Danchekker gazed for a long time at the two solid images being displayed side by side in a laboratory in Thurien. They were highly magnified reproductions of a pair of organic cells obtained from a species of bottom-dwelling worm from an ocean on one of the Ganymean worlds, and showed the internal structures color-enhanced for easy identification of the nuclei and other components. Eventually he shook his head and looked up. "I’m afraid I am obliged to concede defeat. They both appear identical to me. And you are saying that one of them does not belong to this species at all?" He sounded incredulous.
Shilohin smiled from a short distance behind him. "The one on the left is a single-cell microorganism that contains enzymes programmed to dismantle the DNA of its own nucleus and reassemble the pieces into a copy of the host organism’s DNA," she said. "When that process is complete, the whole structure is rapidly transformed into a duplicate of whatever type of cell the parasite happens to be residing in. From then on the parasite has literally become a part of the host, indistinguishable from the host’s own naturally produced cells and therefore immune to its antibodies and rejection mechanisms. It evolved on a planet subject to intense ultraviolet radiation from a fairly hot, blue star, probably from a cell-repair mechanism that stabilized the species against extreme mutation. As far as we know it’s a unique adaptation. I thought you’d be interested in seeing it."
"Extraordinary," Danchekker murmured. He walked across to the device of gleaming metal and glass from which the data to generate the image originated, and stooped to peer into the tiny chamber containing the tissue sample. "I would be most interested in conducting some experiments of my own on this organism when I get back. Er. . . . do you think the Thuriens might let me take a sample of it?"
Shulohin laughed. "I’m sure you’d be welcome to, Professor, but how do you propose carrying it back to Houston? You’re forgetting that you’re not really here."
"Tch! Stupid of me." Danchekker shook his head and stepped back to gaze at the apparatus around them, the function of most of which he still failed to comprehend. "So much to learn," he murmured half to himself. "So much to learn. . ." He thought for a while, and his expression changed to a frown. Eventually he turned to face Shilohin again. "There’s something about this whole Thurien civilization that has been puzzling me. I wonder if you can help."
"I’ll try. What’s the problem?"
Danchekker sighed. "Well. . . . I don’t know. . . . after twenty-five million years, it should be even more advanced than it is, I would have thought. It is far ahead of Earth, to be sure, but I can’t see Earth requiring anywhere near that amount of time to reach a level comparable to Thurien’s today. It seems . . . strange."
"The same thought occurred to me," Shilohin said. "I talked to Eesyan about it."
"Did he offer a reason?"
"Yes." Shilohin paused for a long time while Danchekker looked at her curiously. Then she said, "The civilization of Thurien came to a halt for a very long time. Paradoxically it was as a result of its advanced sciences."
Danchekker blinked uncertainly through his spectacles. "How could that be?"
"You have studied Ganymean genetic-engineering techniques extensively," Shilohin replied. "After the migration to Thurien, they were taken even further."
"I’m not sure I see the connection."
"The Thuriens perfected a capability that they had been dreaming of for generations—the ability to program their own genes to offset the effects of bodily aging and wasting. . . indefinitely."
A moment or two went by before Danchekker grasped what she was saying. Then he gasped. "Do you mean immortality?"
"Exactly. For a long time it seemed that Utopia had been achieved."
"Seemed?"
"Not all the consequences were foreseen. After a while all their progress, their innovation, and their creativity ceased. The Thuriens became too wise and knew too much. In particular they knew all the reasons why things were impossible and why nothing more could be achieved."
"You mean they ceased to dream." Danchekker shook his head sadly. "How unfortunate. Everything that we take for granted began with somebody dreaming of something that couldn’t be done."
Shilohin nodded. "And in the past it had always been the younger generations, too naive and inexperienced to recognize the impossible when they saw it, who had been foolish enough to make the attempt. It was surprising how often they succeeded. But now, of course, there were no more younger generations."
Danchekker was nodding slowly as he listened. "They turned into a society of mental geriatrics."
"Exactly. And when they realized what was happening, they went back to the old ways. But their civilization had stagnated for a very long time, and as a result most of their spectacular breakthroughs have occurred only comparatively recently. The instant-transfer technology was developed barely in time for them to be able to intervene at the end of the Lunarian war. And things like the h-space power-distribution grid, direct neural coupling into machines, and, eventually, VISAR came much later."
"I can imagine the problem," Danchekker murmured absently. "People complain that life is too short for the things they want to do, but without that restriction perhaps they would never do anything. The pressure of finite time is surely the greatest motivator. I’ve often suspected that if the dream of immortality were ever realized, the outcome would be something like that."
"Well, if the Thuriens’ experience was anything to go by, you were right," Shilohin told him.
They talked about the Thuriens for a while longer, and then Shilohin had to return to the Shapieron for a meeting with Garuth and Monchar. Danchekker remained in the laboratory to observe some more examples of Thurien biological science presented by VISAR. After spending some time at this he decided he would like to discuss some of what he had seen with Hunt while the details were fresh in his mind, and asked VISAR if Hunt was currently coupled into the system.
"No, he’s not," VISAR informed him. "He boarded a plane that took off from McClusky about fifteen minutes ago. If you want, I could put you through to the control room there."
