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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19c81d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69009 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69009) diff --git a/old/69009-0.txt b/old/69009-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7c07e82..0000000 --- a/old/69009-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1006 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Definition, by Damon Knight - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Definition - -Author: Damon Knight - -Release Date: September 18, 2022 [eBook #69009] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEFINITION *** - - - - - - DEFINITION - - By DAMON KNIGHT - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Startling Stories, February 1953. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - Man, _n._ A pentagonal, dipolar, monoplane dominant, of - intelligence 96, native of District 10039817. Unabsorbed. - -It is a truism that a human being can get used to very nearly -everything. The hardy Eskimo, lying belly-down on a plain of ice that -stretched unbroken to the sky, probably spent little of his time in -meditating upon the vastness and inscrutability of the Universe ... he -was thinking of his dinner. And Charles Samson, seven hundred years -later, looked past his long nose at a scene of equal majesty--our -galaxy, viewed from a ship in mid-arc--in a similar frame of mind. - -It was approximately sixteen hours, galactic time; a trifle later -according to Samson's stomach. He had played a vicious game of handball -with his wife an hour and a half before, and now he was hungry. - -The Eskimo, although a patient man, might have reflected that it was -unreasonable of this particular seal to wake up and look around him at -this precise moment. Samson, equally virtuous, told himself that his -wife might have chosen a more opportune time to experiment with her -cookery. Midge had conceived an idea for a soufflĂ© such as had never -before been seen by Man, and had accordingly been adding new circuits -to the autochef for the past eighty-five minutes. - -If she ran to form, the soufflĂ©--which would be a triumph, in spite of -seventeen separate miscalculations--would be served in about twenty -minutes more. Samson would have preferred an artless slab of steak -_now_. - -These, it may be considered, were picayune thoughts to occupy a brain -which had been interminably trained and tested, stocked with a fabulous -assortment of knowledge, and then sent out, with one other human mind -for company, to patrol a hegemony ten billion times as vast as Caesar's. - -At the moment, however, there was nothing world-shaking for it to do. -Charles and Midge, like a thousand other teams of trouble-shooters -assigned to the volume of space known as Slice 103, earned their pay by -intense, difficult, and sometimes dangerous labor which averaged three -months out of the year; the rest of their time was spent in traveling -from one assignment to the next, or simply in drifting, waiting for -something of importance to turn up. - -Two days ago, for example, they had been halfway along a leisurely arc -between the Hilkert system and the observatory settlement on de Broglie -II, when Slice H.Q. had buzzed them and told them to change course -for Kenilworth IV--an isolated and obscure one-man post out on the -perimeter of the Slice. Tomorrow, as likely as not, another message -would inform them that the trouble, whatever it was, had simmered -down. Then they would blast into a new arc, and it would be six days, -at least--even if another wild-goose chase did not intervene--before -they touched ground. Meanwhile, they amused themselves as well as they -could.... - - * * * * * - -As for the stars, which lay spread out to the infinity beyond the -inch-thick vitrin of the ship's veranda window, the trouble with them -was that they were always the same. Maugham records that when he first -saw the Taj Mahal, he felt an ineffable surprise and joy; but on the -following day, it was only a beautiful building. He had seen it before. - -Samson had been in space for something over half his lifetime. -Accordingly, when the communicator bell rang, it shattered no -meditations on the relations of Man to Nature; on the contrary, Samson, -uncoiling himself and walking through the doorway into the lounge, -carried with him the firm mental image of a ham sandwich, with relish -and mustard. - -"Let's hear it," he said. - -Obediently, the communicator uncorked a quiet male voice: "Harlow -calling the Samsons. Acknowledge if you're awake, will you? Over." - -Midge appeared at the opposite end of the room, brushing a strand -of black hair back from her forehead. "We read you, Harlow," said -Samson. "Go ahead. Over." The light-tube which encircled the ceiling, -having turned pink at Harlow's "Over," glowed spectrum-white again at -Samson's, indicating that the communicator was ready to receive. - -"Something?" said Midge, coming forward. - -Samson waved his hand at her, palm down, in a gesture that meant "Shut -up and listen." Simultaneously, Harlow's voice began again: "I'll give -you the story, anyhow; you can pick it up from the cube later if you're -not reading me now. Kids, this Kenilworth thing is a lot bigger than -it looked two days ago. It may be even bigger than I think it is now, -in which case we'll all have to start digging hidey-holes. It's all -yours--I haven't got anybody else within two weeks' run of the place. -So listen." - -There was a pause and a click, which Samson identified as the sound of -Harlow's teeth gripping his ever-present pipe. Then, "Here's the call -I got from Jackson, the Kenilworth deputy. That was three days ago. -I don't think there's anything in it that I missed, but I'll let you -decide that. It came in at three-oh-five hours G.T." - -A younger voice said excitedly, "Jackson, Kenilworth IV, calling -Harlow, Slice 103 H.Q. Urgent. Harlow, hold onto your hair. _The -Kassids are back._ Over to you." - -Harlow's recorded voice, sounding sleepy, answered: "Better hold onto -yours. Who are the Kassids, and what if they're back? I didn't even -know they were gone. Over." - -"Who are the Kassids! Just the big medicine men of Slices 42, 43, 102 -and 103, is all! See your manual, page 9581 _et seq._ They landed on -KenilFour ten days ago; I just got the message. It seems the local boys -told them about me as soon as they got past the language difficulty, -and they're anxious to meet me. I'm going over there now--call you back -in about six hours. Over." - -"Give them a big, juicy kiss for me," said Harlow. "Clearing." - -His voice began again immediately: "You can look up the Kassids in -the manual; I had to. They're a legend, a group of legends, fifteen -thousand years old. At that point, my opinion was either that a gang of -backwoods Messiahs were passing themselves off as 'Kassids' in hopes of -gain and glory, or else that some of Jackson's charges were playing a -big fat joke on him. So I rolled over and went back to sleep. The only -thing is, Jackson never called back. - -"I waited twenty-four hours and then alerted you. It still didn't look -big. Jackson might have crash-landed somewhere and broken his leg. Or -he might have got hold of some local antiquities and forgotten to eat, -sleep, breathe or say his prayers. Nothing else happened until several -hours ago. Then this came in, from an experimental organics outfit on -Loblich VII." - - * * * * * - -The Samsons listened to a high, exasperated voice complaining that a -maniac named Jackson had landed at the station, 'preached a kind of a -sermon,' and taken off again with seventeen of the group's twenty-two -members. The group was now hopelessly undermanned; eight years' work -would be ruined unless H.Q. sent them trained replacements sooner than -immediately. - -Harlow demanded more information. What had Jackson's 'sermon' consisted -of, exactly? - -"He talked about Love," said the organics man irritably. "And -Peace--and a Message for the Universe. Stuff like that. If you ask me, -the man's insane. And if you want to know why three-quarters of this -outfit dumped their work and walked out with him, don't ask me. When do -we get those