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diff --git a/59375-0.txt b/59375-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..489c68d --- /dev/null +++ b/59375-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,256 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59375 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + the ethicators + + BY WILLARD MARSH + + _They were used to retarded life forms, but + this was the worst. Yet it is a missionary's duty + to bring light where there is none, for who can + tell what devious forms evolution might take?_ + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1955. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that + the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +The missionaries came out of the planetary system of a star they didn't +call Antares. They called it, naturally enough, The Sun--just as home +was Earth, Terra, or simply The World. And naturally enough, being the +ascendant animal on Earth, they called themselves human beings. They +were looking for extraterrestrial souls to save. + +They had no real hope of finding humans like themselves in this +wonderously diversified universe. But it wasn't against all probability +that, in their rumaging, there might not be a humanoid species to whom +they could reach down a helping paw; some emergent cousin with at least +a rudimentary symmetry from snout to tail, and hence a rudimentary soul. + +The ship they chose was a compact scout, vaguely resembling the outside +of an orange crate--except that they had no concept of an orange crate +and, being a tesseract, it had no particular outside. It was simply an +expanding cube (and as such, quite roomy) whose "interior" was always +paralleling its "exterior" (or attempting to), in accordance with all +the well-known, basic and irrefutable laws on the subject. + +A number of its sides occupied the same place at the same time, giving +a hypothetical spectator the illusion of looking down merging sets of +railway tracks. This, in fact, was its precise method of locomotion. +The inner cube was always having to catch up, caboose-fashion, with +the outer one in time (or space, depending on one's perspective). +And whenever it had done so, it would have arrived with itself--at +approximately wherever in the space-time continuum it had been pointed. + +When they felt the jar of the settling geodesics, the crew crowded at +the forward visiplate to see where they were. It was the outskirts of +a G type star system. Silently they watched the innermost planet float +past, scorched and craggy, its sunward side seeming about to relapse to +a molten state. + +The Bosun-Colonel turned to the Conductor. "A bit of a disappointment +I'm afraid, sir. Surely with all that heat...?" + +"Steady, lad. The last wicket's not been bowled." The Conductor's +whiskers quivered in amusement at his next-in-command's impetuosity. +"You'll notice that we're dropping downward. If the temperature +accordingly continues dropping--" + +He couldn't shrug, he wasn't physiologically capable of it, but it was +apparent that he felt they'd soon reach a planet whose climate could +support intelligent life. + +If the Bosun-Colonel had any ideas that such directions as up and +down were meaningless in space, he kept them to himself. As the second +planet from its sun hove into view, he switched on the magniscan +eagerly. + +"I say, this is more like it. Clouds and all that sort of thing. Should +we have a go at it, sir?" + +The Conductor yawned. "Too bloody cloudy for my taste. Too equivocal. +Let's push on," he said languidly. "I have a hunch the third planet +might be just our dish of tea." + +Quelling his disappointment, the Bosun-Colonel waited for the third +planet to swim into being. And when it did, blooming like an orchid +in all its greens and moistnesses, he could scarcely contain his +excitement. + +"Why, it looks just like Earth," he marveled. "Gad, sir, what a master +stroke of navigation. How did you realize this would be it?" + +"Oh, I don't know," the Conductor said modestly. "Things usually have +a habit of occurring in threes. I'm quite a student of numerology, you +know." Then he remembered the Mission and drew himself erect on all his +legs. "You may prepare for landing, Mister," he ordered crisply. + +The Bosun-Colonel shifted over to manual and busied himself at the +helm, luffing the square craft down the troughs of air. Gliding over +the vast tropical oceans, he put down at a large land mass above a +shallow warm sea, twenty-five degrees below the northern pole. + +Too numbed for comment, the crew stared out at the alien vista. They'd +heard of retarded life forms from other Missionary expeditions--of +planets where the inhabitants, in extreme emergency, had been known +to commit murder. But this was surely the worst, the most vicious +imaginable in the galaxy. + +Here, with life freshly up from the sea, freshly launched on the long +climb to maturity and self-realization--was nothing but horror. With so +lush a vegetation, so easily capable of supporting them side by side +in abundance, the monsters were actually feeding on each other. Great +lumbering beasts they were with their bristling hides and huge tails, +charging between the giant tree ferns; gouging living chunks from one +another while razor-toothed birds with scaly wings flapped overhead, +screaming for the remnants. As the sounds of carnage came through the +audio ports, the youngest Oarsman keeled over in a faint. + +Even the Conductor was visibly shaken. The Bosun-Colonel turned to him +with a sick expression. + +"Surely it's a lost cause, Skipper. Life like this will never have a +soul worth saving." + +"Not in its present stage," the Old Man was forced to agree. "Still, +one never knows the devious paths that evolution takes." He considered +the scene for a