"Neither did twenty million people on Earth in the last atomic war."
The Director's voice was soft. "All colonists volunteer. Some have a
vision. Others have a latent power drive that stasis can't satisfy.
They're misfits regardless, potential threats to stasis. Remember your
last leave, Commander? I believe you met my son."
Saxon nodded curtly. He remembered the Director's son as a quiet,
soft-spoken youth with the yearning for far places in his eyes.
"I had hoped he would qualify for the Corps." Gant looked suddenly
old, tired. "Instead he's volunteering for Colonial Service. Did you
ever lose a son, Commander?"
They stared at each other across the humming emptiness and Saxon
finally whispered, "I'm sorry."
"Stasis is all we can afford," the Director said numbly. "Man can't
have Utopia yet. Because he's still--Man. Perhaps he'll never have it.
But by God he'll try! Resignation withdrawn?"
Saxon nodded. He could not speak.
"I'm glad. The ship's captain had orders to burn you down had you
refused." Gant's face was wooden. "Inhibition agents never quit, they
just die in harness. You'll take the lifeboat to Eden XI for sixth
generation check. Good hunting, Commander."
The image faded. Saxon sat for a long time, staring into the darkness.
* * * * *
Eden XI was three parsecs distant, near Algol. For the next ten hours
Saxon paced the marvelously equipped lifeboat and absorbed data from
the robot recorder. He stared at the hard crystal ache of the stars and
thought of the Director's son. He thought about the shining cities of
Earth, and about stasis.
Stasis meant--control.
It meant control of a billion people, a rigid planetary economy. It
meant the Assassination branch of the Corps. Assassination (carefully
contrived to appear accidental) took care of those few malcontents
who were either too smart or too stupid to sign up for colonization.
It meant a gradual weeding out of the unsane, the power-mad, it meant
learning the true meaning of sanity and peace and racial brotherhood.
And it meant the stagnation of science, a thick film of dust gathering
on the textbooks of the military tactician, and warships rotting at
anchor. It meant the white spire of the Stasis Administration Center at
New Washington, and the words graven over the golden portals:
_Know thyself, Man. Or die!_
Was the dream worth it?
Or was Man doomed to die like a brawling ape, playing with lightning?
Saxon could not answer.
Meanwhile the colonies had to be inhibited. One interplanetary war
could smash the fragile structure so painstakingly built over the last
few hundred years. This was the turning point, the final cross-roads of
Man's destiny.
Saxon smiled bleakly.
Ultimately there would be a colony they could neither inhibit or
destroy. The adaptive ultimate. That colony would be Man no longer, but
Homo Superior.
But by then, it wouldn't matter.
* * * * *
The lifeboat came in on the night side of Eden XI, and hung above the
blue mountains like a basking shark. Saxon checked his coordinates.
This had been the original landing site, almost two hundred years ago.
He switched the infra-view on maximum, and began to cruise in widening
spirals. These sixth generation hops were usually routine. If nomadic,
a few political shifts could help warp the culture into a set pattern.
A simple matter to play the visiting deity, pick one warped psychotic,
and invest him with power. A dictatorship was by far the best way of
inhibiting a young culture. Agricultural city-states were almost as
easy. Designate a particular crop as sacred, kill the rotation program,
impoverish the land, introduce serfdom.
By dawn, Saxon found what he was looking for. A row of cleared fields
and a farmhouse. He reconnoitered a hundred miles farther and frowned.
There was no clump of dwellings, no sign of a village trading community.
He brought the ship down in a forest three miles away from the
farmhouse and camouflaged it to look like a great mossy boulder. He
spent the entire morning testing the atmosphere and the soil with a
savage patience. In the early years of the Corps, virus mutations had
taken a fearful toll of intermittent spotters.
Finally he discarded his uniform and selected a pair of homespuns from
the ship's wardrobe locker. Under the homespuns reposed his utility
kit, a miniature arsenal.
Late that afternoon he emerged from the forest and stood at the edge
of the cleared fields, a weatherbeaten itinerant, obviously willing to
chop wood for a meal. Abruptly his jaw muscle twitched.
The scene was pastoral, perfect.
The man, plowing the south forty. The little girl, playing in the
shadow of the sleepy farmhouse.
But no beast pulled that plow. A giant of a man with power and
intelligence stamped on his bronze features pushed the plow by hand, in
a die-straight furrow.
The little girl was blonde and elfin. She wore sandals, her tunic was
brief and plain. She was playing follow-the-leader--
With a robot.
The robot was tall. The sun struck sparks from its steel carapace as it
lumbered after the girl. Saxon stood frozen as she came flying towards
him in a burst of tossing blond hair and laughter, as she saw him and
came to a dead halt.
"Hello," Saxon said. He tried to smile.
