“You don't value human life?”
“Not infinitely. There are too many people on Earth.”
“I know that some think so.”
“You're one of them, Mr. Secretary. You have written articles saying so. And it's obvious to any thinking man-to you more than anyone-what it's doing. Over-population means discomfort, and to reduce the discomfort private choice must disappear. Crowd enough people into a field and the only way they can all sit down is for all to sit down at the same time. Make a mob dense enough and they can move from one point to another quickly only by marching in formation. That is what men are becoming; a blindly marching mob knowing nothing about where it is going or why.”
“How long have you rehearsed this speech, Mr. Tansonia?”
Lou flushed slightly. “ And the other life forms are decreasing in numbers of species and individuals, except for the plants we eat. The ecology gets simpler every year.”
“It stays balanced.”
“But it loses color and variety and we don't even know how good the balance is. We accept the balance only because it's all we have.”
“What would you do?”
“ Ask the computer that rejected my proposal. I want to initiate a program for genetic engineering on a wide variety of species from worms to mammals. I want to create new variety out of the dwindling material at hand before it dwindles out altogether.”
“For what purpose?”
“To set up artificial ecologies. To set up ecologies based on plants and animals not like anything on Earth.”
“What would you gain?”
“I don't know. If I knew exactly what I would gain there would be no need to do research. But I know what we ought to gain. We ought to learn more about what makes an ecology tick. So far, we've only taken what nature has handed us and then ruined it and broken it down and made do with the gutted remains. Why not build something up and study that?”
“You mean build it blindly? At random?”
“We don't know enough to do it any other way. Genetic engineering has the random mutation as its basic driving force. Applied to medicine, this randomness must be minimized at all costs, since a specific effect is sought. I want to take the random component of genetic engineering and make use of it.”
Adrastus frowned for a moment. “ And how are you going to set up an ecology that's meaningful? Won't it interact with the ecology that already exists, and possibly unbalance it? That is something we can't afford.”
“I don't mean to carry out the experiments on Earth,” said Lou. “Of course not.”
“On the moon?”
“Not on the moon, either. -On the asteroids. I've thought of that since my proposal was fed to the computer which spit it out. Maybe this will make a difference. How about small asteroids, hollowed-out; one per ecology? Assign a certain number of asteroids for the purpose. Have them properly engineered; outfit them with energy sources and transducers; seed them with collections of life forms which might form a closed ecology. See what happens. If it doesn't work, try to figure out why and subtract an item, or, more likely, add an item, or change the proportions. We'll develop a science of applied ecology, or, if you prefer, a science of ecological engineering; a science one step up in complexity and significance beyond genetic engineering.”
“But the good of it, you can't say.”
“The specific good, of course not. But how can it avoid some good? It will increase knowledge in the very field we need it most.” He pointed to the shimmering lettering behind Adrastus. “You said it yourself, 'Man's greatest asset is a balanced ecology.' I'm offering you a way of doing basic research in experimental ecology; something that has never been done before.”
“How many asteroids will you want?” Lou hesitated. “Ten?” he said with rising inflection. “As a beginning.”
“Take five,” said Adrastus, drawing the report toward himself and scribbling quickly on its face, canceling out the computer's decision.
Afterward, Marley said, “Can you sit there and tell me that you're a glorified clerk now? You cancel the computer and hand out five asteroids. Like that.”
“The Congress will have to give its approval. I'm sure it will.”
“Then you think this young man's suggestion is really a good one.”
“No, I don't. It won't work. Despite his enthusiasm, the matter is so complicated that it will surely take far more men than can possibly be made available for far more years than that young man will live to carry it through to any worthwhile point.”
“Are you sure?”
“The computer says so. It's why his project was rejected.”
“Then why did you cancel the computer's decision?”
“Because I, and the government in general, are here in order to preserve something far more important than the ecology.”
Marley leaned forward. “I don't get it.”
“Because you misquoted what I said so long ago. Because everyone misquotes it. Because I spoke two sentences and they were telescoped into one and I have never been able to force them apart again. Presumably, the human race is unwilling to accept my remarks as I madethem.”
“You mean you didn't say 'Man's greatest asset is a I balanced ecology'?”
“Of course not. I said, 'Man's greatest need is a balanced ecology.'“
“But on your Shimmer-plast you say, 'Man's greatest asset-'“
“That begins the second sentence, which men refuse to quote, but which I never forget-'Man's greatest asset is the unsettled mind.' I haven't overruled the computer for the sake of our ecology. We only need that to live. I overruled it to save a valuable mind and keep it at work, an unsettled mind. We need that for man to be man-which is more important than merely to live.”
Marley rose. “I suspect, Mr. Secretary, you wanted me here for this interview. It's this thesis you want me to publicize, isn't it?”
“Let's say,” said Adrastus, “that I'm seizing the chance to get my remarks correctly quoted.”
Alas, that was my last sale to John. The check arrived on August 18, 1970, and less than a year later he was dead.
When the story appeared in the January 1972 issue of Analog my good and gentle friend, Ben Bova, was editor of the magazine. It isn't possible to fill John Campbell's shoes, but Ben is filling his own very successfully.
The next story was written as the result of a comedy of errors. In January 1971, as a result of a complicated set of circumstances, I promised Bob Silverberg that I would write a short story for an anthology of originals he was preparing.[You may be surprised that I don't explain the complicated set of circumstances, since I am such a blabbermouth, but Bob finds my version a little on the offensive side, so we’ll let it go.]
I wrote the short story but it turned out not to be a short story. To my enormous surprise, I wrote a novel, THE GODS THEMSELVES (Doubleday, 1972), my first science fiction novel in fifteen years (if you don't count FANTASTIC VOYAGE, which wasn't entirely mine).
It wasn't a bad novel at all, since it won the Hugo and the Nebula, and showed the science fiction world that the old man still had it. Nevertheless, it put me in a hole since there was the short story I had promised Bob. I wrote another, therefore, TAKE A MATCH, and it appeared in Bob's anthology New Dimensions II (Doubleday, 1972).
Take A Match
Space was black; black an around in every direction. There was nothing to be seen; not a star.
It was not because there were no stars-
Actually the thought that there might be no stars, literally no stars, had chilled Per Hanson's vitals. It was the old nightmare that rested just barely subliminally beneath the skin of every deep-spacer's brain.
When you took the Jump through the tachyon-universe, how sure were you where you would emerge? The timing and quantity of the energy input might be as tightly controlled as you liked, and your Fusionist might be the best in space, but the uncertainty principle reigned supreme and there was always the chance, even the inevitability of a random miss.