The Final Encyclopedia

Chapter Thirty-nine

"As it happens," said Amid, leading Hal through the pleasant maze of rooms and intervening areas that made up his home, "the people who want to talk to you are already here. While you were dressing, I called around and they were all available."

"Good," said Hal.

He strode along beside the much smaller man, holding his pace down to the one that age dictated for Amid. The self-restraint reminded him, suddenly, of how frail the other actually was. Amid must be far up in years, considering the state of Exotic medical science; nowhere near as old as Tam Olyn, of course, but old in any ordinary human terms.

"I've no idea," Amid said, "where your knowledge of our ways stops. But I suppose you know that, like the Dorsai, for all effective purposes we don't have governing bodies on Mara or Kultis. Decisions affecting us all become the concern of those in whose field they most clearly lie; and the rest of us, in practice, accept the decision those experienced minds come up with for the situation - though anyone who wants to can object."

"But they generally don't?" Hal said.

"No," Amid smiled up at him. "At any rate, the point is that the four people you're to talk to aren't political heads of areas or groups, but people whose fields of study best equip them to evaluate and interpret your capabilities. For example, my own study of the Friendly Worlds makes me particularly fitted to understand what you did, and what the results may be from what you did, on Harmony. The others are comparable experts."

"All in fields as applied to ontogenetics?"

"Ontogenetics underlies nearly everything we do - " Amid broke off. They had reached the entrance to what seemed to be less a room than a porch, or balcony, projecting out from a wall of the general house. Beyond the graceful, short pillars of a balustrade there was nothing visible but sky and the distant tops of some deciduous trees. Some empty chair floats, but nothing else, were visible on the balcony. Amid turned to Hal.

"We're early," he said, "and that gives us a moment. Step across the hall with me."

He turned and led the way into a room with its entrance opposite that of the balcony. Hal followed, frowning a little. The neatness of the opportunity to tell him something was almost suspect. It could be sheer accident, as Amid had implied; or it could be that what the other was about to tell him was something that the Exotics had wanted him to know before they spoke with him, but something they had not wanted him to have too much time to think over beforehand.

"I should explain this, so you aren't puzzled by the fact that some of those you'll be talking to may seem to doubt you unreasonably." Amid closed the door behind them and stood looking up into Hal's face. "Walter InTeacher taught you at least the elements of ontogenetics, I think you said?"

Hal hesitated. At fifteen, he would have answered without hesitation that he understood a great deal more than just the elements of ontogenetics. But now, standing at his mature height, after five years of life experience with a number of people on two strange worlds, standing face to face with a born Exotic, on Mara, he found a certain restraint in him.

"The elements, yes," he answered.

"You're aware, then, that ontogenetics is basically the study of individuals, in their impacts on current and past history, the aim being to identify patterns of action that can help us to evolve an improved form of human?"

Hal nodded.

"And you know," said Amid, walking over to a small, square table with a bare top, apparently carved of some light-colored stone, "that beyond its statistical base and its biological understandings, the work's always been highly theoretical. We observe, and try to apply the results of our observation, hoping that the more knowledge we can pile up the more clues we'll find, until eventually, we'll be able to see a clear pattern leading to the evolved form of humanity."

He paused, now standing beside the tabletop, and looked up at Hal again.

"I suppose you know it was our interest in that sort of piling up of knowledge that led us to supply most of the funds that made the building of the Final Encyclopedia possible; first as an institution in the city of Saint Louis, on Earth, then as it is now, in orbit around that world. Though, as you also must know, neither the Exotics nor anyone else owns the Final Encyclopedia, now."

"I know," said Hal.

"Well, the point I wanted to make is that there're innumerable ways to graph individual potential."

Amid drew the tip of his forefinger from right to left on the tabletop beside him; and a black line sprang into existence in the light, stony material of the surface, following his touch. He crossed the line he had drawn with a vertical one at right angles to it.

"One of the simplest ways to graph ungauged genetic potential for the race at any given moment - " He drew another, horizontal line lifting at a small angle from the base line of the graph, "gives us what seems to be a slowly ascending curve. Actually, however, this line is only an average derived from a number of points scattered both above and below the base line, where the points above the line refer to historical developments clearly traceable to the action or actions of some individuals - ."

"Like Donal Graeme and the fact he made a single legal and economic whole of the fourteen worlds?" said Hal.

