"An action is normally the result of a thought. Since we cannot
retract an action, we tend to feel that we cannot retract the
thought which produced it. In effect, we cling desperately to our
mistakes. In order to change our views we have commonly to be
forced to act upon new thoughts, so urgent and so necessary that
without disowning our former, mistaken ideas, we can abandon them
tactfully without saying anything to anybody--even ourselves."
_The Practice of Thinking_
Fitzgerald
Murgatroyd came down a tree with his cheek-pouches bulged with nuts.
Calhoun inserted a finger, and Murgatroyd readily permitted him to
remove and examine the results of his scramble aloft. Calhoun grunted.
Murgatroyd did have other and more useful abilities in the service
of public health, but right here and now his delicate digestion was
extremely convenient. His stomach worked so much like a human's, that
anything Murgatroyd ate was safe for Calhoun to an incredible degree of
probability. And Murgatroyd ate nothing that disagreed with him.
"Instead of 'physician, heal thyself,'" Calhoun observed, "it's
amounted to 'physician, feed thyself,' since we got past the
frost-line, Murgatroyd. I am gratified."
"_Chee!_" said Murgatroyd complacently.
"I expected," said Calhoun, "only to benefit by the charm of your
society in what I thought would be a routine check-trip to Merida Two.
Instead, some unknown fumble-finger punched a wrong button and we wound
up here. Not exactly here, but near enough. I brought you from the Med
Ship because there was nobody to stay around and feed you, and now you
feed us--at least by pointing out edible things we might otherwise
miss."
"_Chee!_" said Murgatroyd. He strutted.
"I wish," protested Calhoun annoyedly, "that you wouldn't imitate that
Pat character from Three City! As a brand-new husband he's entitled to
strut a little, but I object to your imitating him! You haven't anybody
acting like Nym!--gazing at you raptly as if you'd invented not only
marriage but romance itself, impassioned falsehoods, and all other
desirable things back to night and morning!"
Murgatroyd said, "_Chee?_" and turned to face away from Calhoun.
The two of them, just then, stood on a leaf-covered patch of ground
which slanted down to the singularly smooth and reflective water of
a tiny bay. Behind and above them reared gigantic mountains. There
was snow in blinding-white sheets overhead, but the snowline itself
was safely three thousand feet above them. Beyond the bay was a wide
estuary, with more mountains behind it, with more snowfields on their
flanks. A series of leaping cascades jumped downward from somewhere
aloft where a glacier-foot melted in the sun's heat. And everywhere
that snow was not, green stuff shone in the sunlight.
Nym's father, Hunt, came hurriedly toward the pair. He'd abandoned the
thick felt cloak and heavy boots of Two City. Now he was dressed nearly
like a civilized man, but he carried a sharpened stick in one hand
and in the other a string of authentic fish. He wore an expression of
astonishment. It was becoming habitual.
"Murgatroyd," said Calhoun casually, "has found another kind of edible
nut. Terrestrial, too, like half the living things we've seen. Only the
stuff crowding the glaciers seems to be native. The rest originated on
Earth and was brought here, some time or another."
Hunt nodded. He seemed to find some difficulty in speaking.
"I've been talking to Pat," he said at last.
"The son-in-law," observed Calhoun, "who has to thank you not only for
your daughter and his life, but for your public career in Two City
which qualified you to perform a marriage ceremony. I hope he was
respectful."
Hunt made an impatient gesture.
"He says," he protested, "that you haven't done anything either to Nym
or to him to keep them from dying!"
Calhoun nodded.
"That's true."
"But ... they should die! Nym should die of the Three City sickness!
And Three City people have always said that we had a sickness too ...
that did not harm us but they died of!"
"Which," agreed Calhoun, "is undoubtedly historical fact. Its current
value is that of one factor in an isolation syndrome and consequently
a complicating factor in the Crusoe health problem here. I've let Nym
and Pat go untreated to prove it. I think there's only a sort of mass
hypochondria based on strictly accurate tradition. Which would be
normal."
Hunt shook his head.
"I don't understand!" he protested helplessly.
"Someday I'll draw a diagram," Calhoun told him. "It is complicated.
Did you check with Pat on what Three City knows about the ribbon in the
sky? I suspect it accounts for the terrestrial plants and animals here,
indirectly. There wouldn't be an accidental planting of edible nuts and
fish and squirrels and pigeons and rabbits and bumblebees! I suspect
there was a mistake somewhere. What does Pat say?"
Hunt shrugged his shoulders.
"When I talk to him," added Calhoun, "he doesn't pay attention.
He simply gazes at Nym and beams. The man's mad! But you're his
father-in-law. He has to be polite to you!"
