Macrolife (25 page)

“I don't believe that it has all happened. The last month I've been going around feeling that everything is terribly wrong. I hear sounds, normal sounds, but I interpret them as if I were still on Lea's surface.”

“Don't worry, you'll get used to being home. How do you feel about linking?”

Smoke rose from the village, dirtying the sky. Run; get there quickly….

“I'm sorry, Frank.”

“What about linking—how are the exams going?”

“They say I'm fine. I don't know—do you honestly think it will help me?”

“Yes, I do. For one thing, you would not be locked up so much in yourself. You would share more. You would be able to compare your own mind with others and with the independent intelligence that is Humanity II. You would see precedent for your own problems on a large scale. Your own finitude and isolation would not be as great as it is now. But before you get your license, I would like you to go look at the work of Richard Bulero.”

“You're so sure they'll grant me a license. Why Richard Bulero?”

“You'll see why when you read what he said.”

“You're trying to appeal to my pride.”

“Not entirely. Biologically, Richard was your nephew, Sam Bulero's brother's son. If he were alive now, Sam would be your social father and twin brother. My point is that you may find a kindred mind.”

“I'll take a look, Frank. Don't push me.”

“Good enough.”

John felt the anger coming up in himself and fought to control it. Frank seemed so calm, so trusting. John tried to imagine Blackfriar killing someone with a club or a knife. He saw a small patch of dusty ground and Anulka falling forward, toppled by the crushing blow from behind.

Taking a deep breath, he asked, “Why don't we have more murderers? Where are our wars, Frank, why are we so special?”

“You seem sorry to find us peaceful.”

“Well?”

“We have killing, mental illness…”

“I know, but why nothing on a large scale—what we find in earth's history or the lawlessness on Lea?”

“As a matter of fact,” Blackfriar said, “we have just gone through the equivalent of a war, loss of population and all. When the quarrels reached a high point a few years ago, there was nothing to do but prepare for reproducing. When I say quarrels, I mean severe internal strife. It's usually our signal that we've exceeded our optimum size and should reproduce.”

“You sound like you're trying to blame me for not being interested.”

“You're right,” Blackfriar said, raising his voice. “The right is yours to be a recluse, but I don't like it. It's about time I told you that you've been an ostrich. You've gone through the whole romantic malady, including the bleeding concern with anything and everything outside your own culture.”

“An ostrich-what's that?”

“A goddam bird, hides its head in the sand.”

“Goddam?”

“Let me get back to my point, please?”

“Go ahead.”

“Even though we've institutionalized rebellion and made the process productive, we are still skeptical about unmodified human nature, though not cynical. Thus what would be a disruption of most past societies is made to work for us. Procedural revolution makes it possible for us to absorb new approaches without undue harm to the previous society, which remains intact, minus its defectors. What I'm describing is not simple. There's a whole new world next to ours, with enough potential surface area inside to equal the surface of an earth-sized planet. Within the next few years, half our population may switch over to it. Don't think there is no bitterness. No one has suggested we abandon the general guidelines of macrolife, but one day that may happen, I'm afraid.”

“Why haven't we fallen apart, Frank, like the culture on Lea? Where's our corruption? Surely we don't just depend on people to be good?”

“Not completely. Think of it this way. Planetary problems arise from economic scarcity and the misuse of political power, either from greed or from the love of power itself. On planets a small class overproduces wealth through support of research and development, after stealing the wealth from human labor, from human and animal muscle in the beginning. Then the power of this class declines, since power can no longer be bought with wealth alone, but also with ability. Finally, physical wealth is abundant enough for everyone. So where anyone of ability can rise, the system remains creative. We don't depend on people to be good. Our society understands the causes of disorder, and our structure is such that those causes can be utilized. We haven't tamed human nature or even modified it very much yet. We've channeled it. There's nothing mysterious about our way. We've still got problems, but they're
our
problems, belonging to
our
way of life. For us, mental illness arises from envy of others' abilities, from status, when people compare their achievements.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“It's very complex if you take the time to look closely. Our youth are the barbarians. Our long-lived provide stability and a radical long view of things. The long-lived and Humanity II are the living commitment to macrolife. We don't interfere with either group.”

“What am I?”

“An eccentric rebel. I thought you might leave us for a dirtworld. We have our failures.”

“I've never heard you talk so hard, Frank.”

“I must. This is your chance to try again and I must present the alternatives strongly. A man named Freud once said that a society of love is possible if there is some external group to hate. In a sense that is what we've got. We hate the past, we hate the circumstances that so deformed the human spirit, even though those same circumstances gave birth to human intelligence.”

“Dirtworlds.”

“Yes. The coming to consciousness is a terrible process, proof enough of the mindlessness of nature, which must cull consciousness in such a bloody way. Energy-poor, physically in danger from other life, diseased, and subject to natural catastrophe, intelligence endures long enough to escape, to give itself a chance at a high-energy existence which is safe and creative, making a mature, long-term culture possible. In the long run nothing can succeed, nothing is absolutely safe, of course. There is no deathless fortress in which we may live forever.”

“I feel sorry for the humanity on natural worlds,” John said.

“But those worlds are necessary,” Blackfriar said. “We try to hold an attitude of empathy without altruism. Granted, this is an ambivalent attitude. Should we go around saving worlds? Wouldn't they resent us? Life is isolated in nature, ghettoized to develop individually. The size of the universe serves this kind of quarantine perfectly. Interstellar travel is difficult, and that's a good thing.”

