. + +"You can do that, Cal?" he asked. "You've solved the problem?" + +"Yes," Cal said simply. "I'll tell you about it sometime. There's quite +a few loose ends to catch up right now." He turned to Jed. "How about +it, Jed?" he asked. "Think it'll be too much of a shock to put things +back as they were?" + +In spite of himself, Jed was trembling. He drew a deep breath, firmed +his jaw. Seemed to set himself as one does in the dentist's chair at the +approach of the drill. + +It was a bigger equation, a more complex one, but not different in kind. + +The village of Appletree sprang suddenly into being, the hangar with the +metallic gleam of the ship inside, the fields, the pasture fences with +the calves separated from the cows. A few people, clothed, were walking +on the dirt street between the houses. They looked at one another. They +looked up at the sky, at the fields around them, the forests beyond. +They looked back at one another. They shook their heads, and blinked +their eyes, as if suddenly wakened from a sleep, a dream, the craziest +dream. + +Later they would compare the dream, and with Jed's help piece together, +and feel the shock, and wonder. + +Upon the hill, away from the village, where Jed lay, clothed, in the +hammock swung between two trees, Martha came out of the house, clothed. + +"I must have sat down in a chair for a minute and fallen asleep or +something, Jed," she said as she came to stand beside him. "And I had +the funniest dream. You can't imagine. You know how sometimes we'll +dream about being out in front of folks, all naked ..." + +"That wasn't any dream, Martha," he answered with a grin. "All the +people in the village are going to start realizing it pretty soon. +They'll need some help. We'd better walk down there. Them people across +the ridge, too. Bet they'll be hightailing it back over here first thing +you know. And something else, there's an E ship here, come to find out +why we didn't communicate." + +"Well whatever on Earth are you talkin' about, Jed?" she asked +curiously. "It won't be time to communicate for a couple of days yet. +You ought to know that. Have you been dreaming, too? Or you and the boys +fermenting something? Here, let me smell your breath!" + +"Aw, now Martha," he said with a huge grin. He clambered out of the +hammock and stood up, took her in his arms, hugged her tightly. + +"Jed!" she scolded. "Right out here in the front yard in front of +everybody." But she didn't struggle away from him. + +"Won't matter a bit," he said. "Not after what's been goin' on in front +of everybody right along." + +"Whatever has been goin' on can't be half as bad as what I've been +dreamin'," she said. + +"Better start gettin' used to the idea that it wasn't a dream, Martha," +he cautioned. + +"Jed!" she scolded again, her face aflame with embarrassment. + + + + +27 + + +The communications operator looked up as the supervisor came down the +aisle toward him. + +"Communication from the E.H.Q. ship at Eden coming in just fine," he +said enthusiastically. He'd thought it over and decided he'd better +repair some fences. Good job here, no use letting his irritation with +the supervisor's old-maid fussiness make him cut off his nose to spite +his face. + +"See that it does," the supervisor answered sharply. He recognized the +overture for what it was, felt relieved that he wouldn't have any more +insubordination, was willing to let bygones be bygones--after a suitable +period of punishment. "What's been happening?" he asked with a curiosity +that got the better of his desire to discipline. + +"E Gray has come back out of that quartz outcropping where we lost him. +He's standing there talking to the astronavigator who followed him up +the mountain." + +"More of the same, I guess," the supervisor said. "Nothing's happened +for ten days. Nothing likely to happen," he said. He turned and started +back down the aisle toward his own office. + +"Wait a minute," the operator called. "Here's something." + +Other operator heads raised up all down the aisle. + +"Now, now; now, now!" the supervisor quarreled at them. "Get on with +your work, nothing to concern you here, none of your business." + +But of course it was everybody's business. Anything different was +everybody's business. All over the world everybody was wondering about +the enigma of Eden, everybody speculating, everybody with a different +answer. Some were gleeful that science had finally got its comeuppance, +and felt no more than a pleasure that the bigdomes had proved they +weren't any smarter than anybody else. Others took an equal pleasure in +crying woe, woe, at this proof there were mysteries beyond man's +knowing, woe, woe, now that man would be punished for trying to know +what he was not meant to know. + +The operator took time out, in spite of the supervisor's admonishments, +to listen