* * * * *
Hunt sat down abruptly. He rested his spear against a tree and
looked over his string of fish. He wasn't used to the abundance of
foodstuffs here, and the temperature--Calhoun estimated it at fifty
degrees--seemed to him incredibly balmy. Now he thoughtfully separated
one fish from the rest and with a certain new skill began to slice away
two neatly boneless fillets. Calhoun had showed him the trick the day
after a lesson in fish-spearing, which was two days after their arrival.
"Children in Three City," growled Hunt, "are taught the same as in Two
City. Men came to this planet to work the mines. There was a company
which sent them, and every so often it sent ships to take what the
mines yielded, and to bring things the people wanted. Men lived well
and happily. The company hung the ribbon in the sky so the hotlands
could grow food for the men. But presently the mines could not deliver
what they made to the ships when they came. The hotlands grew bigger,
the glaciers flowed faster, and the pipes between the cities were
broken and could not be kept repaired. So the company said that since
the mine-products could no longer be had, it could not send the ships.
Those who wanted to move to other worlds would be carried there. Some
men went, with their wives and children. But the grandfathers of our
fathers' grandfathers were contented here. They had homes and heat and
food. They would not go."
Hunt regarded the pinkish brook trout fillet he'd just separated. He
bit off a mouthful and chewed, thoughtfully.
"That really tastes better cooked," said Calhoun mildly.
"But it is good this way also," said Hunt. He was grizzled and stocky
and somehow possessed of dignity which was not to be lost merely by
eating raw fish. He waved the remainder of the fillet. "Then the ships
ceased to come. Then sickness came. One City had a sickness it gave to
people of Two and Three when they visited it. Two City had a sickness
it gave to One and Three. Three City--" He grunted. "Our children in
Two say only Two City people have no sickness. Three City children are
taught that only Three City is clean of sickness."
Calhoun said nothing. Murgatroyd tried to gnaw open one of the nuts
he'd brought down from the tree. Calhoun took it and another and struck
them together. Both cracked. He gave them to Murgatroyd, who ate them
with great satisfaction.
Hunt looked up suddenly.
"Pat did not give a Three City sickness to Nym," he observed, "so our
thinking was wrong. And Nym has not given a Two City sickness to him.
His thinking was wrong."
Calhoun said meditatively:
"It's tricky. But sickness can be kept by a carrier, just as you people
have believed of other cities. A carrier has a sickness but does not
know it. People around the carrier have the sickness on their bodies
or their clothing from the carrier. They distribute it. Soon everybody
in the city where there is a carrier--" Calhoun had a moment's qualm
because he used the word "city." But to Hunt the idea conveyed was a
bare few hundred people. "Soon everybody is used to the sickness. They
are immune. They cannot know it. But somebody from another city can
come, and they are not used to the sickness, and they become ill and
die."
Hunt considered shrewdly.
"Because the sickness is on clothing? From the carrier?"
Calhoun nodded.
"Different carriers have different sicknesses. So one carrier in One
City might have one disease, and all the people in One City became
used to it while they were babies--became immune. There could be
another carrier with another sickness in Two City. A third in Three
City. In each city they were used to their own sickness--"
"That is it," said Hunt, nodding. "But why is Pat not dying? Or Nym?
Why do you do nothing to keep them alive?"
"Suppose," said Calhoun, "the carrier of a sickness dies. What happens?"
Hunt bit again, and chewed. Suddenly he choked. He sputtered:
"There is no sickness to spread on the clothing! The people no longer
have it to give to strangers who are not used to it! The babies do not
get used to it while they are little! There is no longer a One City
sickness or a Two City sickness or a Three!"
"There is," said Calhoun, "only a profound belief in them. You had it.
Everybody else still has it. And the cities are isolated and put out
sentries because they believe in what used to be true. And people like
Nym and Pat run away in the snow and die of it. There is much death
because of it. You would have died of it."
Hunt chewed and swallowed. Then he grinned.
"Now what?" His deep voice was quaintly respectful to Calhoun, so much
younger than himself. "I like this! We were not fools to believe,
because it was true. But we are fools if we still believe, because it
is not true any more. How do we make people understand, Calhoun? You
tell me. I can handle people when they are not afraid. I can make them
do what I think wise--when they are not afraid. But when they fear--"
"When they fear," said Calhoun dryly, "they want a stranger to tell
them what to do. You came for me, remember? You are a stranger to One
City and Three City. Pat is a Stranger to Two City. If the cities
become really afraid--"
* * * * *
Hunt grunted. He watched Calhoun intently. And Calhoun was peculiarly
reminded of the elected president of a highly cultured planet, who had
exactly that completely intent way of looking at one.
"Go on!" said Hunt. "How frighten them into--this?"
He waved his hand about. Calhoun, his tone very dry indeed, told him.
