"I imagine. Well, are you going to do anything about Edith?"
"No," I said. "It would only make things worse. The relationship has gone too far. Ven has become an Authority-image."
"You could break it."
"But I won't. I'm fond of Ven."
"You're a damned little tyrant," Donald said. "You like to see a human squirm."
"Be thankful that I'm the worst tyrant you'll see," I answered sharply. "You could really learn about them if the Slaads knew you existed. They're more advanced than you. And, unlike us, they're warlike and predatory. They breed mammals for food. However, I'll put up a marker on your moon before I leave. They respect Thalassa and won't preempt our claims."
"You mean you're going to lay claim to Earth?"
"Only technically. We'll exercise it only if the Governing Council decides it will be to our advantage."
"What would you do if you took over?" Don asked curiously.
"Clean things up," I said. "Stop wars, stabilize the population, increase production and distribution, give you an effective central government and an understandable legal code, and eliminate the unfit. In three generations you'd be Class VI all over your planet."
"It sounds good. What's the catch."
"The catch," I said, "is that you wouldn't like it. You mammals are erratic, emotional and uncontrolled. You do not reason well, and you have no race discipline."
"What's that?"
"The capability of sacrificing units for the benefit of the whole. Eugenics control, culling the unfit."
"You're talking about human beings!" Donald exploded.
"And what makes a human being different from any other animal?" I asked. "Would you hesitate to dispose of an animal that was unfit to breed?"
He sighed. "No," he said. "But that's not the same."
"What's the difference? And realize, it's done for your betterment."
"Just a bunch of murderous little altruists," Donald sneered. "Out of the kindness of your cold-blooded hearts—"
"That's the trouble with you lower orders," I interrupted. "You get emotional. Your observations have no basis in logic. Actually, the Galaxy wouldn't even quiver if the lot of you disappeared tomorrow. Yet you think the universe rotates about your heads."
"I didn't—"
"Don't interrupt," I snapped. "You—your race—your whole pitiful little civilization is ready mentally and almost ready technologically to commit suicide. If we came and saved you, you would owe us eternal gratitude, but I doubt if we'd get it."
"You wouldn't," Donald assured me. "There wouldn't be a human alive who wouldn't hate you."
"I realize that—and that is one of the reasons I should report your world unfavorably to the council. We could hardly take on an altruism mission like this unless we felt that our work would be appreciated. It would be better to let you kill yourselves."
"Altruism!"
"In a sense. At least your race would be the greater gainers. All we'd get would be your excess population."
"And what would you want them for—slaves?"
"Authority, no!" I said, shocked in spite of myself. "We'd merely process them for food."
He was silent after that.
Donald was away again, at a publisher's meeting. Our new book laid in Restoration England was going to be an even greater success than the first if the advance notices were any criterion. Edith was at a studio party celebrating the completion of the picture in which she was working. And Ven was bored.
For awhile she sat in on Donald's conference in a city called New York, but that proved to be uninteresting. I was busy with a faulty fuel feed in the drive chamber. The sun was hot, and the day was promising to be extremely warm even though it was not yet noon. It was one of those days when nothing happens, and I was grateful for it. I had had enough of emotional tangles to last me for some time. It was almost soothing to work with the robots on insensate machinery rather than supervise a pair of highly charged mammals and a hardly less unstable mate.
The association with these entities hadn't done Ven a great deal of good. In fact, I could notice a deterioration of her character that bothered me. She no longer looked at me with respect. Indeed, her yellow eyes at times held a pitying amusement that I should be so weak as to argue with Donald. I didn't bother to point out that the three tons of power metal had virtually all been brought aboard through Donald's efforts, and that our conveniences, our defenses, our robots and our very lives were due to the working arrangements I had established.
The only useful thing Edith had done in the past month was to help me change the tube liners in the steering jets. Her size and strength had made the job easy—and it was normally a hard one, since the robots didn't have the flexibility or balance that Edith, with her dancer's body, possessed. The job had taken two days. It would have taken better than a week if I had to use robots.
The mammals, I thought, would be of distinct value as members of spaceport maintenance crews. Their combination of immense strength and high intelligence would be useful to our society. I made a note of it and added it to the data I was assembling for the Council. It was foolish, perhaps, but I couldn't help feeling an interest in these creatures.
