“The ‘hot’ people don’t see the way we do at all; it’s even worse than the difference between you and me. We at least see by the same general kind of light — electromagnetic waves. From what this one says, they use some form of sound — very high frequency, I guess, since he said something about its traveling a little faster than ‘ordinary’ sound.”
“But how could anyone see with sound?”
“I suppose you could see, after a fashion, with anything that traveled in a straight line, and sound will do that if nothing interferes with it. The very short sound waves-ultrasonics — are better than the ones we talk with in that respect. Of course, they wouldn’t show anything that was very small; he said the wires were too fine to see, you remember.”
The two brought their attention back to the radio conversation — at least, Kruger did. Dar, as usual, had something new to think about.
“You must have done some rather careful thinking yourselves to have deduced as much about this planetary system as you have,” the biologist was saying, “since you can only detect objects outside Abyormen’s atmosphere if they are radiating enough heat to feel.”
“The picture I gave to your Nils Kruger was only one of several theories,” the being replied calmly.
“It happens to be about right, as far as it goes. But if you can do that sort: of thing with scientific reasoning why are you so prejudiced against it?”
“I wish you would stop reiterating that question. To answer it, however, what good does it do us? Are we any better off for knowing that Abyormen goes around Theer and Theer around Arren? I admit that sort of knowledge is harmless, since it cannot lead to dangerous activity, but it is a waste of time.”
“In other words you divide scientific knowledge into two classes — useless items and dangerous ones.”
“Practically. There is an occasional exception; the person who invented these lights did some good, of course. However, it is necessary to examine each new item of knowledge to make sure that it will not be dangerous.”
“I begin to see your viewpoint. I take it, then, that you do not mind
“I don’t care what you do with your time. Ask your question.”
The scientists complied, and gradually Dar Lang Ahn began to understand the sort of beings his ancestors had been — and his children would be.
Their cities were scattered all over Abyormen, but they were invariably in volcanic areas where a few of their inhabitants could retreat underground and survive through the time of cold, so none of Dar’s generation ever went near them — the fire taboo took care of that. It seemed likely, though the Teacher never admitted it in so many words, that the taboo was another example of influence of the “hot” Teachers over the “cold” ones. No such prohibition existed for the “hot” race, who lived and died where they chose; hence, metal articles such as Dar’s belt buckles might be, and often were, found in or near low-temperature cities at the start of the “cold” life cycle. Like Dar’s generation the others took great pains to insure the transmission of knowledge from one cycle to the next, though they depended less on books than on the memory of their Teachers. When Dar interrupted the questioning to ask why it would not be better for the knowledge to go from “hot” to “cold” and back to “hot” again, thus permitting both races to help in its development, the Teacher pointed out patiently that it would be virtually impossible to control the spread of information if this were done.
They were fairly competent electricians and excellent civil engineers. Their chemistry seemed good, surprisingly enough to a race whose chemists depended heavily on sight. Astronomy, naturally, was almost nonexistent and the deeper branches of physics quite beyond them so far. They had radioactive elements, of course, but had not the faintest idea of the cause of their behavior.
Many of the human questions puzzled Dar, of course, and in some cases this was not due to his ignorance of human science. As nearly as he could tell, the men were trying to find out how these Teachers felt about Dar’s own people — that is, whether they liked them, respected them, hated them as necessary inferiors, or simply regarded them as a minor but important nuisance. Dar remembered that one of the beings present had claimed friendship with him on the basis of blood relationship, though he could not for the life of him see how such relationship had been determined.
This question also occurred to the biologist, who had been one of those listening in during the interception of Kruger’s first radio conversation with the Teacher and had later asked for a translation of it. Rather to Dar’s surprise the Teacher had an answer.
“We arrange for the circumstances, or at least the location, of many of our ancestors’ deaths. In a short time the people of this village will be ordered to the crater where Dar and Kruger were trapped for a time; there we can observe the death and the beginning of the new lives, and can keep track of who is who’s offspring. We also arrange to die ourselves at preselected places when the cold season is about to start, and try to learn from the ‘cold’ Teachers the various places at which their new groups at the beginning of their time of living to catch the people are captured — they go out into the wilds in hunting new people, who are nothing more than wild animals at the time.”
“I should think they would miss some.”
“They do, as nearly as we can tell. Every now and then a member of our race turns up, or sometimes even a small group of them, whose parent must have survived the whole cold season as a wild animal; at least, we have no record of him.”
“Don’t you know how many children a given person will have?”
“It is quite impossible to tell, depending on things such as his individual weight.”
“But that doesn’t seem to vary much.”
“During normal life, no, but at the time of dying one may have gone for very long periods without food, or on the other hand have eaten very heavily and very recently — all according to the opportunities. Also it is impossible to tell whether any of the young children have been eaten by wild animals before they are caught, in the case of Dar Lang Ahn’s people, since they do not take proper care of them as we do.”
“I see.” So did Dar. Good though his memory was it contained little of his brief existence before being “caught,” but what little there was fitted in with what the Teacher said. He wondered why his own Teachers did not take precautions like those — and then realized that they had no chance; either the “hot” people would have to cooperate, which they seemed unwilling to do, or his own race would have to keep a group of the others under control during the hot period, as this creature did with his villagers during the cold. This seemed difficult, to put it mildly; the other race had got far enough ahead technically to have pretty complete control of the situation. Dar began to suspect strongly that this Teacher had not been frank; there were reasons other than his personal disapproval of science behind his objections to the introduction of human knowledge.
That thought grew in his mind as the conversation went on, and gave birth to others. It was Dar Lang Ahn, after the robot had started back to the flier, who made the suggestion that some of the other Teachers in their volcanically warmed retreats be contacted and questioned; and even Kruger, who knew him better than any other human being ever would, did not realize just what he was trying to find out.
XIV. BIOLOGY; SOCIOLOGY
AGAIN AND again Abyormen swung around its almost cometary orbit, and closer and closer Theer drew to its blazing primary. Abyormen, very slowly, grew hotter. To its natives this was a matter of little moment; the temperature had not yet reached the value which would activate the bacteria whose life processes would load the atmosphere with oxides of nitrogen. Until that happened Dar’s people cared little whether the oceans of their planet were freezing or boiling.
The temperature did not bother the human scientists, either. Most of them had from the beginning been wearing complex protective garments which virtually air-conditioned them. Nevertheless they knew that more protection would be needed soon. Experiments with the native life, using not only bacteria but animals and plants large enough to be observed directly, had told them what to expect.
Kruger was more than satisfied with the situation. His friend had evidently become completely absorbed in the business of acquiring knowledge from the human visitors. Kruger could not always keep up with him, but the boy no longer cared much about that. If anything was certain, it was that Dar Lang Ahn had already collected far
