Part 13 (2/2)
And so on. There wasn't a lot left of poor Bocker by the time they had finished with him. I did not show it to him. He would find out soon enough, for The Beholder's readers.h.i.+p had no use for the unique approach: it liked the popular view, bespokenly tailored.
Presently the helicopter set us down at the terminus, and Phyllis and I slipped away while pressmen converged on Bocker.
Dr Bocker out of sight, however, was by no means Dr Bocker out of mind. The major part of the Press had divided into pro- and anti- camps, and, within a few minutes of our getting back to the flat, representatives of both sides began ringing us up to put leading questions to their own advantage. After about five of these I seized on an interval to ring the EBC and tell them that as we were about to remove our receiver for a while they would probably suffer, and would they please keep a record of callers. They did. Next morning there was quite a list. Among those anxious to talk to us I noticed the name of Captain Winters, with the Admiralty number against it.
”Here's one that ought to have priority, I think,” I suggested. ”Would you like to deal with it?”
”Oh, dear! Can't I just be an invalid?” asked Phyllis. ”I really don't-” then she saw where my finger was pointing. ”Oh, I see well the Navy's a bit different, of course.”
She reported a little later: ”One of the Lords.h.i.+ps wants to see us, and Captain Winters would be delighted if be may have the privilege of rewarding and reviving us with dinner afterwards. I said he should.”
”All right,” I agreed, and then took myself off to face a thirsty day of discussing and planning at EBC.
The Admiral, when we reached him, turned out to be a great deal more human and less awe-inspiring than his further approaches suggested. His greeting to Phyllis was, indeed, little short of avuncular. He asked concernedly after her injuries, and congratulated her upon her escape in a most protective manner. Then we all sat down. He glanced at a paper on his desk.
”Er-we have of course had Dr Bocker's report on the Escondida affair. It raises a large number of controversial points. In fact, he shows, if I may say so without offence, a generosity of hypothesis which appears to exceed the warrants of the observed facts to a degree quite remarkable in a scientist. I thought that a little talk with others who were present at the incident might-er-help to clarify the picture for us.”
I a.s.sured him that I understood the position well.
”All day long,” I told Mm, 'there has been a battle raging at EBC between the sponsor who backed the expedition, a government representative, EBC's Policy Panel, EBC's Audio-a.s.sessment Department, the Director of Talks and Features, and several other people, about what Dr Bocker shall and shall not be allowed to say over the air. It's been heated, but a bit academic because Dr Bocker himself wasn't there and will certainly fight any amendments to his scripts that anybody tries to make, whatever they are.”
”There can be very little doubt of that, I think,” agreed the Admiral. He looked down at his paper again. ”Now he says here that these 'sea-tank' things and the exuded objects which it pleases him to call 'pseudo-coelenterata' are unaffected by rifle-fire, but that the 'sea-tanks' completely disintegrate when hit by explosive cannon sh.e.l.l. You support that?”
”They explode-almost as thoroughly as a broken light-bulb implodes,” I told him.
”Leaving no identifiable fragments?”
”A lot of metal splinters and pieces which might have been anything. That's all.”
”Except the slime?”
”Yes. Except that, of course.”
Phyllis wrinkled her nose at the recollection of it.
”By the afternoon the sun had baked that dry, and it was like a hard varnish over everything,” she told him.
He nodded. ”Now these 'pseudo-coelenterata' things. I'll read you what he says about them.” He did so, ending: ”Would you call that a fair description? Is there anything you would add?”
”No. It's accurate to my memory,” I said.
”I didn't see much, but the first part's accurate,” Phyllis agreed.
”Now would you say that both these forms were sentient?” he asked.
I frowned. ”That's a very difficult one, sir. In the most elementary sense of the word they both were that is, they responded to certain external stimuli, and very strongly. But if you are meaning, did they show any degree of intelligence? well, I simply can't tell you. There was intelligent direction of both forms undoubtedly. The sea-tanks followed an intelligent route into the Square, and disposed themselves advantageously when they got there. The other things took the same route back to the water when the straight line was obstructed by houses. But it would not be very difficult to make remote-control mechanisms that would obey directions of that kind.”
