Time Enough for Love (62 page)

I admitted that I had tossed him a baiting question to see how he would answer. The Senior nodded. “I know you’re not stupid, Son; I had Athene give me a runback on your ancestry. But I have often been amazed at how the moderately bright and moderately well-informed—which describes no one in this happiness circle, so no one need pretend to modesty—how often such somewhat superior people have trouble coming to grips with the ancient silk-purse-and-sow’s-ear problem. If heredity were not overwhelmingly more important than environment, you could teach calculus to a horse.

“In my early days it was an article of faith among a self-styled ‘intellectual elite’ that they
could
teach calculus to a horse…if they started early enough, spent enough money, supplied special tutoring, and were endlessly patient and always careful not to bruise his equine ego. They were so sincere that it seems downright ungrateful that the horse always persisted in being a horse. Especially as they were right…if ‘starting early enough’ is defined as a million years or more.

“But those savages will make it; they can’t avoid winning. The problem in reverse is more horridly interesting. Justin, do you realize that we Howards killed off Old Terra?”

“Yes.”

“Now, now, Son, you’re not supposed to answer in such a way as to chop off conversation…thereby leaving us with nothing to do but get drunk and cuddle the girls.”

“Swell!” Obadiah-Galahad shouted. “Let’s!” He had Minerva with him at that moment; he grabbed her and flipped her over facing him. “Little whatever-your-name-is, do you have any last words?”

“Yes.”

“‘Yes’ what?”

“Just ‘Yes.’ That’s my last word.”

“Galahad,” said Ishtar, “if you’re going to rape Minerva, drag her back of the fountain. I want to hear what Justin means by that.”

“How
can
I rape her when she won’t fight?” he complained.

“You’ve always been able to solve that problem. But do it quietly. Justin, I find myself shocked. It seems to me that we’ve been quite generous in supplying Old Home Terra with new technologies—and there’s not much else we
can
give them. Didn’t the last migrant transport come back only half loaded?”

“I’ll answer it,” Lazarus growled. “Justin might pretty it up. Not all the Howards. Two. Andy Libby provided the weapon; I delivered the coup de grace. Space travel killed Earth.”

Ishtar looked troubled. “Grandfather, I don’t understand.”

“She calls me that when I’ve been naughty,” the Senior confided to me. “It’s her way of spanking me. Ish darling, you are young and sweet and have spent your life studying biology, not history. Earth was doomed in any case; space travel just hurried it along. By 2012 it wasn’t fit to live on—so I spent the next century elsewhere, although the other real estate in the Solar System is far from attractive. Missed seeing Europe destroyed, missed a nasty dictatorship in my home country. Came back when things appeared to be tolerable, found that they weren’t—and that’s when the Howards had to run for it.

“But space travel can’t ease the pressure on a planet grown too crowded, not even with today’s ships and probably not with any future ships—because stupid people won’t leave the slopes of their home volcano even when it starts to smoke and rumble. What space travel does do is drain off the best brains: those smart enough to see a catastrophe before it happens and with the guts to pay the price—abandon home, wealth, friends, relatives, everything—and
go
. That’s a tiny fraction of one percent. But that’s enough.”

“It’s the bell curve again,” I said to Ishtar. “If—as Lazarus thinks, and statistics back him up—every migration comes primarily from the right-hand end of the normal-incidence curve of human ability, then this acts as a sorting device whereby the new planet will show a bell curve with a much higher intelligence norm than the population it came from…and the old planet will average almost imperceptibly stupider.”

“Imperceptible except for one thing!” Lazarus objected. “That tiny fraction that hardly shows statistically is the
brain.
I recall a country that lost a key war by chasing out a mere half dozen geniuses. Most people
can’t
think, most of the remainder
won’t
think, the small fraction who
do
think mostly can’t do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion—in the long run these are the only people who count…and they are the very ones who migrate when it is physically possible to do so.

“As Justin said, statistically it hardly shows. But qualitatively it makes all the difference. Chop off a chicken’s head and it doesn’t die at once; it flops around more energetically than ever. For a while. Then it dies.

