Fenwick? The capacity to make decisions withoutpre-programming. The lathe is not alive because it must bepre-programmed by the operator. We used to say that reproduction was thecriterion of life, but the lathe could be pre-programmed to build aduplicate of itself, complete with existing memories, if that weredesired, but that would not make it a living thing.
"Spontaneous decision. A single cell can make a simple binary choice.Maybe nothing more complex than to be or not to be. The decision may beconditioned by lethal circumstances that permit only a 'not' decision.Nevertheless, a decision _is_ made, and the cell shuts down its lifeprocesses in the very instant of death. They are not shut down for it.
"In the beginning, the first bit of life faced the world and madedecisions, and memory came into being. The structures of giant proteinmolecules shifted slightly in those first cells and became a memory ofdecisions and encounters. The cells split and became new pairs carryingin each part giant patterned molecules of the same structure. These werememory tapes that grew and divided and spread among all life until theycarried un-numbered billions of memories.
"Molecular tapes. Genes. The memory of life on earth, since thebeginning. Each new piece of life that springs from parent life comesequipped with vast libraries of molecular tapes recording theexperiences of life since the beginning.
"Life forms as complex as mammals could not exist without this tapelibrary to draw upon. The bodily mechanisms could not function if theycame into existence without the taped memories out of the ages,explaining why each organ was developed and how it should function.Sometimes, part of the tapes _are_ missing, and the organism, if itendures, must live without instructions for some function. One humanlifetime is too infinitesimally small to relearn procedures that havetaken aeons to develop.
"Just as the lathe operator has a choice of tapes which will cause thelathe to function in different ways, so does new life have a choice. Theaccumulated instructions and wisdom of the whole race may be available,except for those tapes which have been lost or destroyed through theages. New life has a choice from that vast library of tapes. In itsinexperience, it relies on the parentage for the selection of manyproven combinations, and so we conclude certain characteristics are'dominant' or 'inherited,' but we haven't been able to discover theslightest reason why this is so.
"A selection of things other than color of eyes, the height of growth tobe attained, the shape of the body must also be made. A choice of modesof facing the exterior world, a choice of stratagems to be used inattaining survival and security in that world, must be made.
"And there is one other important factor: Mammalian life is created in auniverse where only life exists. The mammal in the womb does not know ofthe existence of the external universe. Somewhere, sometime, the firstawareness of this external universe arises. In the womb. Outside thewomb. Early in fetal life, or late. When and where this awareness comesis an individual matter. But when it comes, it arrives with lethalimpact.
"Awareness brings a million sensory invasions--chemical, physical,extrasensory--none of them understood, all of them terrifying.
"This terrible fear that arises in this moment of awareness andnon-understanding is almost sufficient to cause a choice of death ratherthan life at this point. Only because of the developed toughness,acquired through the aeons, does the majority of mammalian life chooseto continue.
"In this moment, choices must be made as to how to cope with theexternal world, how to understand it so as to diminish the fear itinspires. The library of genetic tapes is full of possible solutions.Parental experience is examined, too, and the very sensory impacts thatare the source of the terror are inspected to a greater or lesser extentto see how they align with taped information.
"A very basic choice is then made. It may not be a single decision, but,rather, a system of decisions all based on some fundamental underlyingprinciple. And the choice may not be made in an instant. How long a timeit may occupy I do not know.
"When the decision has been made, reaction between the individual andthe external universe begins and understanding begins to flow into thedata storage banks. As data are stored, and successful solutions foundin the encounter with the world, fear diminishes. Some kind ofequilibrium is eventually reached, in which the organism decides howmuch fear it is willing to tolerate to venture farther into areas of theunknown, and how much it is willing to limit its experience because ofthis fear.
"When the decision has been made, and the point of equilibrium chosen, apersonality exists. The individual has shaped himself to face the world.
"And nothing short of a Heavenly miracle will ever change that shape!"
"You have said nothing about how the crystal caused you to attemptsuicide," said Fenwick.
"The crystal invalidated the molecular tape I had chosen to provide myfoundation program for living. The tape was completely shattered,brought to an end. There was nothing left for me to go on."
* * * * *
"Wait a minute!" said Fenwick. "Even supposing this could happen as youdescribe it, other programs could be selected out of the great numberyou have described."
"Quite true. But do you know what happens to an adult human being whenthe program on which his entire life is patterned is destroyed?"
Fenwick shook his head. "What is it like?"
"It's like it was in the beginning, in that moment of first awareness ofthe external universe. He is aware of the universe, but has nounderstanding of it. Previous understanding--or what he thought wasunderstanding--has been invalidated, destroyed. The drive to keepliving, that was present in that first moment of awareness, hasweakened. The strongest impulse is to escape the terror that followsawareness without understanding. Death is the quickest escape.
"This is why men are inflexible. This is why the Urbans cannot endurethe Galileos. This is why the Bill Bakers cannot face the Jim Ellerbees.That was what Sam Atkins wanted to find out.
