“Food is important. Try going without it.”
“Food isn’t important after you’ve solved that problem.”
“Were you ever hungry?”
“Once—when I was studying basic socio-economics. But it was just instructional. I never expect to be hungry again—and neither does anybody else. That’s a solved problem and it answers nothing. I want to know ‘What next? Where to? What for?’”
“I had been thinking about these matters,” Mordan said slowly, “while you were sleeping. The problems of philosophy seem to be unlimited, and it is not too healthy to dwell on unlimited questions. But last night you seemed to feel that the key problem, for you, was the old, old question as to whether a man was anything more than his hundred years here on earth? Do you still feel that way?”
“Yes… I think I do. If there was anything, anything more at all, after this crazy mix-up we call living, I could feel that there might be some point to the whole frantic business, even if I did not know and could not know the full answer while I was alive.”
“And suppose there was not? Suppose that when a man’s body disintegrates, he himself disappears absolutely. I’m bound to say I find it a probable hypothesis.”
“Well—It wouldn’t be cheerful knowledge, but it would be better than not knowing. You could plan your life rationally, at least. A man might even be able to get a certain amount of satisfaction in planning things better for the future, after he’s gone. A vicarious pleasure in the anticipation.”
“I assure you he can,” Mordan stated, from his own inner knowledge. “But, I take it, either way, you would feel that the question you posed to me in our first interview was fairly answered.”
“Mmm, yes.”
“Whereupon you would be willing to co-operate in the genetics program planned for you?”
“Yes, if.”
“I don’t propose to give you an answer here and now,” Mordan answered equably. “Would you be willing to cooperate if you knew that a serious attempt was being made to answer your question?”
“Easy there! Wait a minute. You-win-and-I-lose. I ought to be entitled to look at the answer. Suppose you do assign someone to look into the matter and he comes back with a negative report—after I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain?”
“It would be necessary for you to place credence in me. Such a research might not be completed in years, or in our lifetimes. But suppose I declare to you that such a research were to be attempted, seriously, hard-headedly, all out, and no trouble spared, would you then consent to co-operate?”
Hamilton covered his face with his hands. There were myriad factors revolving in his brain—some of which he was not fully aware of, none of which he wished to talk about. “If you did—if you did—I think perhaps—”
“Here, here,” a voice boomed in the room. “What’s going on in here? Mustn’t excite yourselves yet.”
“Hello, Joseph,” Mordan greeted the newcomer.
“Morning, Claude. Feel better?”
“Much.”
“You still need sleep. Put yourself to sleep.”
“Very well.” Mordan closed his eyes.
The man called Joseph stepped up to Felix, felt his wrist, peeled back his eyelid, and examined the eye. “You’ll do.”
“I want to get up.”
“Not yet. I want you to sleep for a few hours first. Look at me. You feel sleepy. You—”
Felix tore his gaze away from the man’s eyes, and said, “Claude!”
“He’s asleep. You can’t possibly wake him.”
“Oh. See here, you’re a therapist, aren’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“Is there anything that can be done to cure snoring?”
The man chuckled. “All I can suggest is that you sleep through it. Which is what I want you to do now. You are sleepy. You are falling asleep. Sleep…”
When they let him go he tried to look up Phyllis, It was difficult to find her, to begin with, since the meager hospital accommodations of the city were overcrowded and she had been ministered to, as he had been, in temporary quarters. When he did find her, they wouldn’t let him in—she was sleeping, they said. Nor were they inclined to give him any information as to her condition; he could show no claim on such knowledge and it was clearly in the private sphere.
He made such a nuisance of himself that he was finally told that she was entirely well, save for a slight indisposition pursuant to gas poisoning. He had to be contented with that.
He might have gotten himself into serious trouble had he been dealing with a man, but his argument was with a grimly inflexible matron, who was about twice as tough as he was.
He had the faculty of dismissing from mind that which could not be helped. Phyllis was not on his mind once he had turned away. He started for his apartment automatically, then recalled, for the first time in a good many hours, Monroe-Alpha.
The fool, the silly fool! He wondered what had happened to him. He was reluctant to inquire since to do so might give away his connection with the conspiracy. It seemed likely that he had already found some means to do that himself.
It did not occur to him then, or at any other time, to “do the honorable thing” by reporting Monroe-Alpha. His morals were strictly pragmatic, and conformed to accepted code as closely as they did only through a shrewd and imaginative self-interest.
He called Monroe-Alpha’s office—no, he was not there. He called his apartment. No answer. Temporarily blocked, he decided to go to his friend’s apartment on the assumption that he might show up there first.
He got no response at the door. He knew the combination but ordinarily would not think of using it. This seemed to him an extraordinary occasion.
Monroe-Alpha was sitting in his lounging room. He looked up when Hamilton entered, but did not rise and said nothing. Hamilton walked over and planted himself in front of him. “So you’re back.”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been back?”
“I don’t know. Hours.”
“You have? I signalled your phone.”
“Oh, was that you?”