“That’s what space travel did to Earth: chopped its head off. For two thousand years its best brains have been migrating. What’s left is flopping harder than ever…to no purpose and will die that much sooner. Soon, I think. I don’t feel guilty about it; I see no sin in those smart enough to escape escaping if they can—and the death rattle of Earth was clear and strong back in the twentieth century, Earth reckoning, when I was a young man and space travel had barely started—not even started in interstellar terms. It took two more centuries and then some to get it rolling. Can’t count the first migration of the Howards; it was involuntary, and they weren’t the best brains.

“The later Howard migration to Secundus was more important; it shook out some of the dullards, left them behind. The non-Howard migrations were even more important. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if there had been no political restraints against migrating from China; the few Chinese who did reach the stars seem always to be winners, I suspect that the Chinese average smarter than the rest of Earth’s spawn.

“Not that slant of eye or color of skin matters today, or even matters at the moment of truth. One of the early Howards was Robert C. M. Lee, of Richmond, Virginia—anybody know what his name was originally?”

“I do,” I answered.

“Of course you do, Justin, so keep quiet—and that includes you, Athene. Anyone else?”

No one answered; Lazarus went on: “His birth name was Lee Choy Moo; he was born in Singapore, and his parents came from Canton in China—and of the people in the ‘New Frontiers’ he was a mathematician second only to Andy Libby.”

“Goodness!” said Hamadryad. “I’m descended from him—but I didn’t know he was a great mathematician.”

“Did you know he was Chinese?”

“Lazarus, I’m not sure what ‘Chinese’ means; I haven’t studied much terrestrial history. Isn’t it a religion? Like ‘Jewish’?”

“Not exactly, dear. The point is that it no longer matters. Just as few know and no one cares that the famous Zaccur Barstow, my partner in crime, was a quarter Negro. Does that word mean anything to you, Hamadarling? Not a religion.”

“The word means ‘black,’ so I assume that one of his grandparents was from Africa.”

“Which shows what comes of assuming anything on one datum. Two of Zack’s grandparents, both mulatto, came from Los Angeles in my homeland. Since my line mixed with his a long time back, probably any of you can claim African ancestry. Which is statistically equivalent to claiming descent from Charlemagne. I’ve gone far afield, and it is time we picked a new Stimulator and a new Respondent. Space travel ruined old Earth—that’s one viewpoint. The other side of the coin, happier and more important in the long run, is that it improved the breed. Probably saved it as well but ‘improved’ is certain. Homo sapiens is now not only far more numerous than he ever was on Earth; he is a better, smarter, more efficient animal in every measurable fashion. Further this Respondent sayeth not; somebody else grab it. Lazi, quit trying to tickle me and go bother Galahad; Minerva needs a rest.”

“Lazarus,” Ishtar said, “just one more responding, please. Something you said about Howards made me wonder. You seemed to place all emphasis on intelligence. Don’t you consider long-life important?”

I was astonished to see the oldest human alive frowning over this, slow to answer. Surely it was a question he had settled in his mind at least a thousand years earlier. I tried to forstalt the quandary, found I could not soothly norom it.

“Ishtar, the only correct verbal answer to that is Yes and No—which merely says I lack language to define something that is crystal clear inside me and has been for centuries. But here is part of the truth: A long time ago a short-lifer proved to me that we all live the same length of time.” He glanced at Minerva; she looked solemnly back. “Because we all live
now
. She—he—was not asserting that fallacy of Georg Cantor which distorted pre-Libby mathematics so long; uh, he—was asserting a verifiable objective truth. Each individual lives her life in
now
independently of how others may measure that life in years.

“But here is another piece of truth. Life is
too
long when one is not enjoying
now
. You recall when I was not and wished to terminate it. Your skill—and trickery, my darling, and don’t blush—changed that and again I savor
now
. But perhaps I have never told you that I approached even my first rejuvenation with misgivings, afraid that it would make my body young without making my spirit young again—and don’t bother to tell me that ‘spirit’ is a null word; I know that it is undefinable…but it means something to
me
.

“But here is still more of the truth and all I’ll try to say about it. Although long-life can be a burden, mostly it is a blessing. It gives time enough to learn, time enough to think, time enough not to hurry, time enough for love.

