Mack Reynolds - Code Duello

Zorro said to Helen, “Look. You better get off my lap.”

“Why, Uncle Zorro, whyever for?” She looked into his face, in childish innocence.

“Get off my lap, you little witch. Maybe to that burro Brinker you look like a little girl, but I know better.”

Jerry said, “Hey, Helen, you can sit on my lap if you want.”

She snorted at him, even as she jumped to the floor. She went over to where Jerry was setting up the board again and stood there, her tiny fists on her hips.

“How’d you do that?” she demanded.

“Do what?”

“Twice, when he had you clobbered, right when you didn’t have a move to your name, all the pieces fell off.”

“Just luck, I guess.”

“Just luck my foot.” She hopped up on the chair the Second Officer had vacated. “Listen, how do you explain it?”

He put down the pawn he had in his hand and thought about that. “Well, I have one theory.”

Horsten looked up from his tape. “I’d like to hear it.”

Zorro said, “Me too.”

Jerry said, “Well, it’s just luck.”

The other three grunted in unison.

Helen sneered at him. “Oh, great. Now we understand the whole thing. However, when we sit down to eat, all the steaks are tough except yours. How come?”

“Luck,” Jerry said, his face serious.

Helen snorted disgust.

“No, I mean it,” he insisted. “There is luck, you know. Some people are luckier than others.”

Dorn Horsten pushed his pince-nez glasses back higher on the bridge of his nose and said, “As a scientist, I have never seen data on the hypothesis.”

Jerry Rhodes fished a coin from his pocket. “You’ve heard of the Laws of Chance?”

“So-called.” Horsten nodded.

“All right. Now suppose I flip this coin of mine a hundred men flipping coins. Out of them, some will—

Zorro, his dark, handsome face interested, supplied the answer. “It comes up fifty times heads and fifty times tails, by the Laws of Chance.”

“On an average ,” Jerry said. “But suppose you have a hundred men flipping coins. Out of them, some will,, flip, say, forty-five heads and fifty-five tails. That doesn’t conflict with averages, since some of the others, say will come up with forty-five tails and fifty-five heads. The Laws of Chance are still working.”

“What are you getting at?” Helen demanded.

Jerry went on, a sort of dogged element in his argument. “Suppose, instead of a hundred men flipping coins, you have a billion men. Okay, now still not upsetting the Laws of Chance, you might well come up with a few of them flipping one hundred straight heads, and no tails at all. It would be balanced, of course, by others doing the exact opposite.”

He looked around at them. “You see what I’m driving at?”

“No,” Helen said flatly.

“Well,” Jerry said. “That’s how it is with luck. Most people average out. That is, good and bad luck balance for them. One day, they’re lucky and find a valuable ring, or win at the races, or whatever. The next day, they lose something or have a setback of some type. It all averages out. Good luck and bad.”

Dorn Horsten was scowling at him. “Go on.”

“Well, it’s like flipping the coins. The Laws of Chance aren’t disturbed by the fact that some people are luckier than others. You know very well, from your own experience, that some people go through life as though the road had been paved to their particular specifications. Another has such lousy luck that he’ll break his arm picking his nose.”

Zorro laughed sourly at that.

Helen said, “Okay, what’s all this got to do with you?”

Jerry held up his two hands as though all was explained. “There are more than a trillion persons now living on some three thousand United Planets worlds. It all averages out, but some have good luck, some have bad luck. In that whole number is the one person who has the best luck of all.”

They looked at him.

“Me.”

Dom Horsten slumped back into his chair, a wry expression on his face.

Helen snarled in disgust, “Yeah, but it could switch at any time, and you’d start flipping tails, you silly jerk.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m lucky.”

Zorro cleared his throat. “Look,” he said. “Not to change the subject, but now we’re alone I’d like to bring up something.”

“Please do,” Helen said, looking her disgust at Jerry Rhodes, who shrugged apologetically.

Zorro Juarez said, “This is my first assignment for Section G and Supervisor Lee Chang Chu has sent me out on it before I got a lot of the orientation agents usually have. I know our department is awfully hush-hush, but, purely in the name of effectiveness on my part, I think I ought to be checked out on a couple of points.”

“Such as what, Zorro?” Horsten said.

“Well, what’s all this about the Dawnworld planets? I know that the raison detre of Section G is to spur progress on all the member worlds of United Planets, so that when the human race finally confronts intelligent alien life—if ever—it will be as strong as possible.”

“Well, that’s it, friend,” Helen told him, her voice dead serious. “The time has come. We’re confronting it And, frankly, the race isn’t ready.”

Zorro scowled at her. “You mean these Dawnworld planets I’ve heard rumors about support an intelligent alien life form?”

“Not exactly,” Horsten said. “You’re wrong on two counts, or, at least, Helen is. One, we’re not confronting them. We’re desperately avoiding them. We’re not ready even to attempt communication. They’re so pathetically in advance of our technology that our scientists boggle. For instance, they have fusion reactors, in short, unlimited power. They also have matter converters. They can, literally, convert any form of matter into any other form they wish.” He dropped the bombshell. “However, the term intelligent-alien-life-form does not apply. Evidently they aren’t intelligent.”

Zorro bug-eyed him.

The doctor shook his head. “I reacted the same way, when Sid Jakes revealed the existence of the Dawn-worlds to me. However, given enough time even a very low level mentality could develop an advanced technology. For that matter, some life forms do fantastically well with no intelligence at all—as we know it. Take the Earth insect, the ant. They accomplish wonderful engineering feats, they milk their own type cattle, they store up provisions for the future, they conduct military actions; I could go on. But is the individual ant intelligent?”

The younger man was shaking his head. “But matter converters…”

Dorn Horsten shrugged. “There’s another possible explanation. On his way toward Utopia, man needed intelligence. He needed it in the caves to survive, he needed it in the days of early breakthroughs such as fire, agriculture, the domestication of animals. He needed it all through such socioeconomic systems as primitive communism, chattel slavery, feudalism, capitalism. The race was escaping from the bonds of nature, trying to achieve food, clothing, shelter and the other necessities, and finally the luxuries, for all. But when Utopia is achieved? When we have matter converters and unlimited power? Ah, then possibly the need changes. Intelligence might even become a disadvantage. The gifted are inclined to rock the boat, and, given Utopia, the average man, the ungifted, doesn’t want the boat rocked.”

Jerry Rhodes said, “I see what you mean. They could attempt to breed the gifted out of the race.”

“That’s one possible explanation.” Horsten shrugged. “However, whatever the explanation, there the Dawn-men are. And far, far in advance of the human race.”

Zorro puzzled along with it. “If they’re not intelligent, a really sharp human should be able to take them.”