"What has this to do with me?"
"It will have. The data from Deaf Smith County was seized on by the contemporary technicians-medicine men, they called them-as a solution for the problem. Duplicate the diet of the Deaf Smithians-no more caries. They were perfectly right and biologically quite wrong, for an advantage is no good to a race unless it can be inherited. The clue was there, but they used it the wrong way. What we looked for finally were men and women who had perfect teeth despite poor diet and lack of attention. In time it was proved that all such cases had a group of three genes, previously uncharted. Call it a favorable mutation. Or call the susceptibility to tooth decay an unfavorable mutation which didn't quite kill off the race.
"My predecessors conserved this particular gene group. You know how inheritance fans out; go back enough generations and all of us are descended from the whole population. But, genetically, our teeth are descended from one small group-because we selected to preserve that dominant. What we want to do with you; Felix, is to conserve the favorable variations present in you until the whole race has your advantages. You won't be the only ancestor of coming generations-oh, no!-but you will be, genetically, the ancestor of them all in the respects in which you are superior to the majority."
"You've picked the wrong man. I'm a failure."
"Don't tell me that, Felix. I know your chart. I know you better than you know yourself. You are a survivor type. I could set you down on an island peopled by howling savages and dangerous animals-in two weeks you would own the place."
Hamilton grudged a smile. "Maybe so. I'd like to try it."
"We don't need to try it. I know! You've got the physique and the mentality and the temperament. What's your sleep ration?"
"Around four hours."
"Fatigue index?"
"It runs around a hundred and twenty-five hours, maybe more."
"Reflex?"
Hamilton shrugged.. Mordan suddenly whipped his sidearm clear, aimed it at Hamilton. Hamilton had his own out and had Mordan covered at appreciably the same instant. He returned it at once. Mordan laughed and replaced his own. "I was in no danger," he declared. "I knew that you could draw, evaluate the situation, and decide not to fire, before a slower man would see that anything was going on."
"You took a long chance," Hamilton complained.
"Not at all. I know your chart. I counted not only on your motor reactions, but your intelligence. Felix, your intelligence rating entitles you to the term genius even in these days."
There followed a long silence. Mordan broke it. "Well?"
"You've said all you have to say?"
"For the moment."
"Very well, then, I'll speak my piece. You haven't said anything that convinces me. I wasn't aware that you planners took such an interest in my germ plasm, but you didn't tell me anything else that I did not already know. My answer is 'No'-"
"But-"
"My turn-Claude. I'll tell you why. Conceding that I am a superior survival type-I don't argue that; it's true. I'm smart and I'm able and I know it. Even so, I know of no reason why the human race should survive... other than the fact that their make-up insures that they will. But there's no sense to the whole bloody show. There's no point to being alive at all. I'm damned if I'll contribute to continuing the comedy."
He paused. Mordan waited, then said slowly, "Don't you enjoy life, Felix?"
"I certainly do," Hamilton answered emphatically. "I've got a twisted sense of humor, and everything amuses me."
"Then isn't life worth living for itself alone?"
"It is for me. I intend to live as long as I can and I expect to enjoy most of it. But do most people enjoy life? I doubt it. As near as I can tell from outward appearances it's about fourteen to one against it."
"Outward appearances may be deceiving. I am inclined to think that most people are happy."
"Prove it!"
Mordan smiled. "You've got me. We can measure most things about the make-up of a man, but we've never been able to measure that. However-don't you expect your own descendants to inherit your zest for living?"
"Is it inheritable?" Hamilton asked suspiciously.
"Well, truthfully, we don't know. I can't point to a particular spot on a particular chromosome and say, 'There lies happiness. ' It's more subtle than blue eyes versus brown eyes. But I want to delve into this more deeply. Felix, when did you begin to suspect that life was not worth living?" Hamilton stood up and paced nervously, feeling in himself such agitation as he had not felt since adolescence. He knew the answer to that question. He knew it well. But did he wish to bare it to this stranger?
No one speaks to a little child of chromosome charts. There was nothing to mark Hamilton Felix out from other infants in the first development center he could remember. He was a nobody, kindly and intelligently treated, but of importance to no one but himself. It had dawned on him slowly that his abilities were superior. A bright child is dominated in its early years by other, duller children, simply because they are older, larger, better informed. And there are always those remote omniscient creatures, the grown ups.
He was ten-or was it eleven?-when he began to realize that in competition he usually excelled. After that he tried to excel, to be conspicuously superior, cock-o'-the-walk. He began to feel the strongest of social motivations, the desire to be appreciated. He knew now what he wanted to be when he "grew up."
The other fellows talked about what they wanted to do. ("I'm going to be a rocket pilot when I grow up." "So am I." "I'm not. My father says a business man can hire all the rocket pilots he wants." "He couldn't hire me." "He could so.")
Let them talk. Young Felix knew what he wanted to do. He would be an encyclopedic synthesist. All the really great men were synthesists. The whole world was their oyster. Who stood a chance of being elected to the Board of Policy but a synthesis? What specialist was there who did not, in the long run, take his orders from a synthesist? They were the leaders, the men who knew everything, the philosopher-kings of whom the ancients had dreamed.
He kept his dream to himself. He appeared to be pulling out of his pre-adolescent narcissist period and to be undergoing the social integration of adolescence with no marked trouble. His developers were unaware that he was headed for an insuperable obstacle. Youths seldom plan to generalize their talents; it takes more subtle imagination than they usually possess to see romance in being a policy former.
Hamilton looked at Mordan. The man's face invited confidence. "You're a synthesist, aren't you? You aren't a geneticist."
"Naturally. I couldn't specialize in the actual techniques. That takes a lifetime."
"The best geneticist on your staff can't hope to sit where you are sitting."
"Of course not. They wouldn't wish to."
"Could I become your successor? Go ahead-answer me. You know my chart."
"No, you couldn't."
"Why not?"
"You know why. You have an excellent memory, more than adequate for any other purpose, but it's not an eidetic memory. A synthesist must have complete memory in order to be able to cover the ground he must cover."
"And without it," Hamilton added, "a man can never be recognized as a synthesist. He just isn't one, any more than a man can claim to be an engineer who can't solve fourth degree equations in his head. I wanted to be a synthesist and I wasn't equipped for it. When it was finally pounded into my head that I couldn't take first prize, I wasn't interested in second prize."
"Your son could be a synthesist."
Hamilton shook his head. "It doesn't matter any more. I still have the encyclopedic viewpoint, but I wouldn't want to trade places with you. You asked me when and how it was that I first came to the conclusion that life doesn't mean anything. I've told you how I first began to have my doubts, but the point is: I still have 'em."