I looked across the little valley that was our domain. It was an idyllic life we were leading. Unhurried—peaceful—the sort of life I thoroughly enjoyed. It would have been perfect if it wasn't for the insane and dangerous world on which it was being lived.
Of course it was too good to last. Idylls invariably are. The peace of ours was shattered abruptly when Ven came into the drive room and disturbed my work. Her aura blazed a rich violet.
"Eu," she said. "Come up to the control room. Something's wrong!"
"What," I asked.
"It's Edith. I can't do a thing with her."
"You're not supposed to. She's working now."
"She is not! Her studio has finished the picture and they're having a party."
"That's nice. I hope you're letting her have a good time."
"I told her to. But I never imagined what they'd be doing!" Ven's voice was anguished.
"Well, whatarethey doing?"
"Ingesting ethanol to excess!"
"Ethanol!" I gasped. "Oh no!"
I hadn't realized that normal mammals consumed excess amounts of the stuff, although there were references to it in the literature. I thought that was merely literary exaggeration. After all, we had been here scarcely half a year, and we hadn't really learned too much about the details of mammalian society. Donald's kidneys had forced him to lead a quiet life, and the passing of Edith from his control to Ven's had caused no remarkable alterations in her doings.
I should have paid more attention to their customs. But I had been too busy. I swore as I reached for my control helmet. I'd have to stop this before it became serious. Donald would be of no help to me. He was several thousand vursts away, and even under the best circumstances couldn't be expected back for a day.
I didn't bother to call him, but instead adjusted the controls to Edith's setting.
VI
A horde of gaily dressed mammals surrounded me, their faces and bodies oddly fuzzy and distorted. Edith's voice was equally fuzzy. There was something wrong with her centers. I tapped the helmet and checked the controller just in case it was on our end, but they were functioning perfectly. There was nothing wrong—merely the fact that ethanol was disturbing the biocircuits I had implanted in her brain. I swore a few choice expletives of Low Thalassan and tried to get through by increasing the power. It did no good.
"I c'n still feel that li'l lizard in m' head," Edith announced. "Gimme another drink. I wanna wash her out. Darn li'l lizard makes me do things I dowanna do. It wants me to quit, but I wanna get drunk."
"Take it easy," a fuzzy male face said. "You're loaded. Why does a nice chick like you hafta be loaded? Whyncha get outa here? I gotta nice place over in Santa Monica where—"
The face disappeared.
"Hey! Alice! Golly, I almos' din't reckanize you. Howya doin?"
"Better than you, Edith. You're drunk. And from the looks of you, you're going to be sick if you don't get some fresh air."
"Gotta go spit in the eye of my li'l lizard," Edith said. "Y'wanna come with me? I got Don's car. We c'n get outa here an' get some fresh air—an' I c'n tell that li'l lizard what I think of her."
"What are you talking about?"
"You wanna see my li'l lizard. She's got yella eyes, and a li'l tail, and she turns all kindsa colors, and she lives in a rock with a door in it, an she makes me do things I dowanna do. It ain't so bad though. Mosta the time I like it. Not alla time though. That's why I wanna spit in her eye. She c'n tell me all she wants—but she's gotta leave me'n Don alone. I love that guy." Edith started sobbing—why, I couldn't understand.
"She's maudlin," I said to Ven. "No one's going to believe a thing she is saying. But this should be a warning to us. We'll have to put in a block against drinking ethanol. I didn't realize how badly it can affect the biocircuits." I handed the helmet back to Ven. "You can watch this mess if you want to. I'm going to our quarters."
I slipped out of the control chair and walked across the room.
I was stronger now, more accustomed to the gravity, and it didn't bother me unless I had to stand for long periods of time. I turned in the doorway to look at Ven. She had the helmet on again and her aura was a crackling red. I shook my head. Edith was due for a bad time when the effects of that hydrocarbon wore off.
I had hardly fallen into light estivation when Ven's projection crashed through my antennae.
"Eu! Get up! Come here quickly!"
With a groan I came slowly back to full facility and ran to the control room. Ven's face was filled with panic.
"They're coming up here," she said. "A whole carful of them!"
"Who?"
"Edith's drunken friends! Somehow she's collected six of them and they're driving up here to spit in my eye!"
Despite myself, I laughed. Ven looked so outraged I couldn't help it.
"We can close the airlock," I said, "and they can't tell us from a rock."
