"At least two million years ago," Yoritomo said. "I do not think they
have had the interstellar drive more than some fifty thousand years."
"No wonder our pet Nipe is so patient," Stanton said with a touch of awe
in his voice. "How long do you suppose their individual life-span is?"
"Not so long, in comparison," said Yoritomo. "Perhaps no longer than our
own at the least, or perhaps as much as five hundred years. Considering
the tremendous handicaps against them, they have done quite well, I
think. Quite well, indeed, for a race of illiterate cannibals."
"How's that again?" Stanton realized that the scientist was quite
serious.
"Hadn't it occurred to you, my friend, that they must be cannibals?"
Yoritomo asked. "And that they must be very nearly illiterate?"
"No," Stanton admitted, "it hadn't."
"The Nipe, like man, is omnivorous," Yoritomo pointed out.
"Specialization tends to lead any race up a blind alley, and dietary
restrictions are a particularly pernicious form of specialization. A
lion would starve to death in a wheat field. A horse would perish in a
butcher shop full of steaks. A man will survive as long as there is
something around to eat--even if it's another man."
Yoritomo picked up his pipe and began tapping the ashes out of it.
"Also," he went on, "we must remember that Man, early in his career of
becoming top dog on Earth, began using a method of removing the unfit.
Ritual traces of it remain today in some societies--the Jewish Bar
Mitzvah, for instance, or the Christian Confirmation. Before and
immediately after the Holocaust, there were still primitive societies on
Earth--in New Guinea, for instance--which still made a rather hard
ordeal out of the Rite of Passage, the ceremony whereby a boy becomes a
man--if he passes the tests."
Yoritomo was filling his pipe, a look of somber satisfaction on his lean
face. "A few millennia ago, a boy who underwent those tests was killed
outright if he failed. And was eaten. He had not shown the ability to
overrule with reason his animal instincts. Therefore, he was not a human
being, but an animal. What better use for a young and succulent animal
than to provide meat for the common larder?"
"And you think the same process must have been used by the Nipes?"
Stanton asked.
Yoritomo nodded vigorously as he applied a match flame to the tobacco in
his pipe. "The Nipe race must, of necessity, have had some similar
ritualistic tests or they would not have become what they are," he said
when he had puffed the pipe alight. "And we have already agreed that
once the Nipes adopted something of that kind, it remained with them.
Not so? Yes.
"Also, it can be considered extremely unlikely that the Nipe
civilization--if such it can be called--has any geriatric problem. No,
indeed. No old-age pensions, no old folks' homes, no senility. No, nor
any specialists in geriatrics, either. When a Nipe becomes a burden
because of age, he is ritually murdered and eaten with all due
solemnity."
Yoritomo pointed his pipestem at Stanton. "Ah. You frown, my friend.
Have I made them sound heartless, without the finer feelings of which we
humans are so proud? Not so. When Junior Nipe fails his puberty tests,
when Mama and Papa Nipe are sent to their final reward, I have no doubt
that there is sadness in the hearts of their loved ones as the honored
T-bones are passed around the table."
He put the pipe back in his mouth and spoke around it. "My own
ancestors, not too far back, performed a ritual suicide by disemboweling
themselves with a long, sharp knife. Across the abdomen--_so!_--and up
into the heart--_so!_ It was considered very bad form to faint or die
before the job was done. Nearby, a relative or a close friend stood with
a sharp sword, to administer the _coup de grace_ by decapitation. It was
all very sad and very honorable. Their loved ones bore the sorrow with
great pride."
His voice, which had been low and tender, suddenly became very brisk.
"Thank goodness it has gone out of fashion!"
"But how can you be _sure_ they're cannibals?" Stanton asked. "Your
argument sounds logical enough, but you can't be basing your theory on
that alone."
"True! True!" Yoritomo jabbed the air twice with a rapid forefinger.
"Evidence for such a theory would be most welcome, would it not? Very
well, I give you the evidence. He eats human beings, our Nipe."
"That doesn't make him a cannibal," Stanton objected.
