by Mike Resnick
Item: A loosely-knit union of two hundred worlds threatened to secede from the Commonwealth,
claiming that the Director had made himself virtually inaccessible to them. When it was pointed out that all two hundred planets were economically sound and militarily strong and that the Director was preoccupied with smoothing over the problem spots of the Commonwealth, and that, further, no previous Director had ever seen delegations from any of the planets in question, the response was that at least none of the Director's predecessors had made it a matter of policy not to see them. It was all a matter of semantics and viewpoints, but Vestolian had to waste three days with ambassadors from the two hundred worlds rather than commit his military forces to the only viable alternative. Item: Those problems that reached his desk were rarely complex situations requiring executive decisions that only Vestolian could make. More often, they were diplomatic and bureaucratic misunderstandings that had been blown up all out of proportion. Item: The serious problems, the ones Vestolian should have been dealing with, were being acted on—and frequently created—at far lower levels, and were usually buried somewhere along the complex chain of command, ready to rise flaming to the surface generations hence. Once again he called Zenorra and Oberlieu into his presence. “Good God!” he muttered, more to himself than to them. “It's even worse than before!” He looked up at Zenorra. “I issued good, intelligent, proper orders, orders specifically designed to avoid bureaucratic turmoil and stagnancy, orders that should have freed me for more important matters than the stuff I'm dealing with every day. What went wrong?” Zenorra shrugged. “What's wrong has nothing to do with you or your intentions, Director,” he said. “What's wrong is the nature of Man and of his empire. Have you noticed that, paradoxical as it seems, when Man and his possessions are at their smallest and weakest, his government is usually a democracy, giving the people the broadest and most vocal representation. As Man and his empire grow larger and more powerful, quicker and more forceful decisions are required, and the government grows progressively less representative, from republic to oligarchy. And now, with an empire that literally encompasses the entire galaxy, the crying need is for one ultimate authority. There are too many diverse races and diverse interests for any form of fair representation; all that is left is the iron rule of one man. Call it what you will, but the proper word is ‘monarchy.’ Admittedly, you can handle only the tiniest percentage of the decisions personally, but in this case the appearance must be of a single leader whose rule is not subject to question or debate, whose power is absolute. I'll tell you something else, Director: When you repeal your orders, as you surely will, the problems will not abate one iota. Our means of governing will remain inefficient, literally thousands of worlds with legitimate problems and grievances will be ignored or mishandled, and problems sown decades and centuries ago will continue to crop up to embarrass us.
“On the other hand, abdication of any of your powers will ultimately result in anarchy. Inefficient as our system is, it is still more effective than any other means of governing an empire this size. We've simply come too far to go back. Any form of election would take half a century, and the power void created by fifty years without an ultimate authority would be intolerable. The worlds of the Commonwealth are too economically and culturally interdependent upon each other ever to go back to isolationism. Even the alien races have been bound to us militarily and economically. No, the only alternative to this is a galaxy-wide state of anarchy, and I do not consider that to be an acceptable one.” “Nor do I,” said Vestolian with a sigh. “I suppose, though, that every Director has to find it out for himself.”
Zenorra nodded sadly.
“Cancel all previous directives,” said Vestolian presently. “We'll simply have to make do with things as they are, and drink an occasional bittersweet toast to things as they could never have been.” And the Director of the Commonwealth, wishing that he were anyone else in the universe, ate a solitary dinner and retired early.
That evening an emigration proclamation issued sixty-three years earlier by his grandfather was finally put into effect on a world that had not yet been incorporated into most maps of the Commonwealth. He was awakened in the middle of the night to be informed that he was at war again. 18: THE SYMBIOTICS
...It was inevitable that Man should ultimately turn his eyes toward other galaxies. The problems confronting him as he attempted to reach outward beyond his immediate stellar group dwarfed in both magnitude and difficulty every other challenge he had ever faced. Indeed, the mere act of survival on a trip of more than a million light-years to the nearest neighboring galaxy required the most innovative approach...
—Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement (No mention of the symbiotics can be found inOrigin and History of the Sentient Races .)
Things had been going pretty well for Man. He owned, and ran, about as much of the galaxy as he was ever going to. There were still some worlds and a few entire systems that he had not assimilated, but only because he had thoroughly examined them and found them wanting. There were still a handful of races that existed outside the Commonwealth's enormous economic web, but only because they had so little of value to offer that Man hadn't gotten around to them yet. And so, seeking new challenges, Man turned his vision outward. The notion had existed for centuries, perhaps for millennia, and had finally been put into words by the current Director of the Floating Kingdom: Man's destiny had only begun in this galaxy. It would come to fruition with nothing less than the entire universe.
