“So it was,” said Alvarez dryly. “I hope you haven't over-romanticized it. I've studied its madness, too. The world was empty then, only a few billions, and they thought it was crowded-and with 'good reason. They spent more than half their substance on war and preparations of war, ran their economy without forethought, wasted and poisoned at will, let pure chance govern the genetic pool, and tolerated the deviants-from-norm of all descriptions. Of course, they dreaded what they called the population explosion, and dreamed of reaching other worlds as a kind of escape. So would we under those conditions.
“I needn't tell you the combination of events and of scientific advances that changed everything, but just let me remind you briefly in case you are trying to forget. There was the establishment of a world government, the development of fusion power, and the growth of the art of genetic engineering; With planetary peace, plentiful energy, and a placid humanity men could multiply peacefully, and science kept up with the multiplication.
“It was known in advance exactly how many men the Earth could support. So many calories of sunlight reached the Earth, and, using that, only so many tons of carbon dioxide could be fixed by green plants each year, and only so many tons of animal life could be supported by those plants. The Earth could support two trillion tons of animal life-”
Cranwitz finally broke in, “And why shouldn't all two trillion tons be human?”
“Exactly.”
“Even if it meant killing off all other animal life?”
“That's the way of evolution.” said Bunting angrily. “The fit survive.”
Alvarez touched the other's knee again. “Bunting is right, Cranwitz,” he said gently. “The toleosts replaced the placoderms, who had replaced the trilobites. The reptiles replaced the amphibians and were in turn replacedby the mammals. Now, at last, evolution has reached its peak. Earth bears its mighty population of fifteen trillion human beings-”
“But how?” demanded Cranwitz. “They live in one vast building over all the face of the dry land, with no plants and no animals beside, except what I have right here. And all the uninhabited ocean has become a plankton soup; no life but plankton. We harvest it endlessly to feed our people; and as endlessly we restore organic matter to feed the plankton.”
“We live very well,” said Alvarez. “There is no war; there is no crime. Our births are regulated; our deaths are peaceful. Our infants are genetically adjusted and on Earth there are now twenty billion tons of normal brain; the largest conceivable quantity of the most complex conceivable matter in the universe.”
“And all that weight of brain doing what? ”
Bunting heaved an audible sigh of exasperation but Alvarez, still calm, said, “My good friend, you confuse the journey with the destination. Perhaps it comes from living with your animals. When the Earth was in process of development, it was necessary for life to experiment and take chances. It was even worthwhile to be wasteful. The Earth was empty then. It had infinite room and evolution had to experiment with ten million species or more-till it found the species.
“Even after mankind came, it had to learn the way. While it was learning, it had to take chances, attempt the impossible, be foolish or mad. -But mankind has come home, now. Men have filled the planet and need only to enjoy perfection.”
Alvarez paused to let that sink in, then said, “We want it, Cranwitz. The whole world wants perfection. It is in our generation that perfection has been reached, and we want the distinction of having reached it. Your animals are in the way.”
Cranwitz shook his head stubbornly. “They take up so little room; consume so little energy. If all were wiped out, you might have room for what? For twenty-five more human beings? Twenty-five in fifteen trillion?”
Bunting said, “Twenty-five human beings represent another seventy-five pounds of human brain. With what measure can you evaluate seventy-five pounds of human brain?”
“But you already have billions of tons of it.”
“I know,” said Alvarez, “but the difference between perfection and not-quite-perfection is that between life and not-quite-life. We are so close now. All Earth is prepared to celebrate this year of 2430 AD. This is the year when the computer tens us that the planet is fun at last; the goal is achieved; all the striving of evolution crowned. Shall we fan short by twenty-five-even out of fifteen trillion. It is such a tiny, tiny flaw, but it is a flaw.
“Think, Cranwitz! Earth has been waiting for five billion years to be fulfilled. Must we wait longer? We cannot and will not force you, but if you yield voluntarily you will be a hero to everyone.”
Bunting said, “Yes. In all future time men win say that Cranwitz acted and with that one single act perfection was reached.”
And Cranwitz said, imitating the other's tone of voice, “And men will say that Alvarez and Bunting persuaded him to do so.”
“If we succeed!” said Alvarez with no audible annoyance. “But tell me, Cranwitz, can you hold out against the enlightened will of fifteen trillion people forever? Whatever your motives-and I recognize that in your own way I you are an idealist-can you withhold that last bit of perfection from so many?”
Cranwitz looked down in silence and Alvarez's hand waved gently in Bunting's direction and Bunting said not a word. The silence remained unbroken while slow minutes crept by.
Then Cranwitz whispered, “Can I have one more day with my animals?”
“And then?”
“And then-I won't stand between mankind and perfection.”
And Alvarez said, “I’ll let the world know. You will be honored.” And he and Bunting left.
Over the vast continental buildings some five trillion human beings placidly slept; some two trillion human beings placidly ate; half a trillion carefully made love. Other trillions talked without heat, or tended the computers quietly, or ran the vehicles, or studied the machinery, or organized the microfilm libraries, or amused their fellows. Trillions went to sleep; trillions woke up; and the routine never varied.
The machinery worked, tested itself, repaired itself. The plankton soup of the planetary ocean basked under the sun and the cells divided, and divided, and divided, while dredges endlessly scooped them up and dried them and by the millions of tons transferred them to conveyors and conduits that brought them to every corner of the endless buildings.
And in every corner of the buildings human wastes were gathered and irradiated and dried, and human corpses were ground and treated and dried and endlessly the residue was brought back to the ocean. And for hours, while all this was going on, as it had gone on for decades, and might be doomed to go on for millennia, Cranwitz fed his little creatures a last time, stroked his guinea pig, lifted a tortoise to gaze into its uncomprehending eye, felt a blade of living grass between his fingers.
He counted them over, all of them-the last living things on Earth that were neither humans nor food for humans-and then he seared the soil in which the plants grew and killed them. He flooded the cages and rooms in which the animals moved with appropriate vapors, and they moved no more and soon they lived no more.
The last of them was gone and now between mankind and perfection there was only Cranwitz, whose thoughts still rebelliously departed from the norm. But for Cranwitz there were also the vapors, and he didn’t want to live.
And, after that, there was really perfection, for over all the Earth, through all its fifteen trillion inhabitants and over all its twenty billion tons of human brain, there was (with Cranwitz gone) not one unsettling thought, not one unusual idea, to disturb the universal placidity that meant that the exquisite nothingness of uniformity had at last been achieved.