The Human Edge

3-PART PUZZLE

Here’s another story from the viewpoint of the aliens, but this time they are a less sympathetic lot. The galactic overlords had neatly divided the intelligent species of the galaxy into three categories, and when the humans showed up, they were obviously victims just begging to be conquered. And when that didn’t work, the overlords decided that instead, those humans obviously belonged in the conqueror category. But did they?

The Mologhese ship twinkled across the light years separating the human-conquered planets of the Bahrin system from Mologh. Aboard her, the Mologh Envoy sat deep in study. For he was a thinker as well as a warrior, the Envoy, and his duties had gone far beyond obtaining the capsule propped on the Mologhese version of a desk before him—a sealed message capsule containing the diplomatic response of the human authorities to the proposal he had brought from Mologh. His object of study at the moment, however, was not the capsule, but a translation of something human he had painfully resolved into Mologhese terms. His furry brow wrinkled and his bulldog-shaped jaw clamped as he worked his way through it. He had been over it a number of times, but he still could not conceive of a reason for a reaction he had observed among human young to its message. It was, he had been reliably informed, one of a group of such stories for the human young.—What he was looking at in translation was approximately this:—

THE THREE (Name) (Domestic animals) (Name)

Once upon a time there was a (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) who lived under a bridge and one day he became very hungry. He was sitting there thinking of good things to eat when he heard the sounds of someone crossing the bridge over his head. (Sharp hoof-sound)—(sharp hoof-sound) went the sounds on the bridge overhead.

“Who’s there?” cried the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature).

“It’s only I, the smallest (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name)” came back the answer.

“Well, I am the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) who lives under the bridge,” replied the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) “and I’m coming up to eat you all up.”

“Oh, don’t do that, please!” cried the smallest (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name). “I wouldn’t even make you a good meal. My (relative), the (middle-sized? next-oldest?) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) will be along in a minute. Let me go. He’s much bigger than I. You’ll get a much better meal out of him. Let me go and eat him instead.”

“Very well,” said the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature); and (hoof-sound)—(hoof-sound) the (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) hurried across the bridge to safety.

After a while the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) heard (heavier hoof-sound)—(heavier hoof-sound) on the bridge overhead.

“Who’s there?” he cried.

“It is I, the (middle-sized?) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name),” replied a (deeper?) voice.

“Then I am coming up to eat you up,” said the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature). “Your smaller (relative?) the smallest (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) told me you were coming and I let him go by so I could have a bigger meal by eating you. So here I come.”

“Oh, you are, are you?” said the (middle-sized) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name). “Well, suit yourself; but our oldest (relative?), the big (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) will be along in just a moment If you want to wait for him, you’ll really have a meal to remember.”

“Is that so?” said the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature), who was very (greedy? Avaricious? Gluttonous?). “All right, go ahead.” And the (middle-sized) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) went (heavier hoof-sound)—(heavier hoof-sound) across the bridge to safety.

It was not long before the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) heard (thunderous hoof-sound)—(thunderous hoof-sound) shaking the bridge overhead.

“Who’s there?” cried the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature).

“It is I!” rumbled an (earth-shaking?) deep (bass?) voice. “The biggest (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name). Who calls?”

“I do!” cried the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature). “And I’m coming up to eat you all up!” And he sprang up on the bridge. But the big (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) merely took one look at him, and lowered (his?) head and came charging forward, with his (horns?) down. And he butted that (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) over the hills and so far away he could never find his way back to bother anyone ever again.

The Mologhese Envoy put the translation aside and blinked his red-brown eyes wearily. It was ridiculous, he thought, to let such a small conundrum bother him this way. The story was perfectly simple and obvious; it related how an organization of three individuals delayed conflict with a dangerous enemy until their strongest member arrived to deal with the situation. Perfectly usual and good Conqueror indoctrination literature for Conqueror young.