replacements?" - -There was another pause, punctuated by the click of pipestem against -teeth. "Now that," said Harlow, "began to seem a little smelly. If -you'll look at the tank, you'll see that Loblich is the nearest human -settlement to Kenilworth, and it's a long jump--Jackson must have -blasted at maximum to get there in two and a half days. But from -Loblich to any of three well-settled systems is just a hop. - -"So I got the signal pattern of Jackson's ship out of the files and -had a warning broadcast to all the patrol centers in 103 and adjoining -Slices. I also started a call going out to Jackson at twenty-minute -intervals. He didn't answer it. That was all, until fifteen minutes ago. - -"Jackson turned up in a landing orbit around Xavier III. The local -patrol put a beam on him and warned him not to land. But instead of -shunting into a parking orbit and waiting for instructions, as he was -told, Jackson headed for open space under full drive. - -"The patrol burned him out of the sky. There was nothing left to pick -up." - -This time the pause was longer. "If he had landed," Harlow's tired -voice said finally, "and if he'd got anything like the same percentage -of response in a larger group, this thing would already be too big to -stop. I tell myself that." The Samsons could hear his teeth grating -against the pipestem. "All right, that's all I can give you," he said -after a moment. "Land on KenilFour, get in touch with these Kassids, -talk to them and find out what this is all about and how they do it. -I've got two cruisers and a battleship on the way from the naval -station in Kleinmuller, and if it turns out that they'll do any -good, they'll be there in fifteen days. But we've got to have more -information. And just incidentally, don't let them sell you whatever -they sold Jackson. If you do, I can't offer you any guarantee you won't -end up the way he did." There was a thump, and then a gargling noise -that meant Harlow was sucking on an empty pipe. "Take every precaution -you can think of," he finished. "Keep in continuous touch after you -land. Over." - -"Check, Papa," said Samson. "Clearing." - -Samson, who was tall, beefy and blond, looked at Midge, dark and -apparently fragile, who was curled into a very small ball among the -cushions on the other side of the room. "Did you know Jackson?" he -asked. - -She nodded soberly. "A very good boy," she said. - -"M-hm. You got that manual?" - -"Here." She put the cube into the reader set into the table in front -of her, and began scanning for page 9581. Samson walked over and sat -beside her. - -There was a good deal about the Kassids, also known as the Akassa, the -Ksits, the Karsis, the Krassit, the Karss and the Krathis. All the -older races in this section of the galaxy had legends about them. It -was not particularly surprising that Harlow had had to look them up; -they were just one item among the tangled mass of folk-legend and myth -that had been gleaned from a thousand inhabited worlds. - - * * * * * - -Nobody, said the manual, knew whether the Kassids had been a historic -culture or a widespread myth. They were magicians, or demigods, or, as -Jackson had put it, big medicine men; they were purer and nobler than -anybody else, they knew more about everything, they could change their -shapes at will, et cetera. The fact that more than five hundred planets -had the same or similar legends proved nothing, because all the races -in question, dull as they were, had had limited interstellar travel -millenia before the arrival of Man. Most of the legends agreed that the -Kassids had gone away, amid weeping and wailing from the lesser tribes, -some fifteen thousand years ago. - -But now they were back--and something they had done to Jackson had made -him leave his post, and caused seventeen other people to leave theirs, -and had got them all killed. - -"I won't say I like it much," Midge said. "How are you fixed for ideas?" - -"Information first," said Samson didactically; "ideas after." He added, -not to Midge, "Take a message." - -The light-tube glowed pink. - -"Charles Samson to Head Librarian, Lubyanka Central Archives. Urgent. -Request all available material on the Kassids, K-A-S-S-I-D-S. Don't -digest it--put it straight through on facsimile. Over to you." - -He clipped a fresh cube into the receiver in the center of the room. -After twenty minutes, a female voice said, "Information coming through. -Over." The recording light glowed; Samson turned on the reader and -glanced at the page of type that appeared on the screen. "I read you. -Thanks. Clearing." - -"Coffee, chef," said Midge resignedly. "And two ham sandwiches." She -came over and sat beside Samson. "Hold that page till I finish it." - -Samson was a man with an open mind, a faculty which served him well in -dealing with the weird and wild inhabitants of many planets in Slice -103, but which, it occurred to him, was not just the thing wanted for -the task in hand. He kept his misgivings to himself, however, and aided -by numerous steaming pots of coffee served up by the ship's autochef, -bored his way determinedly through the twenty tubes of surmise, -conjecture and hearsay provided by Lubyanka Archives. Midge, who had -a female-superiority complex, sat and took it alongside him, cube for -cube. - - * * * * * - -When they had finished, as Midge took the trouble to remind him, they -had learned next to nothing that wasn't in the Slice 103 manual. "A -total loss, wasn't it?" she demanded. - -"Sure. Just a precaution; there _might_ have been something in there -that the manual skipped. If it doesn't rain one Sunday, do you give up -wearing waterproofs?" - -Midge's expression indicated that the question deserved no answer. -"You've had your information--_now_ have you got any ideas?" - -"Well," said Samson reflectively, "Harlow seems to think there's some -kind of compulsion involved, maybe hypnotic. I don't see how we can -exclude the possibility, even though that kind of contact between alien -minds is supposed to be impossible. But I've got a hunch that's not it. -I think maybe they simply talked to Jackson--they _convinced_ him--and -he did the same to the seventeen that followed him." - -"In my own fumbling way," said Midge, "I got that far three hours ago. -Because if it was compulsion of any kind, why did it only work on -seventeen out of twenty-two? I even made a stab at answering another -little technical question--why didn't Jackson use the communicator?" - -"That's easy enough," said Samson. "If you got a call from somebody -you didn't know, and he started spouting pseudo-religious propaganda -at you, would you listen quietly until he was finished, or would you -cut him off and complain to the Privacy Commission? And if he'd called -anybody who knew him--you or Harlow, for example--we would have smelled -something. Jackson might have found himself cut off before he ever left -Kenilworth, if he'd tried that. He couldn't take the chance." - -"But if you don't mind," Midge said coolly, "what I meant by my -question was, have you got any ideas about what we're going to do?" - -"Sure. I'll go in there doped to the eyebrows. I'll use--" - -"Wait," said Midge. "Please. You said, 'I'll go in?'" - -"That's right. I go in; you stay in the ship and watch. You also -listen, but through a whisper mike--you'll hear everything I say but -not what the other fellow says. In other words, I go over the cliff, -you hold my legs. Catch on?" - -Midge said nothing. - -"As I was saying, I'll use antihypnotics, and you might as well give me -a good dose of countersuggestion, too, but those are just playing it -safe. What I'm counting on to do the stunt is arnophrene." - -"Arnophrene!" Midge stared at him. - -"Sure. In heavy dosage, the stuff inhibits your ability to add two and -two. You can follow an argument, in pieces, and even make reasonably -intelligent replies, but you can't hang onto it long enough to put it -all together. In other words, if they convince me of anything, it'll -be on the order of 'Your nose is on the front of your face'... I'll be -sick as a dog afterwards, of course, and I may not remember much of -what they feed me. But you can hold my head, and drag the information -out of me under hypno if you have to. Remember to be careful