"Yes." Amid looked at him for a moment, then went on. "But the points can also refer to much smaller historical developments than that; even to single actions by obscure individuals whom it's taken us several centuries to identify. However - below the base line the points refer to individual actions that can only probably be linked in a cause-and-effect pattern, with the historical developments that concern us…"

He paused and looked at Hal.

"You follow me?"

Hal nodded.

"As it happens," Amid turned back to his graph, "inevitably, when this sort of charting is done, we end up with certain individuals being represented by points both above and below the line. Individuals of developing historic effect will often be represented by points below the line before their effect emerges above the line, where their points show a clear relation between their actions and certain historical results. Points below the line, unfortunately, don't necessarily indicate the eventual emergence of points above, for any individual. In fact, points below the line are often achieved by individuals who never show any effect above the line at all."

He paused again, and looked at Hal.

"Now, all of this may mean anything or nothing," he said after the pause. "All work like this, as I said, is theoretical. The results we get this way may have nothing whatever to do with the actual process of racial evolution. However, it's only right that you know this sort of figuring, projected forward, is one of the ways we use to try and estimate the ontogenetic value of any given individual, and the probability of that person having an ability to influence current history."

"I see," said Hal, "and I take it that as of the present moment I'm one of those who charts out with points below the line but none above?"

"That's right," said Amid. "Of course, you're young. There's plenty of time for you to show direct influences on the present history. And your effects below the line so far are impressive. But the fact remains, that until you show some direct evidence above the line, your potential to do so remains only that, and estimates of what you may be able to perform in your lifetime are a matter of individual opinion, only."

He hesitated.

"I follow you," said Hal.

"I'd expect you to," said Amid, almost grimly. "Now I, myself, speaking from knowledge of my own particular specialty and seeing what you did in the short time you were on Harmony, estimate you as someone I expect to be highly effective - effective on a scale that can only be compared to that of Donal Graeme in his time. But this is only my opinion. I believe you'll find that some of those you're about to talk to may regard your potential as no more than possible, on the basis of the same calculations that cause me to think the way I do."

He stopped. For a moment, Hal ignored him, caught up by his own thoughts.

"Well, thanks," he said at last, rousing himself. "It's good of you to warn me."

"There's more," Amid said. "I mentioned earlier that you seemed a great deal older than I remembered you on ship to Harmony. As a matter of fact this is something more than a subjective opinion on my part. Our recent tests of you show certain results that we've never found before, except in rather mature individuals - those middle-aged, at least. I was simply confirming this from my own feelings. But if you really are unusually mature, for some reason we can't yet understand, this could be something that might incline some who presently doubt to favor the opinion of someone like myself about your potential effectiveness, provided we can find an explanation for it. Can you think of anything to explain it?"

"When were these tests made?" Hal looked into the eyes of the small man.

"Recently," said Amid. His returning gaze was perfectly steady. "In the last few weeks."

"Nerallee?"

"It's part of her work," said Amid.

"Without mentioning to the person she's taking care of that she's making such tests?"

"You have to understand," said Amid, "a great deal may be at stake here. Also, as a matter of fact, knowledge that the tests are being made on the part of the subject could affect the results of the test."

"What else did she find out about me?"

"Nothing," said Amid, "that you don't already know about yourself. But I asked you if you had an explanation of these indications of an unusual maturity?"

"I'm afraid not," said Hal, "unless being raised by three men all over eighty years old had something to do with it."

"Not in any way we can understand." Amid was thoughtful for a moment. An abrupt sweep of his hand above the table surface erased the lines on it. "If you do think of any explanation while we're talking this afternoon, though, I suggest you mention it. It would, I think, be to your advantage."

"In what way?" said Hal.

Amid turned from the table and went toward the door of the room. Hal went with him.

"We'd be more inclined to trust you - and therefore to help you - with whatever you've got in mind," said the small man. "As I keep pointing out; there's something of a division of opinion among those of us who're responsible for making a decision on you. If you seem to be someone on whom we actually can pin our hopes of the future, that could be tremendously useful to you. On the other hand, if - as some of us think - the correct reading on you shows you as at best only a wildly random factor in the present historic pattern, then our two worlds are going to be very reluctant to put ourselves at dependence on your possible actions."

He led the way through the doorway into the hall; and paused.

