“As we make it, civilization collapsed here less than five hundred years before this picture,” Brad said. “Population reduced from about ten billion individuals to no more than a million, and is declining. There still isn’t enough to eat, you see, and naturally no medicine. Most surviving plants are diseased themselves…”
Ivo did not bother to inquire whether the hunched creature was a descendant of the dominant species. Obviously it had once been bipedal.
Of course three samples did not make a conclusive case. They could be three freaks. But, unwillingly, he was coming to accept the notion that Man might well be a fourth such freak. Overpopulation, pollution of environment, savagery — he refused to believe that it had to proceed to species extinction, but certainly it could.
Yet the sample was atypical, for there were no neolithic-era cultures. Chance would place many more species in this stage.
“It was from the probs I got the heat-shielding technique,” Brad said, allowing the subject to shift. He had brought the picture back to Sung, their planet. “We’re still working on their books and equipment, and we’re learning a great deal. And if we’re lucky, one day we’ll discover a really advanced civilization, one that has licked this problem of overbreed, and learn how to undo the damage we have done to our own planet. The macroscope has the potential to jump our science ahead more in days than it has progressed in centuries hitherto.”
“I yield the point. This is major. But—”
“But why am I wasting time on you, instead of researching for the solutions to the problems of mankind? Because something has come up.”
“I gathered as much,” Ivo replied with gentle irony. “What has come up?”
“We’re receiving what amounts to commercial broadcasts.”
Ivo choked over the letdown. “You can’t even tune out local interference? I thought you operated on a different wavelength, or whatever.”
“Alien broadcasts. Artificial signals in the prime macroscopic band.”
Ivo digested this. “So you have made real contact.”
“A one-way contact. We can’t send, we can only receive. We know of no way to tame a macron, but obviously some species does.”
“So some stellar civilization is sending out free entertainment?” His words sounded ridiculous as he said them, but he could think of no better immediate remark.
“It isn’t entertainment. Instructional series. Coded information.”
“And you can’t decode it? That’s why you need Schön?”
“We comprehend it. It is designed for ready assimilation, though not in quite the manner we anticipated.”
“You mean, not a dit-dot building up from 2 ÷ 2 or forming a picture of their stellar system? No, don’t go into the specifics; it was rhetorical. Is it from a nearby planet? A surrender ultimatum?”
“It originates about fifteen thousand light-years away, from the direction of the constellation Scorpio. No invasion, no ultimatum.”
“But we weren’t civilized fifteen thousand years ago. How could they send us a message?”
“It is spherical radiation. That’s another surprise. We assumed that any long-reaching artificial signal would be focused, for economy of power. This has to be a Type II technology.”
“I don’t—”
“Type I would be equivalent to ours, or to the probs’ level of power control. Type II means they can harness the entire radiation output of their star. Type III would match the luminous energy of an entire galaxy. The designations have been theoretical — until recently. Presumably this message is intended for all macroscope-developing cultures within its range.”
“But — that’s deliberate contact between intelligent species! A magnificent breakthrough! Isn’t it?”
“Yes it is,” Brad agreed morosely. On the screen, the hulking mound of indolent probs continued its futile activity. “Right when we stand most in need of advice from a higher civilization. You can see why all the other functions of the macroscope have become incidental. Why should we make a tedious search of space, when we have been presented with a programmed text from a culture centuries ahead of us?”
Ivo kept his eyes on the screen. “The probs had the macroscope, and this program should have been around for at least five thousand years then. Why didn’t they use it? Or were they in the opposite direction, so it hadn’t reached them yet?”
“They received the program. So did the humanoids, we believe. That was part of the trouble.”
“You told me that they stopped using their macroscope, though. That strikes me as learning to read, then burning all your books. They should have used the alien instruction and benefited from it, as we should. The alternative — or are you saying that we’ll wash out if we have to take advice from an elder civilization?”
“No, we’re agreed here at the station that the benefits of a free education are worth the risks. Mankind isn’t likely to get flabby that way. For one thing, we’d be pursuing all other avenues of knowledge at the same time, on our own.”
“What’s stopping you then?”
“The Greek element.”
“The — ?”
“Bearing gifts; beware of.”
“You said the knowledge would not hurt us by itself — and what kind of payment could they demand, after fifteen thousand years?”
“The ultimate. They can destroy us.”
“Brad, I may be a hick, but—”
“Specifically, our best brains. We have already suffered casualties. That’s the crisis.”
Ivo finally turned away from the prob scene. “Same thing happen to them?”
“Yes. They never solved the problem.”
“What is it — a death-beam that still has punch after ten or fifteen thousand years? Talk about comic books—”
“Yes and no. Our safeguards prevent the relay of any physically dangerous transmission — the computer is interposed, remember — but they can’t protect our minds from dangerous information.”
“I should hope not! The day we have thought control—”
“Forget the straw men, Ivo. We do have drug-induced thought control, and have for years. But this — five of the true geniuses of Earth are imbeciles, because of the macroscope. Something came through — some type of information — that destroyed their minds.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t something internal? Overwork, nervous breakdown…?”
“We are sure. The EEG’s — I’d better explain that—”
“You simplified things for me with that pepped-up rocket you call Joseph. You simplified them again describing the macroscope. It’s like income-tax forms: I don’t think I can take another explanation.”
“All right, Ivo. I’ll leave the EEG’s out of it. Just take my word that though we haven’t performed any surgery, we know that this alien signal caused a mental degeneration involving physical damage to the brain. All this through concept alone. We know the hard way: there are certain thoughts an intelligent mind must not think.”
“But you don’t know the actual mechanism? Just that the beamed program — I mean, the radiated program — delivers stupefaction?”
“Roughly, yes. It is a progressive thing. You have to follow it step by step, like a lesson in calculus. Counting on fingers, arithmetic, general math, algebra, higher math, symbolic logic, and so on, in order. Otherwise you lose the thread. You have to assimilate the early portion of the series before you can attempt the rest, which makes it resemble an intelligence test. But it’s geared so that you can’t skip the opening; it always hits you in the proper sequence, no matter when you look. It’s a stiff examination; it seems to be beyond the range of anyone below what we term IQ one fifty, though we don’t know yet how much could be accomplished by intensive review. A group of workmen viewed it and said they didn’t go for such modernistic stuff. Our top men, on the other hand, were fascinated by it, and breezed through the entire sequence at a single sitting. Right up until the moment they — dropped off.”