“Certainly it was. Why didn’t you answer?”
Monroe-Alpha said nothing, looked at him dully, and looked away. “Snap out of it, man,” Hamilton snapped, by now exasperated. “Come to life. The putsch failed. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Then he added, “I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“You’ve come to arrest me, haven’t you?”
“Me? Great Egg! I’m no monitor.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“Look here, Cliff,” Hamilton said seriously. “What’s gotten into you? Are you still filled up with the guff McFee dished out? Are you determined to be a martyr? You’ve been a fool—there’s no need to be a damned fool. I’ve reported that you were an agent of mine.” (In this he anticipated a decision he had made at the moment; he would carry it out later—if necessary.) “You’re all in the clear.
Well, speak up. You didn’t get in on the fighting, did you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you would, after the hypno pills I stuffed down you. One more and you would have listened to the birdies. What’s the trouble, then? Are you still fanatical about this damned Survivors Club tommyrot?”
“No. That was a mistake. I was crazy.”
“I’ll say you were crazy! But see here—you don’t rate it, but you’re getting away with it, cold. You don’t have to worry. Just slide back in where you were and no one’s the wiser.”
“It’s no good, Felix. Nothing’s any good. Thanks, just the same.” He smiled briefly and wanly.
“Well, for the love o’—I’ve a good mind to paste you right in the puss, just to get a rise out of you.” Monroe-Alpha did not answer. His face he had let sink down into his hands; he showed in no way that he had even heard. Hamilton shook his shoulder.
“What’s the matter? Did something else
happen? Something I don’t know about.”
“Yes.” It was barely a whisper.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“It doesn’t matter.” But he did start to tell of it; once started he went on steadily, in a low voice and without raising his head. He seemed to be talking only to himself, as if he were repeating over something he wished to learn by heart.
Hamilton listened uneasily, wondering whether or not he should stop him. He had never heard a man bare his secret thoughts as Monroe-Alpha was doing. It seemed indecent.
But he went on and on, until the whole pitiful, silly picture was mercilessly sharp. “And so I came back here,” he concluded. He said nothing further, nor did he look up.
Hamilton looked amazed. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure you haven’t left anything out?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then what, in the Name of the Egg, are you doing here?”
“Nothing. There wasn’t anyplace else to go.”
“Cliff, you’ll be the death of me, yet. Get going. Get started. Get up off that fat thing you’re sitting on and get a move on.”
“Huh? Where?”
“After her, you bubble-brained idiot! Go find her.”
Monroe-Alpha shook his head wearily. “You must not have listened. I tell you I tried to burn her.”
Hamilton took a deep breath, let it out, then said, “Listen to me. I don’t know much about women, and sometimes it seems like I didn’t know anything about them. But I’m sure of this—she won’t let a little thing like you taking a pot shot at her stand in the way if you ever had any chance with her at all. She’ll forgive you.”
“You don’t really mean that, do you?” Monroe-Alpha’s face was still tragic, but he clutched at the hope.
“Certainly I do. Women will forgive anything.” With a flash of insight he added, “Otherwise the race would have died out long ago.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“—then a man is something more than his genes!”
“I CANNOT say,” remarked the Honorable Member from Great Lakes Central, “that I place high evaluation on Brother Mordan’s argument that this project be taken up to get young Hamilton’s consent to propagate. It is true that I am not entirely familiar with the details of the genetic sequence involved—”
“You should be,” Mordan cut in somewhat acidly, “I supplied full transcript two days ago.”
“I beg your pardon, brother. In those forty-eight hours I have held hearings steadily. The Mississippi Valley matter, you know. It’s rather urgent.”
“I’m sorry,” Mordan apologized. “It’s easy for a layman to forget the demands on a Planner’s time.”
“Never mind. No need for finicky courtesy among ourselves. I scanned the brief and the first sixty pages while we were assembling; that, with such previous knowledge of the case as I had, gives me a rough idea of your problem. But tell me, am I correct in thinking that Hamilton holds nothing exclusively in his chart? You have alternative choices?”
“Yes.”
“You expected to finish with his descendent generation—how many generations would be required, using alternative choices?”
“Three additional generations.”
“That is what I thought, and that is my reason for disagreeing with your argument. The genetic purpose of the sequence is, I think, of greater importance to the race, but a delay of a hundred years, more or less, is not important—not sufficiently important to justify an undertaking as major as a full effort to investigate the question of survival after death.”
“I take it,” put in the Speaker for the Day, “that you wish to be recorded as opposing Brother Mordan’s proposal?”
“No, Hubert, no. You anticipate me—incorrectly. I am supporting his proposition. Notwithstanding the fact that I consider his reasons, though good, to be insufficient, I evaluate the proposal as worthwhile in itself. I think we should support it fully.”
The Member from the Antilles looked up from the book he was reading (not rudeness; everyone present knew that he had parallel mental processes and no one expected him to waste half the use of his time out of politeness) and said, “I think George should amplify his reason.”
