"Oh, _damn_ you!" he said bitterly. "How would you like to be married
for eight months and for six of them be unable to touch your wife? Just
why do you think Edith tried to get drunk? I could kill you cheerfully
for what you've done to us!"
"Oh!" I said. There was a world of understanding opening in front
of me. Of course, it would do no good to tell him that Ven and I
had remained in enforced continence for five years. It was just the
Eugenics council working through us--entirely involuntarily. What
was bothering Donald and Edith was so absurdly simple that neither
Ven nor I would have thought to ask. And the mammals with their
peculiar customs and habits would never have told us unless--as had
happened--the pressure became too great.
What our mammals needed was a good dose of Va Krul's basic therapy. If
Edith were fertilized as a result of it, so much the better. It would
keep her attention where it more properly belonged. The thought would
never have occurred to me in my present state. Since I was content, I
had erroneously assumed that everything was in harmony.
"You might as well go home," I said. "Take Edith with you. We won't
need you for several days."
"Why?"
"You'll find things a little different. I'll make a few adjustments on
the controller."
* * * * *
To my surprise Don didn't appear happy at all. "Does that mean what I
think it does?" he demanded. "Do you think I'll get any satisfaction
out of being controlled _even there_?"
"I don't know about the pleasure," I said coldly, "but I do know that
it will improve your attitude."
Donald raged at me, his brain white with anger. "So help me God, Eu
Kor, someday I'm going to kill you for this! It's the ultimate insult."
"You're not going to do anything," I said calmly. His voice dissolved
into obscenity. For a moment I felt sorry for him until I remembered
the basic truth that none of us are free--and the most intelligent,
naturally, are the least free of all. They are bound by their
commitments, their duties, their responsibilities, and by their
intelligence itself. If a superior intelligence occasionally exhibits
petty lapses--which amuse him or relieve his boredom--it is not the
place of the less endowed to construe it as a sign of equality.
Some--like Ven and me--have known their place from birth. Others, like
Edith and Alice, learn easily with a minimum amount of pain. Some like
Grace learn hard; and some--like Donald--do not learn at all.
Donald was the eternal rebel, complying because he must, yet seething
with resentment because he did. He was the personification of drive
without innate control, ambition without humility, intelligence without
wisdom. As he had been, he was not quite enough. At best he would have
been a minor author and a petty domestic tyrant. He would never have
been a threat simply because he didn't have the ability or training.
But I had given him what he lacked. The knowledge I had impressed upon
his mind would give him a tremendous advantage over his fellow mammals,
and his tendencies toward domestic tyranny would expand to include
others. His glandular attitude would pervert his knowledge to the
detriment of humankind. He could become a thing so dangerous that it
could destroy this precariously balanced world.
I went into the ship and set up a world matrix on the computer, using
all the data I had accumulated, secured the answer, and then inserted
Donald's potential into the matrix. I then ordered a probability
extrapolation for both matrices, equating the solutions with survival.
The answers confirmed my thoughts. With the matrix as it stood, the
twenty year survival prediction was 65 per cent, which wasn't too bad
since few advanced-technology worlds have better than an 85 per cent
survival probability. But with Donald in the matrix, the survival
prediction was zero!
* * * * *
I knew what I must do. I could not leave him behind as I had planned.
Nor could I inflict the senseless cruelty of brainblotting. He would
have to be mercifully destroyed.
Although I was fond of Donald, and his death would leave me sick for
weeks, it would not be right to let my creation live and condemn the
mammal race to death. I could not exterminate a race Authority had
created. The guilt syndrome would be shattering. Of course, if they
killed each other that was not my concern.
But until we left I would give him all the freedom he could use.
Outside of the minimum of control, he would be free to do and act as
he pleased. I didn't owe it to him, yet it was not his fault that he
had come into my hands. And when I returned to Thalassa I would tell
the Council what I had done and ask for justice. Perhaps we could save
this world from itself even as we had saved others. The question of
gratitude would be immaterial.
With a firm hand to set them on the track, the mammals might learn the
values of intelligence and cooperation before it was too late. They
might understand the realities of existence rather than fall victim to
their glandular fancies. They might. But if they did, one thing would
be certain--they would learn it the hard way. Donald was proof of that.
I went to our living quarters, and presently Ven joined me. "They're
all in for the night, Eu," she said.
"That's good. How are they coming along?"
"Splendidly. Another week should see the end of the training. Edith was
a good experience for me in handling these. I'm not making the mistakes
I did. I'm finding the blocks and removing them. One of them, the one
called Grace, should be even better than Edith."
"As a mount?" I asked with faint humor. "Or as a working proxy?"
"Both," Ven said promptly. "She's stronger and more intelligent. Yet
even so I think I shall always like Edith best."
* * * * *
"One's first dependent is always one's fondest memory," I replied
sententiously, "But you'll forget them all when we're back on Thalassa."
"I won't," Ven said. "I'll never forget Edith."
"Never is a long time," I said gently. "I shall even forget the pain of
killing Donald some day."
"Then you've decided to eliminate him?" Ven said.
I nodded. "It's necessary," I said. "This world wouldn't be safe with
him alive."
"Poor Edith. She's fond of the brute," Ven said. She moved toward the
doorway.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"I want to talk to Edith. Perhaps I can prepare her."
"No. Don't," I said. "Contact her if you wish, but tell her nothing."
"Very well," she said. I smiled as she disappeared. Ven was going to
miss her pet once we had left. It was obvious.
"Eu! Quick!" Ven's projection crackled in my brain. "They're fighting!
Edith's being hurt, and I can't touch them! They've set up a block!"
I ran for the control room, slapped the helmet on my head, reached for
the controls--and stopped, laughing.
