"Experience directs that any assurance, at any time, that there is nothing wrong or that everything is all right, be regarded with suspicion. Certainly doctors often encounter patients who are ignorant of the nature of their trouble and its cause, and in addition have had their symptoms appear so slowly and so gradually that they were never noticed and still are not realized . . ."
Manual, Interstellar Medical Service. P. 68.
It was a very singular society on Canis III. After long and markedly irrelevant argument by spacephone, the Med Ship went down to ground in the grip of the Canopolis landing grid. This was managed with a deftness amounting to artistry. Whoever handled the controls did so with that impassioned perfection with which a young man can handle a mechanism he understands and worships. But it did not follow that so accomplished an operator would think beyond the perfection of performance. He came out and grinned proudly at the Med Ship when it rested, light as a feather, on the clear, grassy space in the center of the city's landing grid. He was a gangling seventeen or eighteen.
A gang—not a guard—of similar age came swaggering to interview the two in the landed spacecraft. Fredericks named where he'd been working and what he'd been doing and how he'd been taken prisoner. Nobody bothered to check his statements. But his age was almost a guarantee that he belonged on Canis. When he began his experiences as a prisoner among their enemies, all pretense of suspicion dropped away. The gang at the spaceport interjected questions, and whooped at some of his answers, and slapped each other and themselves ecstatically when he related some of the things he'd said and done in enemy hands, and talked loudly and boastfully of what they would do if the old folks tried to carry out their threats. But Calhoun observed no real preparations beyond the perfect working condition of the grid itself. Still, that ought to defend the planet adequately—except against such a mobile spaceport as he'd been captured by, himself.
When they turned to him for added reasons to despise the older generation, Calhoun said coldly:
"If you ask me, they can take over any time they're willing to kill a few of you to clear the way. Certainly if the way you're running this particular job is a sample!"
They bristled. And Calhoun marveled at the tribal organization which had sprung up among them. What Fredericks had said in the ship began to fit neatly into place with what once had been pure anthropological theory. He'd had to learn it because a medical man must know more than diseases. He must also know the humans who have them. Oddments of culture-instinct theory popped into his memory and applied exactly to what he was discovering. The theory says that the tribal cultures from which even the most civilized social organisms stem—were not human inventions. The fundamental facts of human society exist because human instinct directs them, in exact parallel to the basic design of the social lives of ants and bees. It seemed to Calhoun that he was seeing, direct, the operation of pure instinct in the divisions of function in the society he had encountered.
Here, where a guard must be mounted against enemies, he found young warriors. They took the task because it was their instinct. It was an hereditary impulse for young men of their age to act as youthful warriors at a post of danger. There was nothing more important to them than prestige among their fellows. They did not want wisdom, or security, or families, or possessions. The instinct of their age-group directed them as specifically as successive generations of social insects are directed. They moved about in gangs. They boasted vaingloriously. They loafed conspicuously and they would take lunatic risks for no reason whatsoever.
But they would never build cities of themselves. The was the impulse of older men. In particular, the warrior age-group would be capable of immense and admirable skill in handling anything which interested them, but they would never devise automatic devices to keep a city going with next to no attention. They simply would not think so far ahead. They would fight and they would quarrel and they would brag. But if this eccentric world had survived so far, it must have additional tribal structure—it must have some more dedicated leadership than these flamboyant young men who guarded inadequately and operated perfectly the mechanism of a spaceport facility they would never have built.
"I've got to talk to somebody higher up," said Calhoun irritably. "A chief, really—a boss. Your war with your parents isn't my affair. I'm here on Med Service business. I'm supposed to check the public health situation with the local authorities and exchange information with them. So far as I'm concerned, this is a routine job."
The statement was not altogether truthful. In a sense, preventing unnecessary deaths was routine, and in that meaning Calhoun had exactly the same purpose on Canis III as on any other planet to which he might be sent. But the health hazards here were not routine. A society is an organism. It is a whole. Instinct-theory says that it can only survive as a whole, which must be composed of such-and-such parts. This society had suffered trauma, from the predicted dissolution of Phaedra's sun. Very many lives would be lost, unnecessarily, unless the results of that traumatic experience could be healed. But Calhoun's obligation was not to be stated in such terms to these young men.
"Who is running things?" demanded Calhoun. "A man named Walker said his son was bossing things here. He was pretty bitter about it, too! Who's looking after the distribution of food, and who's assigning who to raise more, and who's seeing that the small children get fed and cared for?"
The spaceport gang looked blank. Then someone said negligently:
"We take turns getting stuff to eat, for ourselves. The ones who landed here first, mostly, go around yelling at everybody. Sometimes the things they want get done. But they're mostly married now. They live in a center over yonder."
He gestured. Calhoun accepted it as a directive.
"Can somebody take me there?" he asked.
Fredericks said grandly:
"I'll do it. Going that way, anyhow. Who's got a ground-car I can use? My girl'll be worrying about me. Been worrying because she didn't know the old folks took me prisoner."
