Beyond This Horizon (25 page)

Hamilton showed the records to Monroe-Alpha the next time Monroe-Alpha and Marion showed up at his home. He had regarded it as an amusing and insignificant joke, but Clifford took it with his usual dead seriousness. “Isn’t it about time you started him on arithmetic?”

“Why, I don’t think so. He is a little young for it—he’s hardly well into mathematical analysis.” Theobald had been led into mathematical symbology by the conventional route of generalized geometry, analysis, and the calculi. Naturally, he had not been confronted with the tedious, inane, and specialized mnemonics of practical arithmetic—he was hardly more than a baby.

“I don’t think he is too young for it. I had devised a substitute for positional notation when I was about his age. I imagine he can take it, if you don’t ask him to memorize operation tables.” Monroe-Alpha was unaware that the child had an eidetic memory and Hamilton passed the matter by. He had no intention of telling Monroe-Alpha anything about Theobald’s genetic background. While custom did not actually forbid such discussion, good taste, he felt, did. Let the boy alone—let him keep his private life private. He and Phyllis knew, the geneticists involved had to know, the Planners had had to know—since this was a star line. Even that he regretted, for it had brought such intrusions as the visit of that old hag Carvala.

Theobald himself would know nothing, or very little, of his ancestral background until he was a grown man. He might not inquire into it, or have it brought to his attention, until he reached something around the age Felix had been when Mordan called Felix’s attention to his own racial significance.

It was better so. The pattern of a man’s inherited characteristics was racially important and inescapable anyhow, but too much knowledge of it, too much thinking about it, could be suffocating to the individual. Look at Cliff—damned near went off the beam entirely just from thinking about his great grandparents. Well, Marion had fixed
that
.

No, it was not good to talk too much about such things. He himself had talked too much a short time before, and had been sorry ever since. He had been telling Mordan his own point of view about Phyllis having any more children—after the baby girl to come, of course. Phyllis and he had not yet come to agreement about it; Mordan had backed up Phyllis. “I would like for you two to have at least four children, preferably six. More would be better but we probably would not have time enough to select properly for that many.”

Hamilton almost exploded. “It seems to me that you make plans awfully easy—for other people. I haven’t noticed you doing
your
bit. You are pretty much of a star line yourself—how come? Is this a one-way proposition?”

Mordan had kept his serenity. “I have not refrained. My plasm is on deposit, and available if wanted. Every moderator in the country saw my chart, in the usual course of routine.”

“The fact remains that you haven’t done much personally about children.”

“No. No, that is true. Martha and I have so many, many children in our district, and so many yet to come, that we hardly have time to concentrate on one.”

From the peculiar phraseology Hamilton gained a sudden bit of insight. “Say…you and Martha are married—
aren’t you?
”

“Yes. For twenty-three years.”

“Well, then…but, why—”

“We
can’t
,” Mordan said flatly, with just a shade less than his usual calm. “She’s a mutation…sterile.”

Hamilton’s ears still burned to think that his big mouth had maneuvered his friend into making such a naked disclosure. He had never guessed the relationship; Martha
never
called Claude anything but “chief”; they used no words of endearment, nor let it creep otherwise into their manner. Still, it explained a lot of things—the rapport-like co-operation between the technician and the synthesist, the fact that Mordan had shifted to genetics after starting a brilliant career in social administration, Mordan’s intense and fatherly interest in his charges.

He realized with a slight shock that Claude and Martha were as much parents of Theobald as were Phyllis and himself—foster parents, godparents. Mediator parents might be the right term.

They were mediator parents to hundreds of thousands, he didn’t know how many.

But this wasn’t getting his work done—and he would have to go home early today, because of Theobald. He turned to his desk. A memorandum caught his eye—from himself to himself. Hmmm…he would have to get after that. Better talk to Carruthers. He swung around toward the phone.

“Chief?”

“Yes, Felix.”

“I was talking with Doctor Thorgsen the other day, and I got an idea—may not be much in it.”

