Code Of The Lifemaker

by Hogan, James

  South America only last night is Karl Zambendorf, who I'm sure needs no further

  introduction. Welcome home."

  "Thank you."

  "And how was your tour?"

  "Most enjoyable and extremely successful."

  "I'm glad to hear that. In fact I'd like to come back to that subject in a

  moment. But first, before I do any more talking that might give things away, I

  wonder if I could persuade you to accept a small challenge for the benefit of

  the viewers." Kearson smiled impishly for a second. "Now, I can certainly vouch

  that we've never set eyes on one another before, and it might interest the

  viewers to know that back at NBC this morning, we didn't even know ourselves

  which reporter was coming on this assignment until five of us drew lots less

  than an hour ago." She paused to allow that to register, and then said, "Now, I

  wonder, Heir Zambendorf, what you can make of me, a complete stranger . . .

  apart from that I'm blonde, medium in height, and have a few freckles." She

  smiled into the camera at the joke, then turned back toward Zambendorf and

  waited curiously.

  Zambendorf looked at her for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and appeared to

  concentrate his powers. The people watching around the lobby fell quiet. An

  expression of calm and serenity spread over his face, and he smiled faintly.

  When he opened his eyes again, his features remained tranquil but his gaze was

  piercing. "You are not from the city," he said slowly, still searching her face

  with his eyes. "I see water. Your home is across water, but not very far from

  here ... to the west. It must be across the river, probably in New Jersey.

  Somewhere in the Newark area seems to suggest itself . . . with a name that

  suggests a fruit or a color . . . lemon, maybe, or orange ..."

  Kearson's eyes widened incredulously; the cameramen and engineers exchanged

  glances that said they were impressed. "This—this is absolutely amazing!" she

  stammered at the camera. "I swear this man and I have never met before this

  moment."

  "There are two men very close to you," Zambendorf went on. "One of them is

  called William, William or Bill. He is the older of the two . . . your husband,

  unless I am mistaken. You do have a husband?" Kearson nodded numbly. "Mmm,"

  Zambendorf said knowingly. "I am beginning to see him a little more clearly

  now—tallish, with brown hair . . . No, don't say anything, please. Just continue

  to concentrate, if you will, on the image of your husband. . . ."

  2

  "HMPH!" WALTER CONLON, DIRECTOR OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC Space Organization's

  Planetary Exploration Program, scowled down at the sheet of paper lying on the

  desk in front of him, took in the objections and deletions copiously scattered

  in heavy red ink along with the initials of various people from the top levels

  of NASO's management hierarchy, and raised his face defiantly. It was a florid

  pink face with untamable bushy eyebrows, and made all the more vivid and

  pugnacious by his white, inch-cropped hair, short, stocky build, and somewhat

  bulbous nose. The senior scientists in PEP called him the GNASO Gnome. "I still

  don't see what's wrong with it," he repeated. "It says what needs to be said and

  it's factual. You wanted my input. Well, that's it. I'm not in the political

  cosmetics and don't-upset-the-freaks business. What else can I say?"

  Allan Brady, the NASO North American Division's recently appointed

  broad-shouldered, fair-haired, and stylishly dressed public relations director,

  managed to suppress his exasperation with an effort as he sat in the chair

  opposite. He had been warned to expect problems in dealing with Conlon, and had

  thought that in going out of his way to solicit Conlon's opinion on the Kerning

  UFO-flap press release, due out the next day, he would at least be making a

  start in the right direction. But the draft that had come back over the wire

  from Conlon's desk terminal within fifteen minutes of Brady's request had come

  close to causing heart attacks in the PR department. "But we can't go putting

  out things like this, Walt," Brady protested. "It's saying in effect that a U.S.

  senator is either a simpleton or a fraud. And the—"

  "He is," Conlon retorted. "Both. Scientifically he's an illiterate, and if the

  truth were known, he's got about as much interest in New Gospel Scientific

  Solidarity as I have in medieval Turkish poetry. It's pure politics—bankrolling,

  bandwagoning, ballyhoo, and baloney. You can quote me on that."

  Brady bunched his mouth for a second, and then raised his hand briefly in a

  conciliatory gesture. "Okay. That's as may be, but we can't make allegations

  like this in an official NASO statement. Ethics apart, we're a government-driven

  operation, and we can't afford to make enemies of people like Koming. And

  programs like PEP that are still primarily public funded—" He broke off and

  shook his head, giving Conlon a puzzled look. "But I don't have to spell things

  like that out to you, Walt. You know how the system works. We just need

  something milder in tone and worded more tactfully. It doesn't really even have

  to say anything."

  Conlon shook his head. "Not from me. The precedent has gone too far already and

  should never have been set in the first place. We can't afford to let ourselves

  be seen acquiescing to things like this. If it goes on the way it is, we'll end

  up with every kook and nut-cult in the country parading crusaders around

  Washington to decide what NASO's business ought to be. I don't want to get mixed

  up with them. I've got enough already with this Zambendorf nonsense on Mars. I

  don't have the time; I don't have the budget; I don't have the people."

