All at once, Captain Strayer was a magnificent figure to Andy. He could have indicted Reed Ballinger and the crews serving under him with a single word; he hadn’t. Instead, claiming Earth had had no choice but to enter subspace in a war fleet, he had exonerated the thousands of men formerly under Ballinger’s command. Lambert Strayer himself, as commander of the fleet, would have to take the blame for whatever happened now.
The strange voice—Andy suddenly realized it was a speaking machine translating from an alien tongue —asked, “What is your message?”
“We have prepared a history of the planet Earth for presentation to the Star Brain.”
“A history of Earth? This is your important message for the Star Brain?” the machine voice asked. “Who cares about the past of a backwater planet that was ruled out of space?”
“We for one care,” Strayer said crisply. “If you try to stop us, we’ll resist. There’d be war. That’s reason enough for you to let us through to the Star Brain, isn’t it?”
“We do not see the importance of your message, men of Earth,” the voice said flatly.
“We of Earth think it high time there was an interchange of ideas. You know nothing about us; we would like you to know everything. We know nothing about you; we would like to know everything. We believe such an interchange of ideas would lead to understanding and peace such as the Galaxy has never known.”
“There has never been a war until you men of Earth… .”
“We mean peace by consent, not by force. We mean understanding by mutual curiosity and interest, not by Edict of a machine. We mean the sort of peace and understanding that could make the Star Brain obsolete.”
“This is your message?” the translating machine demanded.
“This is the idea behind the message. The message is for the Star Brain alone. It is our hope that after Earth gives its history to the Star Brain, a history we are proud of, other worlds will follow with their own histories. We believe that someday, as it should have from the beginning, the Star Brain will serve as a research center where rational beings can get information about each other, in preparation for exchanging ambassadors of good will and visiting one another’s worlds personally.”
“You would agree to extraterrestrials on Earth?” the voice asked. If a machine could, it sounded shocked.
Captain Strayer sighed. ‘‘I’m signing off now. Relay our message to the Star Brain. We can land as soon as we’re given clearance.”
There was a long pause. Then, “Very well, men of Earth. But if the Star Brain’s answer is no, as we are sure it will be, the ultimatum stands. You will have three hours to return to subspace. If you don’t, you will be attacked.”
After five minutes, Tech l/c Moody reported from the radar room : “We’ve got an alien fleet on the screen. At least a thousand ships, four wedges of them, between our position and Canopus planet.”
“Keep watching them,” Andy said.
“Right, sir.”
Ten more minutes went by. Tech l/c Moody made another report: “Our own ships, sir. All but twenty have joined the fleet, and those twenty are just waiting… . no, here come five of them now!”
Which left fifteen. One by one, Moody reported the fifteen trickling in, until finally every Ballinger ship had ranged itself behind the “Nobel.” Complete solidarity, Andy realized triumphantly, but it might come to nothing if the Star Brain rejected Captain Strayer’s message.
Forty-five minutes after the message had been relayed—and they were the longest forty-five minutes Andy ever spent—the machine voice announced: “Men of Earth, the Star Brain has received and considered your message. Men of Earth, the Star Brain grants permission to land on Canopus.”
That was all, but for the moment it was enough. Earth had succeeded in bringing its plea to the electronic brain that had ruled all Earthmen out of space.
Chapter 18 The Star Brain
In some ways, it was a world like any other world.
With a diameter of 3,900 miles—larger than Sol System’s Mercury and smaller than Mars—it was a small planet. Because of its relatively low speed of escape, it had forfeited most of its atmosphere to space; what rare traces remained were confined to hollows and gorges in the convoluted crust. But the low speed of escape also meant that enormous payloads could be landed with little expenditure of fuel, and this had been an important factor in the selection of Canopus’ single small planet as the home of the Star Brain.
Another important factor was its isolation. It was the only planet in the Canopus system, and it revolved about its enormously hot sun at a distance of almost a billion miles, giving it a temperature within the range that most of the Galactic races would find comfortable. The nearest inhabited star system was almost eighty light years away, twelve per cent of the distance to Earth and a vast distance even by interstellar standards.
The planet was devoted entirely to the housing and operation of the Star Brain. Four times during each of its long years, each one equal to a hundred Earth years, the small custodial staff was changed, rotating among the various civilized worlds. Currently, the Capellans had the honor and the obligation of caring for the Star Brain. This, Andy realized, was one of the reasons Captain Ballinger had used to justify his first attack, for the Star Brain had ruled in favor of Capella and against Earth in a mining dispute on an uninhabited Cygnian planet. Ballinger claimed the Capellan guardians of the Brain had influenced its decision.
Like all thinking machines, no matter how complex, the Star Brain could only “think” for itself within the limits established in its creation and with the data presented to its scanner. The guardians had no opportunity to alter this data, and since the Star Brain employed an objective scanner rather than a punched-tape input mechanism, there had been no opportunity for the Capellan guardians to use their position to edit the data on the Capella-Earth dispute.