what you -ask for, in that case--we want to know who these people are and what -they're up to, not what they think about the Great Spirit." - -Midge kept looking at him somberly. "I don't like it," she said. - -"I don't like it either. Neither will Harlow, if he has to get me -burned down for trying to save souls ... although, come to think of -it, I can think of ways to play it smarter than Jackson did. Make a -phony report, duck out somewhere along the line between here and -H.Q., and then find me a nice uninhabited planet to hide on for a -while. Pirate another ship later, maybe; wear a false beard." He -sighed. "But, come to think of it again, I guess all that has occurred -to Harlow, too." - -He looked at Midge. "What'll you do if I should get sold before you can -yank me out of there?" - -Her eyes were steadier than her husband's. "Follow you down and buy -myself a tambourine," she said. "What did you think?" - - * * * * * - -Midge's small hands were painfully tight on the edge of the control -panel. On the screen before her, reproduced with excellent fidelity in -spite of the transmitter's peanut size, appeared whatever Samson was -seeing: at the moment, the interior of a bronze-green room and two of -the roly-poly, stumpy-legged tentacled autochthons of Kenilworth IV. -She could see Samson's hands, whenever he happened to raise them; she -could not see his face. - -On a smaller screen to the left was a view from a pickup in the -ship's hull--a grassy plain, seen from above, with a huge, black, -lozenge-shaped spaceship and a cluster of the little KenilFour air-cars. - -Samson's voice remarked, "They say the Kassid is coming now." - -Midge wanted to say something encouraging and affectionate, but her -voice stuck in her throat. - -After a moment, a doorway dilated at the end of the pictured room and -something hopped in. For the benefit of the listening Harlow at H.Q., -Midge began to describe it. "About a meter and a half tall--must be an -oxygen breather, I can't see any mask--it's a uniped. Moves partly by -hopping, partly by contracting its foot. Rather thick trunk and four -limbs besides the foot, two at the very top, two where the trunk joins -the leg. A lot of flabby fingers, can't tell how many. Three eyes in a -horizontal line, vertical mouth under them. No clothes. Whole thing a -dull tan color, with dark pa--" - -[Illustration: A doorway dilated and something hopped in.] - -She broke off, as Samson began to speak. He was evidently replying to -the Kassid's speech of welcome. "I'm very happy to be here. My people -have heard great things of you from your pupil, David Jackson." - -Another long pause, during which Midge said, "Dark patches, apparently -at random--no pattern. I would guess the thing to be recently evolved -from an undersea stage, tail altered to a foot. Don't know whether -there are any exterior organs on the other side--there, it turned -around for a minute. No organs. Now the KenilFours are leaving...." - -Samson said, "That's why I came." - -Another pause, and then, "Yes, thank you." Something that ran on a -great many thin, twinkling legs brought in a low stool and ran out -again. The interview went on, a meaningless sequence of short questions -and comments by Samson, each followed by a long silence. "Yes, of -course, that's true." ... "I see" ... "How clear that is now" ... "But -in the case of war" ... After a while, Samson's speech began to grow a -little thick. He stumbled over occasional words, but always recovered. - -After a long time, Samson said, "The word will be spread. My government -will want to know about your needs and your history, so that we can -receive you properly. Will you show me through your ship, and tell -me something about yourselves?" The view turned toward the doorway, -approached it and went through into a long corridor. - -Midge closed the sending circuit between herself and Samson. "Charlie, -are you all right?" she whispered. If he was acting, she told herself -miserably, it was a magnificent performance. Under the fuzziness of his -speech was something else ... an awe, a quiet joy. - -"All right, Midge," said Samson's voice quietly, naturally. "Don't -worry." - -A long succession of rooms: control chamber, power plant, a garden with -plants unlike any that Midge had seen before, star charts, transparent -tanks full of murky fluid ... Samson's hand, and a narrow strip of -something being put into it. Patterns of dots on the strip. Samson's -voice: "What does it mean?" Then more corridors, more rooms. Finally -Samson's voice again, weak and hollow. "Feeling rocky, Midge. Coming -out." - - * * * * * - -It was Harlow's voice asking, "How is he now?" The "now" was an irony, -since even at second-order speeds, his voice had taken fourteen minutes -to reach them, and he would not hear the answer for another fourteen. - -Samson, in orange pajamas, very pale, said, "Ready to talk, Papa." He -looked at the ceiling. "Don't think I need the hypno. I can remember -most of it. Fuzzy--a dreamlike quality to it--but I think it's almost -all there." - -"I've already had you under hypno," said Midge quietly. "As soon as I -got you inside." - -Samson turned his head to look at her. "So? What for?" - -"I wanted to find out if you'd had your soul saved." - -Samson grinned weakly. "Is it likely? Harlow--get this. The Kassids -aren't invaders in the usual meaning of the term. They haven't got any -mind-rays or insidious hypnotic powers, and they aren't interested in -taking over anybody's property. That's the first thing. Second, they're -not a race and they're not an empire. I saw at least twenty different -life-forms aboard their ship, and I learned enough to know that they -were all Kassids. That would seem to account for that business in the -legends about their being able to change forms. The local lads thought -the same thing about us at first, remember, on account of our having -two sexes. Over to you." - -"An interesting conundrum," Harlow commented, fourteen minutes later. -"They're neither a race nor an empire. What are they? Over." - -"They're an idea," said Samson grimly. "The idea is a pretty complex -one, and I don't think I got all of it, luckily. The effect of that -arnophrene, at a guess, was to drop my I.Q. about forty or fifty -points. But I can tell you what it is: it's a completely convincing -argument--on the emotional _and_ logical levels--why you should never -break the peace or stop loving your neighbor. If you're thinking that -you've heard arguments like that before, and we're still the same old -robbing, raping and fire-setting crew, you're wrong. _You haven't -heard this one._ I'm telling you that I only got the fringe of it, and -it made me want to bawl. Once you've heard it--_if_ you've got the -intellect to take it completely--you'll never forget it for a minute, -and you won't find any loopholes. You won't backslide, and you won't be -a Sunday believer. You'd sooner cut your throat." - -"Over," added Midge quietly. - -Samson smiled at her and waited for Harlow's reply. - -"I guess I believe you," said Harlow's voice when the time was up, "but -it would be hard to swallow if it hadn't been for Jackson. I want to -ask you two things. First, is there any question in your mind about -what would happen to homo sap if this state of mind spread? Second, -what do you think we can do about it? Over." - -"One," said Samson promptly, "no. Once you've heard the Word, and -understood it, you _know_ there isn't anything more important than -spreading it to other people. We would become Kassids--meaning that the -Word would come before everything else--meaning in turn that we'd stop -being the masterful mayflies who boss this half of the galaxy. We might -not even stay where we are. In fact, there would be a lot of changes, -some big, some small, but they would all add up to this: the human race -as we know it would cease to exist ... and we can't have that, can we? -The universe may belong to the angels, but we're men. You can believe -that I'm not telling you this just to put your mind at rest about -Jackson. We've never had any serious opposition in the six hundred -years we've been spreading out, but this is it. These are the kids that -can finish us with one hand tied behind their backs." - -He