"Oh, er. . . . yes, if you would," Danchekker said.
An image of a communications screen appeared in midair a couple of feet in front of Danchekker’s face, framing the features of the duty controller at McClusky. "Hello, Professor," the controller acknowledged. "What can I do for you?"
"VISAR just told me that Vic has left for somewhere," Danchekker replied. "I wondered what was happening."
"He left a message for you saying he’s gone to Houston for the morning. It doesn’t go into any details, though."
"Is that Chris Danchekker? Let me talk to him." Karen Heller’s voice sounded distantly from somewhere in the background. A few seconds later the controller moved off one side of the screen, and she came into view. "Hello, Professor. Vic got fed up waiting for Lyn to get back from Washington with some news, so he called Houston. Gregg is back there, but Lyn isn’t. Vic’s gone to find out what’s going on. That’s really about all I can tell you."
"Oh, I see," Danchekker said. "How strange."
"There was something else that I wanted to talk to you about," Heller went on. "I’ve been doing a lot of looking into some parts of Lunarian history with Calazar and Showm, and it’s becoming rather interesting. We’ve some questions I’d like your answers to. How soon do you think you’ll be back?"
Danchekker muttered under his breath and looked wistfully around the Ganymean laboratory, then realized that he was getting signals through VISAR that his body was getting hungry again. "Actually I’ll be coming back now," he replied. "Perhaps I could talk to you in the canteen, ten minutes from now, say?"
"I’ll see you there," Heller agreed and disappeared with the image of the screen.
Ten minutes later Danchekker was heartily demolishing a plate of bacon, eggs, sausage, and hash browns at McClusky while Heller talked over a sandwich from the opposite side of the table. Most of the UNSA people were busy refitting one of the other buildings to afford more permanent storage facilities, and apart from some clatterings and bangings from the adjoining kitchen there were no signs of life in their immediate vicinity.
"We’ve been analyzing the rates of development of the Lunarian civilization and Earth’s," she said. "The difference is staggering. They were into steam power and machines in a matter of a few thousand years after starting to use stone tools. We took something like ten times as long. Why do you think that was?"
Danchekker frowned while he finished chewing. "I thought that the factors responsible for the accelerated advancement of the Lunarians were already quite obvious," he replied. "For one thing, they were closer chronologically to the original Ganymean genetic experiments. Therefore they possessed a greater genetic instability, and with it a tendency to a more extreme form of mutation. The sudden emergence of the Lambians is doubtless a case in point."
"I’m not convinced that it explains it," Heller replied slowly. "You’ve said yourself a few times that tens of thousands of years isn’t enough to make a lot of difference. I got VISAR to do some calculations based on human genetic data that ZORAC acquired when the Shapieron was on Earth. The results seem to bear it out. And the pattern was already established long before the Lambians appeared. That was only two hundred years before the war."
Danchekker sniffed as he buttered a piece of toast. Politicians had no business playing at being scientists. "The Lunarians would have found a profusion of remnants of the earlier Ganymean civilization on Minerva," he suggested. "The knowledge gained from sources of that nature gave them a flying start over Earth."
"But the Cerians who came to Earth were from a civilization that was already advanced," Heller pointed out. "So that balances. What else made the difference?"
Danchekker wrinkled his nose up and scowled. Female politicians playing at being scientists were intolerable. "The Lunarian culture developed during the deteriorating environmental conditions of the approaching Ice Age," he said. "That provided additional pressures."
"The Ice Age was here when the Cerians arrived, and it lasted for a long time afterward," Heller reminded him. "So that balances too. So again—what caused the difference?"
Danchekker stabbed his fork into his meal in a show of exasperation. "If you wish to doubt my word as a biologist and an anthropologist, you have of course every right to do so, madam," he said airily. "For my part, I see no justification whatsoever for elaborating any hypothesis beyond the simple minimum required to account for the facts. And what we already know is perfectly adequate for that purpose."
Heller seemed to have been expecting something like that, and didn’t react. "Maybe you’re thinking too much like a biologist," she suggested. "Try looking at it from a sociological angle, and asking the question the other way around."
Danchekker’s expression said that there couldn’t be any other way around. "What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Instead of telling me what speeded the Lunarians up, try asking what slowed Earth down."
Danchekker stared darkly down at his plate for a few seconds, then raised his head and showed his teeth. "The upheavals caused by the Moon’s capture," he pronounced.
Hdller looked at him in open disbelief. "And regressed them to a point that needed tens of thousands of years to recover from? No way! A few centuries at the most, maybe, but not that much. I couldn’t buy it. Neither could Showm. Neither could Calazar."
"I see." Danchekker looked a bit taken aback. He attacked his bacon in silence for a while and then said, "And what alternative explanation, if any, are you offering, might I ask?"
"Something you haven’t mentioned so far," Heller answered. "The Lunarians developed rational, scientific thinking early on, and relied on it totally from the beginnings of their civilization. By contrast Earth went off into thousands of years of believing that magic, mysticism, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy would solve its problems. It only started to change comparatively recently, and even today there’s still a lot of that around. We got VISAR to estimate the effects, and it eclipses all the other factors put together. That’s what caused the difference!"
