‘Agreed. We don’t see the benefit of any large–scale movement of people between our worlds, but some exchanges may be useful. They could help our scientists work more closely together, and no doubt there will be real interest among some saurians and humans to see at first hand how the other world works.’ (Enthusiastic endorsement from my trio of friends.) ‘We are not set up for tourism, though. We don’t have the facilities or the supplies humans would need, so we are only thinking of a small number of accredited observers. The other interesting topic was what to do about the other worlds.’
‘Other worlds?’
‘Yes. You are not the only human world we know of; there are three others which have developed radio, but they are not as advanced as you are. Incidentally, we refer to your world as “H17”, as yours is the seventeenth human civilisation which we have found. We have lost contact with nearly all of the other sixteen, of course, for reasons that you know about. We still have links to H16, where the attempt to contact you never happened, so life goes on as it did before your accident.’
‘What are “H18” to “H20” like?’
‘Not very different from your world; just some variations in religious, cultural and political history which have delayed their technological development, so they’ve only recently developed radio. What concerns us more, though, are the other saurian worlds. We call ours “S1”, but they run up to “S6”. None of the others has the technology to detect parallel worlds; they all believe that they are unique.’
‘How do they differ?’
‘They all suffer to some extent from the decision not to adopt mind-linking. Only one – S6 – has any kind of world government, and that is due to a philosophy similar in some ways to human Buddhism; they are relatively backward in terms of technology. In fact, none of the others is as advanced as we are, since mind-linking helps greatly in enabling scientists to work together. The most advanced technically is S2; but in some ways that is more like your world than ours.’
‘How so?’
‘They still have nation states, which combine in shifting patterns of alliances, with a relatively weak planetary co-ordinating body. They are less trusting, more suspicious and intolerant of difference, and have focused much of their technology on weapon development. Their population is also ten times greater than ours, and is organised in a very hierarchical way. We want to contact and help them, but we need to be sure that this will not cause problems, for them or us.’
‘Why don’t you devise a mind-linking virus for them?’
‘We do not feel that such interference would be justified. Unlike yours, their way of life is sustainable; their population is stable and the environment is not in danger. They are logical enough not to use weapons which would threaten their civilisation. They are skilled in genetics and have been aware of the possibility of mind-linking for a long time, but have rejected it. It is not for us to override that by force.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘We have decided to make contact with their planetary co-ordinating body, in the hope that we can convince them that our society offers better solutions for living than theirs.’
‘Good luck… if they are so like humanity, it may be that I have a better idea of how they may react than you do.’
‘That’s possible. You seem rather cynical about our chances.’
‘What you have to think about is who would gain and who would lose. The ones who would lose, from their perspective, are the ruling classes who make the decisions. They would regard your offer, quite accurately, as a threat to their way of life, to the comfortable dominance which they enjoy. They obviously don’t want to link with the lower orders – they want to keep them at a distance, and as far as possible determine what they think as well as what they do. They probably keep them distracted with trivial consumer goods and mindless entertainment.’
‘I see. That sounds depressingly realistic. I think it would be useful for you to address the Assembly tomorrow.’
The next day I was back in my swivel chair, mentally braced for what was to come. The Convenor summarised our conversation of the evening before and I spelled out my thoughts on the likely response of the Rulers of S2. The Assembly heard me out in polite mental silence, then excused me while they went into discussion mode. I wandered outside the building, and sat down to enjoy the warm spring sunshine. After a few moments I became aware of being observed. I turned around and saw a very small saurian staring at me in fascination; her mental signature indicated her gender. When I smiled and sent a “welcome” signal, she fearlessly hopped over towards me. She was exactly like an adult, but only about a third of the size. Before she reached me I noticed a couple of other saurians looking on, with a mixture of anxiety and pride. I realised that this must be that very rare thing, a saurian child. I had seen very few of the regular inhabitants of Laketown – they tended to keep a respectful distance from the Assembly – but given the infrequency of births this was probably the only child they had; the pride and joy of the whole community. None of the locals understood English, of course, so we could only communicate in emotions. I got up and walked around, the child’s unguarded mind reflecting her amazement at the strange way I moved.
I was called back to the Assembly shortly afterwards and waved goodbye to the family. The Convenor addressed me with what I recognised as a touch of sympathy. ‘We are troubled by what you have told us, but have to acknowledge that you may be correct. I am afraid that we have got so used to understanding each other, and regarding our way of life as obviously superior, that we had not fully appreciated that others may not see things in the same way. Some of our members have pointed out that humanity may also pose a threat to us, that your recent accession of mind-linking might not be enough to override millennia of aggressive behavioural conditioning, at least for a few generations.
I thought about that for a while, marshalling my thoughts which the Convenor waited to translate into saurian symbology. ‘I reluctantly have to admit that there is something in what you say. There has always been the potential for much good in humanity, but also for the opposite. I sometimes think it is as if we all have a beast within us. It is the selfish animal which tells us to take what we want, do what we like, take revenge on those who wrong us. It is constrained by the chains of civilisation we put upon it: social constraints which are trained into us as children so we accept them as our own, rules which we see the purpose of and impose on ourselves, or the chains of law which place limits on our behaviour. Even so, when law is ineffective or breaks down, the beast emerges in some people; in violence, rape, murder, or ultimately genocide. Laws are not always just, especially religious law; in some cultures it regards females as subservient to males, for instance. But without some form of law, there can be no society. Humanity is not perfect, and never will be. But we have constantly struggled to restrain our beasts, to make our societies worth living in, and we have mostly succeeded. The advent of mind-linking has already changed some things dramatically but it is too early to predict the ultimate form of human society which will emerge. I am confident that it will be better, or I would not have introduced the virus, but there will inevitably be many surprises; we have a “law of unintended consequences” which will ensure that.’