Chapter 9

"I suspect even our means of extrapolation are too limited, too based on the relationship of things and forces to each other, too set in the notion that only physical tools can affect physical things. We may be looking at a low fence, calling it a log, and therefore not able to understand why we can't walk around the obstruction in the usual manner." He stopped, and added with a shrug. "Stupid, maybe. Or like the turkey, the yard is so big that he never gets a picture of it as a whole enclosure. By the time he's wandered down this side of the fence he's forgot what he found on the other side. Never can put the whole thing together in his mind. That's my trouble, anyhow. So far, I'm not able to put the whole thing together, see it all as one piece.

"When I do, if I do, then maybe like a caged animal I'll see how to unlock an opening, or maybe realize the only way out is to fly."

There beside the softly flowing river, where water was obeying natural law without any trouble, the three men broke off their discussion when they saw a bright flash high in the sky above them. All three knew what it meant.

Another E ship had arrived.

No doubt the ship would expect light signals from the colonists in acknowledgment of their space flare.

If the ship had come while this portion of the planet was still in daylight, they would have seen there was no village, no ship, no equipment for direct communication. They may even have reasoned there was no means of signaling with artificial light.

But there was nothing to tell them that those on Eden could not build a fire.

As if they were present on the ship themselves, the three men could anticipate what must be happening there. Right now they would be anxiously waiting for signal flares to light up, to spring up like signal fires on a lonely island where a marooned man has, at last, sighted a ship on the horizon.

The colonists were no longer hiding, but were freely wandering in open spaces. If the ship had arrived before dusk they would have seen the men and women in the viewscopes. If after dusk, they still might have spotted them in the infrared viewers which picked up the heat differentials and gave a fair approximation of shapes.

The men on the ship would be waiting and looking at their watches. How long, they would be asking, does it take those colonists, that E down there, to get a signal fire going?

About five minutes passed, and another flare lighted the heavens.

"Get off the dime down there!" it seemed to say. "Acknowledge us!"

Cal took the chance that they might have an infrared viewscope directly on him, and he waved his arms above his head. But apparently they had not spotted him, for there was no answering flare.

At intervals of five minutes at first, then later cut to fifteen minutes, throughout the long night the flares continued to light the sky.

"Talk to us," the flares begged. "Surely you were expecting us. Surely you would not all be sleeping so soundly that our light could not rouse you."

Several times the three men stood up and waved their arms, but it brought no answer from the ship. In the darkness perhaps the equipment wasn't good enough. Perhaps in the night breeze bushes and trees also swayed with movement.

Once there was a rustle in the brush, and in the starlight they recognized the figure of Louie approaching them.

"This has got to stop," he said worriedly as he came up to them. "That light is an unnatural thing. It will anger Them. It is not meant for the peace of Eden to be disturbed by any artificial thing. And if They should turn Their wrath upon us--woe, woe!"

His face was stricken in the light of a new flare, and as suddenly as he had come to object, he left, plunged back under the trees to seek his people, be beside them, comforting them when disaster struck down.

After a time the three men gave up trying to wave their acknowledgment of the flares in darkness. They watched for an hour or so, and then tried to sleep. The periodic flares continued to come throughout the long night, as if now no longer pleading for acknowledgment, but rather reassuring men in such deep distress that they could not answer. Reassuring them that help was at hand and morning would come.

They tried to sleep, and although fitfully disturbed by the continuing flares, they did sleep. But at the first hint of dawn, Cal awoke and aroused his two companions, and by the time there was enough light for the ship to see clear detail upon the ground, the three men were ready for a better attempt at answering the ship's signal.

They went up to the village site, where the colonists were sleeping in the way a herd is bedded down together. They awoke Frank and Martha, Ahmed and Dirk, and told them of their plan. Louie, too, awoke, heard the plan, and tried to warn them against it. Any attempt, he said, to communicate with those not on Eden would surely increase the wrath of Those who wanted only the natural state here--a wrath still withheld because of superhuman mercy, but which must not be tried too far.

In spite of his warnings, Cal, and those co-operating with him, got together enough colonists to carry out his plan.

Good-naturedly, the colonists did as they were told, but with the attitude that it was something amusing, that there was nothing they'd rather be doing at the moment. Any sense of urgency about communicating with home seemed to have been washed from their minds.

In a clear space, on the soft grass, Cal got the colonists to sit or lie in certain positions. Checked against Tom's knowledge of ancient signal patterns, those certain positions took the shape of space-navy patterns.

Three men lay in a triangle. Next to that, six men sat in a circle, and last three more men lay in another triangle. Cal hoped someone on the ship would be able to read the ancient message.

"Keep clear of me. I am maneuvering with difficulty."

