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EIGHTEEN The Cage of Freedom

"Do please come in, Col. Reille y Sanchez."

Delightedly, Aelbraugh Pritsch led the human female to the construction office, a self-fabricating structure which the Proprietor had ordered planted when this location was selected. A light but thoroughly depressing drizzle was falling, no doubt due to Eichra Oren's recent arrival and its effects on the closed environment of the asteroid. Perhaps the atmosphere required readjusting. They climbed an uncovered flight of stairs to a deck where he manipulated the knob of a crude mechanical entrance.

"I'm afraid I must begin by anticipating your first question and refusing to say precisely what we're attempting to accomplish on this site. We can speak of anything else you wish. I spend an increasing amount of time here, so I've arranged things to my own taste and comfort. One item still sorely lacking is a humor door, although I'm not certain the place merits it."

The bits of fur over her eyes climbed her forehead. "A humidor? Isn't it humid enough already?"

"Humor. Door. Customary in the dwellings of my people, Colonel. It entertains a visitor with a riddle or a joke as he waits for the occupants to answer. Or lets him down gently if they're not home or simply don't wish to be intruded upon. No house is properly a home without one. Perhaps before the next consignment—but no, I'm not sure we'll be here long enough to justify the expense. Nevertheless, I'm quite proud of what I've accomplished in these rustic conditions. May I offer you something to drink?"

Inside, it was all one large, high-ceilinged room, although it was difficult to find a level expanse larger than a desk. The building consisted of little besides stairs, landings, and lofts. He found broad, flat expanses as boring as his guest might have found a room painted a uniform gray.

"Not at the moment, thanks. As I explained to Dlee Raftan Saon and Mister Thoggosh, I'm trying to learn what I can of nautiloid biology. The doctor said something about the evolution of the Elders that intrigued me, but he got interrupted and didn't finish. It was about some other attribute, besides the separable tentacle, that made the Elders what they are?"

Stripping off his coat, hat, and boots near the entrance—his symbiote poked its blue-green head from his feathers for its first breath of fresh air in hours—he extracted a hot, wet cloth from the greeting bowl, refraining from offering one to the human. He led her to the room's center where, under a screen which kept him from singeing himself and protected his symbiote from even greater tragedy, a brazier of heated stones was glowing.

"Colonel, you'll find that padded swing comfortable. I'll perch here and get a little of this mud off my face. Grooming in the company of others is a custom of my people, so if you don't mind that I do it, I won't mind that you don't do it. You're sure I can't offer you something? That, I believe, is the custom of your people."

She sat and let her legs dangle, settling against the backrest. "Maybe later, if you don't mind. I just ate."

"I've been thinking it over." He took a place on a nearby perching rack and began toweling his face. "I can't imagine what Raftan referred to unless—of course! One takes it so much for granted. The Elders' ancestors were powerful `electric fish.' They're still capable of generating a respectable current. You're familiar with eels, skates, rays, other aquatic nonsapients that do this with special cells in their nervous systems?"

She nodded. "Yes, I am. I hadn't noticed anything like that with the nautiloids, maybe because of the transparent—unless—that isn't how Semlohcolresh vaporized Col. Richardson's bullets, is it?"

He lowered the towel and looked at her. "Dear me, no. I don't know what you saw, but it was doubtless part of the technology built into his protective covering. The Elders are many orders of magnitude less powerful than that, Colonel. Such an ability often serves more than the simple purpose of defense. As with many modern species, it helped primitive molluscs to navigate, to remain in formation within schools, and in, er, finding and courting mates. The Elders generate a sort of biological radio energy little different in principle."

"I see." The human bobbed her head up and down, completely out of timing with the swing, which he discovered got on his nerves. "The famous nautiloid telepathy General Gutierrez told us about?"

Knowing that her disturbing lack of rhythm wasn't her fault, he tried to keep irritability out of his voice. The creatures were so sensitive. "The Elders are telepathic only in the sense that their fields are undetectable by other species unaided by technology. They employ them to control their remote tentacles and communicate with one another. The latter is limited to relatively short distances, analogous to those covered by our voices. Species employing sound-communications seem `telepathic' to the Elders."

She exposed her fangs, something he struggled, against the racing of his heart—his symbiote buried its jewel-scaled head deep in his feathers—to remember had evolved into an expression of cordiality among these creatures. His species lacked fangs altogether, although they were as predatory in their heritage as humans. "Radio. Unless they can turn it off, doesn't that make it hard to think or get a night's sleep without distractions?"

"How very perceptive, Colonel," he chuckled. "Knowing no more than you do, you've put a foreclaw on a pivotal fact of history. Unlike a human being, the nautiloid encounters unique difficulties whenever he seeks solitude or quiet. He must confine himself within the sanctuary of a well-grounded shelter of metallic mesh, a basic amenity the species lacked for millions of years."

