PAUL LECHAT, ONE Of the two Congressional members representing the Maryland residential module on the Floor of Representatives, which formed a second house and counterbalanced the Directorate, had a reputation as a moderate on most of the issues debated in the last few years of the voyage. Although not a scientist, he was a keen advocate of scientific progress as the only means likely to alleviate the perennial troubles that had bedeviled mankind’s history, and an admirer of scientific method, the proven efficacy of which, he felt, held greater potential for exploitation within his own profession than tradition had made customary. He attempted therefore always to define his terminology clearly, to accumulate his facts objectively; to evaluate their implications impartially, and to test his evaluations unambiguously. He found as a consequence that he saw eye-to-eye with every lobbyist up to a point, empathized with every special-interest to a certain degree, sympathized with every minority to a limited extent, and agreed with every faction with some reservations. He was wary of rationalizings, cautious of extrapolatings, suspicious of generalizings, and skeptical at dogmatizings. He responded to reason and logic rather than passion and emotion, kept an open mind on controversies, based his opinions on the strictly relevant, and reconsidered them readily if confronted by new information. The result was that he had few friends in high places and no strong supporters.
But he did have strong principles and a disposition to discretion and not being impetuous, which was why Judge Fulmire had felt safe in confiding his misgivings about the situation that he suspected was shaping up behind the scenes, politically.
Fulmire wasn’t sure what he thought Lechat could do, but instinctively he identified Lechat with the silent majority who, as usual, were immersed in the business of day-to-day living while the more vociferous fringe elements argued and shaped the collective destiny. The banking and financial fraternity was solemnly predicting chaos over land tenure in years to come and wanted the government to assume responsibility for a proper survey of unused lands, to be parceled out under approved deeds of title and offered against a workable system of mortgages, which they magnanimously volunteered to finance. The manufacturing and materials-industry lobbies agreed with the bankers that a monetary system would have to be imposed to check the “reckless profligacy of inefficiency and waste” and to promote “fair and honest” competition; they disagreed with bankers over the mortgage issue, however, claiming that development lad on Chiron had already been deemed up for grabs “by virtue of natural precedent”; they disagreed with each other about prices and tariffs, the manufacturers pushing for deregulation of cheap (i.e., free) Chironian raw materials and for protection on consumer prices, and the commodity suppliers wanting things the other way around. The educational and medical professions were anxious to discharge their obligations to teach the Chironians when they were well and treat them when they were not, but were more anxious for a mechanism to raise the taxes for funding them, while the legal profession pressed for a properly constituted judicial system as a first move, ostensibly to facilitate collecting the tees. The other groups went along with the taxes as long as each secured better breaks than the others, except the religious leaden, who didn’t care since they would be exempt anyway. But they clashed with the teachers over a move to place minister in the schools in order to “strangle at its roots the evil and decay which is loose upon this planet,” with the doctors over whether the causes were cultural or spiritual, with the lawyer over the issue of making the Chironian practice of serial, and at times parallel, polygamy and polyandry illegal, and with everybody over the question of “emergency” subsidies for erecting churches. And so it went.
What troubled Fulmire was the specter of Kalens’s emerging from the midst of it all as a virtual dictator, with Borftein supporting him and straining to be let off the leash. Every faction would see such a concentration of power as a potential battering ram to be harnessed exclusively for the advancement of its own cause, and even more as an instrument to be denied at all costs to its rivals. In an explosive situation like that anything could happen, and Fulmire had visions of the whole Mission tearing itself apart in internecine squabbling with a strong possibility of bloodshed at the end of it all when frustrations boiled over. The only force that he could see with any potential for exerting a stabilizing influence was the more moderate consensus as represented by the Mayflower II’s population as a whole; and Lechat, possibly, could provide a means of mobilizing it before things got out of hand.
Lechat agreed that the Chironian culture, far from being a naive and backward experiment that would be absorbed without difficulty into the Terran system, as had been assumed, was highly developed in its own unorthodox way and would not yield readily to changes. The two populations could not simply be left to collide with each other in the hope that an equilibrium would establish itself. Something, somewhere, would blow up before that happened.
