Compared to Main, Pithead was small and spartan, offering only limited accommodations and restricted amenities. During the days that Ganymean experts were conducting a more intensive examination of the ship there, the two races found themselves intermingling more freely than before and getting to know one another better. Hunt made the most of this opportunity to observe the aliens at close hand and to gain a deeper insight into their ways and temperaments.
The single most striking thing that set them apart from Earthmen was, as he already knew, their total ignorance of the very concept of war or willful violence in any form. At Pithead he gradually came to attribute this to a common factor that he noticed in all of them #151;something which, he realized, represented a fundamental difference in their mental makeup. Not once had he detected a hint of aggressiveness in a Ganymean. They never seemed to argue about anything, show signs of impatience, or give any evidence of possessing tempers that could be frayed. That in itself did not surprise him unduly; he would hardly have expected less from an extremely advanced and civilized people. But the point that did strike him was the complete absence of emotional traits of the kind that would provide alternate outlets for such instincts in a socially acceptable manner. They exhibited no sense of competitiveness among themselves, no sense of rivalry, even in the harmless, subtle, friendly ways that men accept as part of living and frequently find enjoyable.
The notion of losing face meant nothing to a Ganymean. If he were proved wrong in some matter he would readily concede the fact; if he were proved right he would feel no particular self-satisfaction. He could stand and watch another perform a task that he knew he could do better, and say nothing #151;a feat almost impossible for most Earthmen. In the reverse situation he would promptly ask for help. He was never arrogant, authoritative or disdainful, yet at the same time never visibly humble, servile or apologetic; nothing in his manner ever sought to intimidate, and neither did it acknowledge implied intimidation from others. There was simply nothing in anything they said or did, or in the way that they said and did them, that signaled any instinctive desire to seek status or superiority. Many psychologists believed this aspect of human social behavior constituted a set of substitute rituals that permitted release of underlying aggressive instincts which communal patterns of living required to be suppressed. If this was so, then the only conclusion Hunt could draw from his observations was that for some reason these underlying instincts just didn #146;t exist in the Ganymeans.
All this was not to say that the Ganymeans were a cold and unemotional people. As their reactions to the destruction of Minerva had shown, they were warm, friendly and deeply sentimental, at times to a degree that an Earthnian reared in the "old school" might have considered unbecoming. And they possessed a well-developed, though very subtle and sophisticated, sense of humor, not a little of which was evident in the basic design of ZORAC. Also as Shilohin had indicated, they were a cautious people, cautious not in the sense of being timid, but of premeditating every move and action. They never did anything without knowing exactly what they were trying to achieve, why they wanted to achieve it, how they were going to do it, and what they would do if the expected failed to materialize. To the average engineer from Earth the disaster of Iscaris would have been shrugged off as just one of those things to be forgotten or tried again with hopes for better luck; to the Ganymeans it was inexcusable that such a thing should ever have happened and they had not yet fully come to terms with it, even after twenty years.
Hunt saw them as a dignified and proud race, moderate in speech and noble in bearing, yet underneath it all sociable and approachable. They exhibited none of the suspicion and mistrust of strangers that was typical through much of the society of Earth. They were quiet, reserved, self-assured, and above all they were rational. As Danchekker remarked to Hunt one day in the bar at Pithead: "If the whole universe went insane and blew itself up, I #146;m sure the Ganymeans would still be there at the end of it to put the pieces together again."
The bar at Pithead became the main focus of social activity between the small group of Ganymeans and the Earthmen. Every evening after dinner, ones and twos of both races would begin trickling in until the room was filled to capacity and every square foot of horizontal space, including the floor, was covered by a sprawling body of one kind or the other, or littered with glasses. The discussions rambled on to touch every subject conceivable and usually went through to the early hours of the morning; for anybody not disposed to seek solitude and privacy, there was little else to do after work at Pithead.
The Ganymeans developed a strong partiality for scotch whiskey, which they preferred neat, by the tumblerful. They reciprocated by bringing in a distillation of their own from the Shapieron. A number of the Earthmen experimented with it and found it to be pleasant, warming, slightly sweet . . . and of devastating potency, but not until about two hours after beginning to drink it. Those who had learned the hard way christened it GTB #151;Ganymean Time Bomb.
It was during one of these evenings that Hunt decided to broach directly the subject that had been puzzling more than a few of the Earthmen for some time. Shilohin was present, so was Monchar, Garuth #146;s second-in-command, together with four other Ganymeans; on the Earth side were Danchekker, Vince Carizan the electronics engineer, and a half-dozen others.