"Not _strictly_, perhaps. But consider. The Nipe is not a monster. He is
not a criminal. No. He is a gentleman. He always behaves as a gentleman.
He is shipwrecked on an alien planet. Around him, he sees evidence in
profusion that ours is a technological society. But that is a
contradiction! A paradox!
"For _we_ are not civilized! No! We are not rational! We are not sane!
We do not obey the Laws; we do not perform the Rituals. We are animals.
Apparently intelligent animals, but animals nevertheless. How can this
be?
"_Ha!_ says the Nipe to himself. These animals must be ruled over by
Real People. It is the only explanation. Not so?"
"Colonel Mannheim mentioned that," Stanton said. "Are you implying that
the Nipe thinks there are other Nipes around, running the world from
secret hideouts, like the villains in a Fu Manchu novel?"
"Not quite," said Yoritomo, laughing. "The Nipe is not at all incapable
of learning something new. In point of fact, he is quite good at it, as
witness the fact that he has learned many Earth languages. He picked up
Russian in less than eight months simply by listening and observing.
Like our own race, his undoubtedly evolved a great many languages during
the beginnings of its progress--when there were many tribes, separated
and out of communication with each other. It would not surprise me to
find that most of these languages have survived and that our distressed
astronaut knows them all. A new language would not bother him in the
least.
"Nor would strangely shaped intelligent beings make him unhappy. His
race should be aware, by now, that such things must exist. But it is
very likely that he equates _true_ intelligence with technology, and I
do not think it likely that he has ever met a race higher than the
barbarian level before. Such races were not, of course, human--by his
definition. They showed possibilities, perhaps, but they had not by any
means evolved far enough. And, considering the time span involved in
their own progress toward a technological civilization, it is not at all
unlikely that the Nipe thinks of technology as something that evolves in
a race in the same way that intelligence does--or the body itself.
"So it would not surprise him to find that the Real People of this
system were humanoid in shape instead of--ah--Nipoid? A bad word, but it
will do for the nonce. To find Real People of a different shape is
something new, but he can absorb it because it does not contradict
anything he _knows_.
"_But--!_ Any truly intelligent being that did not obey the Law and
follow the Ritual _would_ be a contradiction in terms. For our Nipe has
no notion of a Real Person without those characteristics. Without those
characteristics, technology is, of course, utterly impossible. Since he
sees technology all around him, it follows that there must be Real
People around somewhere that have those characteristics. Anything else
is unthinkable."
"It seems to me that you're building an awfully involved theory out of
pretty flimsy stuff," Stanton said.
Yoritomo shook his head. "Not at all. Not at all. Every scrap and shred
of evidence we have points toward it. Why, do you suppose, does the Nipe
conscientiously devour his victims, often risking his own safety to do
so? Why do you suppose he never uses any weapon but his own hands to
kill with?"
Yoritomo leaned forward and speared out at Stanton with a long, bony
forefinger. "Why? To tell the Real People that he is a gentleman!"
He sat back with a satisfied smile and puffed complacently at his pipe,
remaining silent while Bart Stanton considered his last remark.
"Just one thing," Stanton said after a minute. "It seems to me that he
would be able to judge that some races have different Laws and Rituals
than he does. Wouldn't they have a science comparable to our
anthropology?"
Yoritomo grinned. "Nipology, shall we say? Well, he might, but it would
not tell him what our anthropology tells us.
"Consider. How have we learned much of our knowledge of the early
history of Man? By the study of ritual-taboo cultures. The so-called
'primitive' cultures. It is from these tribes that we have learned the
multifarious ways in which a group of human beings can evolve a culture
and a society. But does the Nipe have any such other tribes to study?"
"Why wouldn't he?" Stanton asked.
"Because there are none," Yoritomo said. "How could there be? Consider
again. Once a race has evolved a fairly high technological level, it is
capable of wiping out races which have not achieved that level. If the
technologically advanced tribe is still at the ritual-taboo level, it
will consider that all tribes which do not use the same Laws and Rituals
as it does must be animals--dangerous animals that must be wiped out.
