The Gods Themselves (8 page)

"You are sure?"

"I am sure! And there's nothing I am worried about, because I intend to win. You know when I left Chen, I came near to despising myself."

"You?"

"Yes, I. Why not? I kept thinking: At every turn Hallam stops me. As long as Hallam refutes me everyone has an excuse not to believe me. While Hallam stands like a rock against me, I must fail. Why, then, didn't I work through him; why didn't I butter him up, indeed; why didn't I maneuver him into supporting me instead of needling him into fighting me?"

"Do you think you could have?"

"No, never. But in my despair, I thought—well, allsorts of things. That I might go to the Moon, perhaps. Of course, when I first turned him against me there was as yet no question of Earth's doom, but I took care to make it worse when that question arose. But, as you imply, nothing could have turned him against the Pump."

"But you don't seem to despise yourself now."

"No. Because my conversation with Chen brought a dividend. It showed me I was wasting time."

"So it would seem."

"Yes, but needlessly. It is not here on Earth that the solution lies. I told Chen that our Sun might blow up but that the para-Sun would not, yet that would not save the para-men, for when our Sun blew up and our end of the Pump halted, so would theirs. They cannot continue without us, do you see?"

"Yes, of course I see."

"They why don't we think in the reverse. We can't continue without them. In which case, who cares whether we stop the Pump or not. Let's get the para-men to stop."

"Ah, but will they?"

"They said F-E-E-R. And it means they're afraid. Chen said they feared us; they feared we would stop the Pump; but I don't believe that for a moment.
They’re
afraid. I sat silent when Chen made his suggestion. He thought he had me. He was quite wrong. I was only thinking at that moment that we had to get the para-men to stop. And we've got to. Mike, I abandon everything, except you. You're the hope of the world. Get through to them somehow."

Bronowski laughed, and there was almost a childlike glee in it. "Pete," he said, "you're a genius."

"Aha. You've noticed."

"No, I mean it. You guess what I want to say before I can say it. I've been sending message after message, using their symbols in a way that I guessed might signify the Pump and using our word as well. And I did my best to gather what information I've scrabbled together over many months to use their symbols in a way signifying disapproval, and using an English word again. I had no idea whether I was getting through or was a mile off base and from the fact that I never got an answer, I had little hope."

"You didn't tell me that's what you were trying to do."

"Well, this part of the problem is my baby. You take your sweet time explaining para-theory to me."

"So what happened?" '

"So yesterday, I sent off exactly two words, our language. I scrawled: P-U-M-P B-A-D."

"And?"

"And this morning I picked up a return message at last and it was simple enough, and straightforward, too. It went Y-E-S P-U-M-P B-A-D B-A-D B-A-D. Here look at it."

Lament's hand trembled as it held the foil. "There's no mistaking that, is there? That's confirmation, isn't it?"

"It seems so to me. Who will you take this to?"

"To no one," said Lament decisively. "I argue no more. They will tell me I faked the message and there's no point in sitting still for that. Let the para-men stop the Pump and it will stop on our side too and nothing we can do unilaterally will start it up again. The entire Station will then be on fire to prove that I was right and the Pump is dangerous."

"How do you figure that?"

"Because that would be the only way they could keep themselves from being torn apart by a mob demanding the Pump and infuriated at not getting it. ... Don't you think so?"

"Well, maybe. But one thing bothers me."

"What's that?"

"If the para-men are so convinced that the Pump is dangerous, why haven't they stopped it already? I took occasion to check awhile ago and the Pump is working swimmingly."

Lament frowned. "Perhaps they don't want a unilateral stoppage. They consider us their partners and they want a mutual agreement to stop. Don't you suppose that might be so?"

"It might. But it might also be that communication is less than perfect; that they don't quite understand the significance of the words B-A-D. From what I said to them via their symbols, which I might well have twisted utterly, they may think that B-A-D means what we consider G-O-O-D."

"Oh, no."

"Well, that's your hope, but there's no pay-off on hopes."