But still, there was something—a difference about it he could not quite put his finger on. The human children he had observed having it told to them at that school he had visited had greeted the ending with an entirely disproportionate glee. Why? Even to a student of tactics like himself the lesson was a simple and rather boring one. It was as if a set of young students were suddenly to become jubilant on being informed that two plus two equaled four. Was there some hidden value in the lesson that he failed to discover? Or merely some freakish twist to the human character that caused the emotional response to be disproportionate?

If there was, the Envoy would be everlastingly destroyed if he could not lay the finger of his perception on what it was. Perhaps, thought the Envoy, leaning back in the piece of furniture in which he sat, this problem was merely part and parcel of that larger and more widespread anomaly he had remarked during the several weeks, local time, he had been the guest of the human HQ on Bahrin II….

The humans had emerged on to the galactic scene rather suddenly, but not too suddenly to escape notice by potentially interested parties. They had fanned out from their home system; doing it at first the hard way by taking over and attempting to pioneer uninhabited planets of nearby systems. Eventually they had bumped into the nearest Conqueror civilization—which was that of the Bahrin, a ursinoid type established over four small but respectable systems and having three Submissive types in bondage, one of which was a degraded Conqueror strain.

Like most primitive races, the humans did not at first seem to realize what they were up against. They attempted at first to establish friendly relations with the Bahrin without attempting any proof of their own Conqueror instincts. The Bahrin, of course, recognized Conqueror elements potential in the form of the human civilization; and for that reason struck all the harder, to take advantage of their own age and experience. They managed to destroy nearly all the major planetary installations of the humans, and over twenty per cent of the population at first strike. However, the humans rebounded with surprising ferocity and speed, to drop guerrilla land troops on the Bahrin planets while they gathered power for a strikeback. The strikeback was an overwhelming success, the Bahrin power being enfeebled by the unexpected fierceness of the human guerrillas and the fact that these seemed to have the unusual ability to enlist the sympathy of the Submissives under the Bahrin rule. The Bahrin were utterly broken; and the humans had for some little time been occupying the Bahrin worlds.

Meanwhile, the ponderous mills of the Galactic social order had been grinding up the information all this had provided. It was known that human exploration ships had stumbled across their first contact with one of the Shielded Worlds; and immediately made eager overtures of friendship to the people upon it. It was reported that when the Shielded peoples went on about their apparently meaningless business under that transparent protective element which no known Conqueror had ever been able to breach; (and the human overtures were ignored, as all Conqueror attempts at contact had always been), that a storm of emotion swept over the humans—a storm involving the whole spectrum of emotions. It was as if the rejection had had the equivalent of a calculated insult from an equivalent, Conqueror, race.

In that particular neighborhood of the galaxy the Mologhese currently held the balance of power among the Conqueror races. They sent an Envoy with a proposal to the human authorities.

—And that, thought the Envoy, aboard the returning spaceship as he put aside the problem of the translation to examine the larger question, was the beginning of an educative process on both sides.

His job had been to point out politely but firmly that there were many races in the galaxy; but that they had all evolved on the same type of world, and they all fell into one of three temperamental categories. They were by nature Conquerors, Submissives, or Invulnerables. The Invulnerables were, of course, the people of the Shielded Worlds; who went their own pacific, non-technologic ways. And if these could not be dominated behind the protections of their strange abilities, they did not seem interested in dominating themselves, or interfering with the Conquerors. So the situation worked out to equalities and they could be safely ignored.

The Submissive races, of course, were there for any Conqueror race’s taking. That disposed of them. But there were certain elements entering into inter-Conqueror relationships, that were important for the humans to know.

No Conqueror race could, naturally, be denied its birthright, which was to take as much as it could from Submissives and its fellow-Conquerors. On the other hand, there were advantages to be gamed by semi-peaceful existence even within the laws of a society of Conqueror races. Obvious advantages dealing with trade, travel, and a reciprocal recognition of rights and customs. To be entitled to these, the one prime requirement upon any Conqueror race was that it should not rock the boat. It might take on one or more of its neighbors, or make an attempt to move up a notch in the pecking order in this neck of the galactic woods; but it must not become a bother to the local community of Conquerors as a whole by such things as general piracy, et cetera.

“In short,” had replied the Envoy’s opposite number—a tall, rather thin and elderly human with a sad smile, “a gentleman’s agreement?”