"I won't! I'm going to teach that girl a lesson she won't forget in a hurry! I've listened to myself being insulted for two hours—and she's still going strong. When she gets up here I'll show her whose eye she'll spit in!"
Ven was raging. I'd never seen her so emotional before. Her aura swelled and ebbed in ruddy shades as her breath came and went in short gasps.
"And how do you propose to do that?" I asked.
"I'll stat her!" Ven raged. "I'll stat every one of them!"
I blinked. "I wouldn't do that," I said mildly. "What can we do with them? The two we have are bad enough. And if you stat them, we'll have to kill or condition them. We couldn't let them go home with a story like the one they'd tell."
"I don't care," Ven said. "You can do what you like about the rest of them, but that Edith is going to learn a lesson." She was being emotional and quite unwilling to listen to reason—and she was larger and stronger than I. Despite my protests, she jerked a stat projector from the rack and strode toward the open airlock.
"Thalassa!" she exclaimed. "They're coming through the gate! They'll be here in a minute."
I could hear the roar of a protesting engine groaning up the trail to the lower meadow as I hurried after Ven. As I reached the airlock, the gray body of Donald's station wagon poked its nose around the trees below our ship.
Ven stood rigidly in the airlock, waiting, her lips tight and her eyes narrow. She took a firmer grip on the stat as the car stopped and the giggling, half-sober humans tumbled out. I was in a quandary. I didn't want Ven to shoot, but I couldn't close the airlock with her inside it. So I stood, hesitating while the group of gaily dressed mammals came toward us through the trees, their high voices loud in the stillness.
"Gotta find that li'l lizard an tell her to stop meddling with my life," Edith's voice came to my ears.
Ven stiffened beside me as the group broke out of the trees in front of the ship.
"Why, Edie, it's beautiful!" a voice said. "It's a fairy glen! No wonder you'd never tell us where you got that suntan! And that big rock—it's just like you said—And—uh!" The voice never finished as Ven pressed the trigger.
I looked down at the six crumpled mammalian bodies and the lone standing figure that looked stupidly up at us.
"Well," I said. "You've done it this time. Now are you satisfied?
"No," Ven said. "Not half." Her voice was tight with anger. She looked down at Edith. "Come here!" she said.
"Dowanna," Edith replied uncertainly. "You've made Don leave me. I don't like you." But habit was stronger than alcohol and under the furious lash of Ven's voice she came unsteadily forward.
"Do you understand me, you little sarf!" Ven snapped icily. "I saidcome here!" She took the control box from her waist and viciously twisted the intensity dial to maximum. At this range its force was irresistible, even with alcohol-deadened synapses. Edith shuddered and moved toward us, her hands clumsily tearing at the fabric that covered her.
"I'm comin'! You don' hafta shout. I ain't deaf. I ain't done nothin'!" She sat down beside the airlock and struggled out of her clothing, ripping the thin fabric under the last of Ven's anger until she was completely naked. Then she stood up and reached her hands toward Ven.
"You're not going to try to ride her while she's in that condition?" I said.
"This is my affair," Ven replied grimly. "I'm going to get this settled."
I shrugged.
There was no sense reasoning with her while she was in that mood. And if she wanted to kill herself that was her concern. I watched her drop onto Edith's shoulders, wind one hand viciously into the mammal's long blonde hair and guide the gross body into a shambling walk toward the meadow. Edith swayed dangerously, but somehow she managed to stay on her feet as they disappeared into the trees.
I walked over to the six bodies, gave each of them a light stat to make sure they would remain quiet and sat down beside the nearest one to think.
Ven's anger had left me a sizeable problem. What on earth could I do with six human females? I needed them like I needed a broken digit. Time passed and the sun rose toward the zenith, and finally I came to a decision. Since we had them on our hands, we might as well make use of them. Killing would be too dangerous.
And presently Edith came through the trees, a sick, tired, sober Edith whose face was dirty and tear streaked, carrying a grim Ven whose aura smoldered a reddish brown.
"What did you do to her?" I asked.
"None of your business," Ven snapped. "She's all right now. Aren't you, Edith?"
"Yes, Ven—and I won't do it again. Honest I won't."
"You'd better not," Ven said grimly. "Now I suppose we have some work to do."