“Give.” Way out on far Pluto, the weather is cold. The temperature rarely rises above eighteen degrees centigrade
absolute
even on the side toward the sun. And that refers to high noon in the open sunlight. Much of the machinery of the observatories is exposed to this intense cold. Machinery that will work on Terra will not work on Pluto, and vice versa. The laws of physics seem to be invariable but the characteristics of materials change with changes in temperature—consider ice and water, a mild example.

Lubricating oil is a dry powder at such temperatures. Steel isn’t steel. The exploring scientists had to devise new technologies before Pluto could be conquered.

Not only for mobiles but for stabiles as well—such as electrical equipment. Electrical equipment depends on, among other factors, the resistance characteristics of conductors; extreme cold lowers the electrical resistance of metals amazingly. At thirteen degrees centigrade absolute lead becomes a superconductor—it has no resistance whatsoever. An electric current induced in such lead seems to go on forever, without damping.

There are many other such peculiarities. Hamilton did not go into them—it was a sure thing that a brilliant synthesist such as his chief had all the gross facts about such matters. The main fact was this: Pluto was a natural laboratory for low temperature research, not only for the benefit of the observatories but for every other purpose.

One of the classic difficulties of science has to do with the fact that a research man can always think of things he wants to measure before instruments for the purpose have been devised. Genetics remained practically at a standstill for a century before ultramicroscopy reached the point where genes could really be seen. But the peculiar qualities of superconductors and near superconductors gave physicists an opportunity, using such chilled metals in new instruments, to build gadgets which would detect phenomena more subtle than ever before detected.

Thorgsen and his colleagues had stellar bolometers so accurate and so sensitive as to make the readings of earlier instruments look like a casual horseback guess. He claimed to be able to measure the heat from a flushed cheek at ten parsecs. The colony on Pluto even had an electromagnetic radiation receiver which would—sometimes—enable them to receive messages from Terra, if the Great Egg smiled and everyone kept their fingers crossed.

But telepathy, if it was anything physical at all—whatever “Physical” may mean!—should be detectable by some sort of a gadget. That the gadget would need to be extremely sensitive seemed a foregone conclusion; therefore, Pluto seemed a likely place to develop one.

There was even some hope to go on. An instrument—Hamilton did not remember what it had been—had been perfected there, had worked satisfactorily, and then had performed very erratically indeed—when the two who had perfected it attempted to demonstrate it in the presence of a crowd of colleagues. It seemed sensitive to living people.

To
living
people. Equivalent masses, of blood temperature and similar radiating surfaces, did not upset it. But it grew querulous in the presence of human beings. It was dubbed a “Life Detector”; the director of the colony saw possibilities in it and instigated further research.

Hamilton’s point to Carruthers was this: might not the so-called life detector be something that was sensitive to whatever it was they called telepathy? Carruthers thought it possible. Would it not then be advisable to instigate research along that line on Terra? Decidedly. Or would it be better to send a team out to Pluto, where low temperature research was so much more handy? Go ahead on both lines, of course.

Hamilton pointed out that it would be a year and a half until the next regular ship to Pluto. “Never mind that,” Carruthers told him. “Plan to send a special. The Board will stand for it.”

Hamilton cleared the phone, turned it to recording, and spoke for several minutes, giving instructions to two of his bright young assistants. It was convenient, he thought, to have really adequate staff assistance. He referred to his next point of agenda.

In digging back into the literature of the race it had been noted that the borderline subjects of the human spirit with which he was now dealing had once occupied much more of the attention of the race than now was the case. Spiritism, apparitions, reports of the dead appearing in dreams with messages which checked out, “Ghosties, and Ghoulies, and things that go Flop in the Dark” had once obsessed the attention of many. Much of the mass of pseudo-data seemed to be psychopathic. But not all of it. This chap Flammarion, for example, a professional astronomer (or was he an astrologer?—there used to be such, he knew, before space flight was developed)—anyhow, a man with his head screwed on tight, a man with a basic appreciation for the scientific method even in those dark ages. Flammarion had collected an enormous amount of data, which, if even one per cent of it was true, proved survival of the ego after the physical death beyond any reasonable doubt.