Words would not be enough. Threats would not be enough. Promises would
not be enough. But rabbits and pigeons and squirrels and fish--fish
that were frozen like other human food--and piles of edible nuts....
They would not be enough either, by themselves. But--
"An isolation syndrome is a neurotic condition, and a Crusoe problem
amounts to neurotic hypochondria. You can do it--you and Pat."
Hunt grimaced.
"I hate the cold, now. But I will do it. After all, if I am to have
grandchildren there should be other children for them to play with!
And we will take you back to your ship?"
"You will," said Calhoun. "By the way, what is the name of this planet,
anyhow?"
Hunt told him.
* * * * *
Calhoun slipped across the pasture inside the landing grid and examined
the ship from the outside. There had been batterings, but the door
had not been opened. In the light of the ribbon in the sky he could
see, too, that the ground was trampled down but only at a respectful
distance. One City was disturbed about the Med Ship. But it did not
know what to do. So long as nothing happened from it....
He was working the combination lock-door when something hopped,
low-down and near him. He jumped, and Murgatroyd said, "_Chee?_" Then
Calhoun realized what had startled him. He finished the unlocking of
the port. He went in and closed the port behind him. The air inside
seemed curiously dead, after so long a time outside. He flipped on
the outside microphones and heard tiny patterings. He heard mildly
resentful cooings. He grinned.
When morning came, the people of One City would find their pastureland
inhabited by small snowshoe rabbits and small and bush-tailed squirrels
and fluttering pigeons. They would react as Two City and Three City had
already done--with panic. And panic would inevitably call up the notion
of the most-feared thing in their lives. Sickness. The most-feared
thing is always a rare thing, of course. One cannot fear a frequent
thing, because one either dies of it or comes to take it for granted.
Fear is always of the rare or nonexistent. One City would be filled
with fear of sickness.
And sickness would come. Hunt would call them, presently, on a
walkie-talkie communicator. He would express deep concern because--so
he'd say--new domestic animals intended for Two City had been dumped
on One City pastureland. He'd add that they were highly infective, and
Two City was already inescapably doomed to an epidemic which would
begin with severe headaches, and would continue with cramps and extreme
nervous agitation. And he would say that Calhoun had left medicines at
Two City with which that sickness and all others could be cured, and
if the sickness described should appear in One City--why--its victims
could be cured if they traveled to Two City.
The sickness would appear. Inevitably. There was no longer sickness in
the three communities. Arctic colonies, never visited by people from
reservoirs of infection, become magnificently healthy by the operation
of purely natural causes. But an isolation syndrome....
The people of One City would presently travel, groaning, to Two City.
Their suffering would be real. They would dread the breaking of
their isolation. But they'd dread sickness--even sickness they only
imagined--still more. And when they reached Two City they would find
themselves tended by Three City members, and they would be appalled
and terrified. But mumbo-jumbo medication by Hunt and Pat--and Nym for
the women--would reassure them. A Crusoe condition requires heroic
treatment. This was it.
* * * * *
Calhoun cheerfully checked over the equipment of the Med Ship. He'd
have to take off on emergency rockets. He'd have to be very, very
careful in setting a course back to Headquarters to report before
starting out again for Merida II. He didn't want to make any mistakes.
Suddenly he began to chuckle.
"Murgatroyd," he said amiably, "it's just occurred to me that the
mistakes we make--that we struggle so hard to avoid--are part of the
scheme of things."
"_Chee?_" said Murgatroyd inquiringly.
"The company that settled this planet," said Calhoun, grinning, "set
up that ribbon out in space as a splendidly conservative investment
to save money in freight charges. It was a mistake, because it ruined
their mining business and they had to write the whole colony off.
They made another mistake by not reporting to Med Service, because
now they've abandoned the colony and would have to get a license to
re-occupy--which they'd never be granted against the population already
there. Somebody made a mistake that brought us here, and One City made
a mistake by not accepting us as guests, and Two City made a mistake by
sending Nym on sentry-duty, and Three City made a mistake...."
Murgatroyd yawned.
"You," said Calhoun severely, "make a mistake in not paying attention."
He strapped himself in. He stabbed an emergency-rocket control-button.
The little ship shot heavenward on a pencil-thin stream of fire.
Below him, people of One City would come pouring out of underground
to learn what had happened, and they'd find the pasture swarming with
friendly squirrels and inquisitive rabbits and cooing pigeons. They'd
be scared to death. Calhoun laughed. "I'll spend part of the time in
overdrive making a report on it. Since an isolation syndrome is mostly
psychological, and a Crusoe condition is wholly so--I managed sound
medical treatment by purely psychological means! I'll have fun with
that!"
It was a mistake. He got back to Headquarters all right, but when his
report was read they made him expand it into a book, with footnotes, an
index, and a bibliography.
It was very much of a mistake!