frankly. + +"They've lost sight of the E," the operator exclaimed. "No, wait a +minute. There he is, down in the valley, coming out from behind a bush +to talk to the pilot and the head man of the colony." + +"Can't have happened like that," the supervisor grumbled. "Ten or twelve +miles from that mountain top to the valley. The ship has garbled their +reporting. Probably got behind in reporting and then just decided to +skip the journey back, and pick up to make it current. There's going to +be complaints about this." + +"Well, you were right here," the operator said. "You were listening. I +didn't skip anything. It wasn't my fault." + +"All right, all right." + +"Wait a minute," the operator said. "Here, listen in." + +The supervisor's eyes grew round. + +"Can't be," he exclaimed. + +"All the buildings, everything's just like it was before," the operator +said loudly to the room at large. "All of a sudden, the way they report +it." + +"They're faking the reports," the supervisor grumbled irritably. "Have +to be." + +"Now, no matter how much they fake, you can't rebuild all those +buildings in a couple hours," the operator argued. + +"None of our business," the supervisor cautioned. "We just take the +reports. Can't criticize us for whatever the E.H.Q. ship out there's +doing." + +"And everybody's got their clothes back on," the operator said loudly. + +There was a sigh of regret up and down the aisle. + +"Now the E's disappeared again," the operator said, "They're scanning +all over, trying to find him." + +The supervisor put down his headset with resolution. + +"I'm going to my office to make a report on the sloppy way this +reporting has been done. There's going to be fur flying over these skips +and jumps, and I don't want it to be our fur. Best thing is to make the +complaint first," he said to the room at large. "Now you call me if +there's any more of this bollix," he said to the operator as he left. + +An hour passed while the supervisor sat in his office. He wrote +furiously, scratched out, wrote some more, tore up papers and threw them +in the vague direction of the wastebasket, started afresh to write some +more. How to report without stepping on anybody's toes? + +His buzzer sounded softly to give him respite, and he looked up from a +virtually blank piece of paper to the board. The Eden operator again. + +"Oh, no," he groaned. But he left his desk at once and half trotted up +the aisle. + +"Now the captain of the ship says he wants Sector Chief Hayes at once," +the operator called out. "Something very important." + +"Very well," the supervisor said. "Ring him." + +But Hayes didn't wait for the ring. He had been listening, red-eyed, +tired, gaunt for lack of sleep. + +"Give me connection," he said to the operator as soon as the line +opened. + +"Bill Hayes here, Captain," he said, as soon as he received the signal. +"What now?" + +"Mrs. Gray, the Junior E's wife, has disappeared from aboard ship," the +Captain said without any preliminaries. + +"What do you mean 'disappeared'?" Hayes asked. "How could she disappear +in deep space? Have you looked everywhere? Checked the lifeboats? Maybe +she took one and tried to get down to her husband by herself." + +"We've looked everywhere. No lifeboats missing. No port has opened. You +ought to know we wouldn't bother you until we'd checked everything out +first." + +"She can't have disappeared into thin air, thin space," Hayes quarreled +back. "She must be on your ship somewhere. When was she last seen?" + +"That's--ah--that's mainly why I'm calling you, Bill," the captain said. +"A wild tale, obviously a mistake. One of the crewmen passed her +stateroom about an hour ago. Door was open and he looked in, the way +anybody does. Says he saw her standing inside her cabin embracing a man. +Says he didn't stop to look close, but he was pretty sure it was E Gray. +Says he knows because he's had access to the viewscope and has watched E +Gray on the surface of Eden." + +"There's been no report of any ship leaving Eden, joining you, Captain," +Hayes said accusingly. + +"Because there hasn't been any," the captain snapped back. "So it can't +have been E Gray she was embracing. That's why I called you. Looks like +we're going to have some petty scandal mixed up with everything else." + +"Looks like it, then," Hayes said with a vast weariness. "Some member of +your crew, or one of the scientists," he said. "Keep looking. Somebody's +hiding her, probably to keep the scandal from breaking. But it seems odd +to me that she was so anxious to get out there near her husband and then +in ten days she'd ..." + +"Maybe her real anxiety was to be near somebody already assigned to the +ship," the captain said. "I mean, we've got to consider all the +possibilities. Somebody she knew there at E.H.Q." + +"Keep checking, Captain. I'll see if the Board wants to