"If a man should decide his basic program is invalid and decide tochoose another, he would have to face again the terror of awareness of aworld in which understanding does not exist. He would have to return tothat moment of first awareness and select a new program in that momentof overwhelming fear. Men are not willing to do this. They prefer aprogram--a personality--that is defective, that functions with only afraction of the efficiency it might have. They prefer this to a basicchange of programs. Only when a program is rendered absolutelyinvalid--as mine was by the crystal communicator--is the programabandoned. When that happens, the average man drives his car into atelephone pole or a bridge abutment, or he steps in front of a truck ata street intersection. I drove into a gully in a storm."
"All this would imply that the tape library is loaded with geneticprograms that contain basic defects!" said Fenwick.
Baker hesitated. "That's not quite true," he said finally. "The libraryof molecular tapes does contain a great many false solutions. But theyare false not so much because they are defective as because they areobsolete. All of them worked at one time, under some set ofcircumstances, however briefly. Those times and circumstances may havevanished long since."
"Then why are they chosen? Why aren't they simply passed over?"
"Because the individual organism lacks adequate data for evaluating theavailable programs. In addition, information may be presented to himwhich says these obsolete programs are just the ones to use."
Fenwick leaned against the bed and shook his head. "How could a crazything like that come about?"
"Cultures become diseased," said Baker. "Sparta was such a one inancient times. A more psychotic culture has scarcely existed anywhere,yet Sparta prevailed for generations. Ancient Rome is another example.The Age of Chivalry. Each of these cultures was afflicted with adifferent disease.
"These diseases are epidemic. Individuals are infected before theyemerge from the womb. In the Age of Chivalry this cultural disease heldout the data that the best life program was based on the concept ofHonor. Honor that could be challenged by a mistaken
glance, anaccidental touch in a crowd. Honor that had to be defended at theexpense of life itself.
"Pure insanity. Yet how long did it persist?"
"And our culture?" said Fenwick. "There is such a sickness in ourtimes?"
* * * * *
Baker nodded. "There's a disease in our times. A cultural disease youmight call the Great Gray Plague. It is a disease which premises thatsafety, security, and effectiveness in dealing with the world may beobtained by agreement with the highest existing Authority.
"This premise was valid in the days when disobedience to the Head Manmeant getting lost in a bog or eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Today itis more than obsolete. It is among the most vicious sicknesses that haveever infected any culture."
"And you were sick with it."
"I was sick with it. You remember I said a molecular program is chosenpartly on the basis of data presented by parental sources and the spearsof invasion from the external world. This data that came to me from bothsources said that I could deal with the world by yielding to Authority,by surrounding myself with it as with a shell. It would protect me. Iwould have stature. My world-problems would be solved if I chose thispattern.
"I chose it well. In our culture there are two areas of Authority, onein government, one in science. I covered myself both ways. I became aGovernment Science Administrator. You just don't get any moreauthoritative than that in our day and time!"
"But not everyone employs this as a basic premise!" exclaimed Fenwick.
"No--not everyone, fortunately. In that, may be our salvation. In alltimes there have been a few infected individuals--Pope Urban, forexample. But in his time the culture was throwing off such ills and wassurging forward under the impetus of men like Galileo.
"In our own time we are on the other end of the stick. We are justbeginning to sink into this plague; it has existed in epidemic form onlya few short decades. But look how it has spread! Our civil institutions,always weak to such infection, have almost completely succumbed. Oureducational centers are equally sick. Approach them with a new idea andno Ph. D. and see what happens. Remember the Greek elevator engineer whodid that a few years ago? He battered his way in by sheer force. It wasthe only way. He became a nuclear scientist. But for every one of hiskind a thousand others are defeated by the Plague."
Fenwick was grinning broadly. He suddenly laughed aloud. "You must becrazy in the head, Bill. You sound just like me!"
Baker smiled faintly. "You are one of the lucky ones. You and Jim. Ithasn't hit you. And there are plenty of others like you. But they aredefeated by the powerful ones in authority, who have been infected.
"It's less than fifty years since it hit us. It may have five hundredyears to run. I think we'll be wiped out by it before then. There mustbe something that can be done, some way to stamp it out."
"Well," said Fenwick. "You could give Clearwater enough to get us on ourfeet and running. That would be a start in the right direction."
"An excellent start," said Baker. "The only trouble is you asked forless than half of what you need. As soon as I get back to the office agrant for what you need will be on its way."
* * * * *
William Baker stayed in the hospital two more days. Apart from hisfamily, he asked that no visitors be admitted. He felt as if he were anew-born infant, facing the world with the knowledge of a man--butinnocent of experience.
He remembered the days before the accident. He remembered how he dealtwith the world in those days. But the methods used then were asimpossible to him now as if he were paralyzed. The new methods, found inthat bright portal to which Sam Atkins had helped guide him, wereuntried. He knew they were right. But he had never used them.