"There is a point that #146;s been bothering some of us," he said, by that time having come to appreciate the Ganymean preference for direct speech. "You must know that having people around today who can describe how Earth was in the distant past makes us want to ask all kinds of questions, yet you never seem to want to talk about it. Why?" A few murmurs from all around endorsed the question. The room suddenly became very quiet. The Ganymeans seemed ill at ease again and looked at each other as if hoping someone else would take the lead.
Eventually Shilohin replied. "We know very little about your world. It #146;s a delicate issue. You have a culture and history that are completely strange. . . ." She gave the Ganymean equivalent of a shrug. "Customs, values, manners. . . accepted ways of saying things. We wouldn #146;t want to offend somebody by unwittingly saying the wrong thing, so we tend to avoid the subject."
Somehow the answer was not really convincing.
"We all believe there #146;s a deeper reason than that," Hunt said candidly. "We in this room might come from different origins, but first and foremost we are all scientists. Truth is our business and we shouldn #146;t shy away from the facts. This is an informal occasion and we all know each other pretty well now. We #146;d like you to be frank. We #146;re curious."
The air became charged with expectancy. Shilohin looked again toward Monchar, who quietly signaled his acquiescence. She downed the last of her drink slowly as she collected her thoughts, then looked up to address the room.
"Very well. Perhaps, as you say, we would do better without any secrets. There was one crucial difference between the patterns of natural evolution that unfolded on your world and on our world #151;on Minerva there were no carnivores." She paused as if waiting for a response, but the Earthmen continued to sit in silence; obviously there was more to come. She felt a twinge of sudden relief inside. Perhaps the Ganymeans had been overapprehensive of the possible reactions of these unpredictable and violently inclined dwarves after all.
"The basic reason for this difference, believe it or not, lay in the fact that Minerva was much farther away from the Sun." She went on to explain. "Life could never have developed on Minerva at all without the greenhouse effect, which you already know about. Even so, it was a cold planet, certainly in comparison to Earth.
"But this greenhouse effect kept the Minervan oceans in a liquid state and, as on Earth, life first appeared in the shallower parts of the oceans. Conditions there did not favor progression toward higher forms of life as much as on the warmer Earth; the evolutionary process was relatively slow."
"But intelligence appeared there much earlier than it did on Earth," somebody tossed in. "Seems a little strange."
"Only because Minerva was further from the Sun and cooled more quickly," Shilohin replied. "That meant that life got off to an early start there."
"Okay."
She resumed. "The patterns of evolution on the two worlds were remarkably similar to start with. Complex proteins appeared, leading eventually to self-replicating molecules, which in time led to the formation of living cells. Unicellular forms came first, then colonies of cells and after them multicelled organisms with specialized features #151;all of them variations on the basic marine invertebrate form.
"The point of departure at which the two lines went their own way, each in response to the conditions prevailing on its own planet, was marked by the appearance of marine vertebrates #151; boned fishes. This stage marked a plateau beyond which the Minervan species couldn #146;t progress toward anything higher until they had solved a fundamental problem that was not faced by their counterparts on Earth. The problem was simply their colder environment.
"You see, as improvements appeared in the Minervan fish species, the improved body processes and more highly refined organs demanded more oxygen. But the demand was already high because of the lower temperature. The primitive circulatory systems of the early Minervan fish couldn #146;t cope with the dual workload of carrying enough oxygen to the cells, and of carrying wastes and toxins away from the cells #151;not if progress toward anything more advanced was going to be made, anyway."
Shilohin paused again to invite questions. Her listeners were too intrigued, however, to interrupt her story at that point.
"As always happens in situations like that," she continued, "Nature tried a number of alternatives to find a way around the problem. The most successful experiment took the form of a secondary circulation system developing alongside the first to permit load-sharing #151;a completely duplicated network of branching ducts and vessels; thus, the primary system concentrated exclusively on circulating blood and delivering oxygen, while the secondary took over fully the job of removing the toxins."
"How extraordinary!" Danchekker could not help exclaiming.
"Yes, I suppose that when judged by the things you #146;re used to it was, Professor."
"One thing #151;how did the different substances find their way in and out of the right system?"
"Osmotic membranes. Do you want me to go into detail now?"
"No, er, thank you." Danchekker held up a hand. "That can wait until another time. Please continue."
"Okay. Well, after this basic architecture had become sufficiently refined and established, evolution toward higher stages was able to resume once more. Mutations appeared, the environment applied selection principles, and life in the Minervan seas began diverging and specializing into many and varied species. After a while, as you would expect, a range of carnivorous types established themselves. . ."
"I thought you said there weren #146;t any," a voice queried.
"That came later. I #146;m talking about very early times."
"Okay."