"Hello." Her inflection was slurred. After six generations, naturally.
Her blue eyes sparkled. "Foot-sore, stranger?"
The words had the cadence of a ritual greeting. Saxon stared at the
robot and said carefully, "Yes."
"He's only a primer model," she said, following his gaze. "Next year
when I'm twelve Father promised to install secondary circuits. My
name's Veena. What's yours?"
Saxon introduced himself, as the giant at the plow came forward. His
white smile was a benediction, his voice a lambent organ. "Welcome,
rover. Haven't seen one of you in months. I'm Lang. Agricultural
hobbyist. You'll stay?"
His tone was almost pleading. Saxon nodded inarticulately, followed
them towards the farmhouse. His hands were shaking.
The interior of the house was--dimensionless.
For a moment Saxon thought he was still outside. A silver brook tinkled
through the mossy carpet that was the floor. The south wall was a
golden vista of ripe wheat rippling in the warm breeze that ruffled his
hair. Birds twittered in the sun-flecked foliage overhead.
"Nice house," Saxon said numbly.
Lang's smile was different. "A bit pretentious, I'm afraid. Grandfather
built it right after the landing. We've been too lazy to do much
remodeling. A remarkable man, Grandfather."
That explained it, Saxon thought in relief. One titan in an infant
colony, warping it into a Utopian mold, passing on the heritage of his
genius. How long, he wondered coldly, before they built starships and
returned to demolish the Earth which had exiled them?
"It must be wonderful to be a rover," Veena said wistfully. "Lang, can
I go with him when he leaves?"
"You haven't completed Basic Ecology. Mentor's waiting for your
afternoon session."
Veena pouted and went outside to her robot. Lang grinned. "The
precocious brat's beginning to ask him questions he can't answer. Soon
I'll have to install a few more circuits."
Saxon shivered. _Regardless of scientific attainment, any culture is
vulnerable to inhibition._
So said his agent's handbook.
Later he met Veena's mother, Merl, a handsome woman with calm gray
eyes who served them dinner by firelight. It was a good dinner.
These colonists seemed like good people. A shame they qualified for
inhibition.
Gently, Saxon began to probe.
In only six generations the colonists has scattered throughout the
entire hemisphere. Although the matrix of their culture seemed to be
the individual family unit, they lived according to whim. Some lived
in small communal groups. Some lived alone. Some, by choice, were
wanderers, rovers. They had science. Their philosophy seemed nebulous,
based on a benevolent ecology, brotherhood with all living things.
Saxon frowned.
Six generations ago, the ecology on this world hardly had been
benevolent for man. This area of the continent had been a steaming
marsh, swarming with hungry saurians. Now it was all meadow and forest.
Saxon said thoughtfully, "Have you ever felt the need for organization?
For a leader?"
He leaned back and waited for the seed to sprout. Two years ago on Eden
VIII, near Rigel, he had said the same thing to a sixth-generation
shaman, and it took scarcely a month for the shaman to start an
intra-tribal war.
But now the seed fell on sterile ground. Lang said, "I don't
understand. Any problem which cannot be solved at family level is
referred to the annual council."
"A leader." Saxon was patient. "One strong man to represent everybody.
To settle all problems as he sees fit?"
"Remember, Father?" Veena prodded. "Those arboreal cannibals
Grandfather used to mention? They had a nomadic tribal culture based on
brute strength."
Lang nodded somberly. "Good analogy. The most favorable extrapolation
indicated a racial life expectancy of only ten thousand years. Their
emotional stability index was nil, they would eventually have destroyed
themselves. The first generation decided it would be more merciful to
exterminate them. An unwise decision, I think."
He launched into a spirited ethnological discussion with Veena, and
Saxon sat, numbly.
They had no emotional insecurity to feed, no power-hunger. No herd
instinct to pervert, nothing to utilize as destruction potential.
No cultural weakness.
The room they gave him was small and comfortable. For a time he lay on
the sleeping hammock, considering the situation. He was beginning to
like them. That in itself, was dangerous.
The house was very still.
He got quietly out of the hammock and crept towards the door. He had to
get back to the lifeboat, to feed facts into the monitor.
One thing disturbed him.
According to his agent's handbook, family-group anarchies didn't need
inhibition.
He was halfway across the plowed field when Mentor's iron voice said,
"Good evening."
Moonfire glimmered on metal. The robot stood impassively before him.
Saxon said slowly, "I was just going for a walk."
"You are our guest: I shall walk with you."
"I prefer to walk alone."
"Guests prefer company. The house of Lang must observe the basic
amenities."
Was there a hint of sardonicism in Mentor's voice?
They walked along the furrows, man and robot. Saxon felt beneath his
shirt for the utility kit. He kept his voice level.
"Am I a prisoner?"
"You are a guest."