“Please?” said the Envoy. The Opposite Number explained.

“Essentially, yes,” said the Envoy, feeling pleased. He was pleased enough, in fact, to take time out for a little dissertation on this as an example of the striking cultural similarities between Conqueror races that often produced parallel terms in completely different languages, and out of completely different backgrounds.

“…In fact,” he wound up, “let me say that personally, I find you people very much akin. That is one of the things that makes me so certain that you will eventually be very pleased that you have agreed to this proposal I brought. Essentially, all it asks is that you subscribe to the principles of a Conqueror intersociety—which is, after all, your own kind of society—and recognize its limitations as well as its privileges by pledging to maintain the principles which are the hard facts of its existence.”

“Well,” said his Opposite Number, whose name was Harrigan or Hargan, or some such, “that is something to be decided on in executive committee. Meanwhile, suppose I show you around here; and you can tell me more about the galaxy.”

There followed several weeks in which the Envoy found himself being convoyed around the planet which had originally been the seat of the former Bahrin ruling group. It was quite obviously a tactic to observe him over a period of time and under various conditions; and he did not try to resist it He had his own observations to make, and this gave him an excellent opportunity to do so.

For one thing, he noted down as his opinion that they were an exceedingly touchy people where slights were concerned. Here they had just finished their war with the Bahrin in the last decade and were facing entrance into an interstellar society of races as violent as themselves; and yet the first questions on the tips of the tongues of nearly all those he met were concerned with the Shielded Worlds. Even Harrigan, or whatever his name was, confessed to an interest in the people on the Invulnerable planets.

“How long have they been like that?” Harrigan asked.

The Envoy could not shrug. His pause before answering fulfilled the same function.

“There is no way of telling,” he said. “Things on Shielded Worlds are as the people there make them. Take away the signs of a technical civilization from a planet—turn it all into parkland—and how do you tell how long the people there have been as they are? All we ever knew is that they are older than any of our histories.”

“Older?” said Harrigan. “There must be some legend, at least, about how they came to be?”

“No,” said the Envoy. “Oh, once in a great while some worthless planet without a population will suddenly develop a shield and become fertile, forested and populated—but this is pretty clearly a case of colonization. The Invulnerables seem to be able to move from point to point in space by some nonphysical means. That’s all.”

“All?” said Harrigan.

“All,” said the Envoy. “Except for an old Submissive superstition that the Shielded Peoples are a mixed race sprung from an interbreeding between a Conqueror and a Submissive type—something we know, of course, to be a genetic impossibility.”

“I see,” said Harrigan.

Harrigan took the Envoy around to most of the major cities of the planet. They did not visit any military installations (the Envoy had not expected that they would) but they viewed a lot of new construction taking the place of Bahrin buildings that had been obliterated by the angry scars of the war. It was going up with surprising swiftness—or perhaps not so surprising, noted the Envoy thoughtfully, since the humans seemed to have been able to enlist the enthusiastic cooperation of the Submissives they had taken over. The humans appeared to have a knack for making conquered peoples willing to work with them. Even the Bahrin, what there were left of them, were behaving most unlike a recently crushed race of Conquerors, in the extent of their cooperation. Certainly the humans seemed to be allowing their former enemies a great deal of freedom, and even responsibility in the new era. The Envoy sought for an opportunity, and eventually found the chance to talk to one of the Bahrin alone. This particular Bahrin was an assistant architect on a school that was being erected on the outskirts of one city. (The humans seemed slightly crazy on the subject of schools; and only slightly less crazy on the subjects of hospitals, libraries, museums, and recreation areas. Large numbers of these were going up all over the planet.) This particular Bahrin, however, was a male who had been through the recent war. He was middle-aged and had lost an arm in the previous conflict. The Envoy found him free to talk, not particularly bitter, but considerably impressed emotionally by his new overlords.

“…May your courage be with you,” he told the Envoy. “You will have to face them sooner or later; and they are demons.”

“What kind of demons?” said the Envoy, skeptically.