"Fine. So, carnivorous fish appeared on the scene and, again as you would expect, Nature immediately commenced looking for ways of protecting the victims. Now the fish that had developed the double-circulatory-system architecture, who tended to be more advanced forms anyway because of this, hit on a very efficient means of defense: the two circulatory systems became totally isolated from one another, and the concentration of toxins in the secondary system increased to lethal proportions. In other words, they became poisonous. The isolation of the secondary system from the primary prevented poison from entering the bloodstream. That would have been fatal for the owner itself, naturally."
Carizan was frowning about something. He caught her eye and gestured for her to hold the conversation there a moment.
"Can #146;t really say I see that as being much protection at all," he said. "What #146;s the good in poisoning a carnivore after it #146;s eaten you? That #146;d be too late, wouldn #146;t it?"
"To the individual who was unfortunate enough to encounter one that hadn #146;t learned yet, yes," she agreed. "But don #146;t forget that Nature can afford to be very wasteful when it comes to individuals; it #146;s the preservation of the species as a whole that matters. When you think about it, the survival or extermination of a species can depend on whether or not a strain of predators becomes established that has a preference for them as a diet. In the situation I #146;ve described, it was impossible for such a strain of predators to emerge; if a mutation appeared that had a tendency in that direction, it would promptly destroy itself the first time it experimented in following its instinct. It would never get a chance to pass its characteristic on to any descendants, so the characteristic could never be reinforced in later generations."
"Another thing too," one of the UNSA biologists interjected. "Young animals tend to imitate the feeding habits of their parents, on Earth anyway. If that was true on Minerva too, the young that managed to get born would naturally tend to pick up the habits of parents that avoided the poisonous species. It would have to be that way since any mutant that didn #146;t avoid them wouldn #146;t live long enough to become a parent in the first place."
"You can see the same thing in terrestrial insects, for example," Danchekker threw in. "Some species mimic the coloring of wasps and bees, although they are quite harmless. Other animals leave them alone completely #151;it #146;s the same principle."
"Okay, that makes sense." Carizan motioned for Shilohin to continue.
"So marine life on Minerva developed into three broad fainilies: carnivorous types; nonpoisonous noncarnivores, with specialized alternative defense mechanisms; and poisonous noncarnivores, which possessed the most effective defense and were left free to carry on their development from what was already an advanced and privileged position."
"This didn #146;t alter their resistance to cold then?" somebody asked.
"No, the secondary system in these species continued to perform its original function as well as ever. As I said, the only differences that had occurred were that the toxin concentration was increased and it became isolated from the primary."
"I got it."
"Fine. Now, the two types of noncarnivores had to eat, so they competed between themselves for what was available #151;plants, certain rudimentary invertebrate organisms, water-borne organic substances and so on. But Minerva was cold and did not offer an abundance of things like that #151;nothing like what is found on Earth, for instance. The poisonous species were efficient competitors and gradually became overwhelmingly dominant. The nonpoisonous noncarnivores declined and, since they constituted the food supply for the carnivores, the numbers and varieties of carnivores declined with them. Eventually two distinct groups segregated out of all this and from that time on lived separate lives: the nonpoisonous types moved out into the oceans away from the competition, and the carnivores naturally followed them. Those two groups evolved into a pattern of deep-sea life that eventually found its own balance and stabilized. The poisonous types retained the shallower, coastal waters as their sole preserve, and it was from them that land dwellers subsequently emerged."
"You mean that all the land-dwelling species that developed later inherited the basic pattern of a double system?" Danchekker said, fascinated. "They were all poisonous?"
"Precisely," she replied. "By that time the trait had become firmly established as a fundamental part of their basic design #151;much as many vertebrate characteristics on your own world. It was faithfully passed on to all later descendants, essentially unchanged. . . ."
Shilohin paused as a few mutterings and murmurs of surprise arose from the listeners; the implication of what she was saying was beginning to dawn on them. Somebody at the back finally put it into words.
"That explains what you said at the start #151;why there were no carnivores on Minerva later on. They could never become established for all the reasons you #146;ve been talking about, even if they appeared spontaneously from time to time."
"Quite so," she confirmed. "Occasionally an odd mutation in that direction would appear but, as you point out, it could never gain a foothold again. The animals that evolved on Minerva were exclusively herbivorous. They did not follow the same lines of development as terrestrial animals because the selective factors operating in their natural environment were different. They evolved no fight-or-flight instincts since there was nothing to defend against and nothing to flee from. They did not develop behavior patterns based on fear, anger or aggression since such emotions had no survival value to them, and hence were not selected and reinforced. There were no fast runners since there were no predators to run from, and there was no need for natural camouflage. There were no birds, since there was nothing to stimulate their appearance."
