Mack Reynolds: Dawnman Planet

The aged scholar was still shaking his head. “Perhaps the voice we just heard came from those who think of themselves as intelligent; but if it’s gone through two mega-years of this culture, it must live by pure ritual, too. Because its rituals are somewhat different and more complex than the lower castes’, it possibly believes it isn’t a pre-programmed mechanism.”

“I’m not sure I get what you’re driving at,” Ronny muttered.

Fitzjames was feeling it out, even as he talked. “One of the early problems of the cybernetic researchers was the fact that—to be intelligent, an entity must be capable of inconsistent behavior. But that means not to be logically predictable. This brings the frustration that an intelligent-inconsistent machine—which would be capable of exercising judgment—cannot be reliable in the sense of predictable. That is, the closer they come to a truly intelligent cybernetic device, the more it approaches the unreliable performance of a living organism.”

The Baron shifted in his chair, as though not following. He had remained silent, in shock, since the revelation of the end of his ambition, his dream… his very world.

Fitzjames turned his full attention to Ronny. “Ants are very reliable living organisms, an entymologist can predict exactly what a particular ant of a particular type will do. It’s genetically pre-programmed. The voice we just heard is a part also of a genetically pre-programmed system; it must be just as reliable and, therefore, invariable as the lower castes. An anthill, termitarium, or beehive is a true totalitarian state—and in a true totalitarian state, the Führer, Dictator, Caesar, or whatever, is just as much controlled by the rituals and taboos as every other member of the state. This Dawnworld culture would not have been stable for such a period, if its Brahmins had not been just as rigidly unintelligent as every other entity in the system.”

He shook his head once again, an element of despair in the movement. “I am afraid we can look for no hope of eventual understanding between our cultures to these supposed intelligent elements in the Dawnworlds.”

The two Section G agents, Rita Daniels, and Lieutenant Takashi moved from the Pisa to the Baron Wyler’s space yacht for the trip in return to United Planets.

For the first few days there was little communication between them. No desire for words. There was a pervading atmosphere of mental lassitude, ennui.

It was toward the end of this period that Ronny Bronston found himself alone in the lounge with Rita Daniels. They had not been avoiding each other, it was just that they had failed to contact.

He brought her a drink from the bar and one for himself.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

She looked at him thoughtfully. “I suppose I’ll stick with Uncle Max. He… he needs someone now.”

“The last member of the team, eh?”

She looked to see if there was bitterness in his face, but it was neutral.

“I suppose so,” she said. “I believe Count Fitzjames plans to offer his services to the Octagon. After all, he is the nearest thing to an authority we have on the Dawnworlds.”

Ronny said, “Don’t worry about your uncle. The Wylers in life make out all right. Through his power hunger, in one fell swoop, he was the cause of the deaths of more people than Ghengis Kahn, Tamerlane, Stalin and Hitler all rolled into an unhappy one. But he’ll make out.”

She said lowly, “You hate my uncle, don’t you?”

He shook his head at her. “I don’t hate anyone. I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that the more you learn about the workings of individuals, cultures and even the ultimate destiny of the species, the less possible is it to hate anybody. As I recall, you were particularly interested in the ultimate destiny of the race.”

“I was” she said wryly. “Now, I’m not so sure about it.”

After all reports were through, Ronny Bronston came to his feet and reached in his pocket for his wallet. He tossed it to the desk of Ross Metaxa.

“My badge,” he said.

Metaxa and Sid Jakes looked at him.

The Commissioner of Section G said, “What are you going to do?”

“First, I’m going to ask a girl I’ve met recently to marry me. Then I’m going to migrate to Shangri-La. You can turn over to United Planets the job of spreading the warning against bothering the Dawnworlds.”

Sid Jakes chuckled. “Shangri-La? What’s there, my disillusioned friend?”

“The hedonistic ethic.”

“Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“Great,” Metaxa growled. “But it’s hardly a teaching to be followed by a whole species.”

“Oh,” Ronny said. “Why not? But what I do know is that the purpose of Section G is gone. The pressing need to hurry man toward his final destiny no longer appeals to me. I have seen his final destiny, and it has little appeal.”

Ross Metaxa, moist of eye as always as though from too little sleep or too much alcohol, looked at him wearily. “You haven’t thought this Dawnworld threat through to its conclusion, Ronny.”

His resigning agent grunted amusement. “There is no threat. We leave them alone, they leave us alone.”

The Section G head grunted contempt of that opinion.

“Do you know the legal doctrine of the attractive nuisance ? Swimming pools are classified as ‘attractive nuisances,’ for instance. It’s a legal doctrine based on the proposition that something like a swimming pool is a natural, inevitable attraction to small children—children, who simply aren’t old enough to be competent to take care of themselves; and who aren’t old enough, either, to be wise enough to realize they can’t. Children simply can’t be fenced in at all times, so they can’t wander into neighborhood swimming pools and drown. So the ‘attractive nuisance’ laws make the owner of the swimming pool liable, which forces the pool owner to put a fence around the pool, instead of saying—all the children in the neighborhood should have fences built around them.

“As I recall, the classic case that started that legislation rolling was a company, in the old days, that had a beautiful 75 x 125 foot concrete-lined pool on company property. One weekend, when operations were shut down, some kids sneaked onto the company land and dove in. The first two were in before they discovered that it was the company’s sulfuric acid storage vat.”

Ronny was getting the point.

Metaxa said, “More than one of the member planets of United Planets are in the ‘children’ category. Some of them will have populations with hysterical reactions to the existence of our passive-but-appallingly-deadly-threat Dawn-worlds. They’ll want to provoke war. Then there’ll be, inevitably, the crooks who want to steal some of those magnificent gadgets, that magnificent science. Baron Wyler was an example. There’ll probably even be religious cranks, who’ll want to send missionaries.”

Ronny said, “So we still need a Section G, to act as a fence around this ‘attractive nuisance.’ Is that your point?”

Ross Metaxa growled, “You once asked me if you’d been conned into joining Section G. The answer was, ‘yes.’ It also would have been ‘yes,’ if you’d asked the question about Sid, here—or, about myself, for that matter. The job’s to be done, we have to take what measures we must to do it. The question is asked, ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ ” He looked deeply into the other’s eyes. “The answer, Ronny, is ‘yes.’

Sid Jakes chuckled. “Meaning, of course, that a keeper is one who cares for and controls the actions of one who is incompetent, irresponsible or insane.”