The Short Life Part 10

"Would the Challon--resent--our becoming superior?"

"For the same reason that the present Challon superiority is not resented by races of lower intelligence, they would not themselves resent the appearance of intellects far greater than their own."

"I have a feeling there's a lot more in that answer than meets the eye.

Can you estimate to what extent we would surpa.s.s the Challon?"

"If my Challon memory serves me, they had no knowledge of any mind-structure of a capacity remotely approaching that of Man. It is a maze, incredibly complex, with far-reaching resources I can only guess at. The Challon part of my mind has the profoundest admiration for a superb mechanism it can only dimly comprehend, but beneath the Challon"--the voice dropped almost to a whisper--"beneath the Challon is the dog, and the dog sees his G.o.d." The power of that factor he had not considered.

Phil laughed uneasily, both shocked and repelled.

"I hope you're joking. We sound like the sweet-smelling Flower of Creation! When a dog reaches the level you ... um ... Homer has, it becomes Man's equal, not his pet."

"Until Man's advance thrusts the dog back to an even lower relative position, as it inevitably must when ... if ... Man comes into his own.

I told you I dared not leave myself isolated and speechless by clearing the simple short-circuit immobilizing Timmy. Now you see why I dared not go even farther and release--untrained _and with no hope of adequate training_--the true h.o.m.o superior, the transcendent man."

"That's like turning a tiger loose in a kindergarten! Give a man a really high-powered intellect and for all his shortcomings--"

"The intellect is nothing. The data, the circ.u.mstances, the influences, the environment that shape the intellect, _these_ are what count. Your theorists say that although Man may some day create wonderful mechanical brains with a creative capacity almost equal to Man's own, you can never create a brain that is your superior. That is true, and the reasoning is obvious. In a more limited sense, your body repairs itself daily but it cannot improve on itself, it cannot spontaneously develop functions it never had--_it cannot even repair severe damage without outside help_.

The same applies to the mind. A sick mind cannot achieve the objectivity needed to repair itself, if the damage is too great. No, the intellect is nothing until it learns. What would Timmy have learned, and from whom? Take a minute to think of _all_ the connotations." Phil thought of some of them, uneasily. "a.s.sume that from the start his status as h.o.m.o superior was recognized ... is that a fair a.s.sumption?"

"It ... ah ... would sooner or later become apparent."

"After how much damage had been done that could not be undone, since h.o.m.o sapiens cannot ever be competent to guide and train h.o.m.o superior?"

"Well ... what about what he could learn from your Challon mind?"

"I would have no voice and no a.s.surance that telepathy would be possible. No influence that I could exert on him at any time could hold him, if other factors impelled him to break free. A few months ago I recalled a formula known to the Challon and with nothing more than household chemicals prepared the quick and harmless anaesthetic I used with you. What brought it to mind was a side-reaction reported as a curiosity in one of the scientific journals Jerr ... Dad subscribes to.

It had an unexpected side-reaction for me, too, making direct telepathic contact possible with you, but only under difficult and limited conditions."

"There's a fortune in that alone--"

"That was an unworthy thought, Phil, typical of insecurity. I dare not turn loose an immature, untrained, h.o.m.o superior, the only one of his kind."

"But why the only one? Why not others as well so that they could work in unison?"

"Don't you understand yet? _You are not sane!_ This planet is a h.e.l.l-house of disordered personalities, a place of horror, a plague-spot. Suppose I had retained Timmy as my voice and planned on releasing the inhibited potential of many people. I would have to start with one man _and that one man would at once become my master_! If he wished, he could be the master of all the earth. Could I risk that?"

"We have men of good moral character--"

"By what standards acceptable to all? A good churchman, perhaps, whose first thought would be to bring everyone into the saving grace of his religion? Or an atheist, who would take care that no rascally churchman got the upper hand? Can you think of any man who does not have strong opinions on at least one subject? Who does not have one thing that he is a little bit more afraid of than anything else? One man who could be raised to power first and not insist on at least one positive or negative qualification for all who were permitted to follow? Something they must either be or not be? Yourself, for example.