Take a look at the history of our own race. In a few short centuries, we
find that the technologically advanced civilization and culture of
Renaissance Europe has spread over the whole globe. By military,
economic, and religious conquest, it has, in effect, westernized the
majority of Mankind.
"The same process would take place on the Nipe's world, only more
thoroughly. The weaker tribes would vanish, the stronger would
amalgamate."
"That process would take a lot of time," Stanton said.
"Indeed! Oh, yes, indeed," Yoritomo agreed. "But they have had the time,
have they not? Eh? What Western European Man has partially achieved in
less than a thousand years, surely the Nipe equivalent could have
achieved in ten thousand thousand. Eh?"
"But I'd think that the Nipe would have realized, after ten years, that
there is no such race of Real People," Stanton said. "He's had access to
our records and books and such things. Or does he reject them all as
lies?"
"Possibly he would, if he could read them," Yoritomo said. "Did I not
say he was illiterate?"
"You mean he's learned to speak our languages, but not to read them?"
The psychologist smiled broadly. "Your statement is accurate, my friend,
but incomplete. It is my opinion that the Nipe is incapable of reading
any written language whatever. The concept does not exist in his mind,
except vaguely."
Stanton closed one eye and gave Yoritomo the glance askance. "Aw, come
_awwn_, George! A technological race without a written language? That's
impossible!"
"Ah, no. No, it isn't. Ask yourself: What need has a race with a perfect
memory for written records? At least, in the sense that we think of
them. Certainly not to remember things. What would a Nipe need with a
memorandum book or a diary? All of their history and all of their
technology exists in the collective mind of the race.
"Think, for a moment, of their history. If it is somewhat analogous to
human history--and, as we have seen, there is reason to believe that
this is so--then we can, in a way, trace the development of writing.
We--"
"Wait a minute!" Stanton held up his hand. "I think I see what you're
driving at."
"Ah. So?" Yoritomo nodded. "Very well. Then _you_ expound."
"I can give it to you in two sentences," Stanton said. "One: Their first
writing was probably pictographic and was learned only by a select
priestly class. Two: It still is."
"Ahhhh!" Yoritomo's eyes lit up. "Admirable! Most admirable! And
succinctly put, too. And, to top it off, almost precisely correct. That
is what happened here on Earth; are we wrong in assuming that such may
have happened elsewhere in the Universe? (Remembering always, my dear
Bart, that we must not make the mistake of thinking like our friend, the
Nipe, and assuming that everybody else in the Universe has to be like us
in all things.)
"You are correct. That is why I hedged when I said he was _almost_
illiterate. There is a possibility that a written symbology does exist
for Nipes. But it is used almost entirely for ritualistic purposes, it
is pictographical in form, and is known only to a very few. For others
to learn it would be taboo.
"Remember, I said that there is only one society, one culture remaining
on the Nipe planet. And remember that history is a very late development
in our own culture, just as written language is. One important event in
every ten centuries of Nipe history would still give a Nipe historian
ten thousand events to remember just since the invention of the steam
engine. What, then, does Nipe history become? A series of folk chants,
of _chansons de geste_."
"Why?" Stanton asked. "If they have perfect memories, why would
histories be distorted?"
"Time, my dear boy. Time." Yoritomo spread his hands in a gesture of
futility. "When one has a few million years of history to learn, it
_must_ become distorted, even in a race with a perfect memory.
Otherwise, no individual would have a chance to learn it all in a single
lifetime, even a lifetime of five hundred years, much less to pass that
knowledge on to another. So only the most important events are reported.
And that means that each historian must also be an editor. He must
excise those portions which he considers unimportant."
"But wouldn't that very limitation induce them to record history?"
Stanton asked. "Right there is your inducement to use a written
language."
Yoritomo looked at him with wide-eyed innocence. "Why? _What good is
history?_"
"Ohhh," said Stanton. "I see."
"Certainly you do," Yoritomo said firmly. "Of what use is history to the
ritual-taboo culture? Only to record what is to be done. And, with a
memory that can _know_ what is to be done, of what use is a historian,
except to remember the _important_ things. No ritual-taboo culture looks
upon history as we do. Only the doings of the great are recorded. All
else must be edited out. Thus, while the memory of the individual may
be, and _is_, perfect, the memory of the race is not. _But they don't
know that!_"
"What about communications, then?" Stanton asked. "What did they use
before they invented radio?"