The Brain itself was housed underground in an area of several square miles straddling the planet’s equator. The city of the guardians, which had not been damaged by Reed Ballinger’s bombing, was also underground several miles away. Except for the evidence of the Canopian planet’s one huge spacefield, equipped to handle the largest space fleets in the Galaxy, there were no signs of life, for, like most of the Canopian atmosphere, every molecule of its water had escaped to space ages before the Star Brain was built. It was a world of bare, unweathered rock, of stark mountains and deep basins which, aeons ago, had been ocean beds. Fossil remains, hundreds of millions of years old, of simple life forms had been found. Life on the Canopus planet had died before it could evolve to higher forms.
In order to supply the answers to any questions fed its scanner, the Star Brain filed data on every inhabited or explored stellar system in the Galaxy. But its memory banks were bereft of any information as to culture, history, religion, philosophy, or art, except as these items were pertinent to current interstellar activity. The memory banks had no information at all on the historical development of the Confederacy’s scores of worlds prior to the discovery of interstellar travel and subspace drive.
First the flagship “Nobel,” and then one by one all the other ships of the fleet from distant Earth, landed at the huge spaceport. Capellan ground crewmen, in radio contact with each ship in turn, directed the landing activities.
The Capellans, who were bilaterally symmetrical like most of the intelligent races of the Galaxy, were gill- and lung-breathing amphibians with scaly skins. Despite the suitable temperature of the Canopus planet, they had to wear spacesuits, as well as helmets to keep their gills moist, while the debarking Earth-men could suffice with just their transparent plastic helmets.
Knowing little about their world, which was the fourth planet of the star Capella, and up to now caring less, and never having set foot on it as the Capellans never had set foot on Earth, Earthmen called the Capellans lizard-men. They, in their language, called Earthmen anthropoid-lizards, which must have meant there were ape-like creatures native to the CapeIlan pl
anet. Earth did not know for sure. Men had never been there.
It took the crew of the “Nobel’ two days to unload the records and models and samples of thousands of years of civilization on Earth. All the while the spaceships of the guardian fleet orbited watchfully overhead. Earth, after all, was still the mad dog of the universe.
Units from all members of the Confederacy except outlawed Earth composed the fleet. If Earthmen truly had come to Canopus a second time bent on destruction, and so far there was nothing but Captain Strayer’s word to indicate they hadn’t, they never would leave Can opus planet alive. The grounded Earth fleet would be helpless under the rocket guns of the orbiting guardian fleet.
At first there was no fraternization between “lizard-men” and “anthropoid-lizards.” But since before the Edict Earth’s turn hadn’t come to take over the twenty-five year guardianship of the Brain, the crews of the Earth ships were intensely curious about it. Grudgingly to begin with, and then with more enthusiasm, impromptu groups of Capellan guides in their spacesuits and helmets, using the built-in helmet translators which could convert speech from any Confederacy language to any other, began to show the idle Earth crewmen through the brightly lit underground chambers and passages of the Star Brain.
Soon nothing but skeleton crews manned the waiting Earth ships by day, and by night after the ice was broken some of the Earthmen slept in the guardians’ quarters.
On the second day after landing, Andy and Turk joined a sightseeing group that was led underground by three CapeJlans. They passed through the vaults of the Brain’s memory banks, through the chambers of the yes-no digital computers and the more sophisticated analog computers, through the self-repair bays that had made the guardians’ job largely one of the checking rather than repairing.
Three things remained most vividly in Andy’s memory: the Brain’s power plant, its scanning mechanism, and the dome-shaped answer chamber.
In the power plant, the spokesman for the three Capellans said, “You will notice how miniaturization has been used. Enough electricity is generated in this room to run a small planet. Microscopic germanium crystals have now replaced the semiconductors which originally were used.” The Capellan, his voice rendered emotionless by his helmet translator, couldn’t resist a not too subtle dig. “We are now in this chamber, men of Earth, a thousand feet underground. That is why your Captain Ballinger failed to do great damage when he bombed the Brain. Though he put those units nearer the surface out of commission, the Brain’s self-repair mechanism, a physical development of what used to be called feedback, could and did handle the damage.” What might have been laughter— lizard-laughter? thought Andy—emerged from the Capellan’s speaker. “Fortunately for you, men of Earth, the Star Brain can harbor no grudge. Resentment, you see, was not built into its computer system, something devoutly to be wished for the protoplasmic brains of Earthmen.”
The Star Brain’s scanning mechanism was next. It was a long, vault-like chamber with a high ceiling and receiving screens on all four walls. High along one wall was a narrow catwalk patrolled by the guardians, and it was on this ramp that the guides took the Earth-men. They had come just in time to see the beginning of Earth’s case on its own behalf. Three “Nobel” anthropologists stood in the center of the room, preparing to project slides on one of the screens.
Their leader was a Lebanese named Habib Malik, and while the Star Brain listened to and recorded his words, he said:
“My name is Malik. I am an anthropologist from American University in Beirut, Lebanon, a small independent state in Western Asia, the largest of Earth’s continents. I am here to tell you of the earliest advent of premodern man on the planet Earth.