“A new kind,” said the Bahrin. He rested his heavy, furry, bear-like forearm upon the desk in front of him and stared out a window at a changing landscape. “Demons full of fear and strange notions. Who understands them? Half their history is made up of efforts to understand themselves—and they still don’t.” He glanced significantly at the Envoy. “Did you know the Submissives are already starting to call them the Mixed People?”

The Envoy wrinkled his furry brow.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said.

“The Submissives think the humans are really Submissives who have learned how to fight.”

The Envoy snorted.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Of course,” said the Bahrin; and sighed heavily. “But what isn’t, these days?” He turned back to his work. “Anyway, don’t ask me about them. The more I see of them, the less I understand.”

They parted on that note—and the Envoy’s private conviction that the loss of the Bahrin’s arm had driven him slightly insane.

Nonetheless, during the following days as he was escorted around from spot to spot, the essence of that anomaly over which he was later to puzzle during his trip home, emerged. For one thing, there were the schools. The humans, evidently, in addition to being education crazy themselves, believed in wholesale education for their cattle as well. One of the schools he was taken to was an education center for young Bahrin pupils; and—evidently due to a shortage of Bahrin instructors following the war—a good share of the teachers were human.

“…I just love my class!” one female human teacher told the Envoy, as they stood together watching young Bahrin at play during their relaxation period.

“Please?” said the Envoy, astounded.

“They’re so quick and eager to learn,” said the teacher. One of the young Bahrin at play dashed up to her, was overcome with shyness at seeing the Envoy, and hung back. She reached out and patted him on the head. A peculiar shiver ran down the Envoy’s back; but the young Bahrin nestled up to her.

“They respond so,” said the teacher. “Don’t you think so?”

“They were a quite worthy race at one time,” replied the Envoy, with mingled diplomatic confusion and caution.

“Oh, yes!” said the teacher enthusiastically; and proceeded to overwhelm him with facts he already knew about the history of the Bahrin, until the Envoy found himself rescued by Harrigan. The Envoy went off wondering a little to himself whether the humans had indeed conquered the Bahrin or whether, perhaps, it had not been the other way around.

Food for that same wonderment seemed to be supplied by just about everything else that Harrigan let him see. The humans, having just about wiped the Bahrin out of existence, seemed absolutely determined to repair the damage they had done, but improve upon the former situation by way of interest. Why? What kept the Bahrin from seething with plans for revolt at this very minute? The young ones of course—like that pupil with the teacher—might not know any better; but the older ones…? The Envoy thought of the one-armed Bahrin architect he had talked to, and felt further doubt. If they were all like that one—but then what kind of magic had the humans worked to produce such an intellectual and emotional victory? The Envoy went back to his quarters and took a nap to quiet the febrillations of his thinking process.

When he woke up, he set about getting hold of what history he could on the war just past. Accounts both human and Bahrin were available; and, plowing through them, reading them for statistics rather than reports, he was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the one-armed Bahrin had been right. The humans were demons. —Or at least, they had fought like demons against the Bahrin. A memory of the shiver that had run down his back as he watched the female human teacher patting the young Bahrin on head, troubled the Envoy again. Would this same female be perfectly capable of mowing down adult Bahrin by the automatic hand-weapon clipful? Apparently her exact counterparts had. If so, which was the normal characteristic of the human nature—the head-patting, or the trigger-pulling?

It was almost a relief when the human authorities gave him a sealed answer to the proposal he had brought, and sent him on his way home a few days later. He carried that last question of his away with him.

The only conclusion I can come to,” said the Envoy to the chief authority among the Mologhese, a week and a half later as they both sat in the Chief’s office, “is that there is some kind of racial insanity that sets in in times of peace. In other words, they’re Conquerors in the true sense only when engaged in Conquest.”

The Chief frowned at the proposal answer, still sealed on the desk before him. He had asked for the Envoy’s report before opening it; and now he wondered if this traditional procedure had been the wisest move under the circumstances. He rather suspected the Envoy’s wits of having gone somewhat astray during his mission.