  The New Gospel Scientific Solidarity Church of Oregon had combined a complete

  retranslation of the Bible with the latest pseudoscientific writings on ancient

  astronauts to produce a new, "rationalized" doctrine in which all the

  revelations and mystical happenings of old were explained by visitations of

  benevolent aliens with supernatural powers, who had access to secrets that

  mankind would be privileged to share on completion of its "graduation." The

  Second Coming was really a symbolic reference to the time when the Powers would

  be divulged, and contemporary UFO lore had been woven into the theme as tangible

  evidence that the Day of Return was imminent. The church claimed a following of

  millions, certainly commanded a monthly income of such, and had been campaigning

  vigorously for recognition of scientific legitimacy, which—the skeptics quickly

  noted—would qualify the movement for federal research funding. Orthodox

  scientists challenged to refute the sect's claims found themselves in the usual

  no-win bind: If they responded at all they were proclaimed as having

  "acknowledged the importance" of the assertions, and if they didn't they had "no

  answers." The church supported an ardent lobby that was demanding, among other

  things, specific allocations of NASO resources and funds for investigating UFO

  phenomena, and which had ostensibly succeeded in recruiting Senator Koming of

  Oregon as a spokesman and champion. And Koming had made the headlines often

  enough to ensure a response of some kind from
NASO.

  Brady sought to avoid leaving the meeting empty-handed. "Well, I guess PR can

  handle the Koming side of it, but there's another part of this draft that

  ridicules the whole UFO phenomenon and doesn't mince any words about it." He sat

  back and showed his palms imploringly. "Why go out of your way to upset lots of

  people who don't care about Koming and aren't interested in any religion, but

  who tend to be enthusiastic about the space program? NASO has some strong

  supporters among UFO buffs. Why antagonize them?"

  "I'm in the science business, not the business of making myself popular by

  propping up popular myths," Conlon replied. "That means looking for explanations

  of facts. In that area there aren't any facts that need explaining. Period."

  Brady looked across the desk in surprise. He wasn't a scientist, but he thought

  he did a pretty good job of keeping abreast by reading the popular literature.

  Something was going on in the skies that scientists couldn't account for,

  surely. And, Senator Koming's demands aside, Brady rather liked the idea of

  NASO's committing some serious effort to investigating the subject. It would be

  an exciting activity to be associated with and something interesting to tell his

  friends about. "But there has to be something out there," he objected. "I mean,

  I know ninety-five percent, or whatever, of what's reported is rubbish, but what

  about the other five? How can you explain that?"

  Conlon snorted and massaged his forehead. How many times had he heard this

  before? "I can't, and neither can anyone else," he replied. "That's why they're

  what they call unidentified. That's what the word means. It's no more mysterious

  than car accidents. If you analyze the statistics, you'll find that some percent

  are due to drunks, some to carelessness, some to vehicle defects, and so on

  until you end up with five percent that nobody can pin down to any specific

  cause, and nobody ever will. The causes are unidentified—but that's no reason to

  say they have anything to do with aliens. It's the same with UFOs."

  "That doesn't prove they don't have something to do with aliens though," Brady

  pointed out.

  "I never said it did," Conlon replied. "I can't prove Santa Claus doesn't exist

  either. You can't prove a negative. Philosophically it's impossible."

  "So, what are you saying?" Brady asked him.

  Conlon tossed his hands up and shrugged. "I told you, I'm a scientist. Science

  doesn't have anything to say about it. It's not a scientific matter."

  "How can you say that, Walt?" Brady sounded incredulous. "It's connected with

  space and spacecraft, alien life . . . How can you say it's not scientific?"

  "The way a theory is constructed logically is what makes it scientific. Not its

  content. To be scientific, one of the conditions a theory has to meet is that it

  must be falsifiable—there must be some way you can test it to see if it's wrong.

  You can never prove, absolutely, that any theory is right. If you've got a

  theory that says Some UFOs might be alien spacecraft, then I agree with you—some

  might. There's no way I could prove it false. That's all I could say, and that's

  all science says. It isn't a falsifiable theory. See what I mean?"

  Brady was shaking his head reluctantly. "I can't buy that. There has to be some

  way for science to evaluate the subject, some way to test some part of it at

  least."

  "There is. You invert the logic and put forward the theory that I do:

  No UFOs are alien spacecraft. Now, that theory can be falsified conclusively and

  very simply, but not by anything that's been offered as evidence so far."

  "But what about the astronomers who've endorsed it publicly?" Brady persisted.

  "What astronomers?"

  "Oh, I can't recall their names offhand, but the ones you read about."

  "Pah!" Conlon pulled a face. "You mean people like Jannitsky?"