His proposal to acquire a ground-car was greeted with derision. There were ground-cars, but those that did not need repairs were jealously reserved by individuals for themselves and their closest friends. There was squabbling. Presently a scowling young man agreed to deliver Calhoun to the general area in which the first-landed of the colonists—now grown grim and authoritative—made their homes. It was annoying to wait while so simple a matter was discussed so vociferously. By the time it was settled, Fredericks had gone off in disgust.
The scowling youth produced his ground-car. Calhoun got in. Murgatroyd, of course, was not left behind. And the car was magnificent in polish and performance. Lavish effort and real ability had gone into its grooming and adjustment. With a spinning of wheels, it shot into immediate high speed. The dark-browed youngling drove with hair-raising recklessness and expertness. He traversed the city in minutes, and at a speed which allowed Calhoun only glimpses. But he could see that it was almost unoccupied.
Canopolis had been built by the youth of Phaedra to the designs of their elders for the reception of immigrants from the mother planet. It had been put up in frantic haste and used only as a receiving-depot. It had needed impassioned and dedicated labor, and sustained and exhausting concentration to get it and the rest of the colonial facilities built against a deadline of doom. But now its builders were fed up with it. It was practically empty. The last arrivals had scattered to places where food supplies were nearer and a more satisfactory way of life was possible. There were broken windows and spattered walls. There was untidiness everywhere. But there had been great pains taken in the building. Some partly-completed enterprises showed highly competent workmanship.
Then the city ended and was a giant pile of structures which fell swiftly behind. The highways were improvised. They could be made more perfect later. Across the horizon there were jerry-built villages—temporary by design, because there had been such desperate need for so many of them so soon.
The ground-car came to a stop with a screaming of brakes at the edge of such a jerry-built group of small houses. A woman ran to hiding. A man ran into view. Another, and another, and another. They came ominously toward the car.
"Hop out," said the scowling driver. He grinned faintly. "They don't want me here. But I stirred 'em up, eh?"
Calhoun stepped out of the ground-car. It whirled on one pair of wheels and sped back to the city, its driver turning to make a derisive gesture at the men who had appeared. They were still quite young men—younger than Calhoun. They looked at him steadily.
He growled to himself. Then he called:
"I'm looking for somebody named Walker. He's supposed to be top man here."
A tense young man said sardonically:
"I'm Walker. But I'm not tops. Where'd you come from? With a Med Service uniform and a tormal on your shoulder you're not one of us! Have you come to argue that we ought to give in to Phaedra?"
Calhoun snorted.
"I've a message that an attack from space is due in three days, but that's all from Phaedra. I'm a Med Service man. How's the health situation? How are you equipped for doctors and such? How about hospitals? How's the death rate?"
The younger Walker grinned savagely.
"This is a new colony. I doubt there are a hundred people on the planet over twenty-five. How many doctors would there be in a population like ours? I don't think there is a death rate. Do you know how we came to be here?"
"Your father told me," said Calhoun, "at the military base on the next planet out. They're getting ready for an attack—and they asked me to warn you about it. Three days from now."
Young Walker ground his teeth.
"They won't dare attack. We'll smash them if they do. They lied to us! Worked us to death—"
"And no death rate?" asked Calhoun.
The younger man knitted his brows.
"There's no use your arguing with us. This is our world! We made it and we're keeping it. They made fools of us long enough."
"And you've no health problems at all?"
The sardonic young man hesitated. One of the others said coldly:
"Make him happy. Let him talk to the women. They're worried about some of the kids."
Calhoun breathed a private sigh of relief. These relatively mature young men were the first-landed colonists. They'd had the hardest of all the tasks put upon the younger generation by the adults of Phaedra. They'd had the most back-breaking labor and the most urgent responsibilities. They'd been worked and stressed to the breaking-point. They'd finally arrived at a decision of desperation.
But apparently things could be worse. It is the custom, everywhere, for women to make themselves into whatever is most attractive to men. Young girls, in particular, will adopt any tradition which is approved of by their prospective husbands. And in a society to be formed brand-new, appalling new traditions could be started. But they hadn't. Deep-rooted instincts still worked. Women—young women—and girls appeared still to feel concern for young children which were not even their own. And Fredericks' story—
"By all means," agreed Calhoun. "If there's something wrong with the health of the children—"
Young Walker gestured and turned back toward the houses. He scowled as he walked. Presently he said defensively:
"You probably noticed there aren't many people in the city."
"Yes," said Calhoun. "I noticed."
"We're not fully organized yet," said Walker, more defensively still. "We weren't doing anything but building. We've got to get organized before we'll have a regular economic system. Some of the later-comers don't know anything but building. When they're ready for it, the city will be occupied. We'll have as sound a system for production and distribution of goods as anywhere else. But we've just finished a revolution. In a sense we're still in it. But presently this world will be pretty much like any other—only better."
"I see," said Calhoun.
"Most people live in the little settlements, like this—close to the crops we grow. People raise their own food, and so on. In a way you may think we're primitive, but we've got some good technicians! When they get over not having to work for the old folks and finish making things just for themselves—we'll do all right. After all, we weren't trained to make a complete world, just to make a world for the older people on Phaedra to take over. But we've taken it over for ourselves!"