contact E +McGinnis. Maybe he knows what's been going on around here that could +lead us to the guy who's hiding her." + +"I'll keep checking, but she's not on board _my_ ship," the captain +said. He sighed. Bill Hayes sighed. They broke connection. + +Hayes made contact with the Board chairman. It took only a few minutes +to spin the latest tale of woe. Another minute for the Board to decide +direct intervention. + +"Now they want me to make contact with the other ship," the operator +said to the supervisor. "The Wheel himself wants to know if E McGinnis +will talk to him." + +"Well, contact it, contact it," the supervisor commanded urgently. + +"I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" the operator quarreled back. + +The both of them listened in on the conversation, on the grounds that +testing the quality of reception was a necessity. E McGinnis's pilot was +quite explicit. + +"E McGinnis left orders that under no circumstances was he to be +disturbed," the pilot said. "He, E Gray and Mrs. Gray are in his cabin, +in conference." + +"E Gray! Mrs. Gray!" the chairman exploded. "Impossible. How the devil +did they get into your ship?" + +"Don't ask me," the pilot said in a tired voice. "I just work here. I'm +sitting here minding my own business. I see E McGinnis's door open. He +leans out the door and gives me my orders. I look past him and I see E +Gray and Mrs. Gray sitting in the room. Don't ask me how they got in +there. I don't know. But I do know this, I'm going to get myself a nice +quiet milk run to Saturn or someplace, soon as I get back to E.H.Q. If I +ever do get back." + +"Now, now," the Board chairman soothed. "I'm sure there's a simple +explanation." Crewmen willing to pilot an E around the universe were +hard to find. + +"Yeah? After what I've seen out here, I don't think I'd even want to +hear it," the pilot said, and without apology cut off the +communication. + + + + +28 + + +Had the pilot been able, a moment later, to look into the E's stateroom +he would have seen still another visitor, another who had not entered +his ship by any normal means. + +Attorney General Gunderson sat in a chair facing the two E's and Linda. +He seemed stunned, frozen into immobility. Only his eyes were alive, +darting here and there, unbelieving. There is limit to the number of +shocks the mind can withstand, and the series had come too fast for him +to adjust to them. + +He too had picked up Junior E Gray as soon as he came through the arch +of the quartz outcropping on top of the mountain, the structure that +somehow interfered with their visoscope's ability to penetrate and see +what went on inside. He had been watching when Gray suddenly disappeared +from where he had been talking with the astronavigator. That had been a +shock, immediately followed by a greater one, when the ship's operator +had scanned the valley and found Gray talking with the E's pilot and the +chief of the colonists. There was no way in which the journey could have +been made that rapidly. + +He was still watching when the village, the fields, the escape ship, the +E ship all had suddenly materialized before his eyes. And the people +were all clothed. It couldn't be done, but he had seen it. But he kept +his head. E science must be farther along than he'd realized, to +produce a miracle such as this--but it was science. He must hold to +that, otherwise ... + +He saw his case begin to melt out from under him, and he made one more +effort to regain some measure of control. He gave his own pilot orders +to land on the surface of Eden. He transmitted orders to the other two +police ships to follow in close formation; the three of them to land and +take custody. + +But the barrier still remained, and the ships could not penetrate it. + +He told himself that all wasn't lost. Maybe the E was back in control of +Eden, but he, Gunderson, still had a morals case. All those photographs! +Some of the press and commentators might desert him, now that the Junior +had proved adequate to the job. Unless he chose carefully, some stupid +judge might decide the means were justified by the end result. But there +were those photographs, and the world was full of Mrs. Grundy. He might +have to back up a little bit on the incompetence of the Junior E, but +Mrs. Grundy would be behind him a hundred per cent on the morals +issue--when he released some of the photographs, and titillated her +nasty imagination by reference to others too indecent to release. + +It was then that the observer ship got a call through to him, and told +him that the photographs, every one of them, had disappeared from the +ship's vault where they had been locked, and the only thing remaining in +the vault was one little slip of paper which read, "Shame on you for +taking feelthy pictures. Naughty, naughty! Calvin Gray." + +The case was crumbling, but