They made their way toward the river to examine Tallie’s boat, leaving Grannit free to continue coordinating the repairs to the village caused by the storm. Tam finally gave up trying to sway him to a more conservative position regarding new inventions. The headman obviously liked Thinker and his ideas. According to Tam, that made them both idiots, and he shared that opinion along with what he thought of their entire species with his partner. It probably made him feel better, so MO-126 obliged by listening.
“What is it about these creatures?” He asked rhetorically. “Why do they have to keep thinking about things? They’re certainly not suited for it, and they keep coming up with crazy ideas for changing things. Why can’t they be more like the mayboes.”
Mayboes were another primitive sentient species that the corporation had discovered and introduced to work projects on other planets. They were also mammalian primates, or as close as made no difference morphologically. But the mayboes possessed a trait humans seemed to lack. They were naturally happy. Put a bunch of mayboes on a bit of land close to a stream and they’d live there contentedly growing food, playing simple games, and appreciating each new day and whatever it brought. The only thing they seemed instinctively inclined to change were sexual partners, which they joyfully did several times a day, and the only new things they made were more mayboes. From the corporation’s standpoint, they were close to ideal. Their only real drawback was that they slept most of each day, which limited their productivity. Some anthropologists claimed they might not actually be sleeping. They recorded peculiar brain wave patterns when the mayboes rested and hypothesized that they were, in fact, placing themselves into a deep, meditative state. When asked about this, the mayboes would simply smile and tell the researchers they were not yet ready to know.
“Why can’t they just be content?” Tam continued. “The corporation provides them with a good life here. What more could a primitive want?”
“They probably don’t see themselves as primitives,” MO-126 hazarded. “They have nothing to compare themselves to.”
“Exactly! They don’t see much of anything. That’s what makes them primitives. They’ve got no idea how backward they are, so what can they possibly be trying to achieve? They shouldn’t even think anything else is possible. They’re all insane.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” the android dog said. “They might be naturally dissatisfied—genetically, I mean. They may not be able to be happy for long, at least not collectively. Think about it. You’ve been working with them for centuries. When is the last time you’ve seen a village where everyone seemed content with the way things were?”
“Some usually seem to be,” Tam said hesitantly.
“Yes, some, but not all. It may not make much sense, but there are always some who simply can’t leave things alone, no matter how good they are, and it’s not because they’re stupid or crazy. Sometimes these chronically dissatisfied types appear to be the sanest and smartest people in the village.”
“Not being able to be content hardly seems sane to me, but I know what you mean. I’ve seen that type. If they eat the same thing every day, they’ll complain about the lack of variety. If they have something new every day, they’ll complain about not getting their favorite. If everything is peaceful, they’ll complain about the lack of excitement, and if things are exciting, they’ll want them to be peaceful. They really are a miserable bunch.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think most of them just kind of feel restless unless they have challenges.”
“Most sentient creatures would feel extremely pleased not to have challenges. I’m telling you, humans are crazy. I wonder if other projects are having as much trouble with them as we are.”
This, of course, they could not know. They knew other Corporation projects with humans serving as workers existed, but details about their inner workings were not publicly divulged, especially if there were problems. This type of information could adversely affect stock prices. Neither Tam nor his partner held management positions high enough to have access to such proprietary data.
“Probably,” MO-126 said. “It seems inherent in the species. They need challenges. If they don’t have any, they create them.”
“What they need is to be protected from themselves,” Tam said.