"You certainly have," I said. "If it wasn't for your temper we wouldn't have this mess on our hands. Now get moving! Have Edith carry these girls to the ship." I gestured at the prone bodies. "And you, get inside and bring out the control equipment and connect the leads to the computer." I was angry, too. Under the force of my superior will, the two females scurried to obey. "I'm disgusted with you, Ven," I said angrily. "Just because your pet went to a party, you don't have to act childish. Did you expect she'd behave like a Thalassan?"
"I trusted her," Ven said.
"It just goes to show that you can't trust an animal too far," I said. "Now get moving. Bring the probes first. We have a lot of work to do before evening."
It was finished sooner than I expected. The sun was still in the sky, but close to the edge of the hills. The row of mammalian bodies slumbered peacefully beside the airlock. Ven looked down at them speculatively.
"No," I said. "You have one, and that's enough."
"But," Ven said.
"I've humored you," I said. "I've let you act like a lower order. Now I want to see you behave like a civilized being. For unless you do, I shall have to take steps. I'm tired of this childishness."
"I'll be all right now," Ven replied. "We've come to an understanding." She gestured at Edith with her primary digit and the big mammal shivered. I wondered what Ven had done to her. Edith was thoroughly cowed—actually afraid of little Ven, who was less than one fifth her size. In a way, I felt an odd sort of pride in my mate that she should achieve mastery over such an intelligent and potentially dangerous brute. I knew perfectly well that I'd never dare attempt such dominance over Donald unless I was prepared to rob him of the mentality that made him useful. But I consoled myself with the thought that this female was peculiarly susceptible to domination.
"We'd better get that car out of sight," Ven said. She nodded to Edith. The human obediently trotted off in the direction of the car. A few moments later the sound of the motor rose and fell as she concealed it in the trees.
As soon as I could, I contacted Donald and told him what had happened. Fortunately he was alone, so his exclamation of surprise and consternation didn't arouse any suspicion.
"Ethanol, eh?" he said speculatively.
It was easy to follow the trend of his thoughts. "Don't get any ideas," I warned in my best TV villain manner. "I have Edith up here with me. If you want to see her again, you'd better stay sober."
"I wouldn't think of crossing you," he assured me insincerely. "I'm too close to being rid of you."
"Well—what do we do?" I asked. "You're the expert on this insane society of yours."
"You've done it," he said. "I don't think it was smart of you, but under the circumstances, I can't see how you could have done anything else. I warned you about Ven and Edith," he added—rather gloatingly, I thought. "Now you're in for it." His voice was almost gay.
"How?"
"Six women vanishing all at once is going to cause a stir even in Los Angeles," he said.
"After an ethanol party?" I asked curiously. "Six dancers out of a production that used a hundred? Your city will never miss them."
"But their families will."
Families! I hadn't thought of that. Mammals had strong family ties—probably due to their method of reproduction. We Thalassans, coming as we did from eggs, had none of this. The state incubators and the creches were our only contact with parenthood. We had no families. "Hmm," I said. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Well, you'd better start. I hope it gives you a headache."
"You get nastier every time I talk with you," I complained.
"I have my reasons," he said bitterly. "Now, if you're through with me, little master, I think I'd like to get some sleep. In the meantime you'd better get them back to their homes before they're missed."
"I can't," I confessed. "The controller isn't big enough to handle eight of you—not as individuals."
Donald chuckled grimly. "That's your worry. Remember, unless you find out which of them will be missed and act accordingly, you're going to be very much in the public eye."
I didn't feel too happy as I cut off, but Donald had given me an idea.
One by one I checked the new proxies. Of the six, two were living together. They had the casual emotional involvement with males so characteristic of this species, but they could remain here for several days without causing comment. Of the remaining four, one had a roommate and would be difficult to extract; another was living alone; still another was mated and had an offspring, but she was not living with her mate—a legal action having separated her much as it separates incompatible Thalassans. The offspring, however, was living with her when she wasn't working, a not unusual situation on this world, but one which could have some complications unless she was returned to it very shortly.
The last was living with her parents and was seriously involved emotionally with a male. She was planning to be officially mated in the near future, although it would be legal fiction rather than fact since she was already nurturing a living embryo of some three weeks development. I debated whether to remove it, a simple enough manipulation, but decided against it. It would be interesting to observe a mammalian reproduction. But to remove her from her family and her unofficial mate was a task that might be difficult. I needed help.