thoughtful, shuddering interval. "Perhaps in several +thousand millenniums...." + +The Bosun-Colonel tried to visualize the possibility of Ethical Life +ever materializing through these swamp mists, but the logic against it +was too insurmountable for the imagination. + +"Even so," he conceded, "granting the impossible--whatever shape it +took, the only worthwhile species would still be...." He couldn't bring +himself to say it. + +"Meat-eaters," the Conductor supplied grimly. + +On hearing this, the Oarsman who had just revived promptly fainted +again. + +"It's too deep in the genes," the Conductor continued, "too far +advanced for us to tamper with. All we can hope to do is modify their +moral outlook. So that by the time they achieve star travel, they'll at +least have a basic sense of Fair Play." + +Sighing, bowed by responsibilities incommensurate with his +chronological youth, he gave the order wearily. It was snapped down the +chain of command to the Senior Yardbird: + +"All paws stand by to lower the Ethics Ray! Step lively, lads--bugger +off, now...." + +There was a din of activity as the outer locks were opened and the +bulky mechanism was shipped over the side. It squatted on a cleared +rise of ground in all its complex, softly ticking majesty, waiting for +the First Human to pad within range of its shedding Grace and Uplift. +The work party scrambled back to the ship, anxious to be off this +sinister terrain. Once more the crew gathered at the visiplate as the +planet fell away beneath them, the Ethics Ray winking in the day's last +light like a cornerstone. Or perhaps a tambourine.... + + * * * * * + +Night closed down on the raw chaotic world, huge beasts closed in on +the strange star-fallen souvenir. They snuffled over it; then enraged +at discovering it was nothing they could fill their clamoring mindless +stomachs with, attempted to wreck it. They were unsuccessful, for +the Machine had been given an extra heavy coat of shellac and things +to withstand such monkeyshines. And the Machine, in its own finely +calibrated way, ignored its harassers, for they had no resemblance to +the Life it had been tuned to influence. + +Days lengthened into decades, eons. The seas came shouldering in to +stand towers tall above the Ethics Ray, lost in the far ooze below. +Then even the seas receded, and the mountains buckled upward in their +place, their arrogant stone faces staring changelessly across the +epochs. Until they too were whittled down by erosion. The ice caps +crept down, crackling and grinding the valleys. The ground stretched +and tossed like a restless sleeper, settled, and the Ethics Ray was +brought to light once more. + +As it always had, it continued beaming its particular signal, on +a cosmic ray carrier modulated by a pulse a particular number of +angstroms below infrared. The beasts that blundered within its field +were entirely different now, but they still weren't the Right Ones. +Among them were some shambling pale bipeds, dressed in skins of other +beasts, who clucked over its gleaming exterior and tried to chip it +away for spearheads. In this of course they were unsuccessful. + +And then one day the First Human wandered by, paused square in the +path of the beam. His physiology was only approximate, his I.Q. was +regrettably low--but he was Pre-Moral Life, such as it was, on this +planet. + +The Ethics Ray made the necessary frequency adjustments, tripped on +full force. The Primitive froze under the bombardment, its germ plasm +shifting in the most minute and subtle dimensions. Then, its mission +fulfilled, the Ethics Ray collapsed into heavy molecules and sank into +the ground. The first convert raced away in fright, having no idea what +had happened. Neither did his billion sons and daughters.... + + * * * * * + +Back on the home base, the Conductor reported in at the Ethication of +Primitive Planets office. It was a magnificently imposing building, +as befitting the moral seat of the universe. And the Overseer was an +equally imposing human with ears greyed by service. His congratulations +were unreserved. + +"A splendid mission, lad," he said, "and I don't mind +suggesting--strictly entre nous--that it could jolly well result in a +Fleet Conductorship for you." + +The Conductor was overwhelmed. + +"Now just let me jot down the essentials while they're still fresh in +mind," he continued, pawing through a desk drawer. "Botheration! I seem +to have traded the last of my styluses. Do you happen to have one on +you?" + +"With pleasure." The Conductor handed over his monogrammed gold stylus, +receiving in exchange a toy silencemaker. + +"My youngster traded it to me this morning," the Overseer chuckled. + +He wrote rapidly for several moments, then gave the stylus back. The +Conductor found a weathered paper-weight in his rear pocket, which he +traded him for it. It looked like it might have come from this very +desk at one time. Then with a smart salute, he about-faced. + +On the way out, a pair of secretaries paused in their trading of a pelt +brush for a tail-curler to watch him admiringly. As well they might. +Fleet Conductor! + +The future Fleet Conductor of a solar system he would never think of +calling Antares paused at the door. In its polished panel he regarded +himself with due appreciation. He had sown the seeds of civilization on +a far-flung planet where, countless light years from now, they would +flower to maturity. Not among the strongest or cleverest species, to +be sure, but among those most worthy of applying First Principles, the +moral law of give and take. + +Among those remote cousins of the Conductor himself--who under no +circumstances would ever think of himself as resembling a rather +oversized trader rat. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ethicators, by Willard Marsh + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59375 *** |