"Those murals in the ship!" Hunt turned to Danchekker as the truth suddenly hit him. "They weren #146;t children #146;s cartoons at all, Chris. They were real!"
"Good Lord, Vic." The professor gaped and blinked through his spectacles in surprise, wondering why the same thought hadn #146;t struck him. "You #146;re right. Of course. . . you #146;re absolutely right. How extraordinary. We must study them more closely . . ." Danchekker seemed about to say something else but stopped abruptly, as if another thought had just occurred to him. He frowned and rubbed his forehead but waited until the hubbub of voices had died away before he spoke.
"Excuse me," he called when normality had returned. "There is something else. . . If there were no predators in existence at all, what kept the numbers of the herbivores in check? I can #146;t see any mechanism for preserving a natural balance."
"I was just coming to that," Shilohin answered. "The answer is: accidents. Even slight cuts or abrasions would allow poison to seep from the secondary system into the primary. Most accidents were fatal to Minervan animals. Natural selection favored natural protection. The species that survived and flourished were those with the best protection #151;leathery outer skins, thick coverings of fur, scaly armor plating, and so on." She held up one of her hands to display extensive nails and knuckle pads, and then shifted the collar of her shirt slightly to uncover part of the delicate, overlapping, scaly plates that formed a strip along the top of her shoulder. "Many remnants of ancestral protection are still detectable in the Ganymean form today."
Hunt realized now the reasons for the Ganymeans #146; temperament being the way it was. From the origins that Shilohin had just described, intelligence had emerged not in response to any need to manufacture weapons or to outwit foe or prey, but as a means of anticipating and avoiding physical damage. Learning and the communication of knowledge would have assumed a phenomenal survival value among the primitive Ganymeans. Caution in all things, prudence, and the ability to analyze all possible outcomes of an action would have been reinforced by selection; haste and rashness would be fatal.
Evolving from such ancestors, what else could they be but instinctively cooperative and nonaggressive? They would know nothing of violent competition in any form or of the use of force against a rival; hence they exhibited none of the types of complex behavior patterns which, in a later and more civilized society, would "normally" afford symbolic expression of such instincts. Hunt wondered what was "normal." Shilohin, as if reading his thoughts, supplied a definition from the Ganymean point of view.
"You can imagine then how, when civilization eventually began to develop, the early Ganymean thinkers looked upon the world that they saw about them. They marveled at the way in which Nature, in its infinite wisdom, had imposed a strict natural order upon all living things: the soil fed the plants and the plants fed the animals. The Ganymeans accepted this as the natural order of the universe."
"Like a divinely ordained plan," somebody near the bar suggested. "Sounds like a religious outlook."
"You #146;re right," Shilohin agreed, turning to face the speaker. "In the early history of our civilization religious notions did prevail widely. Before scientific principles were better understood, our people attributed many of the mysteries that they were unable to explain to the workings of some omnipotent agency . . . not unlike your God. The early teachings held that the natural order of living things was the ultimate expression of this guiding wisdom. I suppose you would say: The will of God."
"Except in the deep-ocean basins," Hunt commented.
"Well, that fit in quite well too," Shilohin replied. "The early religious thinkers of our race saw that as a punishment. In the seas, way back before history, the law had been defied. As a punishment for that, the lawbreakers had been banished permanently to the deepest and darkest depths of the oceans and never emerged to enjoy sunlight."
Danchekker leaned toward Hunt and whispered, "Rather like the Fall from Eden. An interesting parallel, don #146;t you think?"
"Mmm. . . with a T-bone steak in place of an apple," Hunt murmured.
Shilohin paused to push her glass across the bar and waited for the steward to refill it. The room remained quiet while the Earthmen digested the things she had been saying. At last she sipped her drink, and then resumed.
"And so, you see, to the Ganymean, Nature was indeed perfect in all its harmony, and beautiful in its perfection. As the sciences were discovered and the Ganymeans learned more about the universe in which they lived, they never doubted that however far among the stars their knowledge might take them and however far they might one day probe toward infinity, Nature and its natural law would everywhere reign supreme. What reason had they even to imagine otherwise? They were unable even to conceive how things could be otherwise."
She stopped for a moment and swept her eyes slowly around the room, as if trying to weigh up the expressions on the circle of faces.
"You asked me to be frank," she said, then paused again. "At last, we realized a dream that we had been nurturing for generations #151;to go out into space and discover the wonders of other worlds. When at last the Ganymeans, still with their idyllic convictions, came to the jungles and savagery of Earth, the effect on them was shattering. We called it the Nightmare Planet."