"One would think," she suggested, again nodding out of rhythm, "that the evolutionary result would be some sort of ultimate collectivism. Organisms like that might even develop a species-wide group-mind."

"True." He gave his symbiote's face a swipe, put the soiled towel aside on a dish for the purpose, and rose from his perch, hungry after the morning's work and wondering what he could do about it politely. "That's where the Elders might have found themselves, in a state of nature. However, it's equally true that the first imperative of evolution is diversity."

She stopped swinging. "I thought it was survival of the fittest."

"Survival of the fit, Colonel. The implications are worlds apart. Bereft of the vital aspect of diversity, the Elders might have died out. In their barbaric past, privacy-deprivation was a dreaded punishment, much like imprisonment in your culture, which I believe practices solitary confinement, its precise opposite. The Proprietor says one has only to experience collectivism of the mind to hate all forms of collectivism. Artificial privacy was his culture's most historically important invention, fully equivalent to your invention of the wheel."

Again the female bared her fangs, his heart began to flutter, and his symbiote dived for cover. "Did they ever get around to inventing the wheel?"

"An aquatic species had small use for the wheel until, like your astronauts, they began to explore the land. Its early remnants are seen at paleontological, rather than archaeological sites. But the invention of privacy is older. In a sense, it allowed them to invent individualism itself. Over five hundred million years, they've refined it to an amazing degree."

"Oh?" The fangs disappeared, which he knew wasn't a good sign, although he felt relieved. Ignoring a growling stomach, he sat again.

"Indeed. They've no authority you'd recognize, having discovered—being compelled to discover, over and over, through a long, bloody history—that, of the many things that may be said of it, foremost is that authority is always established for the opposite reasons its advocates claim."

"That's anarchy!" He was momentarily gratified, not without a pang of guilt, to see so fearsome a creature terrified at something he'd merely said. "What protects them from chaos? What holds their society together?"

He raised a hand. "Calm yourself, Colonel. The Elders, and those like my people who've learned from them, practice `p'Na,' an ethical conceit vastly older than humankind, which has proven stable and workable. Although adept at self-defense and ruthless in its application, they believe the most heinous violation of p'Na is to interfere without justification in the lives of innocent sapients."

She opened her mouth, but he didn't give her a chance. "I've studied you enough to know that the word `interference' takes on what may seem strange connotations to you, employed by someone such as myself, taught by the Elders. Their customary measure of unethical interference is the use of force in the absence of force initiated by another."

She nodded, mollified. "There are other ways to interfere with people."

"Indeed, there are. The least aesthetic, in their view, is the most insidiously attractive, consisting of an attempt, invariably well-meaning, to save others, willing or otherwise, from the effects of `the Forge of Adversity.' By this they mean everyday vicissitudes that educate the individual, or what you mean by the process of natural selection that educates entire species."

He cast an eye toward the stasis-preserver at another level of the room and rose again. His symbiote slithered out and raced upstairs in anticipation. "If you'll excuse me, Colonel, it's been a long morning. I'm going to get something to eat. Do you still wish nothing?"

"I'll take something to drink." She put her feet on the floor, arose with him, and followed him upstairs to watch him place spiced, frozen grubs into an oiled pan. Sitting at the edge of the counter, his symbiote watched, too. When the grubs were sizzling nicely on the element, he began making a pot of coffee. "You know," declared the female, "we have a name for what you call the Forge of Adversity: Social Darwinism. It was used to justify inhumane treatment of workers by antisocial industrial criminals and robber barons."

He gave the pan a shake before replying. "And like the phrase, `that's anarchy!', Colonel, its function in your language is to prevent further consideration of whatever you don't want to consider further—the opposite of the way words ought to be used. Could you give the matter further consideration, you'd see at once that such a philosophy informs us, in a manner verifiable by science, that our suffering may mean something after all, in a universe that otherwise doesn't seem to make sense very often."

She took a step backward, raising her voice. "But it's so cruel!"

"Far from being cruel," he turned, missing his symbiote—it had fled to a cupboard, where its slender, projecting tail gave it away—feeling himself tremble as he answered and striving to keep it from his voice, "it's a deal more than religion or the state was ever able to deliver upon."

This, of course, evoked a flood of expostulation. Her passion rattled him, but she was ill-prepared to evaluate, let alone accept, any answers he offered; neither facts established by science nor validated by the experience (vicarious on his part, he admitted) of two million centuries. Gratified that she had no way of knowing how nervous she made him, he poured two large cups of coffee and a tiny one, offering her a variety of condiments, shuffled food from the pan, and gathered utensils. Still arguing, they returned to swing and perch. He placed a small plate on an end table for his symbiote, which glanced at them, picked up a feather-fine fork, and began to eat.