"Would you suggest that a Russian be chosen first? Or a Frenchman or an Englishman? Or am I wrong in thinking you would 'naturally' want one of your own countrymen to be chosen, purely as a precaution? But which one of your countrymen? Among all your acquaintances, is there even one whom you would trust not to react emotionally on at least one count, thus automatically rendering him unfit to play G.o.d? Bearing in mind that the first human being to find his full potential placed at his command will be a t.i.tan with the power to prevent any peer being raised to oppose him, would you feel safe with the choice of anyone except--yourself?"

"Are we that bad?"

"At birth, no, but from birth onward you are exposed to infection and you sicken to a greater or lesser degree depending on the concentration of infection around you. Let me answer you this way. Suppose the s.p.a.ceship were found and examined, what would happen? Among other tools there is a prospecting instrument on board that is a rough approximation of a disintegration beam--it punches neat holes in solid rock by a process that leaves an exceedingly heavy dust behind--for a short while.

Then something happens to the molecular bonds of the heavy dust, and the little holes become very big holes. Its principles would take you some years to work out, but its manufacture and operation are fairly obvious.

What would be the fate of that very useful tool?"

"I can't deny that its possibilities as a weapon would be seized upon, but with such a weapon--"

"Ah, yes--no one would dare to go to war. At any rate, not with the country possessing the weapon."

"It could stop all war."

"If your part of the world threatened the other part of the world and put a halo around the 'or else'. What would the other part of the world do when the first news of the s.p.a.ceship leaked out, as it would do immediately?"

"O. K.--I guess you know as well as I do."

"I'm not trying to ride you, Phil, but I want you to see that Fear and a desire for the security you can never know in your present state dominate almost every important act. As a people, a race, a species, you are unsane. What am I to do? To die in peace, leaving you as you are, without hope or help, is against every Challon instinct.

To leave unrealized the human potential with its tremendous promise is unthinkable. Your race might destroy itself before your secret is rediscovered millennia from now, and the greatest wonder of creation be lost forever. Even the s.p.a.ceship which I have failed to destroy with its innocent secrets, could destroy you simply by being found.

What am I to do?"

"I ... think you already have an answer."

"Yes, with your consent and only with your consent."

"You have it."

"You don't know--"

"You have it, I said. I trust you."

"Man puts his faith in Dog? Well, it will not be for the first time.

Remember us, Man, when you come into your own. Now--I must invade your mind, without reserve. You understand? Nothing known to you will be unknown to me. Are you willing?"

"Another of those Mickey Finns?"

"Yes, it is the only way. I will plant certain inflexible prohibitions which will forever destroy your self-will in regard to certain courses of action--they will be ones which you might at some time feel to be wise, but which I know to be ultimately destructive. In return, I can give you a measure of sanity greater than you have known. You will lose your hags, but you will never be entirely your own master again. You will follow the course I have planned for you for the rest of your life.

It is the best I can do with my limited ability, and I cannot guarantee that I am doing what is right."

"And Timmy?"

"I have already seeded in his memory banks--a careful and painstaking job this time!--all the memories and knowledge appropriate to the boy his parents think him to have been, plus other information which will become available to him at the right time. Every day for eight years I gave him the memories for that day, planning for the time when I could pay my debt by releasing him."

"You take eight years that were otherwise useless to him and give him the rest of his life for his own. Fair enough."

"No, his life is not his own. It belongs to his whole race. Your work will be to supervise his training until the time is ripe, and then to awaken the dormant memories that will tell him what has happened between us."

"How do I do that?"

"Think of it as long-term posthypnotic suggestion. It is one of the least complicated matters to arrange. A simple, spoken phrase that you will not remember until the right moment will be sufficient to trigger the memory release. We must hurry now. Homer's breathing--can you hear it? His lungs have almost failed. After I enter your mind, my last act will be to release the simple block that makes Timmy an imbecile ...

he will awaken and not know that he has slept all his life until this moment when he becomes in actuality an ordinary, quite intelligent boy.

He will not grieve unduly for Homer, and I who have two bodies and am at home in neither of them will be a record that will finally be erased.