The signal had no more than formed when there was a flash from the ship so bright that it could be seen in the morning sky. They had read his signal, and now they began a series of flashes, of questions. "What's going on down there?" was the essence of their questioning.

It was well the ship had caught the first signal, for the colonists lost all interest in the game which had no point. They simply stood up and wandered away in search of their breakfasts from the trees and bushes.

Louie, who had stood to one side glowering, now took charge of them again and shepherded them to a grove of trees where the fruit seemed especially large and succulent.

But now that the ship had spotted him, Cal could signal alone. He lay down on the ground, himself, to move his arms in semaphore positions. But even as he lay back, he became conscious that he, too, could hardly care less. With a detached interest that amounted to amusement at such childish, primitive things, he watched his arms spell out one more message.

"Keep off! No mechanical science allowed in this co-ordinate system."

He stood up then, and made a farewell gesture toward the ship.

At that instant he felt strangely that he had passed into another stage of growth, completed a task, cut himself off from an environment that had held him back. What the ship did, in response to his warnings, no longer mattered. If it landed, its personnel too would join the colonists. If it obeyed the request of an E, it might circle there indefinitely.

Indefinitely watching the turkeys circle inside their low fence, unable to aid them, release them.

He did not particularly care what they did.

They could go on, spluttering out their signals, trying to question him. He didn't even try to read their messages. It didn't matter. Their science had nothing to do with him, nothing to offer him. Through it he could not reach a solution.

Somehow he knew that already.

19

"This time," the communications supervisor said with all the firmness he could muster, "this time there must not be any interference with communication. There just absolutely must not be!"

"Well, it wasn't my fault," the operator retorted with an exasperation that blanketed prudent restraint. "You heard what E McGinnis said--that they could identify E Gray, and the ship's crew, and many of the colonists, but that there was no sign of the ship that took them there. If there wasn't any ship there couldn't be any communication. It's not my fault. I can't receive something that wasn't sent."

"I know, I know," the supervisor said, and then, worried that he may be giving the appearance of backing down, commanded savagely, "just watch it, that's all!" He chewed violently at his knuckle and glared at the operator.

"Just watch it," the operator mumbled bitterly. "Just watch it, the man says. And what will I watch if the message stops coming?"

"Now, now, now, now," the supervisor nagged, "we'll have no insubordination, if you please."

And upstairs this time more than Bill Hayes, sector chief, were monitoring the message. The top administrative brass of E.H.Q. were assembled in their big plush conference room used for arriving at major policy decisions that sometimes affected the whole course of man's progress and direction in occupying the universe.

They sat in worried silence as E McGinnis reported the two messages he had received from Junior E Gray.

First: Keep clear of me. I am maneuvering with difficulty.

Then: Keep off. No mechanical science allowed in this co-ordinate system.

They looked at one another under beetled brows. They wondered, at first privately and then openly if that Junior E had blown his stack. They had looked at many a problem finally solved by the E's, but never before had such a ridiculous situation come up.

And right at the time, too, when the civil government had decided to place a curb on E.H.Q.'s freedom of movement, its control over the experimental phases of planet development. The injunction to halt a Junior E from taking over the Eden problem fooled none of them. They knew that Gunderson wasn't concerned for those colonists out there, that he was merely using the public furor to advance his own personal power. They knew that the police worked unremittingly, unceasingly, always and ever to bring every phase of human activity under their control. They knew it was a centuries-old tactic to wait for the right situation to arise, so that the lawmakers could be stampeded into passing some law which seemed only to apply to this given condition but in actuality broadened police powers over a wide area of man's actions.

Yes, there was far more at stake here than the fate of fifty colonists. In a sense E.H.Q. itself was the stake. The whole science of E was at stake.

And E McGinnis had played right into Gunderson's hands. It was he who had been the E influence in deciding to allow a Junior to handle the problem in the first place. It was he who was standing off from the planet, not landing and taking over things as he should.

There was obviously no danger. By his own report, the people on Eden were in good health, and from their apparent actions, not even distressed.

This message about no mechanical science being allowed, for example. Did the Junior mean the colonists wouldn't allow it? Must mean that. What else could prevent it? But when an E, a real E, took charge in an experimental colony, the colonists had nothing further to say about the matter. True, when the five-year experimental period was over and the three-generation colonists took over a planet, then it came more under civil control, and E.H.Q. largely withdrew with the provision that it could step back in at any time the problem seemed not to have been solved after all.

But while under the five-year test ... The E was the final word, or should be. The colonists knew it. The E knew it, or should know it. Obviously then it was weakness on the part of the Junior if he allowed the colonists to dictate that there could be no mechanical science. Proof of his inability to handle the job.

A perfect setup for Gunderson!

