CERES, June 3 (_Interplanetary News Service_)--The three men and
three women who allegedly kidnapped 10-year-old Shmuel BenChaim were
brought to justice today through the single-handed efforts of
Stanley Martin, famed investigator for Lloyd's of London. The boy,
held prisoner for more than ten weeks on a small planetoid, was
reported in good health.
According to Lt. John Vale of the Planetoid Police, the kidnap gang
could not have been taken by direct assault on their hideout because
of fear that the boy might be killed.
"The operation required a carefully planned one-man infiltration of
their hideout," Lt. Vale said. "Mr. Martin was the man for the job."
Labeled "the most outrageous kidnapping in history", the affair was
conceived as a long-term method of gaining control of Heavy Metals
Incorporated, controlled by Moishe BenChaim, the boy's father. The
details ...
But Bart Stanton wasn't interested in the details. After only a glance
through the first part of the article, his eyes returned to the picture
that had caught his attention. The line of print beneath it identified
the picture as being that of a man named Stanley Martin.
But a voice in Bart Stanton's brain said: _Not Stan Martin! The name is
Mart Stanton!_
And Bartholomew felt a roar of confusion in his mind--because he didn't
know who Mart Stanton was, and because the face in the picture was his
own.
_[13]_
He was walking again.
He didn't quite remember how he had left the automat, and he really
didn't even try to remember.
He was trying to remember other things--further back--before he had ...
Before he had _what_?
Before the Institute. Before the beginning of the operations.
The memories were there, all right. He could sense them, floating in
some sort of mental limbo, just beyond the grasp of his conscious mind,
like the memories of a dream after one has awakened. Each time he would
try to reach into the darkness to grasp one of the pieces, it would
shatter into smaller bits. The big patterns were too fragile to
withstand the direct probing of his conscious mind, and even the
resulting fragments did not want to hold still long enough to be
analyzed.
And, while a part of his mind probed frantically after the elusive
particles of memory, another part of it watched the process with
semi-detached amusement.
He had always known there were holes in his memory (_Always? Don't kid
yourself, pal!_), but it was disconcerting to find an area that was as
full of holes as a used machine-gun target. The whole fabric had been
punched to bits.
No man's memory is completely available at any given time. Whatever the
recording process is, however completely every bit of data may be
recorded during a lifetime, much of it is unavailable. It may be
incompletely cross-indexed, or, in some instances, labeled DO NOT SCAN.
Or, metaphorically, the file drawer may be locked. It may be that, in
many cases, if a given bit of data remains unscanned for a long enough
period, it fades into illegibility, never reinforced by the scanning
process. Sensory data, coming in from the outside world as it does, is
probably permanent. But the thought patterns originating within the mind
itself, the processes that correlate and cross-index and speculate on
and hypothesize about the sensory data, these are much more fragile. A
man might glance once through a Latin primer and have each and every
page imprinted indelibly on his recording mechanism and still be unable
to make sense out of _Nauta in cubitu cum puella est_.
Sometimes a man is aware of the holes in his memory. ("What _was_ the
name of that fellow I met at Eddie's party? Can't remember it for the
life of me.") At other times, a memory may lay dormant and completely
unremembered, leaving no apparent gap, until a tag of some kind brings
it up. ("That girl with the long hair reminds me of Suzie Blugerhugle.
My gosh! I haven't thought of her in years!") Both factors seemed to be
operating in Bart Stanton's mind at this time.
Incredibly, he had never, in the past year at least, had occasion to try
to remember much about his past life. He had known who he was without
thinking about it particularly, and the rest of his knowledge--language,
history, social behavior, politics, geography, and so on--had been
readily available for the most part. Ask an educated man to give the
product of the primes 2, 13, and 41, or ask him to give the date of the
Norman Conquest, and he can give you the answers very quickly. He may
have to calculate the first, which will make him pause for a second
before answering, but the second will come straight out of his memory
records. In neither case does he have to think of where he learned the
process or the fact, or who taught it to him, or when he got the
information.
But now the picture and the name in the paper had brought forth a
reaction in Stanton's mind, and he was trying desperately to bring the
information out of oblivion.
Did he have a mother? Surely. But could he remember her? _Yes!_
Certainly. A pretty, gentle, rather sad woman. He could remember when
she died, although he couldn't remember ever having actually attended
the funeral.
