Dawnman Planet

end.”

Richardson came back into the lounge. He said to Ronny, “There’s nobody else aboard.”

The Baron said, “We watched it all, the Count and I. The men were taken one by one to the top of the pyramid. It was an elaborate ceremony. It must go back to a period when they were on the level of the Aztecs. They cut open the chest cavity and pulled the still throbbing heart out. The Count and I watched from an altitude of about one hundred feet. There was nothing we could do. It was obvious to us that if we attempted to use weapons, they would have destroyed us in split seconds.”

“Had we interfered,” the count said, “we, too, would have become criminals. As it was, we were the only ones who had not attempted theft, and hence were left alone.”

The Baron ended the story. “I can operate this craft well enough to take off and land, but I am no navigator. I request that one or two of your officers be sent to help us.”

Ronny opened his mouth to answer, but, at that moment, a new element entered into the lounge of the spacecraft.

From nowhere a voice came into the consciousness of each of them.

You are at last correct, Maximilian Wyler. You must return to the planet which our researching of your mind tells us you think of as Mother Earth. There is naught for you here.

Ronald Bronston, we detect that your motives for landing upon this… Dawnworld… were not criminal in intent, nor have you committed depredation upon us. It is our custom to send warning to stranger worlds—who are potential depredators—by the way of strangers who have landed among us, but have committed no criminal act. You are such. However, our researching your health indicated that your life span has been so altered that perhaps it would not encompass the period required to spread the warning. Hence, we have made certain rectifications so that your span of years will equal that of a normal lifetime as we know it to be—some two and a half of what you call centuries. Ronny Bronston sucked in air.

“Who are you?” Count Fitzjames blurted.

Researching your own mind, Felix Fitzjames, brings to our attention that in attempting to analyze our culture, you compared our society to the cast system of your India. Indeed, you had elements of correctness. By why did you forget about the Brahmins among us? Why did you assume that the equivalents of the sudras with whom you have come in contact, were the sum total of our race ? The voice addressed them as a group again. Go back to your Mother Earth. Do not be afraid of the Dawnworlds. Felix Fitzjames was correct to this extent: We are not aggressive. We have no designs against you. So long as you have none against us, our cultures need never conflict. Farewell. . . .

“Wait!” Baron Wyler cried out. “Why should I go back to Mother Earth? Why not to my own planet, Phrygia?”

You would find it difficult to breath, Maximilian Wyler. When our people are interfered with, they trace back to the planet from which the criminal element came so as to preserve themselves from additional predators in the future. The atmosphere of Phrygia is now composed of methane, ammonia and hydrogen. To the extent that Ronald Bronston succeeds in his mission of warning, a like fate will be saved your other worlds. And now we will communicate with you no longer. Farewell…

And suddenly there was an emptiness in the space yacht’s lounge.

At long last, Ronny Bronston looked at the aging Count Fitzjames. “Are you still so sure they aren’t intelligent?” he asked wryly. “At least on the highest level, we can expect cooperation. Where there’s logical intelligence, you can communicate.”

But Felix Fitzjames, his lips pale, was shaking his head. “Is a Brahmin less castebound than the lower castes? Does a queen bee have any more freedom of will than a worker?”

Ronny, and, to a lesser degree, Baron Wyler, were scowling at him.

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 Fuhrer, 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.”

AFTERMATH

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?”