I projected a call for Ven, phrasing it imperatively so she could have no doubt about its urgency. Her answer was quick and clear.
"I'm coming," she said.
"Good. I need you. And bring Edith. We have a problem that will require her talents."
"She'll be happy to cooperate." Ven's projection was cheerfully confident.
"You did her no permanent damage, I hope."
"Not a bit. In fact, you'd never know she's been disciplined."
"Well, get in here, both of you. We have work to do."
Edith had trouble squeezing into the control room and, despite her skin conditioning, the place quickly filled with her scent. But Ven and I were old hands now and took it in stride. She grasped the problem instantly. "The only one who might be any trouble is Alice. Her family and her boy friend can be difficult. The others won't need much effort, except for Grace. She'd better be returned to her baby as soon as possible."
"How soon?" I asked.
"The baby isn't living with her," Edith added, "not while she's working, but she sees it regularly. Every day or two, I believe."
I sighed. That solved the biggest problem.
"We had better start at once," Ven said.
I ignored her and looked inquiringly at Edith. "What would you do?" I asked, flashing a cold projection at Ven to stay out of this.
"Well—if I had to do it, I'd send Alice and Grace home. I wouldn't do anything to Alice except block her from talking about this place and what happened. Grace I'd put under full control, have her pick up her baby, go home and pack to leave. As soon as she's ready to go, bring her out here."
"The infant, too?"
"Of course. A baby's no bother."
This, I thought, was something of an understatement.
"And what of the others?" I asked.
"Velma has a nosey roommate. Have her start a fight and leave angry. She hasn't much baggage, and it won't be any trouble for her to collect it. As for the other three, I think Joan's being kept. She can't afford a single apartment on her salary. Loleta and Marian are always out, sometimes for days. Their landlady won't think a thing of it. If they never return, she'll just pack their things and rent the room to someone else. I know that old witch. I'd just keep those three here and not worry about them. Nobody's going to make any fuss about three chorines disappearing. Later on you can make them write letters enclosing money to send their clothes to another city. Then they can be picked up and stored. That should give us a year before anyone gets suspicious enough to look for them."
"Edith," I said, "you're a genius."
"I got you into this mess," Edith said. "So, perhaps I'd better get you out."
"But your fellow mammals—"
"You haven't hurt me—not much, anyway," Edith said. "So I don't suppose you'll hurt them. And, besides, I don't want Ven mad at me like she was this afternoon. Anyway—you'll be gone soon."
"I think I shall regret leaving," I said honestly. "There is a great deal about you mammals I am beginning to suspect I do not know."
"You aren't kidding," she said with faint bitterness so similar to Donald's that my antennae quivered. "But it's been quite an experience. I'll tell my kids when I have them—but they're not going to believe me."
"I hope you have those children—and raise them to maturity," I said.
The tone of my voice caused her to look at me with sudden fear on her face. But at the sight of my impassive features it died away. "You scared me for a moment," she said.
"Did I? I didn't mean to."
VII
The next week kept us busy following Edith's instructions. I didn't see how they would apply to Alice, but Edith knew her species better than I. Alice's silence and the prying inquisitiveness of her parents and her boyfriend worked like magic. Alice finally became angry and after a stormy scene left the house, swearing never to return. Edith picked her up as she walked away; Ven turned on the control and turned the threat to fact. Later I took a leaf from Edith's book and sent Alice to San Francisco, where I had her write a pair of bitter letters to her parents and her extralegal mate. After that I felt more secure.
The others worked out exactly as Edith predicted. No trouble at all. By the time Donald returned from the East with a ton of tin ingots in a small truck our training schedule was well set up. The robots and I had managed to build a multiplex controller similar to those we used on Thalassa on the state farms, but much smaller. It could handle the proxies en masse or as individuals. While far less sensitive than the one in the ship, it was effective enough for our rather elementary purposes.
Edith, who was running the group under Ven's supervision, had them lined up in a row to greet Donald as he came up the hill toward the ship.
"The place looks like a nudist colony," Donald grumbled. "You haven't improved it any." He eyed the file of mammals trooping down to the truck to unload the tin ingots. "I have another ton lined up for delivery as soon as you get this processed," he said.
"Good," I replied. "We'll leave as soon as it's aboard. I don't like the looks of your recent actions."
