purposes you are not concerned at all! And yet to take it upon
yourselves to pass judgment in a matter that is the affair of the entire
population of Earth--out of nothing more than sheer spite because the
Rykes refuse recognition of your own childish projects! I have never
heard a more incredible and infantile performance than you supposedly
mature gentlemen of science are expressing this evening."
He glared defiantly at Hockley, who was again the center of attention
moving carelessly to the center of the stage. "Anybody want to try to
answer the Senator?" he asked casually.
Instantly, a score of men were on their feet, speaking simultaneously.
They stopped abruptly, looking deferentially to their neighbors and at
Hockley, inviting him to choose one of them to be spokesman.
"Maybe I ought to answer him myself," said Hockley, "since I predicted
that this would occur, and that we ought to make a trial run before
turning our collective gray matter over to the Rykes."
A chorus of approval and nodding heads gave him the go ahead.
"The Senator is quite right in saying that we few are not alone in our
concern in this matter," he said. "But the Senator intends to imply a
major difference between us scientists and the rest of mankind. This is
his error.
"Every member of Mankind who is concerned about the Universe in which he
lives, is a scientist. You need to understand what a scientist is--and
you can say no more than that he is a human being trying to solve the
problem of understanding his Universe, immediate or remote. He is
concerned about the inanimate worlds, his own personality, his fellow
men--and the interweaving relationships among all these factors. We
professional scientists are no strange species, alien to our race. Our
only difference is perhaps that we undertake _more_ problems than does
the average of our fellow men, and of a more complex kind. That is all.
"The essence of our science is a relentless personal yearning to know
and understand the Universe. And in that, the scientist must not be
forbidden to ask whatever question occurs to him. The moment we put any
restraint upon our fields of inquiry, or set bounds to the realms of our
mental aspirations, our science ceases to exist and becomes a mere
opportunist technology."
Markham stood up, his face red with exasperation and rage. "No one is
trying to limit you! Why is that so unfathomable to your minds? You are
being offered a boundless expanse, and you continue to make inane
complaints of limitations. The Rykes have been over all the territory
you insist on exploring. They can tell you the number of pretty pebbles
and empty shells that lie there. You are like children insistent upon
exploring every shadowy corner and peering behind every useless bush on
a walk through the forest.
"Such is to be expected of a child, but not of an adult, who is capable
of taking the word of one who has been there before!"
"There are two things wrong with your argument," said Hockley. "First of
all, there is no essential difference between the learning of a child
who must indeed explore the dark corners and strange growths by which he
passes--there is no difference between this and the probing of the
scientist, who must explore the Universe with his own senses and with
his own instruments, without taking another's word that there is nothing
there worth seeing.
"Secondly, the Rykes themselves are badly in error in asserting that
they have been along the way ahead of us. They have not. In all their
fields of science they have limited themselves badly to one narrow field
of probability. They have taken a narrow path stretching between
magnificent vistas on either side of them, and have deliberately ignored
all that was beyond the path and on the inviting side trails."
"Is there anything wrong with that?" demanded Markham. "If you undertake
a journey you don't weave in and out of every possible path that leads
in every direction opposed to your destination. You take the direct
route. Or at least _ordinary_ people do."
"Scientists do, too," said Hockley, "when they take a journey.
Professional science is not a journey, however. It's an exploration.
"There is a great deal wrong with what the Rykes have done. They have
assumed, and would have us likewise assume, that there is a certain very
specific future toward which we are all moving. This future is built out
of the discoveries they have made about the Universe. It is made of the
system of mathematics they have developed, which exclude Dr. Silvers'
cherished Legrandian Equations. It excludes the world in which exist Dr.
Carmen's series of unique compounds.
"The Rykes have built a wonderful, workable world of serenity, beauty,
scientific consistency, and economic adjustment. They have eliminated
enormous amounts of chaos which Earthmen continue to suffer.
"But we do not want what the Rykes have obtained--if we have to pay
their price for it."
"Then you are complete fools," said Markham. "Fortunately, you cannot
and will not speak for all of Earth."
Hockley paced back and forth a half dozen steps, his eyes on the floor.
"I think we do--and can--speak for all our people," he said. "Remember,
I said that all men are scientists in the final analysis. I am very
certain that no Earthman who truly understood the situation would want
to face the future which the Rykes hold out to us."
"And why not?" demanded Markham.
"Because there are too many possible futures. We refuse to march down a
single narrow trail to _the_ golden future. That's what the Rykes would
have us do. But they are wrong. It would be like taking a trip through a
galaxy at speeds faster than light--and claiming to have seen the
galaxy. What the Rykes have obtained is genuine and good, but what they
have not obtained is perhaps far better and of greater worth."
"How can you know such an absurd thing?"
"We can't--not for sure," said Hockley. "Not until we go there and see
for ourselves, step by step. But we aren't going to be confined to the
Rykes' narrow trail. We are going on a broad path to take in as many
byways as we can possibly find. We'll explore every probability we come
to, and look behind every bush and under every pebble.
"We will move together, the thousands and the millions of us,
simultaneously, interacting with one another, exchanging data. Most
certainly, many will end up in blind alleys. Some will find data that
seems the ultimate truth at one point and pure deception at another. Who
can tell ahead of time which of these multiple paths we should take?