They decided they were forced to take a strong hand with McGinnis. Ordinarily the E was the final word, not only with the colonists, but with the administration at E.H.Q. But maybe there were times when he shouldn't be. Yes, definitely they should take a hand. After all, Gray was still a Junior, hardly more than a boy. Was it right that a mere boy could stop investigation by anyone except himself? Tell Earth with all its power and might what to do?

Definitely there was a time when an exception to general E policy should be made. Definitely this was that time. If nothing else, they must take a strong hand to prevent Gunderson from moving in with his police powers. Protect the E science from Gunderson, or at least salvage what they might.

Their conference over, they asked for a connection with McGinnis.

"We assume you will land and take charge, E McGinnis?" the board chairman asked.

"Certainly not," McGinnis snapped back. "An E has forbidden it."

"Well now," the chairman argued, and sweat began to come out on his forehead. "He's only a Junior. We have decided his judgment isn't mature enough for this problem."

"I have every confidence in Junior E Gray," McGinnis said acidly. "And every E in the system will back me. It makes no difference what you have decided. Either the science of E means something, or it doesn't. Either we have complete freedom to handle a problem, or we don't. Let me remind you, gentlemen, this isn't the first time that laymen have decided the E is a fool and tried to take matters into their own hands. Do you want to repeat past disasters?"

"If we don't land a ship, E McGinnis"--the chairman was all but pleading now--"Gunderson's police will. We feel we must land a ship to take a firmer control over the situation. Public sentiment demands it. Policy demands it. Perhaps the whole future of E demands it."

A new voice cut into the communications hookup, a feminine voice.

"Gentlemen," she said, "this is Linda Gray. I requested that I be cut in on any communication concerning my husband, and E McGinnis made it an order before he left. If another ship does land, I must be on it. I want to be with my husband."

"I will not be landing on Eden, Linda," E McGinnis said firmly. "An E has forbidden it. That is enough for any other E in the universe. No other E will land. Your husband is all right. He is in good health, and apparently mentally sound. At least sound enough to warn us against landing. He must have a reason. We don't know, yet, what it is.

"Now he has stopped communicating, we don't know why. He must have a reason for that, too. It is probably a sound reason. E science has been drilled into him until it is a part of his every mind cell, perhaps even every body cell.

"I assume he is not communicating because we can't help him, because communicating with us distracts him from solving the problem. If E.H.Q. decides to send out a ship on its own, and risk landing in an unknown co-ordinate system, against the orders of two E's, which will become the combined orders of all E's in the universe, that is their decision. If you wish to be on it, that is your decision.

"I am cutting off now. It will be no accident that E.H.Q. cannot connect with me. I'm cutting out because I don't want to be distracted any further. I'm trying to think."

The acid rebuff of the old E left the administrative board hanging in a vacuum of indecision, frustration. Angry determination to do something, anything.

They were caught between the intransigence of the E fraternity it was their duty to serve and from whom they should be able to expect help, and the obvious determination of Gunderson to use this incident as his means of regaining control over the E's and E.H.Q. for civil authority. Didn't the stupid E see the danger? Wasn't it the same danger that men of science had always faced, the same mistake they had always made--leaving out the human element in a problem?

The eternal blind spot in men of science! The average man doesn't give a tinker's damn for progress or knowledge, not really. He wants only that he and his shall be ascendant at the center of things, the inevitable, the only possible goal of the non-science mind. Surely the history of science versus non-science should have made this evident long ago! Surely there had been enough incidents in history....

Very well, it was up to them to help the E in spite of himself. If he refused the see the clear danger to his whole structure--and their own ascendant position at the center of it--it was their clear duty to protect him nonetheless.

They would send out another ship, a large one, a floating laboratory, a miniature E.H.Q., at least to be there on the scene; to help in any way they could, perhaps to counter the moves Gunderson's police might make, at least to stand by.

At least, in the face of all this public clamor about Eden, to show their concern. The chairman of the board rationalized it masterfully, without once mentioning that their real concern was to remain ascendant at the center of things at all costs, and thereby maintained the tradition of all non-science endeavors.

"Gentlemen," he said in summary, "we have a grave responsibility not only to the E structure, but to all mankind as well. In every system, in every rule, there must be provision for the exception. Gray is only a Junior E. Herein lies the weakness of our position. Herein lies Gunderson's strength, his weapon for swaying the sentiment of the people. A Junior E is not mature enough to make the decisions affecting the life or death of fifty people. More than that, perhaps the future progress of mankind.

"May I point out, gentlemen, that in a showdown, if it should become necessary for us to land a ship to rescue those colonists, in spite of the Junior's demand that we stay clear of the planet, we will not be overriding the decision of an E, but of a boy who has not yet proved his capacity to merit an E.