Danchekker thought about it for a while, then replied a trifle grudgingly, "Very well." He thrust his chin out defensively. "But I fail to see the need for any melodramatic suggestion that it poses a different question. It’s as valid to argue that the early adoption of rational methods accelerated one race as it is to say that its absence retarded the other. What point are you making?"
"I’ve been thinking a lot about it since I talked to Calazar and Showm, and asking what the reason was. Vic says everything has to have a reason, even if it takes some digging to find it. So what would the reason be for a whole planet clinging obstinately to a lot of nonsense and superstitions for thousands of years when even a little bit of observation and common sense should have shown it doesn’t work?"
"I think perhaps you underestimate the complexities of scientific method," Danchekker told her. "It takes centuries—scores of generations to evolve the techniques necessary to distinguish reliably between facts and fallacies, and truth and myth. Certainly it couldn’t happen overnight. What else did you expect?"
"So why didn’t that stop the Lunarians?"
"I have no idea. Have you?"
"That was the question I was leading up to." Heller leaned forward to look at him intently across the table. "What do you think of this for a suggestion: The reason that belief in myths and magic became so deeply rooted in Earth’s cultures and persisted for so long could be that, in the earliest stage of our first civilizations, it did work?"
Danchekker gagged over the mouthful of food that he had been about to swallow and colored visibly. "What? That’s preposterous! Are you suggesting that the laws of physics that dictate the running of the Universe could have changed in the last few thousand years?"
"No, I’m not. All I’m—"
"I’ve never heard such an absurd suggestion. This whole matter is already complicated enough without introducing attempts to explain it by astrology, ESP, or whatever other inanities you have in mind." Danchekker looked about him impatiently and sighed. "Really, it would take far too long to explain why if you are unable to distinguish between science and the banalities dispensed in adolescent magazines. Just take my word that you are wasting your time. . . . mine too, I might add."
Heller maintained her calm with some effort. "I am not suggesting anything of the kind." An edge of strain had crept into her voice. "Kindly listen for two minutes." Danchekker said nothing and eyed her dubiously across the table as he continued eating. She went on, "Think about this scenario. The Jevlenese have never forgotten that they’re Lambians, and we’re Cerians. They still see Earth as a rival and always have. Now put them in the situation where they’ve been taken to Thurien and are making the most of the opportunity to absorb all that Ganymean technology, and the rivals on Earth have just been sent back to square one by the Moon showing up. They’ve gained control of the surveillance operation, and probably by this time they can do their own instant moving of ships and whatever around the Galaxy because they’ve got their own independent computer, JEVEX, on their own independent planet. Also they’re human in form—physically indistinguishable from their rivals." Heller sat back and looked at Danchekker expectantly, as if waiting for him to fill in the rest himself. He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth and gaped at her incredulously.
"They could have made magic and miracles work," Heller went on after a few seconds. "They could have put their own, shall we say, ‘agents’ into our culture way back in its ancient history and deliberately instilled systems of beliefs that we still haven’t entirely recovered from—beliefs that were guaranteed to make sure that the rival would take a long, long time to rediscover the sciences and develop the technologies that would make it an opponent worth worrying about again. Meanwhile the Jevlenese have bought themselves a lot of time to become established on their own system of worlds, expand JEVEX, milk off more Ganymean know-how, and whatever else they’ve been up to." She sat back, spread her hands, and looked at Danchekker expectantly. "What do you think?"
Danchekker stared at her for what seemed a long time. "Impossible," he declared at last.
Heller’s patience finally snapped. "Why? What’s wrong with that theory?" she demanded. "The facts are that something slowed Earth’s development down. This accounts for it, and nothing that you came up with does. The Jevlenese had the means and the motive, and the answer fits the evidence. What more do you want? I thought science was supposed to be open-minded at least."
"Too farfetched," Danchekker retorted. He became openly sarcastic. "Another principle of science, which you appear to have overlooked, is that one endeavors to test one’s hypotheses by experiment. I have no idea how you intend testing this far-flung notion of yours, but for suggestions I recommend that you might try consulting the illustrators of Superman comics or the authors of the articles one finds in those housewives’ journals found on sale in supermarkets." With that he returned his attention fully to his meal.
"Well if that’s your attitude, enjoy your lunch." Heller rose indignantly to her feet. "I heard that Vic had a hell of a time getting you to accept that the Lunarians existed at all. I can see why!" She turned and marched out of the room.
Karen Heller was still fuming thirty minutes later as she stood by one of the buildings on the edge of the apron watching a UNSA crew installing a more permanent generator facility. Danchekker came out of the door of the mess hall some distance away, saw her, then walked slowly off in the opposite direction, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped at the perimeter fence and stood for a long time staring out across the marshes, turning his head every now and then to glance back at where Heller was standing. Eventually he turned and paced thoughtfully back to the door of the mess hall. When he was almost there he stopped, looked across at her again, hesitated for a few seconds, then changed direction and came over to her.
"I, er—I apologize," he said. "I think you may have something. Certainly your conclusions warrant further investigation. We should contact the others and tell them about it as soon as possible."