(Christ, though, the woman—would none of the Xemahoa women enter the hut to help her? She had to be kept alive, her mind was saturated in the drug awareness!)
Sole dragged Pierre across the clearing to face Kayapi.
“Go on, tell him,” he shouted. “We’ll take the old man and the woman. Then Kayapi will have a free hand—”
Leaving him standing there, he hurried on to Chester and Zwingler, praying Pierre had the wit to do what he was told. Chester was still waving the dart gun about, but with less confidence now. Tom Zwingler started asking questions, but Sole interrupted:
“Either of you know any first aid? The mother is lying all torn up by the clumsiest caesarian operation in history and we need her—she’s saturated in the drug. She’ll satisfy the Sp’thra, same as the old Bruxo will. And if Pierre tells Kayapi what I said to tell him, we’ll be able to take mother and Bruxo out of here without having to fire a single dart into anyone.”
“Is the baby alive?”
“Christ, that’s a disaster. It’s alive—but with multiple hernias, brain and body. Kayapi’s trying to explain it away right now. But we’ve got to save that woman, she’s hurt bad—”
“Can you handle it, Chester?”
“Give me the bag.” The Negro thrust his dart gun at Zwingler to hold and rummaged through the airline bag.
“Some sulfa powder here, and penicillin tablets. A few other things. See what I can do.”
He grinned broadly.
“Hope she doesn’t think the Devil’s come for her.”
“She’s in no shape to think anything. Here, take the torch—you’ll need it.”
Chester pushed his way brusquely through the Indians. Their whole attention was centred on Kayapi now. Sole still felt surprised at how suddenly the ‘taboo’ on the hut had evaporated now that the child was born. Now it didn’t seem to matter who went in there.
“Where the hell’s the bloody helicopter, Tom?”
Zwingler tucked the gun under his arm and shrugged.
“How far’s this Franklin place?”
“Eighty, ninety miles. We won’t have to walk. They’ll have a helicopter. They’ll send it, if anything’s happened to Chase and Billy.”
“They just might send it too bloody late.”
Zwingler swung away from Sole abruptly, to end the conversation.
Overhead, a skyful of stars and scudding rainclouds. He stared up at them, pursing his lips—whistling soundlessly.
After a time, the clouds gathered into larger masses that masked the stars, and rain began to fall again.
Now that the Xemahoa knew the flood was receding, no one bothered to heap any more dry wood on to the bonfire platforms. In another half-hour the fires guttered out.
EIGHTEEN
Memo to:
CHIEF OF STAFF, US ARMY
CHIEF OF STAFF, US AIR FORCE
CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS
CONSULTANT MEMBERS, US INTELLIGENCE BOARD
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS & SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Subject: WASHINGTON SPECIAL ACTION GROUP MEETING # 1 ON PROJECT “LEAPFROG”
13. …But beyond the technological and political desirability of acquiring this knowledge lies a whole psychological domain, which we might go so far as to characterize as a crisis in this planet’s Nöosphere (to borrow the theologian Teilhard de Chardin’s word for the zone of operation of the human mind).
This crisis has been looming over Mankind ever since the Neolithic Revolution first ushered in the germs of a technology that would transform the natural environment.
In a very meaningful sense, the crisis that we have reached in the late 20th Century is the logical outcome of technological civilization itself. Once the technological path is chosen, Man must elect to expand outwards by means of his technology—or else collapse. No steady-state is conceivable or desirable once expansion has begun. The steady-state may be dreamt of or fantasized about—but it is merely a pipe-dream which will not work in practice, and which would have disastrous cultural and psychological repercussions, if any sustained effort was made to make it work.
Technological and cultural de-escalation is no more possible than Devolution is biologically acceptable for a species. In the same way as biological evolution is an anti-entropic process, leading towards ever more complex states of physical organization, so technological culture (the culmination of a million years of evolution) involves an ongoing process of complexifìcation and expansion.
Nevertheless a critical point does occur in this growth process. This is the stage where there appear to be ‘no further worlds to conquer’—and where the side-effects of conquering the one world that is available appear to be producing an increasingly negative pay-off. At this stage a take-off to Stage Two technological culture has to occur—the stage of planetary and stellar exploration and expansion. Otherwise a disastrous and traumatic collapse must surely ensue.
The disillusionment with Project Apollo must be viewed in this light. Man has reached the Moon. Where is there to go now? The answer seems to be ‘nowhere that we can realistically hope for’.
The assault that has been gaining momentum for a decade now, of ecopolitical protest groups, implies a profoundly damaging psychological withdrawal from these delimited boundaries. It would terminate Stage One without ushering in Stage Two. The result could only be apathy and decay on a planet-wide scale—besides being politically contrary to what we conceive of, fundamentally, as our identity as a nation. (See Hudson Institute Papers HI-3812-P, The Perils of the Steady-State’; HI-3014-P, The End of the Neolithic Nöosphere: Implications for US Policy’.)
The alien visit is bound to hasten this process of disintegration and withdrawal disastrously, as the full implications of the haste, and indifference of the beings known as the Sp’thra to the finest ambitions of the human race, come to be more widely realized.
14. The exchange of six live brains, competent in six human languages, should thus seem to go ahead, with the overt aim of obtaining an improved form of planetary travel technology (together with some other data of primarily academic interest).
15. However, it must be strongly emphasized that although the donkey allows himself to be lured by a carrot, yet the human being is painfully aware (however tasty the carrot may be) that there is a field full of such carrots, elsewhere, in the control of a farmer. Were the human being in the place of the donkey, he would be well advised to remember how hard his kick is, and how unexpected, and to what good effect it can be delivered; and how essential to his psyche this act might be.
16. Attached are detailed action recommendations code-named ‘MULEKICK’; together with a summary of the key psychological features thought to underpin the Unidentified Flying Object phenomenon, codenamed ‘WELLES FARRAGO’.
‘WELLES FARRAGO’ also includes a summary of ways to manipulate religious and social hysteria as (a) Diversion from Undesirable Goals; (b) Shoring-up of Fragmenting Societies; together with a tie-in to the action recommendations detailed in ‘MULEKICK’. Adjustments have been graphed for a wide spread of cultural norms ranging from the Post-Industrial, late sensate culture of the United States, through the various Chaos, Crisis and Charisma cultures of underdeveloped nations (with special emphasis on Brazil and its neighbours).
17. In view of the exceptional sensitivity of both ‘MULEKICK’ and ‘WELLES FARRAGO’, access must be limited on a strict need-to-know basis.