all was not lost. He still had witnesses. He +thought for a minute and began to wonder about those witnesses. Any +judge, anybody around the courts, anybody connected with the press, and +maybe even some of the public knew that any police officer will swear to +any lie to back up another police officer because he might need the +favor returned tomorrow. + +Without concrete evidence ... + +He suddenly found himself standing in the cabin of the E ship, +confronted by E McGinnis, Junior E Gray, and Mrs. Gray. He sank down in +a chair and sat frozen, immobile. Only his eyes were alive, darting +frantically here and there as if expecting some hole to open up and +swallow him--perhaps wishing one would. + +"I don't know just what to do with you," Cal said a little sadly, +ruefully. "Far as the E's are concerned, you've only been a minor +nuisance, hardly worth noticing, but your intentions were dangerous. As +far back as man's history goes the growth of police powers immediately +preceded and caused the fall and destruction of each culture. + +"It is a law of the nature of man that he will resist the ascendancy of +any special me-and-mine group over him; that this resistance will grow +until man will even destroy himself in the attempt to destroy that +ascendancy. In more recent history it was the growth, extension, and +severity of the police in controlling every activity of man that +destroyed both the United States and Russia. + +"Now you are attempting to rebuild that same police control in world +government. The result will be the same. Man will destroy himself in +trying to destroy you. + +"We in E don't want that to happen. We see no need of it. We have +already warned that the attitude of the police toward the public is the +major cause of crime, that crime will increase with each increase of +police power and severity until the whole structure rots and crumbles. + +"Yet man has not yet progressed far enough to know how to maintain an +organized society without some special body to enforce that +organization. It's a problem which the E's haven't solved, probably +because we know too little about the natural laws affecting the behavior +of man. Perhaps it is still a field belonging to non-science, because +science doesn't know enough yet to take hold of it. + +"I would suggest, Gunderson, that you turn your talents and your +organization to solving this problem of how to build an organized +society instead of destroying it." + +The chair where Gunderson had sat was empty. + +E McGinnis looked at Cal; he too was sitting silent and immobile. But E +science had inured him to shock. He waited because it was E Gray's show, +and he was letting Cal handle it. + +"Where is he now?" McGinnis asked when he saw the empty chair. + +"Sitting at his desk in his office back on Earth," Cal said with a grin. +"Our boy has a few things to think about." + +"You've explained the theory back of all this"--McGinnis changed the +subject--"but I still find it incredible. It's still just theory." + +"Well," Cal said, "theory comes first. Even to add two and two, you +first have to get the idea that it can be done, a theory of how it is +done, but that still won't get you four. You've got to learn how to +apply the theory. + +"When I first found I knew how, I was pretty concerned. The whole basis +of science is that anybody can do it, anybody who follows the +step-by-step method. It doesn't take any special gifts that can't be +trained. I had visions of a world, a universe of people, in possession +of this theory and method before they were wise enough to use it, and +chaos. + +"But when I thought it over, I stopped worrying. The methods of science +are also open to all. But few bother to learn them. Most prefer their +frustrations and their miseries to making the effort which will solve +them. For centuries the libraries containing all the accumulated +knowledge and wisdom of mankind have been free and open to anybody who +wants to read, but few have bothered to absorb that knowledge and that +wisdom. + +"This new key we have that unlocks the door to another vista of +knowledge, another point of view whereby we can change material things +to suit our desire, is merely another advance of science. For science, +after all, is no more than organized knowledge of reality. You can't +multiply six times six until you've learned how to add two and two. Most +people won't bother. + +"It will be a long, long time before any significant number will +graduate through all the normal seven steps of E science to become ready +for the eighth. Some of the E's will master it, but you know how few E's +there are. And the E's have enough restraint, wisdom, and selflessness +to use this new knowledge for the benefit of man instead of his +detriment. + +"I suspect that one has to be graduated beyond the desire to make +me-and-mine