"We have to draw the line somewhere. I am forced to agree with Gunderson on that. If we must honor the command of the Junior E, then why not the Associate E? Why not the student E? Why not the apprentice student E? Why not any kid in the universe who thinks he is extra smart?

"The line of demarcation, the point at which civil control over the individual gives way to immunity from civil control has never been clearly drawn. We may regret that the issue has arisen at all, but it has arisen. Gunderson's purpose is clear. He intends to bring the E structure back under civil control. We must salvage what we can. Perhaps if we concede his control over the Juniors on down, we can maintain the immunity of the Senior E. We must work to save at least that much."

The floating laboratory, which might have to become a rescue ship, left six hours later.

Linda was on it.

20

There was no frustration, no uncertainty in Gunderson's mind.

His course was now clear. His observer ship had also read the messages spelled out by the placement of naked bodies on the grass, and in the semaphore wavings of the Junior E's arms. The photographs taken were all the evidence he needed to prove the morals charges he intended to bring.

It might not be wise to allow the total photographs to show in the newspapers, on television, for there were ex-navy men here and there who might interpret the code. But enlarged pictures of the individuals, separated from the total, disporting themselves in lewd, naked positions would do the job.

Clearly the police must put a stop to this. He would have every organization in the universe dedicated to dictating the morals of others on his side. No politician would have the guts to stand up in opposition.

There remained only one thing to do. Go out and get that Junior E, place him under arrest, bring him back for trial. Perhaps it might be wise to let the colonists off easy--he could easily show that it was the influence of the Junior which had made a disgusting orgy develop there on Eden. Never mind that they were naked before the Junior arrived. The public could always be razzle-dazzled about the nature of the evidence, its order and meaning. It was an old police, prosecution, and political trick to separate a few items from the total context, but still a good one; for the public never bothered to know the whole context of anything. An old trick to fasten on phrases and slogans to fix an attitude in the public mind, for a phrase or slogan was about all the public was able to master. Anyone who had ever served on a jury, observed its deliberations, knew that out of all the welter of evidence, only certain isolated statements or facts, often minor and insignificant, penetrated the juror's mind, and around these bits he formed his conclusions. Any smart lawyer knew that, and tried to set up his case accordingly.

His own course was clear.

His orders to the selected captain of his police ship were equally clear:

_1. Proceed at once to Eden, the scene of the crime._

_2. Ignore any protests from the E ship already out there, or any other ship E.H.Q. might have sent._

_3. Ignore any signals from the Junior E on the planet._

_4. Land on the planet at the site of Appletree, the main site of the lewd and obscene crime._

_5. Place Junior E Calvin Gray under arrest._

_6. Place the crew of the Junior E's ship, Thomas Lynwood, Franklin Norton, Louis LeBeau, under arrest._

_7. Place any colonist who opposed the police under arrest._

_8. Place the remainder of the colonists in detention under protective custody._

_9. Place E McGinnis under arrest if he interfered in any way with the police in carrying out the foregoing orders._

The police captain raised his eyebrows when he read the final order.

Place a Senior E under arrest?

Certainly, a Senior E. It was one thing to allow these birds to wander around, free as air to do as they please. It was one thing to let them get away with making such statements as "The police attitude toward the people is the major cause of crime." It was something else, and time the E's found it out, for them to make any overt move to interfere with the police in their performance of duty.

Personally, he hoped the old E would be fool enough to resist. It would strengthen his case.

The police captain obeyed the first of the orders without a hitch. He proceeded to the scene of the crime.

He obeyed the second order. He ignored the command of E McGinnis, received over the ship's communicator when they arrived at the scene of the crime, to stand clear of the planet. What policeman moving in to make an arrest for an illegal act--and certainly running around stark naked, posing in lewd and indecent postures in full view of the public, was an illegal act--would pay any attention to the request of an onlooker which amounted to "Aw, let 'em alone, copper"?

There was no communication at all from the Junior E on the planet's surface, so the third order did not apply.

It was in trying to execute the fourth order that he ran into trouble.

He passed inside the orbits of the three other ships now circling the planet, the police observer ship, the E McGinnis ship, the E.H.Q. floating laboratory. He gave orders to lower his ship into Eden's atmosphere.

The proper buttons were pushed, the proper levers pulled.

And nothing happened.

It was as if some invisible shield held him back. He could not lower the ship into the atmosphere gently, taking the normal precautions against crashing. Very well then, not so gently. Full power. And nothing happened. They lowered not another inch.

A thrust. A thrust at tangent to the surface. Once past whatever this barrier was, they could skim the surface and come back to land on the proper site. They backed the ship farther out into space. They made their thrust with full speed and momentum.