“You don’t expect me to believe something like that,” said the Chief. “No culture that was insane half the time could survive. And if they tried to maintain sanity by continual Conquest, they would bleed to death in two generations.”

The Envoy said nothing. His Chief’s arguments were logically unassailable.

“The sensible way to look at it,” said the Chief, “is to recognize them as simply another Conqueror strain with somewhat more marked individual peculiarities than most. This is—let us say—their form of recreation, of amusement, between conquests. Perhaps they enjoy playing with the danger of cultivating strength in their conquered races.”

“Of course, there is that,” admitted the Envoy. “You may be right.”

“I think,” said the Chief, “that it’s the only sensible all-around explanation.”

“On the other hand—” the Envoy hesitated, remembering. “There was the business of that female human patting the small Bahrin on the head.”

“What about it?”

The Envoy looked at his Chief.

“Have you ever been patted on the head?” he asked. The Chief stiffened.

“Of course not!” He relaxed slowly, staring at the Envoy. “Why? What makes you ask that?”

“Well, I never have either, of course—especially by anyone of another race. But that little Bahrin liked it. And seeing it gave me—” the Envoy stopped to shiver again.

“Gave you what?” said the Chief.

“A… a sort of horrible, affectionate feeling—” The Envoy stopped speaking in helplessness.

“You’ve been overworking,” said the Chief, coldly. “Is there anything more to report?”

“No,” said the Envoy. “No. But aside from all this, there’s no doubt they’d be a tough nut to crack, those humans. My recommendation is that we wait for optimum conditions before we choose to move against them.”

“Your recommendation will go into the record, of course,” said the Chief. He picked up the human message capsule. “And now I think it’s time I listened to this. They didn’t play it for you?”

The Envoy shook his head.

The Chief picked up the capsule (it was one the Envoy had taken along for the humans to use in replying), broke its seal and put it into the speaker unit of his desk. The speaker unit began to murmur a message tight-beamed toward the Chiefs ear alone. The Envoy sat, nursing the faint hope that the Chief would see fit to let him hear, later. The Envoy was very curious as to the contents of that message. He watched his Chief closely, and saw the other’s face slowly gather in a frown that deepened as the message purred on.

Abruptly it stopped. The Chief looked up; and his eyes met the Envoy’s.

“It just may be,” said the Chief slowly, “that I owe you an apology.”

“An apology?” said the Envoy.

“Listen to this—” The Chief adjusted a volume control and pressed a button. A human voice speaking translated Mologhese filled the room.

“The Committee of Control for the human race wishes to express its appreciation for—”

“No, no—” said the Chief. “Not this diplomatic slush. Farther on—” He did things with his controls, the voice speeded up to a gabble, a whine, then slowed toward understandability again. “Ah, listen to this.”

“…Association,” said the voice, “but without endorsement of what the Mologhese Authority is pleased to term the Conqueror temperament. While our two races have a great deal in common, the human race has as its ultimate aims not the exercises of war and oppression, plundering, general destruction and the establishment of a tyranny in a community of tyrants; but rather the establishment of an environment of peace for all races. The human race believes in the ultimate establishment of universal freedom, justice, and the inviolable rights of the individual whoever he may be. We believe that our destiny lies neither within the pattern of conquest nor submission, but with the enlightened maturity of independence characterized by what are known as the Shielded Worlds; and, while not ceasing to defend our people and our borders from all attacks foreign and domestic, we intend to emulate these older, protected peoples in hope that they may eventually find us worthy of association. In this hope—”

The Chief clicked off the set and looked grimly at the Envoy. The Envoy stared back at him in shock.

“Insane,” said the Envoy. “I was right—quite insane.” He sank back in his seat “At any rate, you too were correct. They’re too irrational, too unrealistic to survive. We needn’t worry about them.”

“On the contrary,” said his Chief. “And I’m to blame for not spotting it sooner. There were indications of this in some of the preliminary reports we had on them. They are very dangerous.”

The Envoy shook his head.

“I don’t see—” he began.

“But I do!” said the Chief. “And I don’t hold down this position among our people for nothing. Think for a moment, Envoy! Don’t you see it? These people are causal!”

