The Aegis Solution (22 page)

"You see, that's the problem, Patrick. Natural selection has worked too well. We are now up to our
eyeballs in population. We have geared our entire society toward quantity, not quality. There is no social
pressure to become a better human being. There is certainly no biological pressure to do so, either."

"That seems a little harsh, Rudy. There are expectations. There are rewards for excellence."

"There were!" Kreitzmann almost shouted. "Certain segments of the population have made
attempts in the past. There was a class system – not perfect, by any means, but an attempt to create a
distinction between the rutting rabble and those who were men of letters. Partially as a result of the
abuses perpetrated by this upper class, but mostly due to the tremendous social pressure from the lower
group, this system, this distinction, is erased and, in the minds of many, a cause of shame and
embarrassment.

"Now, it has become out of vogue to place a person such as you, a person who holds a doctorate,
in higher regard than one may hold a factory worker, or even a prostitute."

Elias took a deep breath and let it out slowly before responding. "I understand what you are saying,
Rudy. We may differ on the degree, but I do see some merit in your viewpoint."

"You'd have to, Patrick. You are far too intelligent to not."

"Are you attempting to counter all of this, here in Aegis?"

"I am. We are. My first attempts were in more normal settings such as universities and privately
funded labs. But we could never obtain the lack of interference from the culture, true control over the
control group, that we desired. Aegis is perfect."

"Is it your goal to create a mini-culture within these walls? One that reinforces your vision for
mankind?"

A boyish grin came to Kreitzmann's face. "You make me sound as though I have a God complex.
This is not," he declared, sweeping his arm around, "an attempt to manufacture a race which complies
with some preconceived vision. This is an ongoing experiment to discover what those latent capabilities
might be. At some point, more than likely without any input from me, a vision for a mini-culture, as you
put it, will be reached by consensus. At that point, Aegis can become a seed, an incubator, for a better
mankind."

"Why without any input from you? And a consensus reached by whom?"

"I'll answer your second question first. The consensus can only be reached by those who have
attained the plateaus, so to speak. And the answer as to why I wouldn't be involved is quite simple. I
could no more understand things from their perspective than an ant crawling across the floor could
understand this conversation. How could I possibly contribute anything meaningful to the dialogue?"

Elias was, again, surprised by Kreitzmann's candor and almost self-deprecating perspective. "How
will you achieve all of this?"

"At first we will break it down into component skills. The telepathy you witnessed…the other
experiments you will see soon. Each one focuses on one aspect or one skill of the human experience.
The process will have some successes and some failures. The successes will be kept and moved
forward...in a sense, graduated; the failures will be abandoned. As we build a pool of subjects who are
superior to the norm in each category, we then move on to Phase Three."

"Phase Three?"

Leaning back in his chair, Kreitzmann tucked his hands behind his head in a relaxed pose.
"Explaining Phase Three at this point would be premature. I haven't really described the first two phases
or our underlying principles."

"Okay."

"We in this complex believe that the body, given a consistent example, will simply not know any
better and will follow that example."

"Certainly there are limitations."

"There are, of course. But they are far higher than the level at which we all now operate. Most of
our limitations are learned."

With a slight grin, Kreitzmann asked Elias, "Do you know what is used in circuses to restrain an
elephant?"

"I would guess a steel cable of some sort, and a substantial anchor point to which it is attached."

The grin broadened. "Actually, they use a regular piece of rope, tied around one of the hind legs
of the beast, with the other end fastened to a wooden stake pounded into the ground."

"Any elephant could easily break that or pull it loose."

"Of course it can. But it won't."

"Why?"

"From the time it was a baby elephant, that is exactly how it has been secured. As a baby, an
elephant tugs and pulls constantly at the rope and stake, struggling with all of its might. But it is not able
to budge the stake or break the rope. It learns that it can't do it. Later, as it grows and becomes strong
enough to easily either break the rope or pull out the stake, it never tries because it knows it can't."

"I didn't know that."

"It's true. Here's another example. Beta fighting fish are natural territorial enemies. Anyone who
owns an aquarium knows that if you put two in the tank, they will fight to the death."

"True."

"An experiment was done where two Betas were put into a tank, but they were separated by a pane
of glass. The glass was invisible to them, but they could see each other. They would both repeatedly
slam themselves into the glass, trying to get at the other, trying to fight, until they both eventually
learned they couldn't do it. They stopped trying. At that point, the glass was removed. The barrier was
gone. Yet for the rest of their lives, they never once tried to cross that middle point of the tank; they had
learned earlier that it was impossible."

"Is that true? They would never cross the line for the rest of their lives?"

"Never. And there are many other similar anecdotes and experiments which contain the same
lesson, experiments using all sorts of animals. These experiments have been described by motivational
speakers for years, trying to explain to eager salesmen and middle managers that our limitations are
self-imposed."

"Did these experiments put you on your path of interest?"

"Actually, no. There were two events in my personal life which set my course, one small and the
other quite significant.

"The first occurred when I was a boy of nine or ten. We had a dog, a springer spaniel, which stayed
outside in our backyard. The yard was surrounded by a block wall, six feet high; and, for years, Sneezix
was perfectly happy in his environment. Then, one day I looked out one of our rear windows into the
yard and saw that there was another dog with Sneezix. They were playing and romping together, and
I assumed that my sister must have left our gate open. I went out back. My arrival spooked the stray dog,
and he quickly ran across the length of the yard, directly at the block wall. I was certain he was going
to turn at the last moment, that he was simply panicked and was running mindlessly. Instead, right in
front of me, this small dog, perhaps the size of a beagle, scampered up the face of the wall and over the
top.