What about his father?
Try as he might, he could find no memory whatever of his father, and, at
first, that bothered him. He could remember his mother--could almost see
her moving around in the apartment where they had lived in ... in ... in
Denver! Sure! And he could remember the big building itself, and the
block, and even Mrs. Frobisher, who lived upstairs! And the school! And
the play area! A great many memories came crowding back, but there was
no trace of his father.
And yet ...
Oh, of _course_! That was it! His father had been killed in an accident
when Martinbart were very young.
_Martinbart!_
The name flitted through his mind like a scrap of paper in a high wind,
but mentally he reached out and grasped it.
Martinbart. Martin-Bart. Mart 'n' Bart. Mart _and_ Bart.
The Stanton Twins.
It was very curious, he thought, that he should have forgotten his
brother. And even more curious that the name in the paper had not
brought him instantly to mind.
Martin, the cripple. Martin, the boy with the poor, weak,
radiation-shattered nervous system. The boy who had had to stay in a
therapeutic chair all his life because his efferent nerves could not
control his body. The boy who couldn't speak. Or, rather, _wouldn't_
speak because he was ashamed of the gibberish that resulted.
Martin. The nonentity. The nothing. The nobody.
The one who watched and listened and thought, but could do nothing.
Bart Stanton stopped suddenly and unfolded the newspaper again under the
glow of the streetlamp. His memories certainly didn't jibe with _this_!
His eyes ran down the column of type:
Mr. Martin has, in the years since he has been in the Belt, run up
an enviable record, both as an insurance investigator and as a
police detective, although his connection with the Planetoid Police
is, necessarily, an unofficial one. Probably not since Sherlock
Holmes has there been such mutual respect and co-operation between
the official police and a private investigator.
There was only one explanation, Stanton thought. Martin, too, had been
treated by the Institute. His memory was still blurry and incomplete, he
knew, but he did suddenly remember that a decision had been made for
Martin to take the treatment.
He chuckled a little at the irony of it. It looked as though they hadn't
been able to make a superman of Martin, but they _had_ been able to make
a normal and extraordinarily capable human being of him, he thought. Now
it was Bart who was the freak, the odd one.
_Turn about is fair play_, he thought. But somehow it didn't seem quite
fair.
He crumpled the newspaper, dropped it into a nearby waste chute, and
walked on through the night toward the Neurophysical Institute.
_FOURTH INTERLUDE_
"You understand, Mrs. Stanton," said the psychiatrist, "that a great
part of Martin's trouble is mental as well as physical. Because of the
nature of his ailment, he has withdrawn, pulled himself away from
communication with others. If these symptoms had been brought to my
attention earlier, the mental disturbance might have been more easily
analyzed and treated."
"I suppose so. I'm sorry, Doctor," said Mrs. Stanton. Her manner
betrayed weariness and pain. "It was so ... so difficult. Martin could
never talk very well, you know, and he just talked less and less as the
years went by. It was so slow and so gradual that I never really noticed
it."
_Poor woman_, the doctor thought. _She's not well, herself. She should
have married again, years ago, rather than force herself to carry the
whole burden alone. Her role as a doting mother hasn't helped either of
the boys to overcome the handicaps that were already present._
"I've honestly tried to do my very best with Martin," Mrs. Stanton went
on unhappily. "And so has Bart, I know. When they were younger, Bart
used to take him out all the time. They went everywhere together. Of
course, I don't expect Bart to do that so much any more. He has his own
life to live. He can't take Martin out on dates or things like that. He
has interests outside the home now, like other boys his age. That's only
normal. But when he's at home, Bart helps me with Martin all the time."
"I understand," said the psychiatrist. _This is no time to tell her that
Bartholomew's tests indicate that he has subconsciously resented
Martin's presence for a long time_, he thought. _She has enough to worry
about._
"_I_ don't understand," said Mrs. Stanton, breaking into sudden tears.
"I just don't understand why Martin should behave this way! Why should
he just sit there with his eyes closed and ignore everybody? Why should
he ignore his mother and his brother? Why?"