“Causal?”

“Exactly,” replied the Chief. “They don’t act or react to practical or realistic stimuli. They react to emotional or philosophic conclusions of their own.”

“I don’t see what’s so dangerous about that?” said the Envoy, wrinkling his forehead.

“It wouldn’t be dangerous if they were a different sort of race,” said the Chief. “But these people seem to be able to rationalize their emotional and philosophic conclusions in terms of hard logic and harder science.—You don’t believe me? Do you remember that story for the human young you told me about, about the three hoofed and horned creatures crossing a bridge?”

“Of course,” said the Envoy.

“All right. It puzzled you that the human young should react so strongly to what was merely a lesson in elementary tactics. But—it wasn’t the lesson they were reacting to. It was the emotional message overlaying the lesson. The notion of some sort of abstract right and wrong, so that when the somehow wrong mythical creature under the bridge gets what the humans might describe as his just deserts at the horns of the triumphing biggest right creature—the humans are tremendously stimulated.”

“But I still don’t see the danger—”

“The danger,” said the Chief, “lies in the fact that while such a story has its existence apparently—to humans—only for its moral and emotional values, the tactical lesson which we so obviously recognize is not lost, either. To us, this story shows a way of conquering. To the humans it shows not only a way but a reason, a justification. A race whose motives are founded upon such justifications is tremendously dangerous to us.”

“You must excuse me,” said the Envoy, bewilderedly. “Why—”

“Because we—and I mean all the Conqueror races, and all the Submissive races—” said the Chief, strongly, “have no defenses in the emotional and philosophic areas. Look at what you told me about the Bahrin, and the Submissives the humans took over from the Bahrin. Having no strong emotional and philosophic persuasions of their own, they have become immediately infected by the human ones. They are like people unacquainted with a new disease who fall prey to an epidemic. The humans, being self-convinced of such things as justice and love, in spite of their own arbitrariness and violence, convince all of us who lack convictions having never needed them before. Do you remember how you said you felt when you saw the little Bahrin being patted on the head? That’s how vulnerable we are!”

The Envoy shivered again, remembering.

“Now I see,” he said.

“I thought you would,” said the Chief, grimly. “The situation to my mind is serious, enough so to call for the greatest emergency measures possible. We mustn’t make the mistake of the creature under the bridge in the story. We were prepared to let the humans get by our community strength because we thought of them as embryo Conquerors, and we hoped for better entertainment later. Now they come along again, this time as something we can recognize as Conqueror-plus. And this time we can’t let them get by. I’m going to call a meeting of our neighboring Conqueror executive Chiefs; and get an agreement to hit the humans now with a coalition big enough to wipe them out to the last one.”

He reached for a button below a screen on his desk. But before he could touch it, it came alight with the figure of his own attaché.

“Sir—” began this officer; and then words failed him.

“Well?” barked the Chief.

“Sir—” the officer swallowed. “From the Shielded Worlds—a message.” The Chief stared long and hard.

“From the Shielded Worlds?” said the Chief. “How? From the Shielded Worlds? When?”

“I know it’s fantastic, sir. But one of our ships was passing not too far from one of the Shielded Worlds and it found itself caught—”

“And you just now got the message?” The Chief cut him short.

“Just this second, sir. I was just—”

“Let me have it. And keep your channel open,” said the Chief. “I’ve got some messages to send.”

The officer made a movement on the screen and something like a message cylinder popped out of a slot in the Chiefs’ desk. The Chief reached for it, and hesitated. Looking up, he found the eyes of the Envoy upon him.

“Never—” said the Envoy, softly. “Never in known history have they communicated with any of us….”

“It’s addressed to me,” said the Chief, looking at the outside of the cylinder. “If they can read our minds, as we suspect, then they know what I’ve just discovered about the humans and what I plan to do about it.” He gave the cylinder a twist to open it “Let’s see what they have to say.”

The cylinder opened up like a flower. A single white sheet unrolled within it to lie flat on the desk; and the message upon it in the common galactic code looked up at the Chief. The message consisted of just one word. The word was:—

NO.