  "Well, he's one, yes."

  "He used to be a scientist—shut up in a lab all day with nobody ever having

  heard of him. Now he's a celebrity. Some people will do anything for

  recognition. How many more like him can you find? You can count 'em on one hand,

  and in a country this size that's the least you'd expect. It doesn't mean a damn

  thing, Al. Less than two percent of professional American astronomers consider

  the subject even worth showing an interest in. That does mean something." After

  a few seconds of silence Conlon added, "Anyhow, asking astronomers for opinions

  on something like that is ridiculous. It's not a subject they're competent to

  comment on."

  "What!" Brady exclaimed.

  "What does an astronomer know about UFOs?" Conlon asked him.

  Brady threw up his hands helplessly. "Well, how do I answer that? They're things

  in the sky, right? So, astronomers are supposed to know about things in the

  sky."

  "What things in the sky?"

  "What things? . . . The ones people say they see."

  "Exactly!" Conlon sat back and spread his hands in a show of satisfaction. "The

  things people say they see—All of the evidence boils down to eyewitness

  testimony. What does an astronomer know about evaluating testimony? How many

  times in his whole career does he have to try to learn whether a witness

  believes his own story, or decide whether the witness saw what he thought he

  saw, and whether it meant what he thought it meant? See my point? An

  astronomer's the wrong guy. What you need is a good lawyer or police detective,

  except they've all got other things to do than worry about investigating UFOs."

  "But at least you know an astronomer's not just any dummy," Brady said.

  "If that's all you need, why not ask a heart surgeon or a poker player?" Conlon

  shook his head. "Being an expert in one field doesn't make somebody's opinions

  on subjects they're not qualified to talk about worth more than anybody else's.

  But all too often they think they're infallible about anything and everything,

  and people believe them. You can see it everywhere—political economists who

  think they know more about fusion than nuclear engineers do; lawyers trying to

  define what's alive and what isn't; Nobel Prize-winning physicists being taken

  with simple conjuring tricks by so-called psychics. What does a physicist know

  about trickery and deception? Quarks and photons don't tell lies. We have stage

  magicians and conjurors who are experts on deception and the art of fooling

  people—it's their business. But who ever thinks of asking them in?"

  Conlon's tone had mellowed somewhat while he was talking, and Brady began to

  sense the message that he was trying to communicate: Whether Brady agreed with

  him or not about UFOs, Conlon and the people in the Planetary Exploration

  Program had better things to do than get involved in public relations concerning

  the likes of Senator Kerning. That was Brady's department. And the way Conlon

  was beginning to fidget in his chair said that he was getting near the end of

  the time he was prepared to spend trying to communicate it.

  Brady spread his hands for a moment, then acknowledged with a nod and picked the

  paper up from Conlon's desk as he rose to his feet. "Well, sorry to have taken

  your time," he said. "We'll take care of this. I just thought . .
. maybe you'd

  appreciate the opportunity to contribute something." He turned and walked over

  to the door.

  "Al," Conlon called out grumy as Brady was about to leave the room. Brady

  stopped and looked back. "I realize that you meant it for the best. Don't think

  you goofed. You've got your job to do—I know that. I guess from now on we

  understand each other, huh?"

  Brady returned a faint smile. "I guess so," he replied. "I'll talk to you more

  about UFOs sometime."

  "Do that."

  "Take care." With that, Brady left.

  Conlon sighed and sat staring down at the desk for a while with his chin propped

  on his knuckles. He wondered where it would all lead— pendulum-wavers being

  hired by oil companies to locate deposits; degrees in the "paranormal" being

  awarded by universities that should have known better; kook papers appearing in

  what used to be reputable scientific publications; politicians calling for a

  phase-down of the fusion program because they were convinced of the imminence of

  unlimited "cosmic energy" forever from pyramids, this at a time when the U.S.

  was having to import up-to-date tokamak reactors from Japan.

  It was becoming all but impossible to find good engineers and technicians.

  Science, engineering, the true arts, and the professions—in fact just about

  anything that demanded hard work, patience, and diligence —were coming

  increasingly, it seemed, to be regarded among younger people as out of style,

  strictly for nurds. And as fast as they were trained and gained some experience,

  the ones who did manage to turn themselves into something worthwhile tended to

  leave for more lucrative and challenging opportunities overseas. The peoples of

  such places as Japan, China, India, and Africa had lived too close to reality

  for too long to be deluded by notions of "finding themselves," whatever that

  meant, or searches for mystical bliss. Having "found" the twenty-first century,

  they were rapidly abandoning their trust in the magic and superstitions that had

  solved nothing, and were busy erecting in their place the solid foundations of

  advanced, industrialized, high-technology civilization.

  Conlon wasn't really sure where the degeneration had started either —in the

  latter half of the twentieth century, he suspected from what he had read. In