"Mine?" I shook my head. "Oh, you mean the world situation." I nodded. "You shouldn't worry about it. You should have seen it this time last year."
I shrugged. I would never really understand these creatures. Their brains functioned differently. "You frighten me with your wild displays of emotion. Someday one of you is going to start something and your world is going to go up in fire."
"I don't think so," he said. "I have some ideas about that. With the money from your stories and with what you have taught me, I think there will be some changes." There was a peculiar expression in his eyes that I couldn't identify. It made me vaguely uneasy. "I've been doing a lot of thinking since you met up with Edie and me. What this world needs is someone who can run it."
"That's obvious," I said. "Until your society catches up with your technology you will be in constant danger. You mammals will have to learn to discipline your emotions."
His face twisted. "I've had a good practical course in that," he said. "Now I'm getting post-graduate training." He gestured at the women coming up the hill carrying the silver tin ingots. "Just how long do you think I can endure something like this?"
"Like what?" I asked.
"Do I have to draw you a diagram?" he asked. "Ever since you lizards came into my life I haven't been able to touch a woman. Not even Edith—and she's my wife. Just how much of this do you think I can take?"
"Oh!" I exclaimed with dawning comprehension. "I think I see."
The situation would have been amusing if it wasn't so stupid. I was surprised that I hadn't realized it before. There was, I knew, a certain amount of feedback in a bipolar control circuit. Obviously enough of Ven's conditioning, and mine, had seeped through to affect Donald and Edith's normal relationships. Mammals were far more preoccupied with sex than we were. Their books, magazines, television and motion pictures reeked of it. It was present in almost every piece of advertising, and four of our six new proxies were living histories of it. Yet Donald and Edith, because of our feedback, had been kept as continent as novitiates for the priesthood of Authority!
"I'm a perfectly normal male," Donald said. "Just what do you think you've been doing to me? I can't drink. I can't make love. I can't do anything except collect tin for you lizards. Just why do you think I hate you? Now you surround me with a whole damned untouchable harem! Are you trying to drive me insane?"
I laughed, and Donald recognize the sound for what it was.
"Oh,damnyou!" he said bitterly. "How would you like to be married for eight months and for six of them be unable to touch your wife? Just why do you think Edith tried to get drunk? I could kill you cheerfully for what you've done to us!"
"Oh!" I said. There was a world of understanding opening in front of me. Of course, it would do no good to tell him that Ven and I had remained in enforced continence for five years. It was just the Eugenics council working through us—entirely involuntarily. What was bothering Donald and Edith was so absurdly simple that neither Ven nor I would have thought to ask. And the mammals with their peculiar customs and habits would never have told us unless—as had happened—the pressure became too great.
What our mammals needed was a good dose of Va Krul's basic therapy. If Edith were fertilized as a result of it, so much the better. It would keep her attention where it more properly belonged. The thought would never have occurred to me in my present state. Since I was content, I had erroneously assumed that everything was in harmony.
"You might as well go home," I said. "Take Edith with you. We won't need you for several days."
"Why?"
"You'll find things a little different. I'll make a few adjustments on the controller."
To my surprise Don didn't appear happy at all. "Does that mean what I think it does?" he demanded. "Do you think I'll get any satisfaction out of being controlledeven there?"
"I don't know about the pleasure," I said coldly, "but I do know that it will improve your attitude."
Donald raged at me, his brain white with anger. "So help me God, Eu Kor, someday I'm going to kill you for this! It's the ultimate insult."
"You're not going to do anything," I said calmly. His voice dissolved into obscenity. For a moment I felt sorry for him until I remembered the basic truth that none of us are free—and the most intelligent, naturally, are the least free of all. They are bound by their commitments, their duties, their responsibilities, and by their intelligence itself. If a superior intelligence occasionally exhibits petty lapses—which amuse him or relieve his boredom—it is not the place of the less endowed to construe it as a sign of equality.
Some—like Ven and me—have known their place from birth. Others, like Edith and Alice, learn easily with a minimum amount of pain. Some like Grace learn hard; and some—like Donald—do not learn at all.
