For the first time, there are real incentives for doing so…. We tend to judge the universe by our own physical size and our own time scale; it seems natural for us to work with waves that we could span with our arms, or even with our fingertips. But the cosmos is not built to these dimensions; nor, perhaps, are all the entities that dwell among the stars.
These giant radio waves are more commensurate with the scale of the Milky
Way, and their slow vibrations are a better measure of its eon-long
Galactic Year. They may have much to tell us when we begin to decipher their messages.
How those scientist-statesmen Franklin and Jefferson would have welcomed such a project! They would have grasped its scope, if not its technology for they were interested in every branch of knowledge between heaven and Earth.
The problems they faced, five hundred years ago, will never rise again. The age of conflict between nations is over. But we have other challenges, which may yet tax us to the utmost. Let us be thankful that the universe can always provide great goals beyond ourselves, and enterprises to which we can pledge our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Duncan Makenzie closed the beautifully designed souvenir book-a masterpiece of the printer’s art, such as had not been seen for centuries and might never be seen again. Only five hundred copies had been produced—one for every year. He would carry his back in triumph to Titan, where for the rest of his life it would be among his most cherished possessions. Many people had complimented him on his speech, enshrined forever in these pages-and, much more accessibly, in lib aries and information banks throughout the Soar System. Yet he had
felt embarrassed to receive those plaudits, for in his heart be knew that he had not earned them. The Duncan of a few weeks ago could never have conceived that address; he was little more than a medium, passing on a message from the dead. The words were his, but all the thoughts were Karl’s.
How astonished, he told himself wryly, all his friends on Titan must have been, when they watched the ceremony! Perhaps it had been slightly inappropriate to use such a forum as this for what might be considered self-serving propaganda-even special pleading on behalf of his own world.
But Duncan had a clear conscience, and as yet there had been no criticism on this score. Even those who were baffled by his thesis had been grateful for the excitement he had injected into all the routine formalities.
And even if his speech was only a seven-day wonder to the general public, it would not be forgotten. He had planted a seed; one day it would grow—on barren Mnemosyne.
Meanwhile, there was a slight practical problem, though it was not yet urgent. This splendid volume, with its thick vellum, and its tooled leather binding, weighed about five kilograms.
The Makenzies hated waste and extravagance. Tt would be pleasant to have the book on the voyage home, but excess baggage to Titan was a hundred so lars a kilo…. It would have to go back by slow boat, on one of the empty tankerS-UNACCOMPANIED FREIGHT, MAY BE STOWED IN
VACUUM….
THE MIRROR OF THE SEA
Dr. Yehudi ben Mohammed did not look as if he belonged in a modern hospital, surrounded by flickering life-function displays, Comsole read-outs, whispering voices from hidden speakers, and all the aseptic technology of life and death. In his spotless white robes, with the double circlet of gold cord around his headdress, he should have been holding court in a desert tent, or scanning the horizon from the back of his camel for the first glimpse of an oasis.
Duncan remembered how one of the younger doctors had com men ed, during his first visit: “Sometimes I think El Hadj believes he’s a reincarnation of
Saladin and Lawrence of Arabia.” Although Duncan did not understand the full flavor of the references, this was obviously said more in affectionate jest than in criticism. Did the surgeon, he wondered, wear those robes in the operating theater? They would not be inappropriate there; and certainly they did not interfere with the feline grace of his movements.
“I’m glad,” said Dr. Yehudi, toying with the jeweled dagger on his elaborately inlaid desk-the two touches of antiquity in an otherwise late-twenty-third century environment– ~‘that you’ve finally made up your mind. The—ah-delay has caused certain problems but we’ve overcome them. We now have four perfectly viable embryos, and the first will be trans planted in a week. The others will be kept as backups, in case of a rejection-though that is now very rare.”
And what will happen to the unwanted three? Duncan asked himself, and shied away from the answer. One human being had been created who would
never otherwise have existed. That was the positive side; 291 better to forget the three ghosts who for a brief while had hovered on the borders of reality. Yet it was hard to be coldly logical in matters like this. As he stared across the intricate arabesques, Duncan wondered at the psychology of the calm and elegant figure whose skillful hands had controlled so many destinies. In their own small way, on their own little world, the Makenzies had played at God; but this was something beyond his understanding.
Of course, one could always take refuge in the cold mathematics of reproduction. Old Mother Nature had not the slightest regard for human ethics or feelings. In the course of a lifetime, every man generated enough spermatozoa to populate the entire Solar System, many times over-and all but two or three of that potential multitude were doomed. Had anyone ever gone mad by visualizing each ejaculation as a hundred million murders?
Quite possibly; no wonder that the adherents of some old religions had refused to look through the microscope…. There were moral obligations and uncertainties behind every act. In the long run, a man could only obey the promptings of that mysterious entity called Conscience and hope that the outcome would not be too disastrous.
Not, of course, that one could ever know the final results of any actions.
Strange, thought Duncan, how he had resolved the doubts that had assailed him when he first came to the island. He had learned to take the broader view, and to place the hopes and aspirations of the Makenzies in a wider context. Above all, he had seen the dangers of overreaching ambition; but the lesson of Karl’s fate was still ambiguous and would give him cause to wonder all his life.
With a mild sense of shock, Duncan realized that he had already signed the legal documents and was returning them to Dr. Yehudi. No matter; he had read them carefully and knew his responsibilities. “I, Duncan Makenzie, resident of the satellite Titan presently in orbit around the planet
Saturn” (when did the lawyers think it was going to run away?) “do
hereby accept guardianship of one cloned male 292 child, identified by the chromosome chart herewith attached, and will to the best of my ability .. …. etc.” etc.” etc.Perhaps the world would have been a better place if the parents of normally conceived children had been forced to sign such a contract. This thought, however, was some hundred billion births too late.
The surgeon flowed upward to his full commanding two meters in a gesture of dismissal which, from anyone else, would have seemed slightly discourteous.
But not here, for El Hadj had much on his mind. All the while they had been talking, his eyes had seldom strayed from the pulsing lines of life and death on the read-outs that covered almost one whole wall of his office.