"Think about it," he said, and turned once more toward the door to the balcony. "The others are probably there by now. Come along."

Hal followed him. They went out of the room they had been in, crossed the hall and stepped onto the balcony, which now had two men and two women seated on it, in a semi-circle facing the entrance. One of the men, wearing a sky-blue robe, was obviously very old; the other was a reserved-looking, thin man in a gray robe; and, of the two women, one was small and black-haired, wearing green, the other was taller and ageless, with bronze skin, curly brown hair, and an umber-colored robe. Two floats had been left vacant with their backs to the door, completing the circle; and it was to these that Amid led Hal.

"Let me introduce you," said Amid, as they sat down. "From left to right, you're meeting Nonne, Recordist for Mara - "

Nonne was the small, black-haired woman in green. She looked to be about in her mid-thirties, her face a little sharpboned, and her eyes very steady on him.

"Honored," said Hal to her. She nodded.

"Alhonan of Kultis. Alhonan, Hal, is a specialist in cultural interfacing."

"Honored."

"Very glad to meet you, Hal," said Alhonan, a narrow man, with a voice as dry and reserved as his appearance.

"Padma, the Inbond."

"Honored," said Hal. He had not appreciated at first glance how old indeed the one called Padma was. The Exotic face he looked at now was still relatively unwrinkled, the hands holding the ends of the armrests of his float were not extravagantly shrunken of skin or swollen of vein; but the utter stillness of the body, the unchanging eyes, and other signals too subtle to be consciously catalogued, radiated an impression of almost unnatural age. Here now, indeed, was a man to rival Tam Olyn in antiquity. And the title he bore was a puzzle. Hal had never heard of an Inbond among the Exotics. Any one of them might be Outbond - assigned, that was - to some specific place or duty. But Inbond… and to what?

"Welcome," said Padma; and his voice, neither unusually hoarse nor deep nor faint, seemed somehow to come from a little distance off.

"And Chavis, whose speciality is a little hard to describe to you," Amid was saying at his shoulder. "Call her a specialist in historical crises."

Hal had to tear his eyes away from the gaze of Padma to look at the woman in the umber robe with black markings of random shapes.

"Honored," he said to Chavis.

"I take that as a compliment," she said, and smiled. Her age could be anything between late twenties and early sixties; but her voice was young. "Time may show that it's you who're honoring us."

"Sit down," said Amid.

"That'd take some doing," Hal answered Chavis, as he took his seat. "I don't think I'm likely to find four Exotics like yourselves brought together on my account, except under very unusual conditions."

"But it's unusual conditions we've met to talk about here, isn't it?" said the voice of Amid from the float to Hal's left. The two of them sat facing the half-circle of the others. Still, the feeling was plain in the atmosphere of the balcony that Amid was not with Hal, but with those who confronted him.

It was a feeling that triggered another touch of sadness in Hal. With the memory of Walter InTeacher still strong within him, of all the three cultures with which he had grown up believing he had a strong kinship, the Exotics had been those from whom he had expected the most in the way of sensitivity and understanding. But he sat now, intellectually almost at swords-points with those before him. He could feel their concern, first for the survival of their own way of life; and only secondarily with his own interest in the race as a whole. The thought came instinctively to him that it was a rarefied sort of selfishness they were displaying - a selfishness, not for their personal sakes, but for the sake of the principle to which they and their culture had always dedicated their people. It was a selfishness he would have to bring them to see beyond, if there was to be any hope of racial survival.

Looking at the faces around him, Hal's innate confidence in his cause sagged. It might be true, as Amid had said, that tests had shown him to have unusual qualities of maturity. But at the present moment he sat facing a total of several centuries of living and training in those facing him. To deal with all that, all he had to show were twenty years of life-experience, and perhaps sixty hours of intense thought under conditions of exhaustion and high fever.

"How much do you know about the history of the crossbreeds in general?" Nonne's voice roused him from his emotions. Her voice was a very clear contralto. "I'm speaking specifically, of course, of crossbreeds from the Dorsai, Friendly and Exotic cultures."

He turned to face her.

"I know they started to be noticed as appearing more frequently about sixty to seventy years ago - " he answered. "I know very little attention was paid to them as a group until about fifteen or twenty years ago, when they began to call themselves the Other People, show this charismatic skill of theirs, and put together their organization."