ascendant over others before he can absorb this knowledge." + +"Maybe that's my trouble," McGinnis said slowly. "I've been thinking, +all along, of how much power this gives the E's. Wondering if even the +E's should have that much power over others." + +Linda spoke up. + +"E McGinnis," she said, "Cal has solved the problem of what happened to +the colonists, why they didn't communicate. Do you think this will +qualify him for his big E?" + +Both men burst into laughter. + +"No question of it, Linda," E McGinnis said with a chuckle. "But I doubt +it really matters to E Gray, now. He can do things none of the rest of +us can do, and the real question now is whether we have the right to +call ourselves Seniors until we can match his ability." + +"I think," Cal said slowly, "we'd better recommend to E.H.Q. that the +colonists be withdrawn from Eden, assigned somewhere else. I've left the +shield around the planet so none can enter or leave without the eighth +key. I can unlock the door and close it again. Perhaps Eden should +become the next step for the E, the next hurdle he must cross. + +"When I've sent my ship and crew back to Earth, and we've removed all +the colonists, it might be a good idea to restore Eden to what it was +when I arrived--a place where no tools will work, no physical tools. To +qualify for E, a man will be put on the island, where he can live as we +lived, to work out the step-by-step method. When he's ready, he can go +into the thought-amplifier on top of the mountain, and if his mind is +open enough to the potentials he'll receive the final step of +instruction--as I did. + +"One by one, as the E's shake free of their present projects, they can +take this next step." + +"I'm not working on any project right now," E McGinnis said hopefully. + +"I'll be right back," Cal said with a grin, "and we'll get started on +it." + +The chair where he had been sitting was empty. + + + + +29 + + +Cal stood within the crystal amphitheater atop the mountain and watched +the interplay of lights until he felt communion come. + +Rapture! Joy! + +Question? + +"Be patient," he said. "There will be more, and more, and more. + +"You had an advantage," he reminded Them. "You started with a +crystalline vibration nearer to the force field than that possible in +protoplasm. We've had to come up the hard way. + +"But we have come up. + +"You had no competition. We've had to fight for our very lives every +inch of the way, endure the setbacks lasting for centuries, millennia. +It is no wonder that the me-and-mine-ascendant concept has dominated all +our thought, and does still. Without it, we'd not have survived at all. + +"It takes time to outgrow it, to learn we can survive without it. Five +hundred years after Copernicus, a survey of the high school students in +the United States revealed that a third of them still rejected his +knowledge, still believed the Earth to be at the center of the universe +and man was the reason why the universe had been created at all. But two +thirds had adjusted. + +"More important, there _was_ a Copernicus. + +"Don't sell man short because he's slow to learn, and you are impatient +for fuller, deeper exploration of the truths in reality. He has much to +offer you, as you to him. Competition for survival has given him +ingenuity. + +"Once all learned men believed the Earth to be the center of the +universe, but there _was_ a Copernicus who asked the question, 'What if +it isn't so?' + +"Millions of men watched apples fall to the ground, but one _did_ ask if +this might not be the key to the structure of the universe, the balance +of the stars. + +"Billions watched the stars, but finally one _did_ ask, 'What if the +light be curved instead of straight?' + +"There is capacity in man, this protoplasmic life, that had to learn an +ingenuity which might surpass even yours. + +"This is not the final door in the corridor of thought. Still other +doors, on down the corridor, are yet to be explored. And you may need +these special gifts of man to open them, as he has needed this new room +of thought. + +"Be patient. A million or a billion may come here to seek the method +that can change things to fit the equation of desire, before one comes +who asks a question even you have not conceived. + +"But someday he _will_ come--and ask." + +The lights danced faster now in patterns of delight. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Eight Keys to Eden, by Mark Irvin Clifton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHT KEYS TO EDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 27595.txt or 27595.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/5/9/27595/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Geoffrey Kidd, Stephen Blundell +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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