“Enough of weighty matters. Galahad, pick a light subject and, Justin, you plant the barbs; I’ve talked enough. Ishtar, my darling, fetch your long lovely carcass over here, stretch out, and let me ply you with brandy; I want you relaxed enough for what I intend to do with you later.”

She came readily to him, stopping only to kiss Ira a promise, then saying softly but clearly to our Ancestor, “Our beloved, it takes no brandy to make me utterly willing for whatever you have in mind.”

“Anesthesia, Mama Ishtar. I plan to show you something Big Anna taught me which I haven’t dared risk in all these years. You may not live till morning. Frightened?”

She smiled lazily, happily. “Oh, terribly frightened.”

Galahad covered Lapis Lazuli’s mouth with a hand; she bit him. “Stop it, Laz. Let’s everybody watch this—it might be new.”

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Agape

I woke slowly next morning, lazed in bed and lived again my Welcome Bacchanalia. I was in a big bed in a ground-floor room with its garden wall still open as it had been when the party had moved to beds. I could hear no one, although (as I recalled) Tamara and Ira had been with me. Or had Ira visited us earlier?

No matter, all of them visited us at some time before Athene sang us to sleep; I seemed to recall as high as six or seven at once in that big bed, counting Tamara and me. No, Tamara had been gone once, leaving me at the mercy of the talkative twins—who were almost quiet. They said they wanted to assure me that I did not have to marry them in order to be a member of the family—they would be gone too much of the time anyhow—because they were going to be pirates when they were big enough—but stay groundside half the time—and open a hook shop over a pool hall—and would I come to see them there?

They had to explain to me both terms; then they sang me a little song that seemed partly amphigory and partly ancient English, but included both terms. I kissed them and promised that, when they opened this studio, I would be their most faithful admirer—a promise that did not worry me; at about that age most girls (all of my daughters) have ambitions to become great hetaeras; few attempt that most demanding of arts—or only long enough to discover that they do not have a true vocation.

I thought they were more likely to become pirates; Lazarus Long’s identicals might figure out a way to make crime pay in spite of the enormous depths of space.

My Welcome Bacchanalia had bridged from feast to bed with the customary entertainment save that it was homemade instead of the expensive (and often dull) professional acts a fashionable New Rome hostess offers. Lazarus and his sister-daughters started it with what may have been an authentic Highland Fling (who knows, today?): Lazarus dancing fiercely and vigorously (after all that food and drink!), his two miniature copies keeping the pattern exactly with him—to skirling bagpipes offered by Athene…which I would not have recognized were it not that I am an amateur of ancient music as well as a professional of ancient history. The girls followed with an encore, a sword dance, while Lazarus pretended to be passed out from exertion.

Ira, to my amazement, turned out to be a skilled juggler. Question: Did he have that skill all those years he managed a planet?

Galahad sang a ballad with professional virtuosity and great range and control, which astonished me almost as much as I seemed to recall that he used to sing always off key. But when he took an encore with a kerchief stuffed in his mouth, I realized that I had been swived; Athene had done it all. He then played a corpse with three beautiful widows, Minerva, Hamadryad, Ishtar. I won’t describe the dialogue except to say that they seemed cheerful over losing him.

Tamara concluded it by singing “My Arms Enclose You Still”—attributed on slight evidence to the Blind Singer but ancient in any case. I’ve long thought of it as Tamara’s Song, and I wept with happiness, and I was not alone; all did. The twins blubbered aloud…and when she reached that last line, “—wherever the wild geese lead you, love, my arms will hold you close,” I was startled to see that the Senior’s craggy features were as wet as mine.

I got up, poked around in the alcove and refreshed myself enough to face other people, went out into the garden and found Galahad. I kissed him and accepted a happy-morning in a frosty tumbler. It was fruit juice freshly pressed—a treat for taste buds used to morning cups “improved” in various chemical ways.

“I’m cook this morning,” he said, “so you had better take your eggs either fried or boiled.” He then answered the question a guest does not ask: “If you had awakened earlier, you would have had more choice; Lazarus claims I can’t boil water. But everyone else is gone.”