"Yes," agreed Calhoun politely.
"We'll work out the other things," said young Walker truculently. "We'll have money, and credit, and hiring each other and so on. Right now defending ourselves is the top thing in everybody's mind."
"Yes," agreed Calhoun again. He was regarded as not quite an enemy, but he was not accepted as wholly neutral.
"The older ones of us are married," Walker said firmly, "and we feel responsibility, and we're keeping things pretty well in line. We were lied to, though, and we resent it. And we aren't letting in the old people to try to run us, when we've proved we can make and run a world ourselves!"
Calhoun said nothing. They reached a house. Walker turned to enter it, with a gesture for Calhoun to accompany him. Calhoun halted.
"Just a moment. The person who drove me here—when he turned up, at least one woman ran away and you men came out . . . well . . . pretty pugnaciously."
Walker flushed angrily.
"I said we had technicians. Some of them made a gadget to help take care of the children. That's harmless. But they want to use it to . . . to spy on older people with it. On us! Invasion of privacy. We don't like . . . well . . . they try to set up psych circuits near our homes. They . . . think it's fun to . . . know what people say and do—"
"Psych circuits can be useful," observed Calhoun, "or they can be pretty monstrous. On the other hand—"
"No decent man would do it!" snapped young Walker. "And no girl would have anything to do with anybody— But there are some crazy fools—"
"You have described," said Calhoun dryly, "a criminal class. Only instead of stealing other people's possessions they want to steal their sensations. Peeping-Tom stuff, eavesdropping on what other people feel about those they care for, as well as what they do and say. In a way it's a delinquency problem, isn't it?"
"There can't be a civilization without problems," said Walker. "But we're going to—" He opened a door. "My wife works with the kids the old people dumped on us. This way."
He motioned Calhoun inside the house. It was one of the shelters built during the frenzied building program designed to make an emergency refuge for the population of a planet. It was the roughest of machine-tool constructions. The floors were not finished. The walls were not smooth. The equipment showed. But there had been attempts to do something about the crudity. Colors had been used to try to make it homelike.
When a girl came in from the next room, Calhoun understood completely. She was a little younger than her husband, but not much. She regarded Calhoun with that anxiety with which a housekeeper always regards an unexpected visitor, hoping he will not notice defects.
"This is a Med Service man," said Walker briefly, indicating Calhoun. "I told him there was a health problem about some of the children." To Calhoun he said curtly: "This is my wife Elsa."
Murgatroyd said "Chee!" from where he clung to Calhoun's neck. He was suddenly reassured. He scrambled down to the floor. Elsa smiled at him.
"He's tame!" she said delightedly. "Maybe—"
Calhoun extended his hand. She took it. Murgatroyd, swaggering, extended his own black paw. Instead of conflict and hatred, here, Murgatroyd seemed to sense an amiable sociability such as he was used to. He felt more at home. He began zestfully to act like the human being he liked to pretend he was.
"He's delightful!" said the girl. "May I show him to Jak?"
Young Walker said:
"Elsa's been helping with the smaller kids. She says there's something the matter that she doesn't understand. She has one of the kids here. Bring him, Elsa."
She vanished. A moment later she brought in a small boy. He was probably six or seven. She carried him. He was thin. His eyes were bright, but he was completely passive in her arms. She put him down in a chair and he looked about alertly enough, but he simply did not move. He saw Murgatroyd, and beamed. Murgatroyd went over to the human who was near his own size. Swaggering, he offered his paw once more. The boy giggled, but his hand lay in his lap.
"He doesn't do anything!" said Elsa distressedly. "His muscles work, but he doesn't work them. He just sits and waits for things to be done for him. He acts as if he'd lost the idea of moving, or doing anything at all. And—it's beginning to show up among the other children. They just sit. They're bright enough . . . they see and understand—but they just sit!"
Calhoun examined the boy. His expression grew carefully impassive. But he winced as he touched the pipe-stem arms and legs. What muscles were there were almost like dough.
When he straightened up, despite himself his mouth was awry. Young Walker's wife said anxiously:
"Do you know what's the matter with him?"
"Basically," said Calhoun with a sort of desperate irony, "he's in revolt. As the rest of you are in revolt against Phaedra, he's in revolt against you. You needed rest you didn't get and recreation you couldn't have and something besides back-breaking labor under a load that grew heavier minute by minute for years. You revolted, and you've a fine justification for the war in which you're engaged. But he has needed something he hasn't had, too. So he's revolting against his lack—as you did—and he's dying as you will presently do from exactly the same final cause."
Walker frowned ominously.
"I don't understand what you're saying!" he said harshly.
Calhoun moistened his lips.
"I spoke unprofessionally. The real cause of his present troubles and your future ones is that a social system has been shattered. The pieces can't live by themselves. And I don't know what medical measures can be taken to cure an injured civilization. As a medical man, I may be whipped. But I'd better check—Did I say, by the way, that the war fleet from Phaedra is going to attack in just three days?"