He found it difficult to define the postulates he had chosen. The morehe struggled to identify them, the more elusive they seemed to become.When he gave up the struggle he found the answer. He had chosen aprogram that held no fixed postulates. It was based on a decision toface the world as it came.
He was not entirely sure what this meant. The age-old genetic wisdom wasstill available to guide him. But he was committed to no set path. Freshdecisions would be required at every turn.
A single shot of vaccine could not stem an epidemic. His immunity to thesickness of his culture could not immunize the entire populace. Yet, hefelt there was something he could do. He was just not sure what it was.
What could a single man do? In other times, a lone man had been enoughto overturn an age. But William Baker did not feel such heroicconfidence in his own capacity.
He was not alone, however. There were the John Fenwicks and the JimEllerbees who were immune to the great Plague. It was just that WilliamBaker was probably the only man in the world who had ever been infectedso completely and then rendered immune. That gave him a look at bothsides of the fence, which was an advantage no one else shared.
There was something that stuck in his mind, something that Sam Atkinshad said that night when Baker had been reborn. He couldn't understandit. Sam Atkins had said of the molecular program tape that had beenbroken: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you become Authority.
The last thing in the whole world William Baker wanted now was to beAuthority. But the thought would not leave his mind. Sam Atkins did notsay things that had no meaning.
* * * * *
Baker's return to the office of NBSD was an occasion for outpouring ofthe professional affection which his staff had always tendered him. Heknew that there had been a time when this had given him a great deal ofsatisfaction. He remembered that fiftieth birthday party.
Looking back, it seemed as if all that must have happened to some otherman. He felt like a double of himself, taking over positions andprerogatives in which he was a complete impostor.
This was going to be harder than he had anticipated, he thought.
Pehrson especially, it appeared, was going to be difficult. Theadministrative assistant came into the office almost as soon as Bakerwas seated at his desk. "It's very good to have you back," said Pehrson."I think we've managed to keep things running while you've been gone,however. We have rejected approximately one hundred applications duringthe past week."
Baker grunted. "And how many have you approved?"
"Approval would have had to await your signature, of course."
"O.K., how many are awaiting my signature?"
"It has been impossible to find a single one which had a high enoughIndex to warrant your consideration."
"I see," said Baker. "So you've taken care of the usual routine withoutany help from me?"
"Yes," said Pehrson.
"There's one grant left over from before I was absent. We must get thatout of the way as quickly as possible."
"I don't recall any that were pending--" said Pehrson in apology.
"Clearwater College. Get me the file, will you?"
Pehrson didn't know for sure whether the chief was joking or not. Helooked completely serious. Pehrson felt sick at the sudden thought thatthe accident may have so injured the chief's mind that he was actuallyserious.
He sparred. "The Clearwater College file?"
"That's what I said. Bring a set of approval forms, too."
Pehrson managed to get out with a placid mask on his face, but it brokeas soon as he reached the safety of his own office. It wasn't possiblethat Baker was serious! The check that went out that afternoon convincedhim it was so.
When Pehrson left the office, Baker got up and sauntered to the window,looking out over the smoke-gray buildings of Washington. The Index, hesmiled, remembering it. Five years he and Pehrson had worked on that. Ithad seemed like quite a monumental achievement when they considered itfinished. It had never been really finished, of course. Continuousadditions and modifications were being made. But they had been veryproud of it.
Baker wondered now, however, if they had not been very shortsighted intheir application of the Index. He sensed, stirri
ng in the back of hismind, not fully defined, possibilities that had never appeared to himbefore.
His speculations were interrupted by Doris. She spoke on the interphone,still in the sweetly sympathetic tone she had adopted for her greetingsthat morning. Baker suspected this would last at least a full week.
* * * * *
"Dr. Wily is on the phone. He would like to know if you'd mind hiscoming in this afternoon. Shall I make an appointment or would yourather postpone these interviews for a few days? Dr. Wily wouldunderstand, of course."
"Tell him to come on up whenever he's ready," said Baker. "I'm not doingmuch today."
President George H. Wily, Ph. D., D.Sc., of Great Eastern University.Wily was one of his best customers.
Baker guessed that he had given Wily somewhere around twelve or thirteenmillion dollars over the past decade. He didn't know exactly what Wilyhad done with all of it, but one didn't question Great Eastern's use ofits funds. Certainly only the most benevolent use would be made of themoney.
Baker reflected on his associations with Wily. His satisfaction had beenunmeasurable in those exquisite moments when he had had the pleasure ofhanding Wily a check for two or three million dollars at a time. Inturn, Wily had invited him to the great, commemorative banquets of GreatEastern. He had presented Baker to the Alumni and extolled themagnificent work Baker was doing in the advancement of the cause ofScience. It had been a very pleasant association for both of them.
The door opened and Doris ushered Wily into the room. He came forwardwith outstretched