The doctor comforted her in a warmly professional manner, then, as her
tears subsided, he said, "We don't understand all the factors ourselves,
Mrs. Stanton. At first glance, Martin's reactions appear to be those one
would expect of schizophrenic withdrawal. But there are certain aspects
of the case that make it unusual. His behavior doesn't quite follow the
pattern we usually expect from such cases as this. His extreme physical
disability has drastically modified the course of his mental
development, and, at the same time, made it difficult for us to make any
analysis of his mental state." _If only_, he added to himself, _she had
followed the advice of her family physician, years ago. If she had only
put the boy under the proper care, none of this would have happened._
"Is there _any_thing we can do, Doctor?" she asked.
"We don't know yet," he said gently. He considered for a moment, then
said: "Mrs. Stanton, I'd like for you to leave both of the boys here
for a few days, so that we can perform further tests. That will help us
a great deal in evaluating the circumstances, and help us get at the
root of Martin's trouble."
She looked at him with a little surprise. "Why, yes, of course--if you
think it's necessary. But ... why should Bart stay?"
The doctor weighed his words carefully before he spoke.
"Bart will be what we call a 'control', Mrs. Stanton. Since the boys are
genetically identical, they should have been a great deal alike, in
personality as well as in body, if it hadn't been for Martin's accident.
In other words, our tests of Bart will tell us what Martin _should_ be
like. That way, we can tell just how much and in what way Martin
deviates from what he should ideally be. Do you understand?"
"Yes. Yes, I see. All right, Doctor--whatever you say."
After Mrs. Stanton had left, the psychiatrist sat quietly in his chair
and stared thoughtfully at his desk top for several minutes. Then,
making his decision, he picked up a small book that lay on his desk and
looked up a number in Arlington, Virginia. He punched out the number on
his phone, and when the face appeared on his screen he said, "Hello,
Sidney. Busy right now?"
"Not particularly. Not for a few minutes. What's up?"
"I have a very interesting case out here that I'd like to talk to you
about. Do you happen to have a telepath who's strong enough to take a
meshing with an insane mind? If my suspicions are correct, I will need a
man with an absolutely impregnable sense of identity, because he's going
to get into the weirdest situation I've ever come across."
_[14]_
The Nipe squatted, brooding, in his underground nest, waiting for the
special crystallization process to take place in the sodium-gold alloy
that was forming in the reactor.
_How long?_ he wondered. He was not thinking of the complex
crystallization reaction; he knew the timing of that to a fraction of a
second. His dark thoughts were, instead, focused inwardly, upon himself.
How long would it be before he would be able to construct the
communicator that would span the light-years of intervening distance and
put him in touch with his own race again? How long would it be before he
could again hold discourse with reasonable beings? How much longer would
he have to be stranded on this planet, surrounded by an insane society
composed of degraded, insane beings?
The work was going incredibly slowly. He had known at the beginning that
his knowledge of the basic arts required to build a communicator was
incomplete, but he had not realized just how painfully inadequate it
was. Time after time, his instruments had simply refused to function
because of some basic flaw in their manufacture--some flaw that an
expert in that field could have pointed out at once. Time after time,
equipment had had to be rebuilt almost from the beginning. And, time
after time, only cut-and-try methods were available for correcting his
errors.
Not even his prodigious and accurate memory could hold all the
information that was necessary for the work, and there were no reference
tapes available, of course. They had all been destroyed when his ship
had crashed.
He had long since given up any attempt to understand the functioning of
the mad pseudo-civilization that surrounded him. He was quite certain
that the beings he had seen could not possibly be the real rulers of
this society, but he had no inkling, as yet, as to who the real rulers
were.
As to _where_ they were, that question seemed a little easier to answer.
It was highly probable that they were out in space, on the asteroids
that his instruments had detected when he was dropping in toward this
planet so many years before. He had made an error then in not landing in
the Belt, but at no time since had he experienced the emotion of regret
or wished he had done differently; both thoughts would have been
incomprehensible to the Nipe. He had made an error; the circumstances
had been checked and noted; he would not make that error again.
What further action could be taken by a logical mind?
None. The past was immutable and unchangeable. It existed only as a
memory in his own mind, and there was no way to change that indelible
record, even had the Nipe wished to do so insane a thing.
Surely, he thought, the real rulers must know of his existence. He had
tried, by his every action, to show that he was a reasoning,
intelligent, and civilized being. Why, then, had they taken no action?
There was, of course, the possibility that the rulers cared very little
for their subjects here on Earth, that they ignored what went on most of
the time. Still, it would seem that they would recognize the actions of
one of their own kind and take steps to investigate.