It gave him a lift just to read about it.

Hamilton knew that the loose stories of bygone days did not constitute evidence of the first order, but some of it, after examination by psychiatric semanticians, could be used as evidence of the second order. In any case, the experience of the past might give many a valuable clue for further research. The hardest part of this aspect of the Great Research was to know where to start looking.

There were a couple of old books, for example, by a man named Doon, or Dunn, or something of the sort—the changes in speech symbols made the name uncertain—who had tediously collected records of fore-runner dreams for more than a quarter of a century. But he had died, no one had followed up his work, and it had been forgotten. Never mind—Dunn’s patience would be vindicated; over ten thousand careful men, in addition to their other activities, made a practice of recording their dreams immediately on wakening, before speaking to anyone or even getting out of bed. If dreams ever opened a window to the future, the matter would be settled, conclusively.

Hamilton himself tried to keep such records. Unfortunately, he rarely dreamed. No matter—others did, and he was in touch with them.

The old books Hamilton wished to have perused were mostly obscure and few translations had ever been made; idiom presented a hazard. There were scholars of comparative lingo, of course, but even for them the job was difficult. Fortunately, there was immediately at hand a man who could read Anglish of the year 1926 and for at least the century preceding that date—a particularly rich century for such research, as the scientific method was beginning to be appreciated by some but the interest in such matters was still high. Smith John Darlington—or J. Darlington Smith, as he preferred to be called. Hamilton had co-opted him.

Smith did not want to do it. He was very busy with his feetball industry; he had three associations of ten battle groups each, and a fourth forming. His business was booming; he was in a fair way to becoming as rich as he wanted to be, and he disliked to spare the time.

But he would do it—if the man who gave him his start in business insisted. Felix insisted.

Felix telephoned him next. “Hello, Jack,”

“Howdy, Felix.”

“Do you have any more for me?”

“I’ve a stock of spools shoulder high.”

“Good. Tube them over, will you?”

“Sure. Say, Felix, this stuff is awful, most of it.”

“I don’t doubt it. But think how much ore must be refined to produce a gram of native radium. Well, I’ll clear now.”

“Wait a minute, Felix. I got into a jam last night. I wonder if you could give me some advice.”

“Certainly. Give.” It appeared that Smith, who, in spite of his financial success, was a brassarded man and technically a control natural, had inadvertently given offense to an armed citizen by refusing to give way automatically in a public place. The citizen had lectured Smith on etiquette. Smith had never fully adjusted himself to the customs of a different culture; he had done a most inurbane thing—he had struck the citizen with his closed fist, knocking him down and bloodying his nose.

Naturally, there was the deuce to pay, and all big bills.

The citizen’s next friend had called the following morning and presented Smith with a formal challenge. Smith must either accept and shoot it out, apologize acceptably, or be evicted from the city bodily by the citizen and his friends, with monitors looking on to see that the customs were maintained.

“What ought I to do?”

“I would advise you to apologize.” Hamilton saw no way out of it; to advise him to fight was to suggest suicide. Hamilton had no scruples about suicide, but he judged correctly that Smith preferred to live.

“But I can’t do that—what do you think I am, a nigger?”

“I don’t understand what you mean. What has your color to do with it?”

“Oh, never mind. But I can’t apologize, Felix. I was ahead of him in line. Honest I was.”

“But you were brassarded.”

“But… Look, Felix, I want to shoot it out with him. Will you act for me?”

“I will if you request it. He’ll kill you, you know.”

“Maybe not. I might happen to beat him to the draw.”

“Not in a set duel you won’t. The guns are cross-connected. Your gun won’t burn until the referee flashes the signal.”

“I’m fairly fast.”

“You’re outclassed. You don’t play feetball yourself you know. And you know why.”

Smith knew. He had planned to play, as well as manage and coach, when the enterprise was started. A few encounters with the men he had hired soon convinced him that an athlete of his own period was below average in this present period. In particular his reflexes were late. He bit his lip and said nothing.