Donald was the eternal rebel, complying because he must, yet seething with resentment because he did. He was the personification of drive without innate control, ambition without humility, intelligence without wisdom. As he had been, he was not quite enough. At best he would have been a minor author and a petty domestic tyrant. He would never have been a threat simply because he didn't have the ability or training. But I had given him what he lacked. The knowledge I had impressed upon his mind would give him a tremendous advantage over his fellow mammals, and his tendencies toward domestic tyranny would expand to include others. His glandular attitude would pervert his knowledge to the detriment of humankind. He could become a thing so dangerous that it could destroy this precariously balanced world.
I went into the ship and set up a world matrix on the computer, using all the data I had accumulated, secured the answer, and then inserted Donald's potential into the matrix. I then ordered a probability extrapolation for both matrices, equating the solutions with survival.
The answers confirmed my thoughts. With the matrix as it stood, the twenty year survival prediction was 65 per cent, which wasn't too bad since few advanced-technology worlds have better than an 85 per cent survival probability. But with Donald in the matrix, the survival prediction was zero!
I knew what I must do. I could not leave him behind as I had planned. Nor could I inflict the senseless cruelty of brainblotting. He would have to be mercifully destroyed.
Although I was fond of Donald, and his death would leave me sick for weeks, it would not be right to let my creation live and condemn the mammal race to death. I could not exterminate a race Authority had created. The guilt syndrome would be shattering. Of course, if they killed each other that was not my concern.
But until we left I would give him all the freedom he could use. Outside of the minimum of control, he would be free to do and act as he pleased. I didn't owe it to him, yet it was not his fault that he had come into my hands. And when I returned to Thalassa I would tell the Council what I had done and ask for justice. Perhaps we could save this world from itself even as we had saved others. The question of gratitude would be immaterial.
With a firm hand to set them on the track, the mammals might learn the values of intelligence and cooperation before it was too late. They might understand the realities of existence rather than fall victim to their glandular fancies. They might. But if they did, one thing would be certain—they would learn it the hard way. Donald was proof of that.
I went to our living quarters, and presently Ven joined me. "They're all in for the night, Eu," she said.
"That's good. How are they coming along?"
"Splendidly. Another week should see the end of the training. Edith was a good experience for me in handling these. I'm not making the mistakes I did. I'm finding the blocks and removing them. One of them, the one called Grace, should be even better than Edith."
"As a mount?" I asked with faint humor. "Or as a working proxy?"
"Both," Ven said promptly. "She's stronger and more intelligent. Yet even so I think I shall always like Edith best."
"One's first dependent is always one's fondest memory," I replied sententiously, "But you'll forget them all when we're back on Thalassa."
"I won't," Ven said. "I'll never forget Edith."
"Never is a long time," I said gently. "I shall even forget the pain of killing Donald some day."
"Then you've decided to eliminate him?" Ven said.
I nodded. "It's necessary," I said. "This world wouldn't be safe with him alive."
"Poor Edith. She's fond of the brute," Ven said. She moved toward the doorway.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"I want to talk to Edith. Perhaps I can prepare her."
"No. Don't," I said. "Contact her if you wish, but tell her nothing."
"Very well," she said. I smiled as she disappeared. Ven was going to miss her pet once we had left. It was obvious.
"Eu! Quick!" Ven's projection crackled in my brain. "They're fighting! Edith's being hurt, and I can't touch them! They've set up a block!"
I ran for the control room, slapped the helmet on my head, reached for the controls—and stopped, laughing.
"Stop them!" Ven screamed. Her aura blazed a brilliant white and her projection nearly knocked me down. She reached for the control switch, but I slapped her hand away.
"Quiet!" I snapped. "They're not fighting, you little fool! Turn on your audio and listen and stop acting silly!"
Ven did as I told her and her aura changed to a fiery pink. "Oh!" she said in a small voice, "but they never—"
I must have made some mistake in revising the controllers—or feedback was stronger than I suspected—for the Va Krul syndrome came back along our lines of contact with explosive force! Desperately I reached for the switch—but my hand froze in midair as an intolerable wave of emotion drove Ven and me together like two pieces of iron with opposite magnetic charge! The last thing I remember was being enveloped in the flaring golden glow of Ven's aura.
I came to my senses in our living quarters. I was stunned—exhausted—limp and gasping.
"Thalassa!" I said weakly, "we'vereallydone it now!"
Ven smiled a pale blue radiance at me. "You have become strong, living on this heavy world," she said. "I like it."
"But—but!" I sputtered. "It was so—it can't—it couldn't—"
"But it did," Ven said softly. "And I'm glad it did."