He was still not absolutely certain about Colonel Walther Mannheim. Was
he a Real Person or merely an underling? The information on the man was
pitifully small. It would, of course, be possible to wait, to see how
Colonel Walther Mannheim behaved if and when he discovered the Nipe's
nest. But if he had not discovered it after all these years--and the
information indicated that he had been looking almost since the
first--then it was unlikely that he was a Real Person. In which case, it
would be dangerous to allow him to find the nest.
No, the best plan of action would be to go to Colonel Walther Mannheim
first.
_[15]_
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
The action around the handball court was beautiful to watch. The robot
mechanism behind Bart Stanton would fire out a ball at random intervals
ranging from a tenth to a quarter of a second, bouncing them off the
wall in a random pattern. Stanton would retrieve the ball before it hit
the ground and bounce it off the wall again to strike the target on the
moving robot. Stanton had to work against a machine; no ordinary human
being could have given him any competition.
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
_Pok! Pok!_ PLUNK.
"One miss," Stanton said to himself. But he fielded the next one nicely
and slammed it home.
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
The physical therapist who was standing to one side, well out of the way
of those hard-slammed, fast-moving drives, glanced at his watch. It was
almost time.
_Pok! Pok! Ping!_
The machine, having delivered its last ball, shut itself off with a smug
click. Stanton turned away from the handball court and walked toward the
physical therapist, who was holding out a robe for him.
"That was good, Bart," he said. "Real good."
"One miss," Stanton said as he shrugged into the robe.
"Yeah. Your timing was off a shade there, I guess. It's hard for me to
tell till I look at the slow-motion photographs. Your arms and hands are
just blurs to me when they're moving that fast. But you managed to chop
another ten seconds off your previous record, anyway."
Stanton looked at him. "You reset the timer again," he said accusingly.
But there was a grin on his face.
The P.T. man grinned back. "Yup. Come on, step into the mummy case." He
waved toward the narrow niche in the wall of the court, a niche just big
enough to hold a standing man. Stanton stepped in, and various
instrument pickups came out of the walls and touched him at various
points on his body. Hidden machines recorded his heartbeat, his blood
pressure, his brain activity, his muscular tension, his breathing, and
several other factors.
After a minute the P.T. man said, "Okay, Bart, that's it. Let's hit the
steam box."
Stanton stepped out of the niche and accompanied the therapist to
another room, where he took off the robe again and sat down on the small
stool inside an ordinary steam box. The box closed, leaving his head
free, and the box began to fill with steam.
"Did I ever tell you just what it is that I don't like about that
machine?" Stanton asked as the therapist draped a heavy towel around his
head.
"Nope. Didn't know you had any gripe. What is it?"
"You can't gloat after you beat it. You can't walk over and pat it on
the shoulder and say, 'Well, better luck next time, old man.' It isn't a
good loser, and it isn't a bad loser. The damned thing doesn't even know
it lost, and even if it did, it wouldn't care."
"Yeah, I see what you mean," said the P.T. man, chuckling. "You beat the
pants off it and what d'you get? Nothing. Not even a case of the sulks
out of it."
"Exactly. And what's worse, I know perfectly good and well that it's
only half trying. The stupid gadget could beat me easily if you just
turned that knob over a little more."
"Yeah, sure. But you're not competing against the machine, anyway," the
therapist said. "What you're doing, you're competing against yourself,
trying to beat your own record."
"I know. And what happens when I can't do _that_ any more, either?"
Stanton asked. "I can't just go on getting better and better forever.
I've got limits, you know."
"Sure," said the therapist easily. "So does anybody. So does a golf
player, for instance. You take a golf player, he goes out and practices
by himself to try to beat his own record."
"Bunk! Hogwash! The real fun in _any_ game is beating someone else! The
big kick in golf is winning over the other guy in a twosome."
"How about crossword puzzles or solitaire?"
"When you solve a crossword puzzle, you've beaten the guy who made up
the puzzle. When you play solitaire, you're playing against the laws of
chance, and that can become pretty boring unless there's money on it.
And, in that case, you're actually trying to beat the guy who's betting
against you. What I'd like to do is get out on the golf course with
someone else and do my best and then lose. Honestly."
