And still they could not leave yet, they had to learn more. The drones were busy, busy, and the far-watchers turned their electronic sensors onto the world of human society (Washington, Moscow, Peking) and human science (Arecibo, Tyuratam-baikonur, and the Moon) and human relations (bedroom, bathroom, bus). Many things happened while they watched. A war broke out. It was in a part of the planet that none of the Get would really have thought worth fighting over, except that it held some large reserves of liquid hydrocarbon. ("But so easy to carry it somewhere else, marveled a commenter.) Nevertheless tens of thousands of humans died. Millions were hurt, or frightened, or impaired in some way. This part of the event amused the Get. It was so silly. ("But I wonder if they think it's funny, queried the little one, laughing.) Drought and famine struck large patches of three continents. The Get observed this mass death with curiosity, but their emotions were not involved. After all, they were used to half their siblings dying before the rest of any get were old enough to preen themselves.
And then they turned off the far-watchers and recalled the drones, and they clustered and thought before they spoke.
"Human beings, said the Get member in charge of summarizing, "are clearly self-destructive. It is what their psychology' calls a "death wish." Unchecked, they will wipe themselves out.
"Talk sense, begged the little sibling. (Moolkri gave him a playful, partly disciplinary bite.) "No, I mean it, the little one went on. "They act as if they're going to destroy themselves. But, you know? They never have.
Ajudger responded: "That is true. A theorizer added, "What is causality for us may not be for them.
This concept caused consternation among the Get, but it seemed to fit the facts. "What then shall we do? asked Moolkri. "We don't have very much time. Mawkri has stopped accepting intromission. She is near the time of her death, and I cannot be far.
"We'll miss you, said several of the Get together, sorrowful not for their parents but for themselves. "Let us then decide.
A proposer stated: "We have several choices. We can exterminate them. Instant contractile movements from all, signifying no. "We can help them to be more like us- but how? I have no proposal for this. Quivering movements from the cluster, signifying inability to respond, a request to go on. "Or, he said, "we can leave them alone.
"Stale, stale, murmured the Get. But the judger piped up:
"I think not. Let us hear more.
"We can go away without any further intervention at all, went on the proposer. "W'e can leave one of our drones in orbit, programmed for Home. Then if one of their craft should someday find it, and if they wish, they can come to us. If not-not.
Mawkri cried feebly: "But a mother must care for all!
"Mawkri, said the proposer, trembling, "your care has given us life. But the humans are not like us. They must make their mistakes if they will. It is how they learn.
And the judger confirmed wonderingly, "It is how they learn. We can do nothing to help. We can only wish them well.., and wait.
And so the ship shaped like an artichoke turned on its axis, swallowed all its satellites but one, and retreated toward the constellation Canis Minor. And not an eye, not an interferometer, not a Schmidt ever saw it go.
There is still another version, in which Moolkri Mawkri's Get never reach Earth at all. In fact, they never leave their home planet. None of their people do. All the proliferating gets stay locked and squirming in their dense, damp viny nests until they ripen and seek partners. Technology? Yes, they build technology. They learn the workings of their own cellular biology and the devising of medicines. They learn to keep alive that half of every get which would otherwise die. They learn to tame the tangle vines, and finally to live without them, for there is then not enough space on their world for any kind of life at all, except their own. They learn to tunnel the planet's crust for living space and to harness the scattered heat of Procyon to drive engines to make new nests. They devise a sort of plastic-made from their excrement, their bodies once they have died, and the simple elements of the rocks-and they create new living spaces from it. They never reach out into space. They never taste the stars. They never got to Earth. They live forever (or until this version runs out of program) locked into their one small world; and nothing that happens anywhere else has anything to do with them. They do not kill, or spare, or help, or trust. And they do not receive any of those things from others.
But what is the use of a life that never reaches out to touch another? Never to hurt or help? Never to feel or even to see? No, it is not a very interesting version. We never play that one anymore.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ABLE CHARLIE
Like "Rem the Rememberer (and also like "The Way It Was, both also in this volume), this story was written for a special purpose: It was to be part of an advertising campaign some visionary adman had dreamed up to run in the pages of Scientific American. True to form, about the time I finished the story I got a call from the adman to say, shamefacedly, that his boss had hated the campaign and so it was canceled as of that morning. This time the jinx did not stop there. About the time I was trying to decide whether I wanted to publish the story myself in Galaxy (which I was then editing) or offer it to some other publication, I discovered in the incoming manuscripts from authors a Stephen Goldin story called "Sweet Dreams, Melissa. To my horror, it was very like this one-worse, it was a good story. I could not honorably reject it; nor could I, I felt, allow my own to be published anywhere near it. So I tucked the story away for several years, until a magazine called Creative Computing asked me for something, and published it. So, unless you were a reader of computer magazines a decade ago, there's no way you could have seen this story before. . . and if it sounds at all familiar, it's probably because you've read "Sweet Dreams, Melissa.
The time was 0900:00 A.M. and Charlie woke up. The first thing he had to do was to find out who he was that day, and so he explored his memory. He discovered that he was a white male American, thirty-two years old, married, employed in the sales department of a public utility company. He had two children, a boy and a girl. He had made $17,400 in the year just past, and if it hadn't been for Harriet's part-time teaching salary he didn't know how they would have managed. He still owed over $19,000 on their $38,000 house, $1,900 on the car, and nearly a thousand on the loan for modernizing the kitchen they had taken out two years before. Moreover, his daughter, Florence, had unfortunately inherited his bite, and so the orthodontist was going to cost him fifteen hundred dollars very soon. Charlie discovered that many of his thoughts were of money.
However, his memory contained many other things. He became aware that he was a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and that he had volunteered as a Little League coach against the day when his four-year-old son, Chuck, was old enough to play. Charlie remembered that he was inclined to favor Chuck over the girl. It was curious that he could not remember what color Chuck's hair was, or whether Florence was doing well in school, but Charlie didn't realize that it was curious and so he continued to explore his memory.
He was a heavy smoker, drank a can of beer now and then, especially in hot weather, but didn't go much for the hard stuff. Although he liked looking at other women, he did not go beyond looking. Although he enjoyed a game of poker twice a month, he did not care to gamble heavy stakes. He drove a small foreign car (it was not clear whether it was a Datsun. a VW, or a Fiat), on which he got 24.7 miles to the gallon in everyday use and nearly 29 miles a gallon on the road. (He did not know what color it was. it did not occur to him to wonder why.) Charlie remembered that he was active in his party's politics (he did not know whether it was Democrat or Republican) and that he thought the mayor of his town was a crook. But he could not have said the mayor's name.