There was a lot of patriotic and philosophic gobbledegook, but the gist of it was quite simple: Man, for all practical purposes, now ruled the galaxy as completely as the galaxy could be ruled. The next step was the exploration and ultimate annexation of the Andromeda galaxy. The most immediate and serious problem was the unbelievably vast distance which, for the first time in Man's history, would not be measured in inches or feet or miles or parsecs, but in hundreds of thousands of light-years.
The initial plans called for a miles-long spaceship, populated with ten or twelve couples to begin with, and able to hold not only them but five generations of their progeny. The cost was prohibitive, but what the Director wanted the Director usually got, regardless of cost. Then, a few years into the project, an obscure scientist on one of the domed Capellan colonies came up with another breakthrough in spaceflight, or rather, with the first truly major improvement in almost seven thousand years. It was nothing more than a complex formula for a Reduced Tachyon Drive (which, paradoxically, produced far greater speed than the standard model), but it seemed to check out and was submitted to those in charge of the project. They tested it, discovered to their surprise that it worked as
well in fact as in principle, and incorporated it into their plans.
Now the trip would be made not in generations, but in years: eleven of them, to be exact. A three-year survey of the new galaxy would follow, and the crew would be home to report their findings a quarter century after they left.
Then the plan had to be modified once again. There would be no crew, and possibly no flight at all. The requisite engines were so huge, so unstable, so incapable of working at anything other than achieving an undreamed-of speed, that excess weight simply could not be accommodated. Man found himself back at the dawn of the Space Age in that respect: He had the firepower to reach Andromeda in years rather than eons, but the firepower couldn't accommodate an extra ton beyond its own weight. Science grappled with the problem, and there was no doubt that it would eventually be solved. But the Director had no interest in eventualities; his idea of a fitting footnote in the history books would be the attainment of an Andromeda colony within his lifetime. Which was where Bartol came in. A lot of people wondered what a biologist was doing on the Andromeda Project, but the fact of the matter was that, for all practical purposes, hewas the Project. Miniaturization of controls and compression of air and foodstuffs had gone about as far as they could go, and they still took up a hundredfold more room than was available
. Even a Deepsleep chamber took too much room and power, and while the supplies required for a “frozen” pilot were greatly diminished, they were still too much for the ships to hold. Then one of the bright boys in the lab suggested that the Project look into utilization of the Hunks, and since Bartol was the leading Hunk authority around, he was commandeered and put to work forthwith. Nobody, not even Bartol, knew exactly what made the Hunks tick. They were as weirdly constituted a race of beings as had ever been discovered, and Psychology had taken more than four centuries to finally declare that they were sentient. The average Hunk looked like a large, green, slimy amoeba. It possessed no sensory organs that had yet been detected, though it was obviously able to sense the presence of others. It moved by the most awkward and inefficient crawling mechanism yet devised by Nature, and seemed to have no discernible top or bottom. But it did possess one thing that made it invaluable: a body chemistry that inhaled a carbon dioxide compound, exhaled an oxygen-nitrogen compound, ingested the constituents of human waste, and excreted the constituents of human nourishment. In brief, it could be hooked up to a human pilot in a totally symbiotic relationship. Obviously neither life form would exhale or excrete quite as much as it inhaled or ingested, but the difference was slight enough so that the ship could carry the extra amounts that were necessary. It was the only possible means of salvaging the Andromeda Project in the foreseeable future, and both the Floating Kingdom and the Project scientists were quick to embrace it. The pilots were another matter altogether. Softly and infrequently at first, then ever more vocally and incessantly, they objected to the symbiotic relationship.
They object, said Psychology, to the concept of living off another's creature's leavings, of eating its excrement and breathing what it exhales.
“Then condition them,” said Bartol.
So Psychology took the potential pilots away for a month, and when they came back they had no objections whatsoever to the less tasteful physical aspects of symbiosis. And they still didn't like it.
They now object, said Psychology, to the fact that their health and well-being depends on the health and well-being of a totally alien being. They don't want to die simply because a Hunk gets sick. “Then teach them Hunk physiology and medicine,” said Bartol. So Biology took the pilots off for a crash course in Hunk physiology, and made sure they knew even more about keeping Hunks healthy than about themselves. And they still hated it.
Bartol finally called Jesser, the pilot most likely to make the first voyage, into his office and offered to discuss the problem with him.
Jesser entered the room, a chip on his shoulder and a baleful glare on his face. “I understand we still have a problem of sorts,” said Bartol, offering the pilot a drink, which Jesser refused.
“None that can't be solved by getting rid of the Hunks,” said Jesser. “I'm afraid that's totally out of the question,” said Bartol. “There is simply no practical way of making an intergalactic voyage without them. Besides, the Hunks aren't making any trouble for the Project; it's you and the other pilots.”