"With a handicap ..." the therapist began. Then he grinned weakly and
stopped. On the golf course, Stanton was impossibly good. It had taken
him a little while to get the knack of it, but as soon as he got control
of his club and knew the reactions of the ball, his score started
plummeting. Now it was so low as to be almost ridiculous. One long drive
to the green and one putt to the cup. An easy thirty-six strokes for
eighteen holes! An occasional hole-in-one sometimes brought his score
down below that; an occasional wormcast or stray wind sometimes brought
it up.
"Sure," said Stanton. "A handicap. What kind of a handicap do you want
me to give you to induce you to make a fifty-dollar bet on a handball
game with me?"
The physical therapist could imagine himself trying to get under one of
Stanton's lightning-like returns. The thought of what would happen to
his hand if he were accidentally to catch one made him wince.
"We wouldn't even be playing the same game," said Stanton.
The therapist stepped back and looked at Stanton. "You know," he said
puzzledly, "you sound bitter."
"Sure I'm bitter," Stanton said. "All I ever get is just exercise. All
the fun has gone out of it." He sighed and grinned. There was no point
in upsetting the P.T. man. "I guess I'll just have to stick to cards and
chess if I want competition. Speed and strength don't help anything if
I'm holding two pair against three of a kind."
Before the therapist could say anything, the door opened and a tall,
lean man stepped into the foggy air of the room. "You are broiling a
lobster?" he asked the P.T. man blandly.
"Steaming a clam," the therapist corrected. "When he's done, I'll pound
him to chowder."
"Excellent. I came for a clambake."
"You're early, then, George," Stanton said. He didn't feel much in the
mood for lightness, and the appearance of Dr. Yoritomo did nothing to
improve his humor.
George Yoritomo beamed broadly, crinkling up his narrow, heavy-lidded
eyes. "Ah! A talking clam! Excellent! How much longer does this fine
specimen of clamhood have to cook?" he asked the P.T. man.
"About twenty-three more minutes."
"Excellent!" said Dr. Yoritomo. "Would you be so good as to return at
the end of that time?"
The therapist opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, and
said: "Sure, Doc. I can get some other stuff done. I'll see you in
twenty-three minutes. But don't let him out of there till I get back."
He went out through the far door.
After the door closed, Dr. Yoritomo pulled up a chair and sat down.
"There have been new developments," he said, "as you may have surmised."
The physical therapist, like many other of the personnel around the
Institute, knew of Stanton's abilities, but he didn't know the purpose
of the long series of operations that had made him what he was. Such
persons knew about Stanton himself, but they knew nothing of any
connection with the Nipe, although they might suspect. And all of them
kept their knowledge and their suspicions to themselves.
"I guessed," Stanton said. "What is it, George?" He flexed his muscles
under the caress of the hot, moist currents in the box.
He wondered why it was so important that the psychologist interrupt him
while he was relaxing after strenuous exercise. Yoritomo looked excited
in spite of his attempt to be calm. And yet Stanton knew that, whatever
it was, it wasn't anything tremendously urgent or Dr. Yoritomo would be
acting a great deal differently.
Yoritomo leaned forward in his chair, his thin lips in an excited smile,
his black-irised eyes sparkling. "I had to come tell you. The sheer,
utter beauty of it is too much to contain. Three times in a row was
almost absolute, Bart. The probability that our hypotheses were correct
was computed as straight nines to seven decimals. But now! The fourth
time! Straight nines to _twelve_ decimals!"
Stanton lifted an eyebrow. "Your Oriental calm is deserting you, George.
I'm not reading you."
Yoritomo's smile became broader. "Ah! Sorry. I refer to the theory we
have been discussing. About the peculiar mentality of our friend, the
Nipe. You remember?"
Stanton remembered. After six years of watching the recorded actions of
the Nipe, Dr. Yoritomo had evolved a theory about the kind of mentality
that lay behind the four baleful violet eyes in that snouted alien head.
In order that his theory be validated, it was necessary that the theory
be able to predict, in broad terms, the future actions of the Nipe.
Evidently that proof had now come. The psychologist was smiling and
rubbing his long, bony hands together. For Dr. George Yoritomo, that was
almost the equivalent of hysterical excitement.
"We have been able to predict the behavior of the Nipe!" he said. "For
the fourth time in succession!"
"Great," Stanton said. "Congratulations, George. But how does that fit
in with the rule you once told me about? You know, the one about
experimental animals."