"Stop them!" Ven screamed. Her aura blazed a brilliant white and her
projection nearly knocked me down. She reached for the control switch,
but I slapped her hand away.
"Quiet!" I snapped. "They're not fighting, you little fool! Turn on
your audio and listen and stop acting silly!"
Ven did as I told her and her aura changed to a fiery pink. "Oh!" she
said in a small voice, "but they never--"
I must have made some mistake in revising the controllers--or feedback
was stronger than I suspected--for the Va Krul syndrome came back
along our lines of contact with explosive force! Desperately I reached
for the switch--but my hand froze in midair as an intolerable wave
of emotion drove Ven and me together like two pieces of iron with
opposite magnetic charge! The last thing I remember was being enveloped
in the flaring golden glow of Ven's aura.
* * * * *
I came to my senses in our living quarters. I was
stunned--exhausted--limp and gasping.
"Thalassa!" I said weakly, "we've _really_ done it now!"
Ven smiled a pale blue radiance at me. "You have become strong, living
on this heavy world," she said. "I like it."
"But--but!" I sputtered. "It was so--it can't--it couldn't--"
"But it did," Ven said softly. "And I'm glad it did."
"I don't mean that. What I mean to say was that it was so--"
"Unexpected?"
"No! So utterly--"
"Satisfying?" she asked.
"Stop interrupting! It was all of that and more. But what I want to say
is that we've violated the prime restriction for space travellers. How
could we do it?"
"You're forgetting that for some time we have been living upon this
emotion-charged world," Ven said. "The steady erosion was more than our
conditioning could take. The feedback was merely the last in a whole
series of disruptive stimuli. It was the trigger, but our defenses had
been weakened long before. Not that I'm sorry," she added quickly.
"For weeks I've been wondering what sort of a mate you'd be when this
trip was over. I'm not unhappy with the preview." She smiled at me and
the whole of our living quarters was filled with a bright tender blue.
"The natives," I said worriedly. "We were in contact with them."
Ven's aura darkened. "I had forgotten them," she said. "I hope that the
feedback wasn't intensified and returned to them. I'd better look." She
started for the control room and I followed more slowly.
"There's no damage," she said from beneath the helmet. "Edith feels
just as I do."
I took my helmet and coded Don's pattern on the selector. Peculiar, I
thought with vague wonder. Most peculiar. For the first time Donald and
I were in true rapport. His mind was slow, lazy, sluggish--even his
ambition was sated for the moment. Could it be, I wondered, that we
could find agreement through our _emotions_? Was it frustration that
drove him? Whatever the block had been it was gone now. This was a
true empathic meeting--something far more satisfying than our previous
conflict.
I relaxed in it, feeling the slow langorous questings of his mind even
as he felt mine. There was a sense of brotherhood that transcended
differences in race and culture. We were down to basics, on the oldest
meeting ground of life.
He was wondering idly what the outcome of this might be--conscious of
me, but careless. It jolted me. He might be uncertain, but I _knew_ Ven
was from good family stock, and "good" to a Thalassan meant something
entirely different than it commonly did to the natives of this planet!
I disengaged hurriedly and shook Ven out of her rapport with Edith.
"We've no time to lose," I said. "We must leave at once! You know
what's going to happen!"
"I know," Ven said. "I feel the changes already."
"That's just in your mind," I snapped.
"We're not going home," she said. There was a note of prophecy in her
voice. "We'll never make it."
"We can't stay here!"
"I know."
"Then what are we going to do?"
* * * * *
We couldn't stay here. But we couldn't go home either. The trip would
take weeks, and hyperspace is fatal to a gravid Thalassan female.
That was something we learned long ago, and the principal reason for
continence-conditioning for couples in space. What was more, I knew
that where Ven stayed, I would stay.
"Remember the fourth planet of this system?" Ven asked.
"Yes. Ideal gravity, adequate oxygen, but too cold."
"And with no intelligent life," Ven added. "That's an advantage--and
we can beat the cold. It wouldn't be too hard to build domes. We have
plenty of power metal, and a matricizer. We could hatch our clutch
there. With the mammals to help us, we should be able to make a
comfortable enough life for the forty years it'll take to bring our
offspring to maturity. We should be able to do this easily, and still
get home before we're strangers."
"Hmm," I said. "It's possible. And we can use this world for a supply
base. But would you care to live on that cold barren planet?"
"There are worse places," she said matter-of-factly. "And we'd be close
to everything we'd need."
It did have possibilities. And the mammals could be adapted. They were
a more advanced evolutionary form than we, but lower on the adaptive
scale--nonspecialized--more so than any other intelligent race I had
encountered.
Ven said, "We would actually be doing their race a favor, if the
computation of this world's future is correct. Some of them would still
survive if this planet commits suicide. And if the prediction is wrong,
we would have done no harm. If they reach space, they'll merely find
that they've already arrived when they reach the fourth planet."
"Which might be something of a surprise to their explorers," I said
with a chuckle. "All right. We'll play it your way."
I was pretty sure how Donald would take this. He was going to be
furious, but after all one doesn't make a pet of a wolf and then turn
it loose. It's too hard on the livestock. But I didn't think he'd be
too unhappy. He'd be the principal human on Mars; and after we left
he'd be ruler of a world. And in the meantime he could be a domestic
tyrant.
It was fortunate, I thought with a smile, that mammals were essentially
polygamous. Donald would make some nasty comments about being a herd
sire--but I didn't think his comments would be too sincere. After all,
it's not every man that has a chance to become a founding father.
I was still smiling as I turned the dials on the controller and flipped
the switch. Founding father--the title was as much mine as his!