The Chironians had both complied with the Mayflower II’s advance request for surface accommodation and anticipated their own future needs at the same time by developing Canaveral City and its environs in the direction of Franklin to a greater degree than their own situation then required. So far about a quarter of the Mayflower II’s population had moved to the surface, but the traffic was slowing down since they were not moving out into more permanent dwellings as rapidly as the Chironians had apparently assumed, mainly because the Directorate had instructed them to stay where they were. Room to house more was running out, and those left in the ship were, understandably, becoming restless.
Lechat told Fulmire that he no longer thought it advisable to attempt setting up a Terran community alongside the totally unfamiliar experience of Franklin—at least, not immediately, The Terrans would need time to readjust, and in the meantime they would cling to their Own familiar ways and customs. The proximity of Franklin would only cause tensions. Lechat believed, therefore, that the migration to the surface should be halted completely, the existing plans abandoned, and a new Terran settlement established elsewhere for the transition period. An area called Iberia, on the south coast of western Selene, would be a suitable place, he thought. Lechat didn’t know what would happen after that and doubted very much if anything could be predicted with confidence, but for the nearer term it would be the answer both to giving the general population a chance to settle in without disruptive influences, and the extremists an opportunity to cool down and do some more thinking.
Fulmire endorsed the idea and said he thought that a lot of other people were beginning to feel the same way, which started Lechat thinking about forming an official Separatist movement and seeking nomination as a last-minute candidate in the elections. Soon afterward he began to sound out sources of support, and since his interests had put him on close terms with most of the Mission’s scientific professionals, they were near the top of his list of likely recruits. Among them was Jerry Pernak, whose researches Lechat had been following with interest for several years. Accordingly, Lechat invited Pernak and Eve Verity to dinner with him one evening in the Francoise, a restaurant in the Columbia District frequented mainly by political and media people, and explained his situation.
“I don’t think it could work,” Pernak said, shaking his head after Lechat had finished. “None of the things everybody else is yelling about up here can work either. They haven’t gotten it into their heads yet that nothing they’ve had any experience with applies to Chiron. This is a whole new phenomenon with its own new rules.”
“How do you mean, Jerry?” Lechat asked across the table. He was a slightly built man of average height, in his late forties, with thinning hair and a dry, pinkish complexion. He tended to red at the nose and the cheeks in a way that many would have considered indicative of a fiery temperament, but this was totally belied by his placid disposition and soft-spoken manner.
Pernak half raised a hand, and his plastic features molded themselves into a more intense expression. “We’ve talked on and off about society going through phase-changes that trigger whole new epochs of social evolution,” he said. “Well, that’s exactly what’s happened down there. You can’t extrapolate any of our rules into this culture. They don’t apply. They don’t work on Chiron.”
Lechat didn’t respond immediately. Eve Verity elaborated. “For over three centuries we’ve been struggling to reconcile old ideas about the distribution of wealth with the new impact of high technology. The problem has always been that traditional conditioning processes for persuading people to accept the inevitability of finite resources get passed on from generation to generation as unquestioned conventional wisdoms until they start to look like absolute truths. Wealth was always something that had to be competed and fought for. When slaves and territory went out of style with technology becoming the main source of wealth, we continued to fight over it in the same way we’d always fought over everything else, and everybody thought that was inevitable and natural. They couldn’t separate the old theories from the new facts.” Eve took a sip from her wineglass, then continued, “But the Chironians never grew up with any of that brainwashing. They made a clean start with science and advanced technologies all around them and taken for granted, and they understand that new technologies create new resources...without limit.”
Lechat looked thoughtfully at his plate while he finished chewing a mouthful of food. “You make them all sound like millionaires,” he commented.
“That’s exactly what they are,” Pernak said. “In the material sense, anyway. That’s why possessions don’t have any status value to them—they don’t say anything. That’s why you won’t find any absolute leaders down there either.”
“How come?” Lechat asked, puzzled.
“Why do people follow leaders?” Pernak replied. “For collective-strength. What do you need collective strength for? Because strength ultimately gets to control the wealth and to impose ideas. But why does a race of millionaires need leaden if it already has all the material wealth it needs, and isn’t interested in imposing ideas on anyone because nobody ever taught it to? The Chironians don’t. There isn’t anything to scare them with. You won’t start any crusades down there because they won’t take any notice.”
Lechat thought for a while as he continued to eat. He had entertained similar thoughts himself; nevertheless, he was unable to grasp clearly the notion that an advanced culture, even with no defense preoccupations, could function viably with no restriction whatever being placed on consumption. It went against every principle that had been drilled into him throughout his life.