"Mike, just keep on sending messages. Use as many of the words they use as possible and keep ringing the changes. You're the expert and it's in your hands. Eventually, they'll know enough words to say something clear and unmistakable and then we'll explain that we're willing to have the Pump stopped."

"We lack the authority to make any such statement."

"Yes, but they won't know, and in the end we'll be mankind's heroes."

"Even if they execute us first?"

"Even so. ... It's in your hands, Mike, and I'm sure it won't take much longer."

10

And yet It did. Two weeks passed without another message and the strain grew worse.

Bronowski showed it. The momentary lightness of heart had dissipated, and he entered Lament's laboratory in glum silence.

They stared at each other and finally Bronowski said, "It's all over the place that you've received your show-cause."

Lament had clearly not shaved that morning. His laboratory had a forlorn look about it, a not-quite-definable, packing-up look. He shrugged. "So what? It doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that
Physical Reviews
rejected my paper."

"You said you were expecting that."

"Yes, but I thought they might give me reasons. They might point out what they thought were fallacies, errors, unwarranted assumptions. Something I could argue about."

"And they didn't?"

"Not a word. Their referees did not consider the paper suitable for publication. Quote, unquote. They just won't touch it. ... It's really disheartening, the universal stupidity. I think that I wouldn't grieve at mankind's suicide through sheer evilness of heart, or through mere recklessness. There's something so damned undignified at going to destruction through sheer thickheaded stupidity. What's the use of being men if that's how you have to die."

"Stupidity," muttered Bronowski.

"What else do you call it? And they want me to show-cause why I ought not to be fired for the great crime of being right."

"Everyone seems to know that you consulted Chen."

"Yes!" Lamont put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and wearily rubbed his eyes. "I apparently got him annoyed enough to go to Hallam with tales, and now the accusation is that I have been trying to sabotage the Pump project by unwarranted and unsupported fright tactics in an unprofessional manner and that this makes me unsuitable for employment on the Station."

"They can prove that easily, Pete."

"I suppose they can. It doesn't matter."

"What are you going to do."

"Nothing," said Lamont indignantly. "Let them do their worst. I'll rely on red tape. Every step of this thing will take weeks, months, and meanwhile you keep working. We'll hear from the para-men yet."

Bronowski looked miserable. "Pete, suppose we don't. Maybe it's time you think about this again."

Lamont looked up sharply. "What are you talking about?"

"Tell them you're wrong. Do penance. Beat your breast. Give up."

"Never! By God, Mike, we're playing a game in which the stakes are all the world and every living creature on it."

"Yes, but what's that to you? You're not married. You have no children. I know your father is dead. You never mention your mother or any siblings, I doubt if there is any human being on earth to whom you are emotionally attached as an individual. So go your way and the hell with it all."

"And you?"

"Ill do the same. I'm divorced and I have no children. I have a young lady with whom I'm close and that relationship will continue while it can. Live! Enjoy!"

"And tomorrow!"

"Will take care of itself. Death when it comes will be quick."

"I can't live with that philosophy. . . . Mike.
Mike!
What is all this? Are you trying to tell me that we're not going to get through? Are you giving up on the para-men?"

Bronowski looked away. He said, "Pete, I did get an answer. Last night. I thought I'd wait for today and think about it, but why think? ... Here it is."

Lament's eyes were staring questions. He took the foil and looked at it. There was no punctuation:

PUMP NOT STOP NOT STOP WE NOT STOP PUMP WE NOT HEAR DANGER NOT HEAR NOT HEAR YOU STOP PLEASE STOP YOU STOP SO WE STOP PLEASE YOU STOP DANGER DANGER DANGER STOP STOP YOU STOP PUMP

"By God," muttered Bronowski, "they sound desperate."

Lamont was still staring. He said nothing.

Bronowski said, "I gather that somewhere on the other side is someone like you—a para-Lamont. And he can't get his para-Hallams to stop, either. And while we're begging them to save us, he's begging us to save them."

