“Why are we here? What have we to learn from these barbarians? With infinity to explore, why are we wasting ourselves on the second most ghastly world we’ve found?”
Daimonax turned off the recorder. For a time there was silence between the men. Wheels trundled outside, laughter and a snatch of song drifted through the window, the ocean blazed under a low sun.
“You do not know?” Daimonax asked at last, softly.
“Well… scientific interest, of course—” Jason swallowed. “I’m sorry. The Institute works for sound reasons. In the American history we’re observing ways that man can go wrong. I suppose here also.”
Daimonax shook his head. “No.”
“What?”
“We are learning something far too precious to give up,” Daimonax said. “The lesson is humbling, but our smug Eutopia will be the better for some humility. You weren’t aware of it, because to date we haven’t sufficient hard facts to publish any conclusions. And then, you are new in the profession, and your first assignment was elsewhen. But you see, we have excellent reason to believe that Westfall is also the Good Land.”
“Impossible,” Jason whispered.
Daimonax smiled and took a sip of wine. “Think,” he said. “What does man require? First, the biological necessities, food, shelter, medicine, sex, a healthful and reasonably safe environment in which to raise his children. Second, the special human need to strive, learn, create. Well, don’t they have these things here?”
“One could say the same for any Stone Age tribe. You can’t equate contentment with happiness.”
“Of course not. And if anything, is not ordered, unified, planned Eutopia the country of the cows? We have ended every conflict, to the very conflict of man with his own soul; we have mastered the planets; the stars are too distant; were the God not so good as to make possible the parachronion, what would be left for us?”
“Do you mean—” Jason groped after words. He reminded himself that it was not sane to take umbrage at any mere statement, however outrageous. “Without fighting, clannishness, superstition, ritual and taboo… man has nothing?”
“More or less that. Society must have structure and meaning. But nature does not dictate what structure or what meaning. Our rationalism is a non-rational choice. Our leashing of the purely animal within us is simply another taboo. We may love as we please, but not hate as we please. So are we more free than men in Westfall?”
“But surely some cultures are better than others!”
“I do not deny that,” Daimonax said; “I only point out that each has its price. For what we enjoy at home, we pay dearly. We do not allow ourselves a single unthinking, merely felt impulse. By excluding danger and hardship, by eliminating distinctions between men, we leave no hopes of victory. Worst, perhaps, is this: that we have become pure individuals. We belong to no one. Our sole obligation is negative, not to compel any other individual. The state—an engineered organization, a faceless undemanding mechanism—takes care of each need and each hurt. Where is loyalty unto death? Where is the intimacy of an entire shared lifetime? We play at ceremonies, but because we know they are arbitrary gestures, what is their value? Because we have made our world one, where are color and contrast, where is pride in being peculiarly ourselves?
“Now these Westfall people, with all their faults, do know who they are, what they are, what they belong to and what belongs to them. Tradition is not buried in books but is part of life; and so their dead remain with them in loving memory. Their problems are real; hence their successes are real. They believe in their rites. The family, the kingdom, the race is something to live and die for. They use their brains less, perhaps—though even that I am not pertain of—but they use nerves, glands, muscles more. So they know an aspect of being human which our careful world has denied itself.
“If they have kept this while creating science and machine technology, should we not try to learn from them?”
Jason had no answer.
Eventually Daimonax said he might as well return to Eutopia. After a vacation, he could be reassigned to some history he might find more congenial. They parted in friendly wise.
The parachronion hummed. Energies pulsed between the universes. The gate opened and Jason stepped through.
He entered a glazed colonnade. White Neathenai swept in grace and serenity down to the water. The man who received him was a philosopher. Decent tunic and sandals hung ready to be donned. From somewhere resounded a lyre.
Joy trembled in Jason. Leif Ottarsson fell out of memory. He had only been tempted in his loneliness by a chance resemblance to his beloved. Now he was home. And Niki waited for him, Nikias Demostheneou, most beautiful and enchanting of boys.