Even as he thought that, Eve’s words about brainwashing came back to him. Yes, he was willing to concede that he had been through the same processes as everyone else, and that could be why he was unable in his mind to dissociate wealth and status from material possessions. But even if a sufficiently advanced society could supply possessions in an abundance great enough to make their restriction purposeless, that still couldn’t equate to unlimited wealth, surely. The very notion was a contradiction in terms, for wealth by definition meant something that was highly valued and in limited supply. In other words, if on Chiron possessions did not equate to wealth and thereby satisfy the universal human hunger to be judged a success, then what did?
“I can see your point to a degree,” Pernak said eventually. “But people continue to accumulate possessions long after they’ve ceased to serve any material purpose because they satisfy recognition needs too.”
“That’s so true,” Eve agreed.
Lechat looked puzzled. “That’s my point—how do the Chironians satisfy them?”
“You’ve already said it,” Eve told him. She studied the expression on his face for a few seconds and then smiled. “You can’t see it yet, can you, Paul?”
Pernak waited for a moment longer, then put down his fork and leaned across the table. “On Chiron, wealth is competence!” he said. “Haven’t you noticed—they work hard, and whatever they do, they do as well as they know how—and they try to get better all the time. It doesn’t matter so much what they do as long as it’s good. And everybody appreciates it. That’s their currency—recognition, as you said...recognition of competence.” He shrugged and spread his hands. “And it makes a lot of sense. You just told us that’s what everyone wants anyway. Well, Chironians pay it direct instead of indirectly through symbols. Why make life complicated?”
The suggestion was too extraordinary for Lechat to respond instantly. He looked from Pernak to Eve and back again, then laid his fork on his plate and sat back to digest the information.
“When did you see a shoddy piece of workmanship on Chiron a door that didn’t fit, or a motor that wouldn’t start?” Eve asked him. “Have you ever come across anything like that anywhere there? It makes what we’re used to look like junk. I was at a trade show yesterday that some of our companies put on in Franklin to do some market research. The Chironians thought it was a joke. You should have seen the kids down there. They thought our ideas of design and manufacturing were hilarious. Our guys had to give it up as a dead loss.”
“That’s how they get rich,” Pernak said. “By being good at what they do and getting better. Who but a crazy would do anything and stay poor by choice?”
“You mean by reputation, or something like that?” Lechat asked, beginning to look intrigued.
“That’s part of it,” Pernak replied, nodding. “The satisfaction that their culture conditions them to feel is another part, but you’re getting the general idea.”
Lechat picked up his fork again. “I never looked at it in quite that way. It’s an interesting thought.” He began eating again, then stopped and looked up. “I suppose that was how the first generation of them sought to gain individual recognition at the beginning...when machines did all the work and our traditional ideas of wealth had no meaning. And it’s become embedded in their basic thinking.” He nodded slowly to himself and reflected further. “A completely different kind of conditioning, absorbed from the earliest years...based on recognizing individual attributes. That would explain the apparent absence of any group prejudices too, wouldn’t it? They’ve never had any reason to feel threatened by other groups.”
“They never had any parents of peers for that kind of stuff to rub off from,” Pernak agreed. “Classes, echelons, black, white, Soviet, Chinese...it’s all the same to them. They don’t care. It’s what you are that matters.”
“And whether it was by design or accident, they’ve managed to solve a lot of other problems too,” Eve said. “Take crime for instance. Theft and greed are impossible, because how can you steal another man’s competence? Oh, you could try and fake it, I suppose, but you wouldn’t last long with people as discerning as Chironians. They can see through a charlatan as quickly as we can spot ourselves being shortchanged. In fact to them that’s just what it is. They have their violent moments, sure, but nothing as bad as what’s coming in from Africa on the beam right now, or what happened in 2021. But it never turns into a really big problem. There’s no motivation for anyone to rally round a would-be Napoleon. He wouldn’t have anything to offer that anybody needs.”
After another short silence Lechat said, “It’s a strange system of currency though, isn’t it. I mean, it’s not additive at all, or subject to any laws of arithmetic. You can pay what you owe and still not be any poorer yourself. It sounds—I don’t know impossible somehow.”