paused. "It occurred to me a long time ago, when I was a student, -that if anything ever did fold us up, it wouldn't be a gang of monsters -breathing pure fluorine and squirting death rays from every tentacle, -it would be an idea. You can kill monsters, but you can't kill an idea. -From Genghis Khan to Hitler, not one of the real conquerors--the guys -who just wanted to grab everything in sight--hung onto a-half-credit's -worth of what they got. But the Roman Empire was an idea; so was Islam, -Christendom, Communism and Anticentrism. - -"Two, I don't know what we can do about it. I'll tell you some things -we can't do. We can't make war on the Kassids. If we did, everything -we've got in this Slice, from shipyards to outhouses, would be buried -under crowds of howling neuters in about two seconds. I don't think we -can quarantine them, or ourselves, forever. There isn't anything they -want in the universe, except to spread the Word, so I don't see how we -could make any kind of a deal with them." - - * * * * * - -He took a deep breath. "Let me tell you what else I found out, and -maybe something will occur to you. I said before that the idea is -complicated. That's why ethics go up with intelligence, maybe. And -that's why the races we've met, that remember the Kassids, aren't -Kassids themselves. They're not bright enough. That explains something -that's had us wondering for the last six centuries--why there isn't a -single race in our part of the galaxy that rates higher than a fairly -bright twelve-year-old on our scale. There isn't any correlation -between sexual reproduction and intelligence, as my wife and some -others would have you believe. It's simply that the others grasped -the idea--became Kassids. Eventually the Kassids had done all the -proselytizing they could. That was roughly fifteen thousand years ago. -Either they missed us altogether, or we weren't much better than an -ape's cousin at that stage; otherwise they made a clean sweep of the -galaxy. Do you know what happened then? Do you know where they went?" -He paused for breath again. "They went to the nearer Magellanic Cloud, -and that's where they've been all this time. Some of the forms I saw -are from there. The same thing happened--eventually they absorbed all -the intelligence there was. So they came back, hoping some had grown in -this galaxy--and they found us." He sighed. "Over." - -Harlow's voice came back. "Sounds stinking. Anything else?" - -"One more thing," Samson told him. "This slip of plastic they handed -me as a souvenir. They gave me a verbal translation, and I remember -it word for word. It's a dictionary entry: '_Man, noun. A pentagonal, -dipolar, monoplane dominant of intelligence 96_'--that's on their scale -with the average Kassid race at 100--'_native of District so-and-so_.' -The significance of it, from their point of view, is the '96.' It's -the first time they've been able to make an entry over 75 in the last -twelve or fourteen hundred years." - -He frowned. "When I first got back and Midge neutralized the drugs, I -thought of it, and it seemed to me there might be an answer there. A -definition describes the observer as well as the thing observed. That -seemed like a brilliant thought to me at the time, but I can't see any -help in it now." He blinked unhappily. "All it seems to say is that -they've got a superficial and oversimplified system of classification, -meaning that physical structure isn't important to them--which we know -already ... my guess would be, incidentally, that the one who talked to -me was picked because the Kassids thought I'd feel at home with it. It -had five extremities, although none of them was a head; it had a top -and bottom and it faced in one direction. Ergo, it looked just like a -man. Over." - -Midge said thoughtfully, "It's funny. If they were so geometrical -about it, why didn't they say bisexual?" - -Samson chortled. "You _would_--" he began, and stopped abruptly, with -a stricken expression. "Wait a minute," he said. "Cancel the over. -Everybody shut up, even you, Harlow. The Midget has said something." - -Midge seemed to be trying to look indignant, pleased in spite of -herself. - -"Harlow, Midge," said Samson slowly after a time, "there's one other -thing about life in this universe that's been puzzling us for the -last six centuries. We know now that it has nothing to do with the -intelligence level, but we still don't know why everybody else but us -reproduces by simple division, budding, spores or conjugation--and in -consequence, lives a damn sight longer than we do, almost long enough -to make up for their low native intelligence. But just suppose that -Earth really is a freak planet--suppose that even the Kassids have -never run into a bisexual organism before. I didn't mention it to them, -and I'm willing to bet Jackson didn't either. You know how tough it -is to explain to a xeno--it generally takes ten days to convince them -you're not kidding. And, Harlow--suppose that I go down there again, -and take Midge along...." - - * * * * * - -When they re-entered the ship, Harlow's voice was saying, "Are you -there, Charles and Midge? Speak up, dammit. Over." - -The Samsons looked at each other, glassy-eyed. "With you in a minute, -Harlow," Samson croaked, and lurched after Midge into the sick bay. -Both of them were full of arnophrene--Samson's second dose within two -hours, and an extra-heavy one for Midge. - -They staggered into the living chamber again, some time later, and -collapsed on opposite sides of the couch. - -"Never again," said Midge faintly. - -Samson wet his lips. "It worked, Papa. They swallowed it. I gave Midge -enough of the stuff to make her about twice as disconnected as usual. I -walked in with a long face and told them that the change had started -in my absence. They wanted to know what change. I pointed to Midge, and -we stripped for them. They may not be interested in shapes, but there -was enough difference there to make them take notice. They called a -conference, and probed and poked and x-rayed us. I told them the story -of the caterpillar and the butterfly. Or the nymph and the waterbug, -I should say. You're the ugliest and dumbest member of this family, -Midge." - -Midge made an inarticulate sound. - -"I told them we're a two-stage organism," Samson said. "One stage -builds all the tall buildings, writes all the novels, does all the -high-class thinking. The other stage reproduces. I said we have a -forty-thousand-year cycle, half to each, but the first stage always -tries to retard the metamorphosis, because the second stage is so -stupid that it ruins our civilization every time, and we have to start -from scratch. I said I was awfully sorry, but the change had come -earlier than we expected this time, and there was nothing we could do -about it ... they're going off to the great nebula in Andromeda. Maybe -they'll find sixteen quintillion brainy races there, and they'll never -come back. The other way, at least we've got twenty thousand years to -think up another gag." - -He sighed. "All right, Papa. Over." - -Fourteen slow minutes went by. Samson and his wife looked at each other -and said nothing. - -The Kassids had tried converting Midge, to see if she were as moronic -as described. Midge had reacted properly, being so befuddled that she -could hardly work her way through a sentence; but she had heard a faint -echo of the Word. - -Harlow said, "I don't know what to say to you, kids. You'll be -remembered for this, both of you. A long time. History's been a dull -subject for the last few centuries, but this will liven it up. I don't -think anybody will hesitate to call it a major victory. Over." - -Samson smiled, bitterly and sadly. - -"That depends," he said, "on how you define 'victory'." - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEFINITION *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Definition</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Damon Knight</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 18, 2022 [eBook #69009]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEFINITION ***</div> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>DEFINITION</h1> - -<h2>By DAMON KNIGHT</h2> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Startling Stories, February 1953.