"Couriers," Yoritomo said. "And, possibly, written messages from one
priestly scribe to another. That last, by the way, has probably survived
in a ritualistic form. When an officer is appointed to a post, let's
say, he may get a formal paper that says so. The Nipes may use symbols
to signify rank and so on. They must have a symbology for the
calibration of scientific instruments.
"But none of these requires the complexity of a written language. I dare
say our use of it is quite baffling to him.
"For teaching purposes, it is quite unnecessary. Look at what television
and such have done in our own civilization. With such tools as that at
hand--recordings and pictures--it is possible to teach a person a great
many things without ever teaching him to read. A Nipe certainly wouldn't
need any aid for calculation, would he? We humans must use a piece of
paper to multiply two ten-digit numbers together, but that's because our
memories are faulty. A Nipe has no need for such aids."
"Are you really positive of all this, George?" Stanton asked.
Yoritomo shrugged. "How can we be absolutely positive at this stage of
the game? Eh? Our evidence is sketchy, I admit. It is not as solidly
based as our other reconstructions of his background, but it appears
that he thinks of symbols as being unable to convey much information.
The pattern for his raids, for instance, indicates that his knowledge of
the materials he wants and their locations comes from vocal
sources--television advertising, eavesdropping on shipping orders, and
so on. In other words, he cases the joint by ear. If he could understand
written information, his job would be much easier. He could find his
materials much more quickly and easily. And, too, we have never seen him
either read a word or write one. From this evidence, we are fairly
certain that he can neither read nor write any terrestrial language--or
even his own." He spread his hands again. "As I said, it is not proof."
"No," Stanton agreed, "but I must admit that the whole thing makes for
some very interesting speculation, doesn't it?"
"Very interesting, indeed." Yoritomo folded his hands in his lap, smiled
seraphically, and looked at the ceiling. "In fact, my friend, we are now
so positive of our knowledge of the Nipe's mind that we are prepared to
enter into the next phase of our program."
"Oh?" Stanton distinctly felt the back of his neck prickle.
"Yes," said Yoritomo. "Mr. Martin feels that if we wait much longer, we
may run into the danger of giving the Nipe enough time to complete his
work on his communicator." He looked at Stanton and chuckled, but there
was no humor in his short laugh. "We would not wish our friend, the
Nipe, to bring his relatives into this little tussle, would we, Bart?"
"That's been our deadline all along," Bart said levelly. "The object all
along has been to let the Nipe work without hindrance as long as he did
not actually produce a communicator that would--as you put it--bring his
relatives into the tussle. Have things changed?"
"They have," Yoritomo acknowledged. "Why wouldn't they? We have been
working toward that as a _final_ deadline. If it appeared that the Nipe
were actually about to contact his confederates out there somewhere, we
would be forced to act immediately, of course. Plan Beta would go into
effect. But we don't want that, do we?"
"No," said Stanton. "No." He was well aware what a terrible loss it
would be for humanity if Plan Beta went into effect. The Nipe would have
to be literally blasted out of his cozy little nest.
"No, of course not." Yoritomo chuckled again, with as little mirth as he
had before. "Within a very short while, if we are correct, we shall,
with your help, arrest the most feared arch-criminal that Earth has ever
known. I dare say that the public will be extremely happy to hear of his
death, and I know that the rest of us will be happy to know that he will
never kill again."
Stanton suddenly saw the fateful day for which he had been so carefully
prepared and trained looming terrifyingly large in the immediate future.
"How soon?" he asked in an oddly choked voice.
"Within days." Yoritomo lowered his eyes from the ceiling and looked
into Stanton's face with a mild, bland expression.
"Tomorrow," he said, "the propaganda phase begins. We will announce to
the world that the great detective, Stanley Martin, has come to Earth to
rid us of the Nipe."
