Part 6 (1/2)
”How frequently,” he asked, when Hayes had cut him in, ”do we find a ma.s.s revolving in such a manner that its poles revolve at right angles to its forward revolution, so there is no real pole?”
”It requires near-perfect roundness, and an even distribution of land and water ma.s.ses, such as we have on Ceti II,” the first astrophysicist answered.
”How frequently do we find that?” Cal repeated.
”I know of no other,” the astrophysicist replied shortly.
”Any evidence of tampering with those ocean currents to get them flowing so beneficially?” Cal asked.
”None yet discovered,” an oceanographer cut in.
Well, at least he hadn't stated with positiveness that there hadn't been and couldn't be. But an anthropaleontologist inserted himself and spoiled the effect of open-mindedness.
”There is definitely no life form on Eden with sufficient intelligence for that,” the man said, ”nor has there ever been. Such a feat would require enormous engineering works. Such works under the ocean would be matched by comparable works on land, and would therefore show up in our aerial surveys, however ancient and overgrown.”
Cal sighed softly to himself. The human kind of civilization, yes, that would have left traces. But what of some other kind? Perhaps a deep-sea kind that had never come out upon the land? Never mind the arguments that such a civilization could not have developed--that was looking at it from the human point of view again. Had man grown so accustomed to not finding comparable intelligence anywhere in the universe he had begun to discount, or forget, there could be?
The review went on and on. The zoologist sketched in the prevalent animals and fish forms, showed there was nothing in land animals higher than a large rodent, no sea mammals at all, no fish larger than the tarpon. Nothing at all to hint at a line of primates.
A bacteriologist exclaimed at length over the similarity of minute life forms to those on Earth, and used the occasion to again expound the old theory of s.p.a.ce-floating life spores to seed all favorable matter, and thus develop similar forms through evolution, wherever found. Quickly and tactfully Bill Hayes nudged him back on the track before the expected storm of controversy could break out.
Then there was a short lunch time, but not a leisurely one. Quite aside from the emergency of what might be happening to the colonists, there was growing clamor from the people and pressure from various governmental bodies to get off the dime and get going--rescue those people, or, cynically, at least make a show of action to quell the flood of telegrams. E.H.Q. resisted the pressures in favor of doing a workmanlike job in preparation for a genuine rescue instead of a haphazard show, but was mindful of them nevertheless.
7
Anyone who has witnessed even so much as a traffic-court trial cannot help but realize that ”government by law instead of man” is a mere political phrase without meaning in reality. The ascendancy of me-and-mine over you-and-yours runs so deep in the human psyche that abstract idealisms must always take second place where such ascendancy is threatened. Thus we see that the belly-crawler, meek and subservient to the judge, comes off with a token sentence while the man who attempts to maintain his pride, his rights, his self-respect gets the book thrown at him.
No practical attorney is unaware that the judgment of his case depends largely upon who presides, the whims, the prejudices, the moods, the viewpoint of the judge; and that the law merely provides justification for the imposition of those whims, moods, prejudices, and viewpoints.
And ambitions.
The announcement at E.H.Q. that a Junior E would be given this problem gave Gunderson's man the opening he had hoped to find. A hurried call to the capitol and a brief conversation with Gunderson himself confirmed his conclusions. Perhaps the E was above all law, and it might not be expedient to challenge that right now, but immunity did not necessarily extend to the Junior E.
In view of the known ambitions of certain judges, it should not be difficult to make a test case of this--whether the E's had a right to jeopardize a colony of human beings by a.s.signing an unqualified man to the problem.
A question, too, of who had jurisdiction over the Juniors, the apprentices, the students. How far down the line did the mantle of the E extend to protect those not yet qualified? How far out did the Administration of E.H.Q. extend to subst.i.tute for government? How much of a state within a state had E.H.Q. become?
Now, while the public was clamoring for action, and E.H.Q. was, instead, droning on through a ma.s.s of inconsequential detail, now while public sentiment was crystallizing, or could be crystallized into placing human welfare over science procedures, now was the time.
It was not difficult to find a judge who was predisposed to favor the request of the attorney general.
8
After lunch at E.H.Q., the colonizing administrator took over the review.
The precolonizing scientists had not been trapped by the obviously favorable aspects of Eden into neglecting their full duties. No indeed they had given the full routine of tests and had come up with exactly nothing that might be unfavorable to man, at least not more so than on Earth.