Possible Worlds of Science Fiction

by Groff Conklin

  Skorrogan's voice trailed off. Thordin said softly, after a moment, "I see what you're getting at. Cundaloa has made itself over to fit the Solarian pattern."

  "Just so. It was inevitable from the moment they accepted help from Sol. They'd have to adopt Solar science, Solar economics, ultimately the whole Solar culture. Because that would be the only pattern which would make sense to the humans who were taking the lead in reconstruction. And, since that culture was obviously successful, Cundaloa adopted it. Now it's too late. They can never go back. They don't even want to go back.

  "It's happened before, you know. I've studied the history of Sol. Back before the human race even reached the other planets of its system, there were many cultures, often radically different. But ultimately one of them, the so-called Western society, became so overwhelmingly superior technologically that… well, no others could coexist with it. To compete, they had to adopt the very approach of the West. And when the West helped them from their backwardness, it necessarily helped them into a Western pattern. With the best intentions in the world, the West annihilated all other ways of life."

  "And you wanted to save us from that?" asked Thordin. "I see your point, in a way. Yet I wonder if the sentimental value of old institutions was equal to some millions of lives lost, to a decade of sacrifice and suffering."

  "It was more than sentiment!" said Skorrogan tensely. "Can't you see? Science is the future. To amount to anything, we had to become scientific. But was Solarian science the only way? Did we have to become second-rate humans to survive—or could we strike out on a new path, unhampered by the overwhelming helpfulness of a highly developed but essentially alien way of life? I thought we could. I thought we would have to.

  "You see, no nonhuman race will ever make a really successful human. The basic psychologies—metabolic rates, instincts, logical patterns, everything—are too different. One race can think in terms of another's mentality, but never too well. You know how much trouble there's been in translating from one language to another. And all thought is in language, and language reflects the basic patterns of thought. The most precise, rigorous, highly thought out philosophy and science of one species will never quite make sense to another race. Because they are making somewhat different abstractions from the same great basic reality.

  "I wanted to save us from becoming Sol's spiritual dependents. Skang was backward. It had to change its ways. But—why change them into a wholly alien pattern? Why not, instead, force them rapidly along the natural path of evolution—our own path?"

  Skorrogan shrugged. "I did," he finished quietly. "It was a tremendous gamble, but it worked. We saved our own culture. It's ours. Forced by necessity to become scientific on our own, we developed our own approach.

  "You know the result. Dyrin's semantics was developed—Solarian scientists would have laughed it to abortion. We developed the tetrahedral ship, which human engineers said was impossible, and now we can cross the Galaxy while an old-style craft goes from Sol to Alpha Centauri. We perfected the spacewarp, the psychosymbology of our own race—not valid for any other—the new agronomic system which preserved the freeholder who is basic to our culture—everything! In fifty years Cundaloa has been revolutionized, Skontar has revolutionized itself. There's a universe of difference.

  "And we've therefore saved the intangibles which are our own, the art and handicrafts and essential folkways, music, language, literature, religion. The élan of our success is not only taking us to the stars, making us one of the great powers in the Galaxy, but it is producing a renaissance in those intangibles equaling any Golden Age in history.

  "And all because we remained ourselves."

  He fell into silence, and Thordin said nothing for a while. They had come into a quieter side street, an old quarter where most of the buildings antedated the coming of the Solarians, and many ancient-style native clothes were still to be seen. A party of human tourists was being guided through the district and had clustered about an open pottery booth.

  "Well?" said Skorrogan after a while. "Well?"

  "I don't know." Thordin rubbed his eyes, a gesture of confusion. "This is all so new to me. Maybe you're right. Maybe not. I'll have to think a while about it."

  "I've had fifty years to think about it," said Skorrogan bleakly. "I suppose you're entitled to a few minutes."

  They drifted up to the booth. An old Cundaloan sat in it among a clutter of goods, brightly painted vases and bowls and cups. Native work. A woman was haggling over one of the items.

  "Look at it," said Skorrogan to Thordin. "Have you ever seen the old work? This is cheap stuff made by the thousands for the tourist trade. The designs are corrupt, the workmanship's shoddy. But every loop and line in those designs had meaning once."

  Their eyes fell on one vase standing beside the old boothkeeper, and even the unimpressionable Valtam drew a shaky breath. It glowed, that vase. It seemed almost alive; in a simple shining perfection of clean lines and long smooth curves, someone had poured all his love and longing into it. Perhaps he had thought: This will live when I am gone.

  Skorrogan whistled. "That's an authentic old vase," he said. "At least a century old—a museum piece! How'd it get in this junk shop?"

  The clustered humans edged a little away from the two giant Skontarans, and Skorrogan read their expressions with a wry inner amusement: They stand in some awe of us. Sol no longer hates Skontar; it admires us. It sends its young men to learn our science and language. But who cares about Cundaloa any more?

  But the woman followed his eyes and saw the vase glowing beside the old vendor. She turned back to him: "How much?"

  "No sell," said the Cundaloan. His voice was a dusty whisper, and he hugged his shabby mantle closer about him.

  "You sell." She gave him a bright artificial smile. "I give you much money. I give you ten credits."

  "No sell."

  "I give you hundred credits. Sell!"

  "This mine. Fambly have it since old days. No sell."

  "Five hundred credits!" She waved the money before him.

  He clutched the vase to his thin chest and looked up with dark liquid eyes in which the easy tears of the old were starting forth. "No sell. Go 'way. No selloamaui."

  "Come on," mumbled Thordin. He grabbed Skorrogan's arm and pulled him away. "Let's go. Let's get back to Skontar."

  "So soon?"

  "Yes. Yes. You were right, Skorrogan. You were right, and I am going to make a public apology, and you are the greatest savior of history. But let's get home!"

  They hurried down the street. Thordin was trying hard to forget the old Cundaloan's eyes. But he wondered if he ever would.

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