_[20]_
The arrival of the great Stanley Martin was a three-day wonder in the
public news channels. His previous exploits were recounted, with
embellishments, several times during the next seventy-two hours. The
"arrival" itself was very carefully staged. A special ship belonging to
the World Police brought him in, and he was met by four Government
officials in civilian clothes. The entire affair was covered live by
news cameras. No one on Earth suspected that he had been on Earth for
weeks before; a few _knew_ it, but it never even occurred to the rest.
Later, a special interview was arranged. Philip Quinn, a news
interviewer who was noted for his deferential attitude toward those whom
he had the privilege of interviewing, was chosen for the job.
Stanley Martin's dynamic, forceful personality completely overshadowed
Quinn.
But in spite of all the publicity, not one word, not one hint about the
method by which Stanley Martin intended to bring the Nipe in was
released. There were all kinds of speculations, ranging from the
mystically sublime to the broadly comical. One self-styled archbishop of
a California nut cult declared that Martin was a saint appointed by God
to exorcise the Demon Nipe that had been plaguing Mankind and that the
Millennium was therefore due at any moment. He was, he said, sending
Stanley Martin a sealed letter which contained a special exorcism prayer
that would do the job very nicely. Why hadn't he used it himself?
Because if anyone other than a saint or an angel used it, it would
backfire on the user and destroy him. Naturally the archbishop did not
claim himself to be a saint, but he knew that Martin was because he had
plainly seen the halo around the detective's head when he saw him on TV.
An inventor in Palermo, Sicily, solemnly declared that he had sent
Stanley Martin the plans for a device that would render him invisible to
the Nipe and therefore make the Nipe easy to conquer. No, there was no
danger that the device might fall into the wrong hands and be used by
human criminals, since it did not render a person invisible to human
eyes, only to Nipe eyes.
The first item was played up big in the newscasts. The second was
quashed--fast!--for the very simple reason that the Nipe just might have
believed it.
One note throbbed in the background of every interview with responsible
persons. It was the unobtrusive note of a soft clarinet played in a
great symphony, all the more telling because it was never played loudly
or insistently, but it was there all the same. Whenever the question of
the Nipe's actual whereabouts came up, the note seemed to ring a trifle
more clearly, but never more loudly. That single throbbing note was the
impression given by everyone who was interviewed, or who expressed any
views on the subject, that the Nipe was hiding somewhere in the
Amazonian jungles of South America. It was the last place on Earth that
had still not been thoroughly explored, and it seemed to be the only
place that the Nipe could hide.
Only a small handful of the vast array of people who were dispensing
this carefully tailored propaganda knew what was going on. More than
ninety-nine percent of the newsmen involved in the affair thought they
were honestly giving the news as they saw it, and none of them saw the
invisible but very powerful hand of Stanley Martin shifting the news
just enough to give it the bias he wanted.
The comedians on the entertainment programs let the whole story alone
for the most part. There were no clever skits, no farcical takeoffs on
the subject of Stanley Martin and the Nipe. One comedian, who was
playing the part of a henpecked husband, did remark: "If my wife gets
any meaner, I'm going to send Stan Martin after _her_!" But it didn't
get much of a laugh. And the Government organization had nothing to do
with that kind of censorship; it was self-imposed. Every one of the
really great comics recognized, either consciously or subconsciously,
that the Nipe was not a subject for humor. Such jokes would have made
them about as popular as the Borscht Circuit comedian who told a funny
story about Dachau in 1946.
Aside from the subtle coloring given it by the small, Mannheim-trained
group of propaganda experts, the news went out straight.
The detective himself, after that one single interview, vanished from
sight. No one knew where he was, though, again, there were all kinds of
speculations, all of them erroneous. Actually, he was a carefully
guarded and willing prisoner in a suite in one of the big hotels in
Government City.
On the fourth day, the big operation began without fanfare. The actual
maneuvering to capture the alien that had terrorized a planet began
shortly after noon.
At a few minutes before three that afternoon, the man whom the world
knew as Stanley Martin suddenly suffered a dizzy spell and nearly
fainted.
Then, almost like a child, he began to weep.
_FINAL INTERLUDE_