“We do not know how long ago the prelizard-men of Capella first emerged from their native swamps, though we would like to. We do not know how long ago the prebirdmen of Sirius came down from their loftiest branches, though we would like to. We do not know how long ago the pre-intelligent ungulates of Arcturus left their meadows to build the cities of their civilization, though we would like to.
“We believe, in short, that our presentation of the history and achievements—yes, and failures—of Earthmen can be a valuable beginning. Whatever your decision on the merits of Earth’s plea to be allowed to return to space, at least this record we give you will become a part of your memory banks. If nothing else, we hope it instills a desire in the other members of the Confederacy to do the same and present their histories. We believe along this road lies the only sure way to permanent mutual understanding.”
Habib Malik, a small, bald, olive-skinned man of middle age, took a deep breath, stared at the blank unanswering screen, and went on: “Just as the physical sciences on all the worlds have, through new discoveries, constantly pushed back the date of the beginning of the physical universe of stars and nebulae so that now we can safely say the Galaxy is not less than twelve billion years old and may be a very great deal older than that, so the anthropologists of Earth, through new discoveries, have constantly pushed back the date of earliest man. By earliest man we mean clearly a member of genus homo rather than a half-man, half-ape. We would like to begin our story with this earliest true man, not yet homo sapiens as you see him standing before you, but more than an animal.
“The distinction between animal and man, we anthropologists always have contended, is one of tool making. The first true men fashioned tools with a purpose—whether for hunting or the skinning of animals or, regrettably, warfare against his fellows—out of material at hand. He… .”
Andy’s guide, hearing the translation in his helmet, said excitedly, “Why, it is so on Capella, too! That is the very distinction we make.”
“… tools culminating finally in the most complex device ever developed on any world,” Malik was saying. “And by this, of course, I mean the Star Brain. But if man and the other intelligent races had not started with simple flint knives and spearheads, the ultimate evolution to a Star Brain would have been impossible.
“The earliest known true man’s remains were found on the continent of Africa, in a place called Olduvi Gorge at the southern end of the Great Rift Valley. For this reason, we call him Olduvi man.
“Geologically, he belongs to the Lower Pleistocene period. That is to say, Olduvi man was making his first crude tools in the Great Rift Valley six hundred thousand years ago.”
“Remarkable!” exclaimed the Capellan. “We, too, on Capella date our earliest true ancestor back at least six hundred thousands of your years ago. It is as if our evolutions had started coequally across the gulf of light years.”
They waited on the catwalk, listening intently to Habib Malik’s words. If anything, the Capellans, for the first time being granted a vision of Earth’s past, seemed more interested than their companions from Earth.
When Malik finished his presentation, the second anthropologist began to speak. “If Olduvi man was the first true man, then Cro-Magnon man was the first full man. Thirty or forty thousand years ago, he appeared in Western Europe, a small peninsula jutting west from the great Asian land mass, and… .”
“I am afraid we must leave,” the Capellan guide said with frank regret. “We must go on duty shortly, you see. But even if we don’t guide you again, we’ll be back here. I for one want to learn more of this.”
It was, Andy told himself happily, a magnificent start. The Star Brain’s objective interest was assured, but the curiosity of their Capellan guides was as unexpected as it was heartening.
The dome-shaped answer chamber was next. Here was no drama of an Earthman presenting his case far across the Galaxy. Here, for now, was utter silence. Here was the high gleaming dome under which, dispassionately, the Star Brain administered justice for all the far-flung worlds of the Confederacy. Here, in a few days’ time, an era might end for Earth if the Edict remained in force. Or here, if Earth made its point, a new era might begin for the entire Galaxy.
“What happens after that caveman stuff?” Turk asked Andy after their guides
had conducted them back to the surface.
“Frank told me we keep going around the clock until we finish.”
“If they talk like that,” Turk protested, “it will take months.”
“No, it won’t,” Andy explained. “Each scientist simply introduces his subject; then written data are fed to the scanner. Captain Strayer thinks forty-eight hours ought to do the whole job.”
“Then why bother to make the speeches at all?”
“Captain Strayer says we want to do more than feed objective data to the Star Brain. We want to show our pride, too, and the easiest way to show it is by talking about it. You saw how excited the Capellan got, didn’t you?”
Later that day, Andy and Turk returned to the scanner room to see Dr. Seys stand before the four screens.
“My name is Dr. Seys,” he said. “I am a historian of classic civilization at the University of Vienna in Austria, a small nation in the east of Europe.
“You have now seen how man’s earliest, but admittedly barbaric and superstition-motivated, civilizations sprang up in the river valleys of the Indus, the
Tigris-Euphrates, and the Nile. It is now my honor to introduce what many men of Earth consider the first true rational society. This was no hidebound civilization limited geographically by the extent of a river valley and morally by the totalitarian rule of a select group. For its citizens, this was the first attempt ever made at true democracy, and in some ways, though the franchise was limited, the attempt never has been surpassed.
“The civilization I am introducing sprang up on the shores of a great sea, called the Mediterranean. Its peoples called themselves Hellenes. We today call them Greeks.
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