"Actually," said Nonne, "their organization began as a mutual-help agreement between two who were both Dorsai-Exotic crosses - a man named Daniel Spence and a woman named merely Deborah, after our own Exotic fashion - who were living together on Ceta, forty-two standard years ago."

"They were the first to call themselves 'Others,' " put in Alhonan.

Nonne glanced at him briefly. "Like most close partnerships among the crossbreeds," she went on, "the physical association didn't last; but the agreement did, and it grew rapidly over the next five years until there were over three thousand individuals involved - an estimated seventy-nine per cent of all crossbreeds from the three major Splinter Cultures who were in existence at that time. Both Spence and Deborah are now dead; and the current top leader of the organization for the past twelve years has been a man named Danno, who led the meeting of Other leaders at your home, the time your tutors were killed."

"I saw him then, through a window," said Hal. "A big, heavy-bodied man - not fat, but heavy-bodied - with black, curly hair."

"That's Danno," said Alhonan, in a precise, remote voice.

"He was the son of Daniel Spence and Deborah," said Nonne. "Those two also later took in a boy of about eleven, some six years younger than Danno; and the best evidence we can gather indicates that he was a nephew from some other world like Harmony, who had originally been left with some of Spence's relatives there to raise. There may be more to it than that. Bleys insists the former version is what happened. But it's doubtful if even he knows certainly whether it's true or not. In any case, he's a powerful leader; clearly more brilliant than Danno, although he seems to prefer that Danno wear the mantle of supreme leadership. You've met Bleys."

"Yes," said Hal. "Three times, now; and I talked to him this last time, when I was in that prison cell on Harmony. Danno, I saw only once, that first time; but my own feeling is that you're right. Bleys is more capable, and more intelligent - both."

"Yes," said Chavis, softly. "In fact, we've wondered exactly why he seemed content with second place. My own guess has been that he simply doesn't have any great desire to lead."

"Perhaps," said Hal. "Or he could be biding his time." Like the dark shadow of a cloud, sweeping briefly over his mind, the feverish memory returned of Bleys, seeming to tower enormously above him as he had lain on the cot in the Militia prison. "But if he's better than Danno, he'll have to lead, in the end. He won't have any choice."

There was a moment of silence from those around him that stretched out noticeably before Nonne broke it.

"So, you think," she said, "that it'll be Bleys we'll be dealing with in the long run?"

"Yes," said Hal. A wing of the dark cloud still shadowed his mind. "Even if he has to remove Danno himself."

"Well," said Nonne. There was a dry briskness in her voice; and he roused himself to give her his full attention, putting the shadow from him. "In any case, we've ended up facing something we're not equipped to handle. There was a time when to any of us here the thought of any sociological development arising that we couldn't control would have been unthinkable. We know better now. If we'd moved to control the crossbreeds even two decades ago, we might have succeeded. But some of us were blinded by the attractive hope that they might be the first wave of that evolutionary development of the race we've looked and worked for so hard, during the past four centuries."

She gazed at Hal grimly.

"I was one of the blind," she said.

"We all were," the distant voice of Padma broke in.

Again, there was a silence that lasted a fraction of a second longer than Hal felt was normal.

"However, the end result's been the emergence of a historical force, in the shape of the Others, for which our current interstellar civilization's got no counter and no control," Nonne went on. "Organized interplanetary crime was always something that the sheer physical difficulties and expense of interplanetary travel made impractical. It'd still be impractical for the Others, except for the fact that some of them have developed this charismatic skill - "

"If only some can manage it, it needs to be called an ability rather than a skill, doesn't it?" Hal asked, suddenly remembering once more Bleys looming over him in the cell…

"Perhaps," said Nonne. "However - skill or ability, it's what makes the organization of the Others effective. With it, even the relative handful of them can manipulate key figures in governments and planets. This gives them political power and financial reserves we can't match. It isn't even necessary for more than a large minority of those in their organization to have this charismatic ability, although they seem to be able to teach it to each other, and even to some of their followers - which, come to think of it, answers your question about why we call it a skill rather than an ability - "

"I take it, then, that you haven't been able to duplicate it among your own people here on Mara and Kultis?" Hal interrupted.

Nonne stared at him, her lips closed in a straight line.