Lamont said, "But if we show this—"

"They'll say you're lying; that it's a hoax you've concocted to save your psychotically-conceived nightmare."

"They can say that of me, maybe; but they can't say it of you. You'll back me, Mike. You'll testify that you received this and how."

Bronowski  reddened.    "What  good would  that  do? They’ll say that somewhere in the para-Universe there is a nut like yourself and that two crackpots got together. They'll say that the message proves that the constituted authorities in the para-Universe are convinced there's no danger."

"Mike, fight this through with me."

"There's no use, Pete. You said yourself, stupidity! Those para-man may be more advanced than ourselves, even more intelligent, as you insist, but it's plain to see that they're just as stupid as we are and that ends it Schiller pointed that out and I believe him."

"Who?"

"Schiller. A German dramatist of three centuries ago. In a play about Joan of Arc, he said, 'Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain' I'm no god and I'll contend no longer. Let it go, Pete, and go your way. Maybe the world will last our time and, if not, there's nothing that can be done anyway. I'm sorry, Pete. You fought the good fight, but you lost, and I'm through."

He was gone and Lamont was alone. He sat in his chair, fingers aimlessly drumming, drumming. Somewhere in the Sun, protons were clinging together with just a trifling additional avidity and with each moment that avidity grew and at some moment the delicate balance would break down . . .

"And no one on Earth will live to know I was right," cried out Lamont, and blinked and blinked to keep back the tears.

2

. . . the gods themselves . . .

1a

Dua did not have much trouble leaving the others. She always expected trouble, but somehow it never came. Never real trouble.

But then why should it? Odeen objected in his lofty way. "Stay put," he would say. "You know you annoy Tritt." He never spoke of his own annoyance; Rationals didn't grow annoyed over trifles. Still, he hovered over Tritt almost as persistently as Tritt hovered over the children.

But then Odeen always let her have her way if she were persistent enough, and would even intercede with Tritt. Sometimes he even admitted he was proud of her ability, of her independence. ... He wasn't a bad left-ling, she thought with absent-minded affection.

Tritt was harder to handle and he had a sour way of looking at her when she was—well, when she was as she wished to be. But then right-lings were like that. He was a right-ling to her, but a Parental to the children and the latter took precedence always. . . . Which was good because she could always count on one child or the other taking him away just as things grew uncomfortable.

Still, Dua didn't mind Tritt very much. Except for melting, she tended to ignore him. Odeen was another thing. He had been exciting at first; just his presence had made her outlines shimmer and fade. And the fact that he was a Rational made him all the more exciting somehow. She didn't understand her reaction to that; it was part of her queerness. She had grown used to her queerness—almost.

Dua sighed.

When she was a child, when she still thought of herself as an individual, a single being, and not as part of a triad, she was much more aware of that queerness. She was much more made aware of it by the others. As little a thing as the surface at evening—

She had loved the surface at evening. The other Emotionals had called it cold and gloomy and had quivered and coalesced when she described it for them. They were ready enough to emerge in the warmth of midday and stretch and feed, but that was exactly what made the midday dull. She didn't like to be around the twittering lot of them.

She had to eat, of course, but she liked it much better in the evening when there was very little food, but everything was dim, deep red, and she was alone. Of course, she described it as colder and more wistful than it was when she talked to the others in order to watch them grow hard-edged as they imagined the chill—or as hard-edged as young Emotionals could. After a while, they would whisper and laugh at her—and leave her alone.

The small sun was at the horizon now, with the secret ruddiness that she alone was there to see. She spread herself out laterally and thickened dorso-ventrally, absorbing the traces of thin warmth. She munched at it idly, savoring the slightly sour, substanceless taste of the long wave lengths. (She had never met another Emotional who would admit to liking it. But she could never explain that she associated it with freedom; freedom from the others, when she could be alone.)

Even now the loneliness, the chill, and the deep, deep red, brought back those old days before the triad; and even more, quite sharply, her own Parental, who would come lumbering after her, forever fearful that she would hurt herself.