“But all the planets we've known are only scattered earth colonies, Frank. We've seen no others, no originals that should be left to grow in their own way, only our own bits and pieces left at different points in history.”

“That makes no difference. The horrible irony is that a culture has to grow away from its planet, not be torn away, regardless of its origin, regardless of its conditions. The damage and dislocation would be enormous if we came in and began to plan for them.”

“It couldn't be worse than leaving them alone to stumble around in the dark.”

“You really don't give them much credit. But yes, to help is about as bad as not to help. You're thinking that we could alleviate physical suffering. That's true, but there would be other scars. It's a matter of readiness. Look at the old United States. Human potential was recognized, but with little regulation. There was coercion through policed laws, but no genuine social persuasion through environmental incentives. The price in waste and disorder of natural and human resources was enormous. The finitude of the economic pie ensured that only a few could grow into their potential. It was a large number, true, but most people had no economic freedom, and they were not ready for it when it came. People worked hard to maintain a highly inconsistent physical affluence, frustrating their inner potentials. Tom Paine's comment, that we have been given the power to begin the world all over again, is truest of macrolife.”

“Maybe earth would have succeeded if the disaster had not happened.”

Blackfriar was quiet for a moment. “We would have grown away from earth more slowly, perhaps.”

“I think maybe we should gather our own.”

“You'd have to use force—most would not want to leave the settled worlds.”

John was silent. He was not a doer or a thinker. His limits were suddenly very clear to him, as was the alternative. The glimpse was a shock. “I'm curious about earth,” he said to break the silence.

“So are many of us. We're going back because enough pressure was brought to bear. That's all we really are—an economic base supporting a clearinghouse for pressures which grow into projects. As nature once prepared us for making a living and reproducing, so a life of affluence and practical immortality must be structured to encourage individual and social projects. These become our life. Without them we become severely demoralized.”

“Have we been successful, Frank?”

“Not entirely. As a democracy we are a means for reconciling human differences. That's all democracy needs to be—a framework in which people can disagree without disaster. Beyond that we process information in our knowledge industries, and they are our ultimate authorities. There is no democracy in submitting to them, except that they are open to all. As I've said, on the human level we have envy, influence-seeking, some murder, personal cruelties—but generally we have cooperation rather than competition, achievement rather than aggression. We attack each other through status and personal style, but there is no economic greed. The major tragedy is the individual's too-frequent inability to find satisfying work. When his or her abilities are ordinary, there is little to do except find amusement or appreciate the achievements of others. There are still too many suicides. We seem to need a further development of the individual. There seems to be an insufficiency to life that is unconquerable.”

“I'm just a simpleton,” John said.

“The one thing we can't do for you is what you must do for yourself. Every generation must rebuild the world in its own mind to feel truly at home in it. This involves reevaluation of the past, a recap of social history as the process of birth recaps biological history. Any strong attempt to impose a view from outside may lead to a closed mental set and a closed society when such overimpressed individuals proliferate.”

“You think I would have been a tyrant on Lea.”

“Even if you were good about it. Unless you had brought all the resources of a world to reclaim the planet, you would have been very frustrated working within severe limits. You would have had to educate Leans offplanet, then send them back to help—a project for a century. It could still be done—just organize the interest. There will be time.”

“I want to see earth,” John said.

Frank continued: “When a primitive culture is not permitted to come up by itself, or to rise to a previous height after decline, then all the courage and cleverness of intelligent beings is preempted, coopted by the superior helper. Maybe exchanges on the interstellar level should occur only among equals.”

“You've made your points. I still think it's a cruel view of history.”

“The truth is not always kind.”

John sat up erect. “But look—there's so little of earth-derived humanity scattered. I still think we could gather it together.”

Blackfriar coughed and scratched his head. “Wheeler has talked about it. Still, the changes for many of the people on these worlds would be too much.”

John sat forward in his chair. “We could gather them on one world, maybe Lea, as a transition area. That wouldn't be so bad a change. We could help them if they were all in one place.”

“You'd have to force most of them to leave.” Blackfriar rubbed his chin. “Wherever they are is home to them.”

“If we told them what we were doing…Why do you have to make so many difficulties, Frank?”

Blackfriar looked directly at him. “I think you would spend a century just to prove me wrong, but I also think you'd end up showing that the obstacles are even bigger than we imagine. Again, this is not to say you should not try, but there's the other thing you haven't considered at all.”

“What's that?”

“Missionaries give up the further life of their own culture, their own origins. They go native, but not all the way. It's not possible to do so completely. It's exile. You'll find that no matter how long you live, there will always be one more thing to do, one more matter to set right.”

“You don't really believe I should even try, do you? It's just your way of covering both sides of the debate.”

“Intelligence is hardy. It gets use out of itself through the struggle with problems and should not be denied this satisfaction. As a macroworlder, you are like the grown son who wants to reeducate his parents or the parent who will not let the child be itself. Or take me—I keep poking my nose into your life, yet you must live your own life. I can't do it for you.”

“I shouldn't have gone to Lea.”

“But you should have. Maybe you'll find a way to do what you want, and we'll all learn from you. At least you're not playing with a trivial problem, as many I know are doing at your age.”

John felt exhausted, beaten, but some of his uneasiness seemed to be gone. “I think I'll go check up on Richard Bulero,” he said, “but I doubt it will help me.”

“You may be right,” Blackfriar said. “Not all problems have answers.”

As he got up to leave, John noticed a change in Frank's expression, and he felt suddenly that he didn't know Blackfriar at all.