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>Man, <i>n.</i> A pentagonal, dipolar, monoplane dominant, of intelligence -96, native of District 10039817. Unabsorbed.</p></div> - -<p>It is a truism that a human being can get used to very nearly -everything. The hardy Eskimo, lying belly-down on a plain of ice that -stretched unbroken to the sky, probably spent little of his time in -meditating upon the vastness and inscrutability of the Universe ... he -was thinking of his dinner. And Charles Samson, seven hundred years -later, looked past his long nose at a scene of equal majesty—our -galaxy, viewed from a ship in mid-arc—in a similar frame of mind.</p> - -<p>It was approximately sixteen hours, galactic time; a trifle later -according to Samson's stomach. He had played a vicious game of handball -with his wife an hour and a half before, and now he was hungry.</p> - -<p>The Eskimo, although a patient man, might have reflected that it was -unreasonable of this particular seal to wake up and look around him at -this precise moment. Samson, equally virtuous, told himself that his -wife might have chosen a more opportune time to experiment with her -cookery. Midge had conceived an idea for a soufflĂ© such as had never -before been seen by Man, and had accordingly been adding new circuits -to the autochef for the past eighty-five minutes.</p> - -<p>If she ran to form, the soufflĂ©—which would be a triumph, in spite of -seventeen separate miscalculations—would be served in about twenty -minutes more. Samson would have preferred an artless slab of steak -<i>now</i>.</p> - -<p>These, it may be considered, were picayune thoughts to occupy a brain -which had been interminably trained and tested, stocked with a fabulous -assortment of knowledge, and then sent out, with one other human mind -for company, to patrol a hegemony ten billion times as vast as Caesar's.</p> - -<p>At the moment, however, there was nothing world-shaking for it to do. -Charles and Midge, like a thousand other teams of trouble-shooters -assigned to the volume of space known as Slice 103, earned their pay by -intense, difficult, and sometimes dangerous labor which averaged three -months out of the year; the rest of their time was spent in traveling -from one assignment to the next, or simply in drifting, waiting for -something of importance to turn up.</p> - -<p>Two days ago, for example, they had been halfway along a leisurely arc -between the Hilkert system and the observatory settlement on de Broglie -II, when Slice H.Q. had buzzed them and told them to change course -for Kenilworth IV—an isolated and obscure one-man post out on the -perimeter of the Slice. Tomorrow, as likely as not, another message -would inform them that the trouble, whatever it was, had simmered -down. Then they would blast into a new arc, and it would be six days, -at least—even if another wild-goose chase did not intervene—before -they touched ground. Meanwhile, they amused themselves as well as they -could....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As for the stars, which lay spread out to the infinity beyond the -inch-thick vitrin of the ship's veranda window, the trouble with them -was that they were always the same. Maugham records that when he first -saw the Taj Mahal, he felt an ineffable surprise and joy; but on the -following day, it was only a beautiful building. He had seen it before.</p> - -<p>Samson had been in space for something over half his lifetime. -Accordingly, when the communicator bell rang, it shattered no -meditations on the relations of Man to Nature; on the contrary, Samson, -uncoiling himself and walking through the doorway into the lounge, -carried with him the firm mental image of a ham sandwich, with relish -and mustard.</p> - -<p>"Let's hear it," he said.</p> - -<p>Obediently, the communicator uncorked a quiet male voice: "Harlow -calling the Samsons. Acknowledge if you're awake, will you? Over."</p> - -<p>Midge appeared at the opposite end of the room, brushing a strand -of black hair back from her forehead. "We read you, Harlow," said -Samson. "Go ahead. Over." The light-tube which encircled the ceiling, -having turned pink at Harlow's "Over," glowed spectrum-white again at -Samson's, indicating that the communicator was ready to receive.</p> - -<p>"Something?" said Midge, coming forward.</p> - -<p>Samson waved his hand at her, palm down, in a gesture that meant "Shut -up and listen." Simultaneously, Harlow's voice began again: "I'll give -you the story, anyhow; you can pick it up from the cube later if you're -not reading me now. Kids, this Kenilworth thing is a lot bigger than -it looked two days ago. It may be even bigger than I think it is now, -in which case we'll all have to start digging hidey-holes. It's all -yours—I haven't got anybody else within two weeks' run of the place. -So listen."</p> - -<p>There was a pause and a click, which Samson identified as the sound of -Harlow's teeth gripping his ever-present pipe. Then, "Here's the call -I got from Jackson, the Kenilworth deputy. That was three days ago. -I don't think there's anything in it that I missed, but I'll let you -decide that. It came in at three-oh-five hours G.T."</p> - -<p>A younger voice said excitedly, "Jackson, Kenilworth IV, calling -Harlow, Slice 103 H.Q. Urgent. Harlow, hold onto your hair. <i>The -Kassids are back.</i> Over to you."</p> - -<p>Harlow's recorded voice, sounding sleepy, answered: "Better hold onto -yours. Who are the Kassids, and what if they're back? I didn't even -know they were gone. Over."</p> - -<p>"Who are the Kassids! Just the big medicine men of Slices 42, 43, 102 -and 103, is all! See your manual, page 9581 <i>et seq.</i> They landed on -KenilFour ten days ago; I just got the message. It seems the local boys -told them about me as soon as they got past the language difficulty, -and they're anxious to meet me. I'm going over there now—call you back -in about six hours. Over."</p> - -<p>"Give them a big, juicy kiss for me," said Harlow. "Clearing."</p> - -<p>His voice began again immediately: "You can look up the Kassids in -the manual; I had to. They're a legend, a group of legends, fifteen -thousand years old. At that point, my opinion was either that a gang of -backwoods Messiahs were passing themselves off as 'Kassids' in hopes of -gain and glory, or else that some of Jackson's charges were playing a -big fat joke on him. So I rolled over and went back to sleep. The only -thing is, Jackson never called back.</p> - -<p>"I waited twenty-four hours and then alerted you. It still didn't look -big. Jackson might have crash-landed somewhere and broken his leg. Or -he might have got hold of some local antiquities and forgotten to eat, -sleep, breathe or say his prayers. Nothing else happened until several -hours ago. Then this came in, from an experimental organics outfit on -Loblich VII."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Samsons listened to a high, exasperated voice complaining that a -maniac named Jackson had landed at the station, 'preached a kind of a -sermon,' and taken off again with seventeen of the group's twenty-two -members. The group was now hopelessly undermanned; eight years' work -would be ruined unless H.Q. sent them trained replacements sooner than -immediately.</p> - -<p>Harlow demanded more information. What had Jackson's 'sermon' consisted -of, exactly?</p> - -<p>"He talked about Love," said the organics man irritably. "And -Peace—and a Message for the Universe. Stuff like that. If you ask me, -the man's insane. And if you want to know why three-quarters of this -outfit dumped their work and walked out with him, don't ask me. When do -we get those replacements?"</p> - -<p>There was another pause, punctuated by the click of pipestem against -teeth. "Now that," said Harlow, "began to seem a little smelly. If -you'll look at the tank, you'll see that Loblich is the nearest human -settlement to Kenilworth, and it's a long jump—Jackson must have -blasted at maximum to get there in two and a half days. But from -Loblich to any of three well-settled systems is just a hop.