“It’s not subject to finite arithmetic,” Pernak agreed. “But why does it have to be? Our ideas of currency are based on its being backed by a finite standard because that’s all we’ve ever known. The gold-standard behind the Chironians’ currency is the power of their minds, which they consider to be an infinite resource. Therefore they do their accounting with a calculus of infinities. You take something from infinity, and you’ve still got infinity left.” He shrugged. “It’s consistent. I know it sounds crazy to us, but it fits with the way they think”
“It certainly puts a new light on things,” Lechat conceded. He sat back again, looked from one to the other, and spread his hands resignedly. “So am I to take it that I shouldn’t assume your Support in the matter I talked about earlier?”
“It’s nothing personal, Paul. We think you’re a great guy...” Pernak frowned and sighed apologetically. “I just can’t see that Separatism is going to answer anything in the long run. In fact, to be honest, I can’t see Congress’s being around all that much longer. On that planet down there, it’s a dodo already.”
“You could be right, but that’s long-term,” Lechat replied. “I’m more worried about what might happen in the shorter term. I need help to do something about it.”
“Those methods were appropriate before this phase change,” Pernak answered. “They don’t have any place now.”
“What other way is there?” Lechat Eked.
Pernak shrugged. “Just let the system die naturally.”
“It might not want to die that easily,” Lechat pointed out. “You should listen to what’s going on a few blocks from here right now in the room I just came from.”
“They won’t stop anything, Paul,” Pernak said. “They’re up against the driving force of evolution. Canute had the same problem.”
“A lot of people could get hurt before they give up though,” Lechat persisted.
Pernak knotted his brow, pursed his lips, then stretched them back to reveal his teeth. “Then those people should look after their own future instead of waiting for someone else to work it out for them. That’s the old way. They have to learn to think the Chironian way.” After a second of hesitation he added, “That’s what Eve and I are going to do.”
“What do you mean?” Lechat asked, although in the same instant he thought he knew.
Pernak glanced at Eve for a moment. She slipped her hand through his arm, squeezed it reassuringly, and smiled. They both looked back at Lechat. “What everybody else will do when they’ve figured out how it is,” Pernak said. He grinned, almost apologetically. “That’s why we won’t be able to help much, Paul. You see, we’re leaving.”
“I see...” Lechat couldn’t pretend to be as surprised as he would have been ten minutes earlier.
Pernak tossed up his hands. “I’ve been to take a look at their university and what they do there. You wouldn’t believe it. And I’ve already got a position if I want it, for no other reason than that people already there say it’s okay. You get a house, for nothing...a good one. Or they’d build you one however you want it. How can you say no? We’re going to become Chironians. And so will everybody else when they’ve gotten over the voyage. Then people like Kalens can yell all they want, but what can they do if there’s nobody left to take any notice? It’s as I said—you have to start thinking like Chironians.”
“They’ve still got the Army...and a lot of nasty hardware up here,” Lechat reminded him.
Pernak twisted his face through a few contortions, then sighed again. “I know. That crossed my mind too, but what is there to provoke any real trouble? There may be one or two flareups before it’s all over, but this state of affairs can’t last.” He shook his head. “We’re convinced this is the only way to go. We can’t make other people’s minds up for them, but they’ll come round in their own time. Anything else would cause worse problems.”
Lechat nodded reluctantly. “Well, it sounds pretty final, I guess.”
Pernak spread his hands and nodded. “Yes. Sorry and all that kind of thing, Paul, but that’s how it is.”
Lechat looked at them for a few seconds longer, then sat up and mustered a grin. “Well, what can I say? Good luck to the pair of you. I hope everything works out.”
“Thanks,” Pernak acknowledged.
“I trust we’ll all stay friends and keep in touch,” Eve said.
“You’d better believe it,” Lechat promised.
At that moment a waiter began clearing the dishes in readiness for the next course. “Have you heard the news from the surface?” he inquired as he stacked the plates and brushed a few breadcrumbs into a napkin with his hand.
“News?” Lechat looked up, puzzled. “When? We’ve been here for the last hour. There wasn’t anything special then.”
“It came in about fifteen minutes ago,” the waiter said. He shook his head sadly. “Bad news. There’s been a shooting down there...in Franklin somewhere. At least one dead—one of our soldiers, I think. It was at some place called The Two Moons.”