"Ah, yes," Yoritomo said, nodding his head agreeably. "The Harvard Law
of Animal Behavior. 'A genetically standardized strain, under precisely
controlled laboratory conditions, when subjected to carefully calibrated
stimuli, will behave as it damned well pleases.' Yes. Very true."
He held up a cautionary finger. "But an animal could not do otherwise,
could it? Only as it pleases. Could it do anything else? It could not
please to behave as something it is not, could it?"
"Draw me a picture," Stanton said.
"What I mean," Yoritomo said, "is that any organism is limited in its
choice of behavior. A hamster, for example, cannot choose to behave in
the manner of a rhesus monkey. A dog cannot choose to react as a mouse
would react. If I prick a white mouse with a needle, it may squeal or
bite or jump--but it will not bark. Never. Nor will it, under any
circumstances, leap to a trapeze, hang by its tail, and chatter curses
at me. Never."
Stanton chuckled, but he didn't comment.
"By observing an organism's reactions," the psychologist continued, "one
can begin to see a pattern. After long enough observation, the pattern
almost approaches certainty. If, for instance, I tell you that I put an
armful of hay into a certain animal's enclosure, and that the animal
trotted over, ate the hay, and brayed, then you will be able to tell me
with reasonable certainty whether or not the animal had long ears. Do
you see?"
"Sure. But you haven't been able to pinpoint the Nipe's activities that
easily yet, have you?" Stanton asked.
"Ah, no," said Yoritomo. "Not at all. That was merely an analogy, and we
must not make the mistake of carrying an analogy too far. The more
intelligent a creature is, the greater, in general, is its scope of
action. The Nipe is far from being so simple as a monkey or a hamster.
On the other hand--" He smiled widely, showing bright, white teeth.
"--he is not so bright as a human being."
"_What?_" Stanton looked at him skeptically. "I wouldn't say he was
exactly stupid, George. What about all those prize gadgets of his?" He
blinked. "Wipe the sweat off my forehead, will you? It's running into my
eyes."
Dr. Yoritomo wiped with the towel as he continued. "Ah, yes. He is quite
capable in that respect, my friend. Quite capable. That is because of
his great memory--at once his finest asset and his greatest curse."
He draped the towel around Stanton's head again and stepped back, his
face unsmiling. "Imagine having a near-perfect memory, Bart."
Stanton's jaw muscles tightened a little before he spoke. "I think I'd
like it," he said.
Yoritomo shrugged slightly. "Perhaps you would. But it would most
certainly not be the asset you think. Look at it very soberly, my
friend.
"The most difficult teaching job in the world is the attempt to teach an
organism something that that organism already knows. True? Yes. If a man
already knows the shape of the Earth, it will do you no good to teach
him. If he _knows_, for example, that the Earth is flat, but round like
a pancake, your contention that it is round like a ball will make no
impression upon his mind whatever. He _knows_, you see. He _knows_.
"Now. Imagine a race with a perfect memory--a memory that never fades. A
memory in which each bit of data is as bright and as fresh as the moment
it was imprinted, and as readily available as the data stored in a
robot's mind. It is, in effect, a robotic memory.
"If you put false data into the memory banks of a mathematical
computer--such as telling it that the square of two is five--you cannot
correct that error simply by telling it the true fact that the square of
two is four. No. First you must remove the erroneous data. Not so?"
"Agreed," Stanton said.
"Very good. Then let us look at the Nipe race, wherever it was spawned
in this universe. Let us look at the race a long time back--way back
when they first became _Nipe sapiens_. Back when they first developed a
true language. Each little Nipe child, as it is born or hatched or
budded--whatever it is they do--is taught as rapidly as possible all
the things it must know in order to survive. And once a little Nipelet
is taught a thing, it _knows_. That knowledge is there, and it is
permanent, and it can be brought instantly to the fore. And if it is
taught a falsehood, then it cannot be taught the truth. You see?"
Stanton thought about it. "Well, yes. But eventually there are going to
be cases where reality doesn't jibe with what he's been taught, aren't
there? And wouldn't cold reality force a change?"