</p> - -<p>"So I got the signal pattern of Jackson's ship out of the files and -had a warning broadcast to all the patrol centers in 103 and adjoining -Slices. I also started a call going out to Jackson at twenty-minute -intervals. He didn't answer it. That was all, until fifteen minutes ago.</p> - -<p>"Jackson turned up in a landing orbit around Xavier III. The local -patrol put a beam on him and warned him not to land. But instead of -shunting into a parking orbit and waiting for instructions, as he was -told, Jackson headed for open space under full drive.</p> - -<p>"The patrol burned him out of the sky. There was nothing left to pick -up."</p> - -<p>This time the pause was longer. "If he had landed," Harlow's tired -voice said finally, "and if he'd got anything like the same percentage -of response in a larger group, this thing would already be too big to -stop. I tell myself that." The Samsons could hear his teeth grating -against the pipestem. "All right, that's all I can give you," he said -after a moment. "Land on KenilFour, get in touch with these Kassids, -talk to them and find out what this is all about and how they do it. -I've got two cruisers and a battleship on the way from the naval -station in Kleinmuller, and if it turns out that they'll do any -good, they'll be there in fifteen days. But we've got to have more -information. And just incidentally, don't let them sell you whatever -they sold Jackson. If you do, I can't offer you any guarantee you won't -end up the way he did." There was a thump, and then a gargling noise -that meant Harlow was sucking on an empty pipe. "Take every precaution -you can think of," he finished. "Keep in continuous touch after you -land. Over."</p> - -<p>"Check, Papa," said Samson. "Clearing."</p> - -<p>Samson, who was tall, beefy and blond, looked at Midge, dark and -apparently fragile, who was curled into a very small ball among the -cushions on the other side of the room. "Did you know Jackson?" he -asked.</p> - -<p>She nodded soberly. "A very good boy," she said.</p> - -<p>"M-hm. You got that manual?"</p> - -<p>"Here." She put the cube into the reader set into the table in front -of her, and began scanning for page 9581. Samson walked over and sat -beside her.</p> - -<p>There was a good deal about the Kassids, also known as the Akassa, the -Ksits, the Karsis, the Krassit, the Karss and the Krathis. All the -older races in this section of the galaxy had legends about them. It -was not particularly surprising that Harlow had had to look them up; -they were just one item among the tangled mass of folk-legend and myth -that had been gleaned from a thousand inhabited worlds.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nobody, said the manual, knew whether the Kassids had been a historic -culture or a widespread myth. They were magicians, or demigods, or, as -Jackson had put it, big medicine men; they were purer and nobler than -anybody else, they knew more about everything, they could change their -shapes at will, et cetera. The fact that more than five hundred planets -had the same or similar legends proved nothing, because all the races -in question, dull as they were, had had limited interstellar travel -millenia before the arrival of Man. Most of the legends agreed that the -Kassids had gone away, amid weeping and wailing from the lesser tribes, -some fifteen thousand years ago.</p> - -<p>But now they were back—and something they had done to Jackson had made -him leave his post, and caused seventeen other people to leave theirs, -and had got them all killed.</p> - -<p>"I won't say I like it much," Midge said. "How are you fixed for ideas?"</p> - -<p>"Information first," said Samson didactically; "ideas after." He added, -not to Midge, "Take a message."</p> - -<p>The light-tube glowed pink.</p> - -<p>"Charles Samson to Head Librarian, Lubyanka Central Archives. Urgent. -Request all available material on the Kassids, K-A-S-S-I-D-S. Don't -digest it—put it straight through on facsimile. Over to you."</p> - -<p>He clipped a fresh cube into the receiver in the center of the room. -After twenty minutes, a female voice said, "Information coming through. -Over." The recording light glowed; Samson turned on the reader and -glanced at the page of type that appeared on the screen. "I read you. -Thanks. Clearing."</p> - -<p>"Coffee, chef," said Midge resignedly. "And two ham sandwiches." She -came over and sat beside Samson. "Hold that page till I finish it."</p> - -<p>Samson was a man with an open mind, a faculty which served him well in -dealing with the weird and wild inhabitants of many planets in Slice -103, but which, it occurred to him, was not just the thing wanted for -the task in hand. He kept his misgivings to himself, however, and aided -by numerous steaming pots of coffee served up by the ship's autochef, -bored his way determinedly through the twenty tubes of surmise, -conjecture and hearsay provided by Lubyanka Archives. Midge, who had -a female-superiority complex, sat and took it alongside him, cube for -cube.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When they had finished, as Midge took the trouble to remind him, they -had learned next to nothing that wasn't in the Slice 103 manual. "A -total loss, wasn't it?" she demanded.</p> - -<p>"Sure. Just a precaution; there <i>might</i> have been something in there -that the manual skipped. If it doesn't rain one Sunday, do you give up -wearing waterproofs?"</p> - -<p>Midge's expression indicated that the question deserved no answer. -"You've had your information—<i>now</i> have you got any ideas?"</p> - -<p>"Well," said Samson reflectively, "Harlow seems to think there's some -kind of compulsion involved, maybe hypnotic. I don't see how we can -exclude the possibility, even though that kind of contact between alien -minds is supposed to be impossible. But I've got a hunch that's not it. -I think maybe they simply talked to Jackson—they <i>convinced</i> him—and -he did the same to the seventeen that followed him."</p> - -<p>"In my own fumbling way," said Midge, "I got that far three hours ago. -Because if it was compulsion of any kind, why did it only work on -seventeen out of twenty-two? I even made a stab at answering another -little technical question—why didn't Jackson use the communicator?"</p> - -<p>"That's easy enough," said Samson. "If you got a call from somebody -you didn't know, and he started spouting pseudo-religious propaganda -at you, would you listen quietly until he was finished, or would you -cut him off and complain to the Privacy Commission? And if he'd called -anybody who knew him—you or Harlow, for example—we would have smelled -something. Jackson might have found himself cut off before he ever left -Kenilworth, if he'd tried that. He couldn't take the chance."</p> - -<p>"But if you don't mind," Midge said coolly, "what I meant by my -question was, have you got any ideas about what we're going to do?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. I'll go in there doped to the eyebrows. I'll use—"</p> - -<p>"Wait," said Midge. "Please. You said, 'I'll go in?'"</p> - -<p>"That's right. I go in; you stay in the ship and watch. You also -listen, but through a whisper mike—you'll hear everything I say but -not what the other fellow says. In other words, I go over the cliff, -you hold my legs. Catch on?"</p> - -<p>Midge said nothing.</p> - -<p>"As I was saying, I'll use antihypnotics, and you might as well give me -a good dose of countersuggestion, too, but those are just playing it -safe. What I'm counting on to do the stunt is arnophrene."</p> - -<p>"Arnophrene!" Midge stared at him.</p> - -<p>"Sure. In heavy dosage, the stuff inhibits your ability to add two and -two. You can follow an argument, in pieces, and even make reasonably -intelligent replies, but you can't hang onto it long enough to put it -all together. In other words, if they convince me of anything, it'll -be on the order of 'Your nose is on the front of your face'... I'll be -sick as a dog afterwards, of course, and I may not remember much of -what they feed me. But you can hold my head, and drag the information -out of me under hypno if you have to. Remember to be careful what you -ask for, in that case—we want to know who these people are and what -they're up to, not what they think about the Great Spirit."</p> - -<p>Midge kept looking at him somberly. "I don't like it," she said.