“And what talents have you found?”
“Oh, a little bit of everything. Except for prescience. Usually the hunchers, as we call them, can sense impending events, but never the details. Most often it's simply a feeling of almost unbearable expectation, and rarely does it apply or relate to anyone but themselves. But we've gotten telepaths who can send, receive, or both. We've gotten levitators. We've found teleporters, though there have been only three of them, and two of the three had to be threatened irreversibly with death before they could find the wherewithal to teleport themselves. We've found far more people who are adepts at telekinesis. And, of course, we've gotten some intelligences that have gone right off the scale, brainpower so high that we've still no real way of measuring it.”
“Fantastic!” said Rojers. “And wonderful!” “Fantastic, at any rate,” said Herban dryly. “Still, most of them go home intact.” “What do you mean, go home intact?” demanded Rojers. “Just what I said. Why do you think we're doing all this testing?” “I assume for the same reasons we've been trying to force evolution in the incubator rooms: to create a superman.”
“Butthese supermen have already been created,” pointed out Herban. “Then I would imagine you'd want to train them to use their talents to the best of their abilities, for the good of the Oligarchy.”
“What an absolutely childish answer!” Herban laughed. “If enough of them used their abilities to their maximum potential, the Oligarchy—and Man—would be finished within fifty years or so. No, my idealistic boy, we definitely donot help them become supermen and then turn them loose on society.”
“You mean youkill them all?” demanded Rojers.
“Don't look so damned horrified,” said Herban. “Let's not forget that you have killed just about every single life you've created.'’
“But those were just babies,” protested Rojers. “And more than half of them were still in the fetal state.” “It comes to the same thing,” said Herban. “However, if it'll put your mind at ease, we don't bring them down here for the express purpose of killing them. We have a galaxy-wide structure set up to spot every human with what you might call a wild talent. And considering how many trillions of humans there are, we don't miss very many. Anyway, once they're found—and adolescence is usually the earliest that such traits can be determined by outside observers—they're either brought here or to one of seven similar labs scattered throughout the galaxy.
“Once here, they're tested thoroughly. Before we're done, we know the absolute limits of their abilities; quite often, we find talents eventhey didn't know they possessed. We also run a comprehensive analysis of their genetic structure, DNA code, sperm, ovum, everything that could possibly influence their offspring, though I must admit we've found nothing unusual as yet. That done, we are free to reach one of three decisions. If there is any chance that the talent will breed on—and since we can't determine it genetically, we simply assume it is possible if anyone in the past five generations has displayed any odd talent—they are sterilized. Without their knowing it, of course. And if it seems pretty certain that the talent will not breed on, we'll usually let them return to society, especially if it isn't too spectacular a talent, such as mild telepathy. If it's something really interesting, something that might lead people to demand that we find a way to unleash it, such as levitation, we usually ship the subject off to a frontier world.” “That's two decisions,” said Rojers. “You mentioned three.” “The third should be obvious.”
“Death?”
“Quickly and painlessly, if the talent warrants it,” said Herban. “And, in answer to your next question, it warrants it if it can ever, in any way, prove inimical to Man. For example, if a man's intelligence is so great that no device in our technologically oriented culture can measure it, he's too dangerous to live. Admittedly, that intelligence could conceivably make meaningful communicative contact with some of the races we just can't seem to get through to, or possibly cure every disease known to us ... but it could also mount a navy and a political following that would overthrow the existing order of things. And it's not just intelligence. A man who possesses the power of telekinesis to the ultimate degree can manipulate elements within the core of a star and cause it to go nova. This could be a boon if we get into another war with the Setts; but what if he decides that the government of his own system is totally corrupt? And the same goes for other talents. A legitimate case of prescience—and we haven't come across one yet—could destroy the economic structure of any world that deals heavily in financial speculation. Teleportation? More than half our economy is bound up in interplanetary and interstellar transportation. The ability to master involuntary hypnosis? It would lead to absolute control of a system, possibly of the entire galaxy.
“No, boy, these talents can't be allowed to survive. We don't destroy every highly intelligent man, or every man capable of telekinesis, or every telepath. Only those that can be considered a clear danger. And notice that I didn't say a clear andpresent danger; clear and future dangers are no damned better. And if we can discover the outer limits of a dangerous man's abilities before he does, it's a lot harder for
him to erect defenses, mental or otherwise, against us.”
“About how many people do you destroy?” asked Rojers. “We bring in about a million a year to each lab center,” said Herban. “There are far more, but most of them are eliminated from further consideration at lower levels. We just get the stinkers. Of that million, we'll return about eight hundred thousand intact, and another hundred and eighty thousand sterilized. As for the other twenty thousand ... well, we potentially save the galaxy a million times every half century or so.'’
“Save it from what?” said Rojers disgustedly. “We don't save itfrom anything,” said Herban very slowly, very seriously. “We save itfor something: for Man. Don't look so morally outraged, boy. I know you're thinking about all the poor innocent supermen who have gone to their deaths down here, all those fine talents who could have made Paradise happen right here and now, and maybe they could have. But I think of three trillion Men who aren't about to give up their birthright to anyone, including their progeny.” “And what about the incubators?” demanded Rojers. “What about all those tiny lives that we create and snuff out every day?”
“They serve their purpose,” answered Herban. “And their purpose is only partially to train you fellers and further develop the subscience of parthenogenesis.” “Oh?” Rojers was still suspicious.
“Absolutely. The talents we deal with down here are very rare sports, even those that might possibly reproduce their traits. But if you ever find a genetic method of unlocking that seventy percent, the human race will happily advance as a whole. It's just that no member of it is going to let his neighbor move up ahead of him.”