"Ah. In some cases, yes. In most, no," said Yoritomo. "Look: Suppose one
of these primordial Nipes runs across a tiger--or whatever large
carnivore passes for a tiger on their home planet. This Nipe, let us
say, has never seen a tiger before, so he does not observe that this
particular tiger is old, ill, and weak. It is, as a matter of fact, on
its last legs. Our primordial Nipe hits it on the head, and it drops
dead. He drags the body home for the family to feed upon.
"'How did you kill it, Papa?'
"'Why, it was the simplest thing in the world, my child. I walked up to
it, bashed it firmly on the noggin, and it died. That is the way to kill
tigers.'"
Yoritomo smiled. "It is also a good way to kill Nipes. Eh?" He took the
towel and wiped Stanton's brow again.
"The error," he continued, "was made when Papa Nipe made the
generalization from _one_ tiger to _all_ tigers. If tigers were rare,
this erroneous bit of lore might be passed on for many generations
unchecked and spread through the Nipe community as time passed. Those
who did learn that most tigers are _not_ conquered by walking up to them
and hitting them on the noggin undoubtedly died before they could pass
this new bit of information on. Then, perhaps, one day a Nipe survived
the ordeal. His mind now contained conflicting information which must be
resolved. He _knows_ that tigers are killed in this way. He also
_knows_ that this one was not so obliging as to die. What is wrong? Ha!
He has the solution! Plainly, _this_ particular beast _was not a
tiger_!"
"How does he explain that to the others?" Stanton asked.
"What does he tell his children?" Yoritomo asked rhetorically. "Why,
first he tells them how tigers are killed. You walk up to one and bash
it on the head. But then he warns his little Nipelets that there is an
animal around that looks _just like_ a tiger, but it is _not_ a tiger.
One should not make the mistake of thinking it _is_ a tiger or one will
get oneself badly hurt. Now, since the only way to tell the true tiger
from the false is to give it a hit on the head, and since that test may
prove rather injurious, if not absolutely fatal, to the Nipe who tries
it, it follows that one is better off if one scrupulously avoids all
animals that look like tigers. You see?"
"Yeah," said Stanton. "Some snarks are boojums."
"Exactly! Thank you for that allusion," Yoritomo said with a smile. "I
must remember to use it in my report."
"It seems to me to follow," Stanton said musingly, "that there would
inevitably be some things that they'd never learn the truth about, once
they had gotten the wrong idea into their heads."
"Ah! Indeed. Absolutely true. It is precisely that which led me to
formulate my theory in the first place. How else are we to explain that
the Nipe, for all his tremendous technical knowledge, is nonetheless a
member of a society that is still in the ancient ritual-taboo stage of
development?"
"A savage?"
Yoritomo laughed softly. "As to his savagery, I think no one on Earth
would disagree. But they are not the same thing. What I do mean is that
the Nipe is undoubtedly the most superstitious and bigoted being on the
face of this planet."
There was a knock on the door of the steam room.
"Yes?" said Dr. Yoritomo.
The physical therapist stuck his head in. "Sorry to interrupt, but the
clam is done. I'll have to give him a rubdown, Doc."
"Perfectly all right," Yoritomo said. "We had almost finished. Think
over what I have said, eh, Bart?"
"Yeah, sure, George," Stanton said abstractedly. Yoritomo left, and
Stanton got up on the rubdown table and lay prone. The therapist, seeing
that his patient was in no mood for conversation, proceeded with the
massage in silence.
Stanton lay on the table, his head pillowed in his arms, while the
therapist rubbed and kneaded his muscles. The pleasant sensation formed
a background for his thoughts. For the first time, Stanton was seeing
the Nipe as an individual--as a person--as a thinking, feeling being.
_We have a great deal in common, you and I_, he thought. _Except that
you're a lot worse off than I am._
* * * * *
_I'm actually feeling sorry for the poor guy_, Stanton thought. _Which,
I suppose, is a hell of a lot better than feeling sorry for myself. The
only real, basic difference between us freaks is that you're more of a
freak than I am. "Molly O'Grady and the Colonel's lady are sisters under
the skin."_
_Where'd that come from? Something I learned in school, no doubt--like
the snarks and the boojums._
_He would answer to_ Hi! _or to any loud cry,
Such as_ Fry me! _or_ Fritter my wig!
_Who was that? The snark? No. The snark had a flavor like that of
will-o'-the-wisp. And I must remember to distinguish those that have
feathers, and bite, from those that have whiskers, and scratch._