</p> - -<p>"I don't like it either. Neither will Harlow, if he has to get me -burned down for trying to save souls ... although, come to think of -it, I can think of ways to play it smarter than Jackson did. Make a -phony report, duck out somewhere along the line between here and -H.Q., and then find me a nice uninhabited planet to hide on for a -while. Pirate another ship later, maybe; wear a false beard." He -sighed. "But, come to think of it again, I guess all that has occurred -to Harlow, too."</p> - -<p>He looked at Midge. "What'll you do if I should get sold before you can -yank me out of there?"</p> - -<p>Her eyes were steadier than her husband's. "Follow you down and buy -myself a tambourine," she said. "What did you think?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Midge's small hands were painfully tight on the edge of the control -panel. On the screen before her, reproduced with excellent fidelity in -spite of the transmitter's peanut size, appeared whatever Samson was -seeing: at the moment, the interior of a bronze-green room and two of -the roly-poly, stumpy-legged tentacled autochthons of Kenilworth IV. -She could see Samson's hands, whenever he happened to raise them; she -could not see his face.</p> - -<p>On a smaller screen to the left was a view from a pickup in the -ship's hull—a grassy plain, seen from above, with a huge, black, -lozenge-shaped spaceship and a cluster of the little KenilFour air-cars.</p> - -<p>Samson's voice remarked, "They say the Kassid is coming now."</p> - -<p>Midge wanted to say something encouraging and affectionate, but her -voice stuck in her throat.</p> - -<p>After a moment, a doorway dilated at the end of the pictured room and -something hopped in. For the benefit of the listening Harlow at H.Q., -Midge began to describe it. "About a meter and a half tall—must be an -oxygen breather, I can't see any mask—it's a uniped. Moves partly by -hopping, partly by contracting its foot. Rather thick trunk and four -limbs besides the foot, two at the very top, two where the trunk joins -the leg. A lot of flabby fingers, can't tell how many. Three eyes in a -horizontal line, vertical mouth under them. No clothes. Whole thing a -dull tan color, with dark pa—"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p>A doorway dilated and something hopped in.</p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>She broke off, as Samson began to speak. He was evidently replying to -the Kassid's speech of welcome. "I'm very happy to be here. My people -have heard great things of you from your pupil, David Jackson."</p> - -<p>Another long pause, during which Midge said, "Dark patches, apparently -at random—no pattern. I would guess the thing to be recently evolved -from an undersea stage, tail altered to a foot. Don't know whether -there are any exterior organs on the other side—there, it turned -around for a minute. No organs. Now the KenilFours are leaving...."</p> - -<p>Samson said, "That's why I came."</p> - -<p>Another pause, and then, "Yes, thank you." Something that ran on a -great many thin, twinkling legs brought in a low stool and ran out -again. The interview went on, a meaningless sequence of short questions -and comments by Samson, each followed by a long silence. "Yes, of -course, that's true." ... "I see" ... "How clear that is now" ... "But -in the case of war" ... After a while, Samson's speech began to grow a -little thick. He stumbled over occasional words, but always recovered.</p> - -<p>After a long time, Samson said, "The word will be spread. My government -will want to know about your needs and your history, so that we can -receive you properly. Will you show me through your ship, and tell -me something about yourselves?" The view turned toward the doorway, -approached it and went through into a long corridor.</p> - -<p>Midge closed the sending circuit between herself and Samson. "Charlie, -are you all right?" she whispered. If he was acting, she told herself -miserably, it was a magnificent performance. Under the fuzziness of his -speech was something else ... an awe, a quiet joy.</p> - -<p>"All right, Midge," said Samson's voice quietly, naturally. "Don't -worry."</p> - -<p>A long succession of rooms: control chamber, power plant, a garden with -plants unlike any that Midge had seen before, star charts, transparent -tanks full of murky fluid ... Samson's hand, and a narrow strip of -something being put into it. Patterns of dots on the strip. Samson's -voice: "What does it mean?" Then more corridors, more rooms. Finally -Samson's voice again, weak and hollow. "Feeling rocky, Midge. Coming -out."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was Harlow's voice asking, "How is he now?" The "now" was an irony, -since even at second-order speeds, his voice had taken fourteen minutes -to reach them, and he would not hear the answer for another fourteen.</p> - -<p>Samson, in orange pajamas, very pale, said, "Ready to talk, Papa." He -looked at the ceiling. "Don't think I need the hypno. I can remember -most of it. Fuzzy—a dreamlike quality to it—but I think it's almost -all there."</p> - -<p>"I've already had you under hypno," said Midge quietly. "As soon as I -got you inside."</p> - -<p>Samson turned his head to look at her. "So? What for?"</p> - -<p>"I wanted to find out if you'd had your soul saved."</p> - -<p>Samson grinned weakly. "Is it likely? Harlow—get this. The Kassids -aren't invaders in the usual meaning of the term. They haven't got any -mind-rays or insidious hypnotic powers, and they aren't interested in -taking over anybody's property. That's the first thing. Second, they're -not a race and they're not an empire. I saw at least twenty different -life-forms aboard their ship, and I learned enough to know that they -were all Kassids. That would seem to account for that business in the -legends about their being able to change forms. The local lads thought -the same thing about us at first, remember, on account of our having -two sexes. Over to you."</p> - -<p>"An interesting conundrum," Harlow commented, fourteen minutes later. -"They're neither a race nor an empire. What are they? Over."</p> - -<p>"They're an idea," said Samson grimly. "The idea is a pretty complex -one, and I don't think I got all of it, luckily. The effect of that -arnophrene, at a guess, was to drop my I.Q. about forty or fifty -points. But I can tell you what it is: it's a completely convincing -argument—on the emotional <i>and</i> logical levels—why you should never -break the peace or stop loving your neighbor. If you're thinking that -you've heard arguments like that before, and we're still the same old -robbing, raping and fire-setting crew, you're wrong. <i>You haven't -heard this one.</i> I'm telling you that I only got the fringe of it, and -it made me want to bawl. Once you've heard it—<i>if</i> you've got the -intellect to take it completely—you'll never forget it for a minute, -and you won't find any loopholes. You won't backslide, and you won't be -a Sunday believer. You'd sooner cut your throat."</p> - -<p>"Over," added Midge quietly.</p> - -<p>Samson smiled at her and waited for Harlow's reply.</p> - -<p>"I guess I believe you," said Harlow's voice when the time was up, "but -it would be hard to swallow if it hadn't been for Jackson. I want to -ask you two things. First, is there any question in your mind about -what would happen to homo sap if this state of mind spread? Second, -what do you think we can do about it? Over."</p> - -<p>"One," said Samson promptly, "no. Once you've heard the Word, and -understood it, you <i>know</i> there isn't anything more important than -spreading it to other people. We would become Kassids—meaning that the -Word would come before everything else—meaning in turn that we'd stop -being the masterful mayflies who boss this half of the galaxy. We might -not even stay where we are. In fact, there would be a lot of changes, -some big, some small, but they would all add up to this: the human race -as we know it would cease to exist ... and we can't have that, can we? -The universe may belong to the angels, but we're men. You can believe -that I'm not telling you this just to put your mind at rest about -Jackson. We've never had any serious opposition in the six hundred -years we've been spreading out, but this is it. These are the kids that -can finish us with one hand tied behind their backs."