“I will. We policy men are like a pilot who is attempting to do a careful job of conning his ship without having any idea of his destination. Hamilton has put his finger on the weak point in our whole culture—he should be a planner himself. Every decision that we make, although it is based on data, is shaped by our personal philosophies. The data is examined in the light of these philosophies. How many of you have an opinion about survival-after-death? I ask for a show of hands. Come now, be honest with yourselves.”
Somewhat hesitantly they put their hands up—men and women alike, every one of them. “Now,” the Great Lakes member continued, “the hands of those who are sure that their opinions are correct.”
All of the hands went down, save that of the Member from Patagonia. “Bravo!” Rembert of the Lakes called out. “I should have guessed that you would be sure.”
She took the cigar out of her mouth, said rather sharply, “Any fool knows that one,” and went back to her needlework. She was something over a hundred years old, and the only control natural in the Board. Her district had confirmed her tenure regularly for more than fifty years. Her eyesight was thought to be failing, but she had all of her own yellow teeth. Her wrinkled, mahogany features showed more evidence of Indian blood than Caucasian. They all claimed to be a little afraid of her.
“Carvala,” Rembert said to her, “perhaps you can cut the matter short by giving us the answer?”
“I can’t tell you the answer—and you wouldn’t believe me if I did.” She was silent for a moment, then added, “Let the boy do as he pleases. He will anyway.”
“Do you support or oppose Mordan’s proposition?”
“Support. Not that you’re likely to go at it right.”
There was a short silence. Every member in the chamber was busily reviewing to himself—trying to recall when, if ever, Carvala had been proven to be on the wrong side of a question—in the long run.
“It would seem obvious to me,” Rembert continued, “that the only rational personal philosophy based on a conviction that we die dead, never to rise again, is a philosophy of complete hedonism. Such a hedonist might seek his pleasure in life in very subtle, indirect, and sublimated fashions; nevertheless pleasure must be his only rational purpose—no matter how lofty his conduct may appear to be from the outside. On the other hand, the possibility of something more to life than the short span we see opens up an unlimited possibility of evaluations other than hedonistic. It seems to me a fit subject to investigate.”
“Granting your point,” commented the woman representing the Northwest Union, “is it our business to do so? Our functions and our authority are limited; we are forbidden by constitution to meddle in spiritual matters. How about it, Johann?”
The member addressed was the only priest persona among them, he being the Most Reverend Mediator to some millions of his co-religionists south of the Rio Grande. His political prominence was the more exceptional in that the great majority of his constituents were not of his faith. “I do not see, Geraldine,” he replied, “that the constitutional restriction applies. What Brother Mordan proposes is a coldly scientific investigation. Its consequences may have spiritual implications, if there are positive results, but an unbiased investigation is no violation of religious freedom.”
“Johann is right,” said Rembert. “There is no subject inappropriate for scientific research. Johann, we’ve let you fellows have a monopoly of such matters for too long. The most serious questions in the world have been left to faith or speculation. It is time for scientists to cope with them, or admit that science is no more than pebble counting.”
“Go ahead. I shall be interested in seeing what you can make of them—in laboratories.”
Hoskins Geraldine loo
ked at him. “I wonder, Johann, what your attitude will be if this research should turn up facts which contravert some one of your articles of faith?”
“That,” he answered imperturbably, “is a matter for me to settle with myself. It need not affect this board.”
“I think,” observed the Speaker for the Day, “that we might now seek a preliminary expression of opinion. Some support the proposal—are any opposed?” There was no response. “Are any undecided?” There was still no response, but one member stirred slightly. “You wished to speak, Richard?”
“Not yet. I support the proposal, but I will speak to it later.”
“Very well. It appears to be unanimous… It is so ordered. I will co-opt an instigator later. Now, Richard?”
The member-at-large for transient citizens indicated that he was ready. “The research does not cover enough territory.”
“Yes?”
“When proposed as a means of persuading Hamilton Felix to accede to the wishes of the State geneticists it was sufficient. But we are now undertaking it for itself. Is that not true?”
The Speaker glanced around the room, picking up nods from all but ancient Carvala—she seemed uninterested in the whole matter. “Yes, that is true.”
“Then we should undertake not just one of the problems of philosophy, but all of them. The same reasons apply.”
“Mnnn… We are under no necessity of being consistent, you know.”
“Yes, I know, and I am not trammeled by the meshes of verbal logic. I am interested. I am stimulated by the vista. I want us to extend the research.”
“Very well. I am interested, too. I think we might well spend the next several days discussing it. I will postpone co-opting the instigator until we determine just how far we will go.”
Mordan had been intending to ask to be excused, his mission accomplished, but at this new twist, fire and earthquake, garnished with pretty girls, could not have tempted him to leave. As a citizen, he was entitled to listen if he chose; as a distinguished synthesist himself, no one would think of objecting to his physical presence in the circle of discussion.
The member for transients went on. “We should enumerate and investigate all of the problems of philosophy, especially the problems of metaphysics and epistemology.”