”Then you are aware of Dr Bocker's theory that these forms were, in fact, agents only; that is that the controlling mind was elsewhere and directed them by some means of communication at present unknown to us? What is your opinion on that?”
”Not very definite, sir. But I think Dr Bocker's theory is tenable. If you don't mind an a.n.a.logy, the whole operation struck one as having more the style of trawling thin of harpooning. My wife places it somewhat lower than that; she said ”shrimping”.”
”An undiscriminating instrument rather than a precise one?”
”Exactly, sir. It discriminated no further than to select the animate from the inanimate.”
”H'm,” said the Admiral. ”And neither of you has formed any idea how these sea-tanks may be propelled?”
We shook our heads. He looked down at his paper again for a moment.
”Very rarely, in my experience of him,” he observed, ”has Dr. Bocker failed to equip himself with a brand-new cat when approaching pigeons. We now come to it. It is implicit in his use of the term 'pseudo-coelentera'.”
”If I understand him rightly, he suggests that these coelenterate forms are not only not coelenterates, but not animals, and probably not, in the accepted sense, living creatures at all.”
He raised questioning eyebrows. I nodded.
”It is his opinion that they may well be artificial organic constructions, built for a specialised purpose. He-let me see now, how does he put it?-ah, yes: 'It is far from inconceivable that organic tissues might be constructed in a manner a.n.a.logous to that used by chemists to produce plastics of a required molecular structure. If this were done and the resulting artefact rendered sensitive to stimuli administered chemically or physically, it could, temporarily at least, produce a behaviour which would, to an unprepared observer, be scarcely distinguishable from that of a living organism.'
”'My observations lead me to suggest that this is what his been done: the coelenterate form being chosen, out of many others that might have served the purpose, for its simplicity of construction. It seems probable that the sea-tanks may be a variant of the same device. In other words, we were being attacked by organic mechanisms under remote, or predetermined, control. When this is considered in the light of the control which we ourselves are able to exercise over inorganic materials; remotely, as with guided missiles, or predeterminedly, as with torpedoes, it should be less starting than it at first appears. Indeed, it may well be that once the technique of building up a natural form synthetically has been discovered, control of it would present less complex problems thin many we have had to solve in our control of the inorganic.”
”Now, Mr Watson, did you receive any impressions that would support such a view?”
I shook my head. ”Right out of my field, sir. Surely the report on the specimen ought to help there?”
”I have a copy of that-all jargon to me, but our advisers tell me that everything in it is so qualified and cautious as to be practically useless-except in so far as it shows that it is strange enough to baffle the experts.”
”Perhaps I'm being stupid,” Phyllis put in, ”but does it really matter a lot? From a practical point of view, I mean? The things have to be tackled the same way whether they are really living or pseudo-living, surely?”
”That's true enough,” the Admiral agreed. ”All the same, a speculation of that kind, if unsupported, has the effect of putting the whole report in a dubious light.”
We went on talking for a while, but little more of importance emerged, and shortly afterwards we were ushered from the presence.
”Oh-oh-oh!” said Phyllis painedly, as we got outside. ”I've a good mind to go straight round and shake Dr Bocker. He promised me he wouldn't say anything yet about that ”pseudo” business. He's just a kind of natural-born enfant terrible, it'd do him good to be shaken. just wait till I get him alone.”
”It does weaken his whole case,” Captain Winters agreed.
”Weaken it! Somebody is going to hand this to the newspapers. They play it up hard as another Bockerism, the whole thing will become just a stunt-and that will put all the sensible people against whatever he says. And just as he was beginning to live some of the other things down, tool Oh, let's go and have dinner before I get out of hand.”
A bad week followed. Those papers that had already adopted The Beholder's scornful att.i.tude to coastal preparations pounced upon the pseudo-biotic suggestions with glee. Writers of editorials filled their pens with sarcasm, a squad of scientists who had trounced Bocker before was now marched out again to grind him still smaller. Almost every cartoonist discovered simultaneously why his favourite political b.u.t.ts had somehow never seemed quite human.
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