</p> - -<p>He paused. "It occurred to me a long time ago, when I was a student, -that if anything ever did fold us up, it wouldn't be a gang of monsters -breathing pure fluorine and squirting death rays from every tentacle, -it would be an idea. You can kill monsters, but you can't kill an idea. -From Genghis Khan to Hitler, not one of the real conquerors—the guys -who just wanted to grab everything in sight—hung onto a-half-credit's -worth of what they got. But the Roman Empire was an idea; so was Islam, -Christendom, Communism and Anticentrism.</p> - -<p>"Two, I don't know what we can do about it. I'll tell you some things -we can't do. We can't make war on the Kassids. If we did, everything -we've got in this Slice, from shipyards to outhouses, would be buried -under crowds of howling neuters in about two seconds. I don't think we -can quarantine them, or ourselves, forever. There isn't anything they -want in the universe, except to spread the Word, so I don't see how we -could make any kind of a deal with them."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He took a deep breath. "Let me tell you what else I found out, and -maybe something will occur to you. I said before that the idea is -complicated. That's why ethics go up with intelligence, maybe. And -that's why the races we've met, that remember the Kassids, aren't -Kassids themselves. They're not bright enough. That explains something -that's had us wondering for the last six centuries—why there isn't a -single race in our part of the galaxy that rates higher than a fairly -bright twelve-year-old on our scale. There isn't any correlation -between sexual reproduction and intelligence, as my wife and some -others would have you believe. It's simply that the others grasped -the idea—became Kassids. Eventually the Kassids had done all the -proselytizing they could. That was roughly fifteen thousand years ago. -Either they missed us altogether, or we weren't much better than an -ape's cousin at that stage; otherwise they made a clean sweep of the -galaxy. Do you know what happened then? Do you know where they went?" -He paused for breath again. "They went to the nearer Magellanic Cloud, -and that's where they've been all this time. Some of the forms I saw -are from there. The same thing happened—eventually they absorbed all -the intelligence there was. So they came back, hoping some had grown in -this galaxy—and they found us." He sighed. "Over."</p> - -<p>Harlow's voice came back. "Sounds stinking. Anything else?"</p> - -<p>"One more thing," Samson told him. "This slip of plastic they handed -me as a souvenir. They gave me a verbal translation, and I remember -it word for word. It's a dictionary entry: '<i>Man, noun. A pentagonal, -dipolar, monoplane dominant of intelligence 96</i>'—that's on their scale -with the average Kassid race at 100—'<i>native of District so-and-so</i>.' -The significance of it, from their point of view, is the '96.' It's -the first time they've been able to make an entry over 75 in the last -twelve or fourteen hundred years."</p> - -<p>He frowned. "When I first got back and Midge neutralized the drugs, I -thought of it, and it seemed to me there might be an answer there. A -definition describes the observer as well as the thing observed. That -seemed like a brilliant thought to me at the time, but I can't see any -help in it now." He blinked unhappily. "All it seems to say is that -they've got a superficial and oversimplified system of classification, -meaning that physical structure isn't important to them—which we know -already ... my guess would be, incidentally, that the one who talked to -me was picked because the Kassids thought I'd feel at home with it. It -had five extremities, although none of them was a head; it had a top -and bottom and it faced in one direction. Ergo, it looked just like a -man. Over."</p> - -<p>Midge said thoughtfully, "It's funny. If they were so geometrical -about it, why didn't they say bisexual?"</p> - -<p>Samson chortled. "You <i>would</i>—" he began, and stopped abruptly, with -a stricken expression. "Wait a minute," he said. "Cancel the over. -Everybody shut up, even you, Harlow. The Midget has said something."</p> - -<p>Midge seemed to be trying to look indignant, pleased in spite of -herself.</p> - -<p>"Harlow, Midge," said Samson slowly after a time, "there's one other -thing about life in this universe that's been puzzling us for the -last six centuries. We know now that it has nothing to do with the -intelligence level, but we still don't know why everybody else but us -reproduces by simple division, budding, spores or conjugation—and in -consequence, lives a damn sight longer than we do, almost long enough -to make up for their low native intelligence. But just suppose that -Earth really is a freak planet—suppose that even the Kassids have -never run into a bisexual organism before. I didn't mention it to them, -and I'm willing to bet Jackson didn't either. You know how tough it -is to explain to a xeno—it generally takes ten days to convince them -you're not kidding. And, Harlow—suppose that I go down there again, -and take Midge along...."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When they re-entered the ship, Harlow's voice was saying, "Are you -there, Charles and Midge? Speak up, dammit. Over."</p> - -<p>The Samsons looked at each other, glassy-eyed. "With you in a minute, -Harlow," Samson croaked, and lurched after Midge into the sick bay. -Both of them were full of arnophrene—Samson's second dose within two -hours, and an extra-heavy one for Midge.</p> - -<p>They staggered into the living chamber again, some time later, and -collapsed on opposite sides of the couch.</p> - -<p>"Never again," said Midge faintly.</p> - -<p>Samson wet his lips. "It worked, Papa. They swallowed it. I gave Midge -enough of the stuff to make her about twice as disconnected as usual. I -walked in with a long face and told them that the change had started -in my absence. They wanted to know what change. I pointed to Midge, and -we stripped for them. They may not be interested in shapes, but there -was enough difference there to make them take notice. They called a -conference, and probed and poked and x-rayed us. I told them the story -of the caterpillar and the butterfly. Or the nymph and the waterbug, -I should say. You're the ugliest and dumbest member of this family, -Midge."</p> - -<p>Midge made an inarticulate sound.</p> - -<p>"I told them we're a two-stage organism," Samson said. "One stage -builds all the tall buildings, writes all the novels, does all the -high-class thinking. The other stage reproduces. I said we have a -forty-thousand-year cycle, half to each, but the first stage always -tries to retard the metamorphosis, because the second stage is so -stupid that it ruins our civilization every time, and we have to start -from scratch. I said I was awfully sorry, but the change had come -earlier than we expected this time, and there was nothing we could do -about it ... they're going off to the great nebula in Andromeda. Maybe -they'll find sixteen quintillion brainy races there, and they'll never -come back. The other way, at least we've got twenty thousand years to -think up another gag."</p> - -<p>He sighed. "All right, Papa. Over."</p> - -<p>Fourteen slow minutes went by. Samson and his wife looked at each other -and said nothing.</p> - -<p>The Kassids had tried converting Midge, to see if she were as moronic -as described. Midge had reacted properly, being so befuddled that she -could hardly work her way through a sentence; but she had heard a faint -echo of the Word.</p> - -<p>Harlow said, "I don't know what to say to you, kids. You'll be -remembered for this, both of you. A long time. History's been a dull -subject for the last few centuries, but this will liven it up. I don't -think anybody will hesitate to call it a major victory. Over."</p> - -<p>Samson smiled, bitterly and sadly.</p> - -<p>"That depends," he said, "on how you define 'victory'."</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEFINITION ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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