"I had never seen a dog do this before. He didn't jump the wall. He couldn't. With a running start,
he just scratched and clawed his way up and over. I checked the gate and it was closed and locked, so
obviously the stray had entered in the same fashion.

"I realized later than Sneezix had also never seen such a feat, but he only needed to see it once
because he instantly attempted the same thing. He ran. With a sound of his nails against the block wall,
he tried to scratch his way to the top. He fell back, got up, and tried it again. I watched, fascinated. He
did not stop. He did not rest. Despite the fact that his paws were soaked with blood, over and over again
he tried, getting slightly higher each time. Within an hour, he made it over the top.

"From that day forth, we were unable to keep him contained in the yard. His repeated forays into
the neighborhood resulted in our having to pick him up from the dog pound twice. We trimmed his
nails almost to the quick, thinking it would stop him. It didn't. We chained him with a long chain, only
to have a neighbor spot Sneezix hanging on the outside of our wall, his hind paws not quite touching
the ground. Our spaniel had clambered over the wall, even while chained. The neighbor lifted him and
unhooked the chain, bringing him to us. That poor dog, nearly dead, lay panting mightily for twenty
minutes before he got up and scooted right over the wall.

"Eventually, the dog catcher picked him up a third time, and my father refused to pay the fee. I
never saw Sneezix again. But what I learned from the whole fiasco was that it only took one example
from the stray dog to show Sneezix that something was possible, something he didn't believe was
possible a moment before. And once he saw it, he wouldn't rest until he did it himself. That lesson
never departed; it was always in the back of my mind, unformed and unfulfilled until I attended
university. It was my personal involvement in an attempt to replicate a well-documented feat from the
distant past that crystallized my theory."

Elias said nothing, waiting.

"The physical prowess of men from a thousand or more years ago has been recorded in song, story,
picture, and poem countless times – descriptions of the rowing of warships, athletic competitions,
voyages, battles. The historical record is rich with very detailed accounts which have provided
measurable and replicable feats.

"Take the simple act of throwing a rock. Going back as far as cave paintings, there are depictions
of hunters who understood the necessity of staying far enough away from dangerous beasts in order to
remain alive. It was the desire for distance that eventually resulted in the perfection of firearms. But the
primitives used rocks. From the pictographic evidence, we surmised that they would sneak up on tigers
or other beasts, perhaps as the animals slept or ate a kill, and the men would hurl a rock, dealing a
stunning, if not fatal, blow. Apparently, the vast majority of the human race has lost the ability to throw
with the distance, force, and accuracy it once possessed, when that was an integral part of the hunting
or defense regimen."

"Vast majority? There are some who can still perform at that level?"

"There are. There are small pockets of primitive tribes who have, within their group, men who
possess a throwing ability which far exceeds that of our greatest baseball pitchers today, in terms of
speed, accuracy, and distance."

"I wasn't aware of that."

"It's true. The documentation is plentiful. However, it was rowing which truly captured my
attention."

"Rowing?"

"Yes. During college, I was quite involved in athletics, including the rowing team. A notice was
posted on campus, asking for volunteers to replicate an ancient voyage. A professor studying the
Athenian culture had obtained, from several sources, adequate plans so that he could replicate a
trireme."

"A trireme?"

"An Athenian warship, thirty-seven meters long, which was propelled by three levels of oarsmen.
There are nearly countless descriptions of voyages taken by these vessels, with much detail. A particular
voyage the professor wanted to replicate occurred when the Athenians wished to quell a revolt in
Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean. At first, the assembly ordered that all Mytilene's males
be put to death. They immediately sent off a trireme to accomplish this. A day later they had second
thoughts and ordered another trireme to catch the first before it could arrive and carry out the order.
The second ship, with 170 oarsmen, would have made the journey in approximately twenty-four hours.

"So, this professor knew the distance and had constructed an exact replica of a trireme. All he
needed were the oarsmen – thus, the posted notice. Many of the members of the rowing team, having
recently come off from winning a national championship, were enchanted with the prospect of
competing with an ancient record, as were several other athletes. He had no problem filling the roster
with a group of young men in amazing physical condition. His plan was to transport the trireme to the
Aegean and replicate the exact route, but first he wanted to test it out with his new crew.

"Since the size and configuration of the boat was so different from the sleek and lightweight boats
to which we were accustomed in competitions, we spent four months training with the replica of the
trireme. The regimen was rigorous and was supervised by a team of three Olympic coaches. During the
course of our first trial, we were cohesive as a team and at the peak of our performance. The weather
was perfect and the sea was calm, ideal conditions to go against an ancient record."

"I'm guessing that the record wasn't beaten."

A short laugh, not unlike the bark of a dog, burst from Kreitzmann. "Beat the record? Not only
could we not beat it, we couldn't tie it. In fact, we couldn't even come close."

"You're not serious?"

"I am! The best we did was less than half the distance the ancient Athenian ship traveled that day
in a twenty-four-hour period."

"Less than half?"

"Less than half! And according to the descriptions of the event by historians of the day, they did
it with one crew of oarsmen. Those descriptions must be true; there was physically not enough room
on a trireme to accommodate a second shift of men on board. We had a total of 350 oarsmen, enough
for two shifts with a few extras in case of injuries. A modern yacht paced the trireme to transfer the two
crews. We rowed in six-hour shifts, with six hours to rest. The ancients did it with one crew and, when
they arrived at the destination, the rowing crew had to be in a condition strong enough to then engage
in battle."