"The apparent techniques involved are all Exotic ones," she answered. "It's simply that the Others seem to be able to use them with increased effectiveness."

"The point I'm making - " said Hal, "is that they can do something that you here on the Exotics can't seem to duplicate. Doesn't that sound like something based on a particular ability?"

"Perhaps." Nonne's stare was immovable.

"I say that because I think I may be able to tell you why they can," Hal said. "I'm beginning to believe that behind their use of those techniques you mention there's a force in operation that's been cultivated only in the Friendly Culture - the drive to preach, to proselyte. Take a look at those followers you mention who've been able to pick up and use some of what you see a minority of Others using. I'll bet you don't find one of them who wasn't either a product of the Friendly Culture to begin with, or the child of at least one parent who was."

There was another fractionally too long silence.

"An interesting point," said Nonne. "We'll look into it. However - "

"If I could get a native of Harmony or Association to come to you for training," persisted Hal, "would you be willing to see if you could develop that person into a charismatic of the Other level?"

Nonne and the others traded glances.

"Of course," said Padma. "Of course."

"We'd be glad to," said Nonne. "You mustn't think that we're indifferent to what you may be able to suggest to us, Hal. It's simply that time's a factor. We're under strong pressure from Bleys to give you up; and we're either going to have to do that or get you off the Exotics very shortly. In that short time we've got things to talk to you about; and it's to all our advantages if we stick to the point."

"I think what I've been trying to get at is at least involved in the point," answered Hal. "But go on."

"What I'm trying to do here," Nonne said, "is lay out the situation and its history. That, and make sure you understand what our basis for concern is, and what we'd like to do about the situation."

"Go on," said Hal.

"Thank you. Wherever the charismatic skill or ability comes from, the fact remains, it's the key to the Others' success. They can't use it, of course, to control us - or the Dorsai people, or at least some of the Friendlies. In addition, a certain percentage of people everywhere seem to be resistant; particularly most of those on Old Earth, for reasons we haven't identified. But if they can use it to control a majority of the race, that's all they need to do. As I started out by saying, our present civilization on the fourteen worlds hasn't any counter to that ability. The result is, the Others have grown in power and wealth to the point where they can win, economically, even against us. They've simply got too many chips to play with. Our two worlds alone can't match their resources in the interplanetary marketplace. As a result, Mara and Kultis are slowly becoming economic captives of theirs, even though they've made no direct move to dominate us - yet."

Nonne paused. Hal nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Go on."

"The point I keep making is," Nonne said, "we can't do anything to stop them. The worlds they already control obviously aren't going to stop them. Old Earth's people have never all gotten together on anything in their history; and, since they're largely immune to the charismatic influence, themselves, they'll probably simply continue to ignore the Others until they wake up one day to find themselves surrounded by thirteen other worlds, all under crossbreed control, and with no choice but submission. The Friendlies are already half-conquered; and it's only a matter of time until the natives the Others control on Harmony and Association dominate those two worlds completely. That leaves the Dorsai."

Once more Nonne paused.

"As you say," said Hal, soberly, "it leaves the Dorsai, which is slowly being starved to death for lack of off-planet work opportunities for its people."

"Yes," said Alhonan, "but - forgive me, Nonne, but this is my department - such starvation takes time; and that's one world the Others aren't at any time going to try to take over by force. They might be able to do it in the long run, but the cost wouldn't be worth it. In fact, if the Dorsai would be willing to settle temporarily for being a backward planet, lacking the technological and other advantages that dealing with the other settled worlds would give them, they could settle down to a meager but independent existence for a century or more, living on what the oceans and the small land surfaces of their world could provide them. And they're just stubborn enough to do that."

"In other words," said Nonne, swiftly, "for the Dorsai there's still time to act, and that's important; because of all the Splinter Cultures, they alone still have the capability to stop the Others. In fact, they've got the ability to remove the threat of the Others, completely."

She stopped speaking. Hal stared at her; and the longest of any pause that had occurred so far held the balcony.

"What you're suggesting," he said at last, "is unbelievable."

Nonne looked back at him without answering. Glancing around the circle, Hal saw the others all similarly sitting, waiting. "What you're suggesting is a Dorsai campaign of assassination," Hal said. "That's what you mean, isn't it? That the Dorsai eliminate the Others by sending individuals out to murder them? They'd never do that. They're warriors, not assassins."