“Then get yourself some new pilots,” said Jesser. “Because I'm not tying into any Hunk, not for twenty-five years, not for twenty-five minutes.” “So I've been told,'’ said Bartol. “I don't suppose you'd like to explain your reasons to me. I know that you feel no physical revulsion to a life-giving symbiotic relationship, and I know you are every bit as capable of keeping a Hunk partner alive as I am. So what seems to be the problem?” “I'm just not going to do it,” said Jesser, softly but firmly. “Go ahead and fire me if you want. I can get work elsewhere.”
“If you were the only pilot with this attitude, I'd fire you in two seconds,” said Bartol. “But you're not, so I'm going to get to the bottom of this. What is your objection to having a Hunk keep you alive long enough to be the first sentient being to visit another galaxy?” “You don't count very well, do you?” said Jesser “Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?” said Bartol as Jesser turned and left the room. He consulted Psychology again, and shortly thereafter the answer came back to him. The pilots had no objection to letting the Hunks keep them alive. They had no objection to the threat of
death facing them should a Hunk sicken or die.
But they objected like an hell to the thought of a Hunk being in the first ship to reach Andromeda. “But that's crazy!” exclaimed Bartol.
“Maybe so,'’ said Lavers of Psychology. “But that's the problem in a nutshell. This is going to be Man's finest hour, his greatest achievement, and they are totally unwilling to let any other race share in it.” “It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of,” said Bartol. “We can't get there without the Hunks.” “You know it, and I know it, andthey know it. Their answer is that we should wait until we have the technology to do it on our own, as Man has always done things.” “So condition it out of them.”
“No chance,” said Lavers.
“What are you talking about?'’ demanded Bartol. “You got them conditioned to accept a symbiotic hookup, which is much more repugnant.”
“It'sphysically more repugnant,” said Lavers. “And we've reached the point where we can condition people to withstand just about any physical hardship. And I won't deny that it's probably mentally more repugnant, at least to most of us, and we can overcome that too. But when you talk about the current problem, you're asking me to change everything that makes Man Man, and I don't think I can do it. Oh, I can put them into the deepest hypnotic sleep you ever saw, and drill it into them a million times an hour that Hunks are necessary cogs in the operation, and not only don't want credit for the mission but won't even understand that a mission is taking place. And the conditioning will hold up for a while—a year, or two years, or ten years—but sooner or later they're going to break through it. It's easier to condition a man to eat and breathe when the alternative is starving and suffocating than to share a triumph with another race when the alternative is to not share that triumph.” “Rubbish!” said Bartol. “Just condition them and get them halfway there, and I guarantee they're not going to pull the plug once they break through it.” “Well, you're the man in charge of this part of the project,” said Lavers with a sigh, “so I'll do what you tell me to do. But I'll make you a little side bet.” “Oh?”
“I'll bet you five hundred credits that the ship doesn't make it there and back.” “I confidently expect to be dead and buried long before that eventuality,” said Bartol. “Twenty-five years is a long time.”
“It won't take twenty-five years,” said Lavers. “You're on,” said Bartol. “You know, I think you're as odd as Jesser is.” “Perhaps,” said Lavers.
So the pilots were conditioned again, and within a year theAndromeda I had left the orbit in which it had
been constructed and was hurtling through the intergalactic void at an unimaginable speed. Jesser had indeed been chosen to pilot the mission, and when he was two years out from port with no untoward incidents, four more Andromeda ships were launched, each responsible for charting a different section of the neighboring galaxy.
Bartol spent most of the next year in the Project Control Building, checking the daily readouts of the five Hunks, while Lavers did the same for the pilots. The ships were exactly on course and on schedule, the inhabitants were in perfect physical health, and the Director finally made news of the Andromeda Project available to the media.
The people ate it up. Once again a new sense of purpose, of competition, was stirred within them. Andromeda, most of them agreed, would do for starters, just as Sirius had done some millennia back. But Andromeda was just one galaxy, and not such a big and impressive one at that. There were more than fifty galaxies just in our local group, and then... “And then I noticed this fluctuation,” said one of the minor functionaries on the Andromeda staff. Lavers looked at the readout and shook his head. “Not good,” he said. “Not good at all.” “What seems to be the problem?” said Bartol, who had wandered over. “Encephalogram,” said Lavers.
“On who?”
&n
bsp; “Jesser.”
“What does it mean?” asked Bartol.
“Perhaps nothing,” said Lavers. “But if you'll recall a wager we made some years back, I think if I were you I'd get my money ready.”
“Based on one slight deviation from the norm?” said Bartol. “When you're hooked into an alien being three hundred thousand light-years from the nearest star, there is no such thing as aslight deviation,” said Lavers. The deviation remained so long that it finally became accepted as a standard reading until the other pilots began showing the same deviation, all between two and three years into their flight. “But it isn't the same at all,” said Lavers grimly. “It's smaller, slighter. Jesser's has changed so minutely over the past couple of years that it's hardly seemed like a change at all, until you compare it to the other four.”
