Arthur Clarke - The Last Theorem

In order to try to answer that, the standing orders were refreshed and restored to visibility, and studied by all. The experts in communications between the Nine-Limbeds and the Grand Galactics meditated for prolonged periods before issuing an opinion. Since they had been trained from whelping to understand every nuance of every instruction ever handed down by the Grand Galactics, their opinions were listened to attentively, and their findings were nearly unanimous.

Expressed in the sort of terms a human lawyer might use, they were these: The Grand Galactics had flatly forbidden the Nine-Limbeds to enter into communication with the rogue race of humans. They had not, however, ordered them to take any care to see that humans didn’t suspect their presence.

Accordingly, the experts reasoned that the Grand Galactics could not in justice punish the Nine-Limbeds very severely for what they had done. And, the experts concurred, the record was clear that the Grand Galactics did have some concept of justice, or of something somewhat like it. So they might reprimand. They might even punish. But it was highly unlikely that they would respond by exterminating the entire Nine-Limbed race.

Other client races of the Grand Galactics wouldn’t ever have taken that sort of chance in the first place. The One Point Fives wouldn’t have. Neither would the Machine-Stored. Not one of the Grand Galactics’ subject races had that keen a sense of humor, nor had ever dared such a transgression. Up until that point, that is.

The Nile waters might never threaten the world’s peace again, because both Egypt and Kenya passed the Pax per Fidem vote with resounding margins. Even before Pax’s peacekeepers were in place, teams of Kenyan hydrologists had begun setting up shop in the control buildings around the Aswân High Dam, and both countries had opened their (rather puny) missile sites to international control. Transparency of their heavy industry, such as it was, followed quickly.

They were not the last, either. The four countries in sub-Saharan Africa that had been contesting the waters of one medium-size lake saw what became of the one of their number that had sent a force to drive the other three away. When that one—properly warned, heedless of the warning—tasted Silent Thunder for itself, all three of the others joined the first in the contract.

And then there was a major breakthrough.

The Republic of Germany debated and argued and finally held a giant plebiscite of its own. Their terrible national memories of huge and violent lost battles trumped that sometimes troublesome German sense of destiny. They, too, signed up. They threw their borders open to the United Nations, disbanded the token armed forces they had retained, and signed on to Pax per Fidem’s draft constitution for the world.

Those were times for rejoicing for the people of planet Earth.

There were only two things that dampened the joys of, say, the Subramanian family. The first was the one they shared with the whole human race, namely, those pesky little apparitions that kept showing themselves—in cities at night, in the air above seagoing vessels in broad daylight, even—perhaps like young Robert’s “fish”—in space. Some people called them “bronzed bananas,” some “flying midget submarines,” some by names a lot less printable. What no one knew was exactly what they were. The devout UFO-ologists called them the final proof that flying saucers were real. The hardened skeptics suspected that one or more of Earth’s sovereign states was developing a mystery weapon unlike anything that had gone before.

What everyone agreed on, however, was that none of these objects had done any human being any detectable harm. So comedians began joking about them, and human beings have never been able to be very afraid of things they laugh at.

But for the Subramanian family, at least, there was this one other thing.

Earlier than most, little Robert had begun walking on his own, but since they’d come back from the moon, his parents had noticed something odd. The whole family would be enjoying that happy playtime between baths and bed. Little Robert would let go of his mother’s knee to wander over to where his big sister was coaxing him on. And then sometimes, without warning, Robert would drop in his tracks. Would fall like a sack of potatoes, and lie there, eyes closed, for just a moment. And then the eyes would open and he would scramble precariously to his feet and, grinning and murmuring to himself as always, head for where Natasha waited.

This was new… and frightening.

These little episodes didn’t seem to bother Robert. He didn’t even seem to notice that they happened. But then, another time, it would happen again. And again.

That was the place where there was a blemish on the otherwise nearly ideal happiness of Myra and Ranjit.

They weren’t exactly worried, because Robert was so conspicuously healthy in every other respect. But they were concerned. They were feeling guilty, or at least Ranjit was, because he was the one who had let Robert escape the secure chamber when they were already entering the upper Van Allen. And who knew if there had been enough of the wrong kind of radiation to do the child harm?

Myra didn’t believe that for one second, but she saw the worry in her husband’s eyes. They decided to seek medical help.

So they got the best and most experienced there was, and a lot of it, too. Everywhere he and Myra took their son, Ranjit’s fame was on their side. The member of the medical staff who came out to greet them was never some thirty-or-so-year-old, fresh out of medical school (and thus freshly exposed to the very latest in medical lore). It was some sixty-or-so-year-old, rich with the skills of an earlier generation and now at least a department head. All of them were honored to have the famous Dr. Ranjit Subramanian come to their facility—hospital, clinic, laboratory, whatever—and all had the same dismal tidings to offer.

Robert was in almost every aspect a healthy child. Every aspect, that was, but one. Somewhere along the line something had gone wrong. “The brain is a very complex organ,” they all said—or meant, although several of them found other ways to phrase the same bad news. There could have been an unsuspected allergy, a birth injury, an undetected infection. And then the next thing they all said was pretty much the same. There wasn’t any medicine, or surgical procedure, or anything else that could make Robert “normal,” because the one thing all their tests had agreed on was that the son of Ranjit Subramanian and Myra de Soyza had regressed. And now was developing intellectually somewhat more slowly than one would have expected.

By then the Subramanians had worked their way through a long list of specialists. It was one of those, a pediatric speech-language pathologist, who struck fear into the hearts of Robert’s parents. “Robert has begun dropping consonants—‘’athroom’ and ‘’inner,’ for instance,” she reported. “And have you noticed whether he talks the same way to you as to his play group?” Both his parents nodded. “By now most children modify their speech patterns according to whomever they’re talking to. For one of you it might be ‘give me that,’ for another child ‘gimme ’at.’ And what about comprehensibility? I imagine you can understand what he’s saying, but how about friends or relatives?”

“Not always,” Ranjit admitted.

Myra corrected him. “Not usually,” she said. “It upsets Robert sometimes, too. But isn’t there any chance he’ll outgrow it?”

“Oh, yes,” the pathologist said decisively. “Albert Einstein didn’t talk even that well as a child. But it’s something we need to watch carefully.”