"Did Veena tell you I might try to escape?"
A pause, while relays clicked silently.
"That is classified information."
Saxon's fingers were steady as they touched his tiny blaster.
Benevolent anarchy indeed! He said carefully, "Do the colonists resent
their exile?"
Another pause. Mentor's voice was a flat drone. "The concept is
meaningless, the question invalid."
_Like hell it is_, thought Saxon, and fired.
A cold blue wash of energy illuminated the robot. For a moment Saxon
was blinded. When vision returned he saw Mentor standing immobile,
unscathed.
"Please go back to bed," the robot said.
Saxon went back to bed.
* * * * *
Next morning Veena brought him breakfast. She seemed sad, withdrawn.
"Lang and Merl went to visit Aunt Tarsi. She lives near the Equator.
They won't be back till evening."
"How" Saxon had trouble breathing. "How did they go?"
"By transmitter, of course." She indicated a large shimmering platform
in one corner. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot rovers hate the mention of any
type of gadgetry." Her eyes grew impossibly earnest. "But we try to
achieve some kind of balance, really. Once when I suggested that Father
let Mentor help him plow the fields, he got furious."
Saxon restrained wild laughter. First the robot, invulnerable to atomic
energy, now a matter transmitter.
Yet they plowed their own fields.
"Veena," he said.
She looked up at him.
"Why did you tell Mentor to keep me here?"
She bowed her bright head. Her blue eyes were brimming.
"Why, Veena?"
"Because I like you," she sniffled. "I wanted you to s-stay." Abruptly
she fled from the room.
He stood bleakly looking after her. After a time he went outside and
struck across the field towards the forest.
This time the robot did not stop him.
* * * * *
_Do not allow the emotional charm of any culture, nor any individual of
that culture, to sway your inhibition appraisal._
In the narrow confines of the lifeboat he repeated the quotation
grimly. Good inhibition agents are inflexible. He was a good agent.
For almost an hour he fed data into the monitor tapes. Then he touched
a stud and closed his eyes, waiting for judgment.
"Agricultural family-group societies are normally stagnant," the
monitor droned. "Such cultures, regardless of technological level, do
not warrent inhibition of any type. Reference: twelfth generation check
on Eden V."
The room spun. Saxon whispered, "But they have cybernetics, matter
transmitters."
"Regardless of technological level." The monitor was adamant.
This was madness. Saxon wiped his forehead and said, "Assuming
geographical isolation no barrier to united group action in the event
of emergency."
"United action is incompatible with family-group."
"Assume and advise!"
Relays chattered. Abruptly the entire panel flashed crimson. The
monitor spoke one word.
"_Annihilation._"
Saxon referred to his Inhibition handbook. He had never annihilated a
culture before.
One hour later he went into the forest. Birds sang overhead. The sun
dappled him in light and shadow. He stalked a small furry quadruped
that squealed at him from a log and brought it down with his sonic
pistol.
Back in the lifeboat he watched the animal regain consciousness in an
air-tight tank, and very slowly he pulled a lever. A green vapor rolled
into the tank. The quadruped screamed. The green vapor fed.
It was the penultimate in sporedom, yet it was more than a spore.
It had virus characteristics, and its propagation rate was almost
mathematically impossible. There was no known defense, and once used,
the entire planet was forever untouchable. To Saxon's knowledge it had
been utilized only once on Eden I.
At dusk, he took the lifeboat up fifty miles. He released the spores
in a widening spiral, and finally jettisoned the tank. He went into an
orbit at ten thousand miles, and waited.
It would take approximately a week.
It was a long week. Saxon slept little. He paced the cabin. He looked
at the stars and thought about a blue-eyed waif with tears in her
voice, begging him to stay.
After a week the lifeboat came down at the edge of a grassy plain.
Saxon took a sample of the contaminated atmosphere to determine
propagation rate.
The atmosphere was pure.
Some freak of expansion. One uncontaminated spot in a hemisphere of
death.
He selected another location. Then another. That evening he close the
coordinates of his original landing site and tested the air again.
Finally he went outside the airlock. He breathed deeply, and the air
was fresh and sweet, it smelled of forest and cool streams and evening
dew. In the blue dusk birds twittered. A small marsupial very much like
a squirrel scampered to the safety of a tree and scolded him.
Saxon began walking.
At the edge of the forest he saw the familiar plowed field. The
farmhouse was a friendly beacon in the twilight.
"Hello," Veena said. She stood at the edge of the forest. She was
smiling. "Welcome home, rover."
For the next few days Saxon was the perfect guest. He argued
philosophical abstractions with the family by firelight; by day he
hiked in the woods with Veena and listened to Mentor give her lessons.
He asked questions.
"Veena, do you know what a microorganism is?"
"Benevolent or malignant?"
"Malignant. A plague."