Certainly not the Rykes, who have bypassed most of them!
"It doesn't matter that many paths lead to failure--not as long as we
remain in communication with each other. In the end we will find the
best possible future for us. But there is no _one_ future, only a
multitude of possible futures. We must have the right to build the one
that best fits our own kind."
"Is that more important than achieving immediately a more peaceful,
unified, and secure society?" said Markham.
"Infinitely more important!" said Hockley.
"It is fortunate at least, then, that you are in no position to
implement these insane beliefs of yours. The Ryke program was offered to
Earth, and it shall be accepted on behalf of Earth. You may be sure of a
very poor hearing when you try to present these notions back home."
"You jump to conclusions, Senator," said Hockley with mild confidence.
"Why do you suppose I proposed this trip if I did not believe I could do
something about the situation? I assure you that we did not come just to
see the sights."
Markham's jaw slacked and his face became white. "What do you mean? You
haven't dared to try to alienate the Rykes--"
"I mean that there is a great deal we can do about the situation. Now
that the sentiments of my colleagues parallel my own I'm sure they agree
that we must effectively and finally spike any possibility of Earth's
becoming involved in this Ryke nonsense."
"You wouldn't dare!--even if you could--"
"We can, and we dare," said Hockley. "When we return to Earth we shall
have to report that the Rykes have refused to admit Earth to their
program. We shall report that we made every effort to obtain an
agreement with them, but it was in vain. If anyone wishes to verify the
report, the Rykes themselves will say that this is quite true: they
cannot possibly consider Earth as a participant. If you contend that an
offer was once made, you will not find the Rykes offering much support
since they will be very busily denying that we are remotely qualified."
"The Rykes are hardly ones to meekly submit to any idiotic plan of that
kind."
"They can't help it--if we demonstrate that we _are_ quite unqualified
to participate."
"You--you--"
"It will not be difficult," said Hockley. "The Rykes have set up a
perfect teacher-pupil situation, with all the false assumptions that go
with it. There is at least one absolutely positive way to disintegrate
such a situation. The testimony of several thousand years' failure of
our various educational systems indicates that there are quite a variety
of lesser ways also--
"Perhaps you are aware of the experiences and techniques commonly
employed on Earth by white men in their efforts to educate the
aborigine. The first procedure is to do away with the tribal medicine
men, ignore their lore and learning. Get them to give up the magic words
and their pots of foul smelling liquids, abandon their ritual dances and
take up the white man's great wisdom.
"We have done this time after time, only to learn decades later that the
natives once knew much of anesthetics and healing drugs, and had genuine
powers to communicate in ways the white man can't duplicate.
"But once in a long while a group of aborigines show more spunk than the
average. They refuse to give up their medicine men, their magic and
their hard earned lore accumulated over generations and centuries.
Instead of giving these things up they insist on the white man's
learning these mysteries in preference to _his_ nonsensical and
ineffective magic. They completely frustrate the situation, and if they
persist they finally destroy the white man as an educator. He is forced
to conclude that the ignorant savages are unteachable.
"It is an infallible technique--and one that we shall employ. Dr.
Silvers will undertake to teach his mathematical lecturer in the
approaches to the Legrandian Equations. He will speculate long and
noisily on the geometry which potentially lies in this mathematical
system. Dr. Carmen will elucidate at great length on the properties of
the chain of chemicals he has been advised to abandon.
"Each of us has at least one line of research the Rykes would have us
give up. That is the very thing we shall insist on having investigated.
We shall teach them these things and prove Earthmen to be an unlearned,
unteachable band of aborigines who refuse to pursue the single path to
glory and light, but insist on following every devious byway and
searching every darkness that lies beside the path.
"It ought to do the trick. I estimate it should not be more than a week
before we are on our way back home, labeled by the Rykes as utterly
hopeless material for their enlightenment."
The senators seemed momentarily appalled and speechless, but they
recovered shortly and had a considerable amount of high flown oratory to
distribute on the subject. The scientists, however, were comparatively
quiet, but on their faces was a subdued glee that Hockley had to admit
was little short of fiendish. It was composed, he thought, of all the
gloating anticipations of all the schoolboys who had ever put a
thumbtack on the teacher's chair.
Hockley was somewhat off in his prediction. It was actually a mere five
days after the beginning of the Earthmen's campaign that the Rykes gave
them up and put them firmly aboard a vessel bound for home. The Rykes
were apologetic but firm in admitting they had made a sorry mistake,
that Earthmen would have to go their own hopeless way while the Rykes
led the rest of the Universe toward enlightenment and glory.
Hockley, Showalter, and Silvers watched the planet drop away beneath
them. Hockley could not help feeling sympathetic toward the Rykes. "I
wonder what will happen," he said slowly, "when they crash headlong into
an impassable barrier on that beautiful, straight road of theirs. I
wonder if they'll ever have enough guts to turn aside?"
"I doubt it," said Showalter. "They'll probably curl up and call it a
day."
Silvers shook his head as if to ward off an oppressive vision. "That
shouldn't be allowed to happen," he said. "They've got too much. They've
achieved too much, in spite of their limitations. I wonder if there
isn't some way we could help them?"