"I don't mean that. What I mean to say was that it was so—"
"Unexpected?"
"No! So utterly—"
"Satisfying?" she asked.
"Stop interrupting! It was all of that and more. But what I want to say is that we've violated the prime restriction for space travellers. How could we do it?"
"You're forgetting that for some time we have been living upon this emotion-charged world," Ven said. "The steady erosion was more than our conditioning could take. The feedback was merely the last in a whole series of disruptive stimuli. It was the trigger, but our defenses had been weakened long before. Not that I'm sorry," she added quickly. "For weeks I've been wondering what sort of a mate you'd be when this trip was over. I'm not unhappy with the preview." She smiled at me and the whole of our living quarters was filled with a bright tender blue.
"The natives," I said worriedly. "We were in contact with them."
Ven's aura darkened. "I had forgotten them," she said. "I hope that the feedback wasn't intensified and returned to them. I'd better look." She started for the control room and I followed more slowly.
"There's no damage," she said from beneath the helmet. "Edith feels just as I do."
I took my helmet and coded Don's pattern on the selector. Peculiar, I thought with vague wonder. Most peculiar. For the first time Donald and I were in true rapport. His mind was slow, lazy, sluggish—even his ambition was sated for the moment. Could it be, I wondered, that we could find agreement through ouremotions? Was it frustration that drove him? Whatever the block had been it was gone now. This was a true empathic meeting—something far more satisfying than our previous conflict.
I relaxed in it, feeling the slow langorous questings of his mind even as he felt mine. There was a sense of brotherhood that transcended differences in race and culture. We were down to basics, on the oldest meeting ground of life.
He was wondering idly what the outcome of this might be—conscious of me, but careless. It jolted me. He might be uncertain, but IknewVen was from good family stock, and "good" to a Thalassan meant something entirely different than it commonly did to the natives of this planet!
I disengaged hurriedly and shook Ven out of her rapport with Edith. "We've no time to lose," I said. "We must leave at once! You know what's going to happen!"
"I know," Ven said. "I feel the changes already."
"That's just in your mind," I snapped.
"We're not going home," she said. There was a note of prophecy in her voice. "We'll never make it."
"We can't stay here!"
"I know."
"Then what are we going to do?"
We couldn't stay here. But we couldn't go home either. The trip would take weeks, and hyperspace is fatal to a gravid Thalassan female. That was something we learned long ago, and the principal reason for continence-conditioning for couples in space. What was more, I knew that where Ven stayed, I would stay.
"Remember the fourth planet of this system?" Ven asked.
"Yes. Ideal gravity, adequate oxygen, but too cold."
"And with no intelligent life," Ven added. "That's an advantage—and we can beat the cold. It wouldn't be too hard to build domes. We have plenty of power metal, and a matricizer. We could hatch our clutch there. With the mammals to help us, we should be able to make a comfortable enough life for the forty years it'll take to bring our offspring to maturity. We should be able to do this easily, and still get home before we're strangers."
"Hmm," I said. "It's possible. And we can use this world for a supply base. But would you care to live on that cold barren planet?"
"There are worse places," she said matter-of-factly. "And we'd be close to everything we'd need."
It did have possibilities. And the mammals could be adapted. They were a more advanced evolutionary form than we, but lower on the adaptive scale—nonspecialized—more so than any other intelligent race I had encountered.
Ven said, "We would actually be doing their race a favor, if the computation of this world's future is correct. Some of them would still survive if this planet commits suicide. And if the prediction is wrong, we would have done no harm. If they reach space, they'll merely find that they've already arrived when they reach the fourth planet."
"Which might be something of a surprise to their explorers," I said with a chuckle. "All right. We'll play it your way."
I was pretty sure how Donald would take this. He was going to be furious, but after all one doesn't make a pet of a wolf and then turn it loose. It's too hard on the livestock. But I didn't think he'd be too unhappy. He'd be the principal human on Mars; and after we left he'd be ruler of a world. And in the meantime he could be a domestic tyrant.
It was fortunate, I thought with a smile, that mammals were essentially polygamous. Donald would make some nasty comments about being a herd sire—but I didn't think his comments would be too sincere. After all, it's not every man that has a chance to become a founding father.
I was still smiling as I turned the dials on the controller and flipped the switch. Founding father—the title was as much mine as his!