"What you refer to as `Scientific Socialism,' " Aelbraugh Pritsch told her between bites, "has nothing to do with science. It consists, instead, of unexamined emotions and a desperate political need to justify the wholesale abuse and slaughter of billions of sapients by means of some imaginary—and, at its roots, purely mystical—`greater good.' The Proprietor warned me of this. Even after this much discussion, Colonel, I can see that the concept of the Forge remains unclear because you don't wish to understand it."

Holding the cup to warm her hands, she sipped her coffee. "Wait," she demanded, "didn't you say any well-meaning attempt to protect another sapient, willing or otherwise, from everyday natural selection deprives the individual and his species of education and constitutes the least aesthetic form of unethical interference?"

"That isn't precisely what I said," he set his empty plate aside, taking his own cup, "but it will do for purpose of this discussion."

"Okay, then," she went on, "wouldn't it be more consistent to let them run around naked and hungry, killing each other, being eaten by predators, and dying of diseases we found cures for centuries ago?"

He blinked. "More consistent with what? Who do you mean by `them'?"

"More consistent than protecting people from the Forge of Adversity, as we obviously do in both our societies, by means of education, an industrial economy, and humane—or whatever you call it—medicine?"

He put his cup down. "I see. It would help if you limited yourself to one question at a time. Regrettably, your upbringing's left you ignorant of logic, let alone a profit-and-loss system of distribution and allocation and the voluntary division of labor. Such systems require an exchange of values. Life becomes easier, but none of the system's benefits arrive without thought and effort which are themselves part of the workings of the Forge."

"And as usual," she sneered, "the rich get richer while we dismiss the poor as unfit. There isn't much difference between your views and those of so-called intellectuals that we were warned about in school—Nietzsche, Stirner, Rand, others nobody reads any more, except a few South Africans or NeoIsraelis."

He chuckled. "Or a billion Chinese. The ideas you speak of aren't frequently broadcast, and my acquaintance with them is slight. But to the extent I'm familiar with them, I believe I detect within them an element of gratuitous contempt for others—life is difficult enough already—as if their originators weren't entirely certain of themselves or their ideas."

She raised her eyebrows. "Contempt? I call it class hatred."

"I imagine you would, but even I overstate the case, in particular where Rand is concerned. One is certain of that which he earns for himself. One with certainty possesses self-esteem. One possessed of self-esteem relates to others in a mutually satisfactory manner. Our culture, harsh as it may seem, makes possible more tolerance, respect, and love than any collective striving to shield those poor enfeebled creatures huddled within it. What yours `protects' them from is a benevolent regard for others with foundations in reality, and the opportunity to grow beyond difficulty. Whatever else the concept of the Forge is, it precludes such stultifying interference. Do you care for more coffee?"

"I'm about coffeed out, thanks. Aelbraugh Pritsch, such an opportunity exists," she objected, "in our society, as long as its only object is to do things for others, rather than for yourself."

"The limitation," he countered, spreading his hands, "imposed at bayonet point or through guilt feelings, denies sapients any genuine motivation for growth. It steals from them the chance to transcend themselves, for their own sake, in both an individual and evolutionary sense. It denies them justifiable self-esteem, the cornerstone of any sane being's existence."

She stood, jamming her hands in her pockets. "But what about the needs of the community, of society or the nation? Aren't they larger than any single individual and worthy of self-sacrifice?"

Looking up, he shook his head. "Colonel, if your interest lies with the group, consider that it consists of nothing but individuals. What else exists for it to consist of? And it's from individuals that its survival, all of its growth and progress, derive. Where else could they come from? Suppress the individual, and you suppress the group, defeating your original purpose."

The human began to answer before what he'd said began to register. When it did, she closed her mouth, a puzzled expression distorting her features. At that, it was better than when she smiled. When she did speak, she wondered aloud whether his ideas mightn't represent a viewpoint biologically peculiar to the Elders, therefore not applicable to humans or any other species.

"Colonel, you're a military officer. You've been indoctrinated all your life in a centuries-old tradition of collectivism imposed, against your natural inclination, with gun, whip, and fist. But understand: centuries are an eye-blink. Already your faulty values begin to devour you, or you wouldn't be here. They run counter to billions of years of evolution. Any species which practices them consistently will eventually render itself extinct—as I gather your species is in process of doing. Fortunately for us all, collectivism and self-sacrifice are impossible to practice consistently."

Turning her back, she gazed into the glowing stones. "I admit none of us is perfect. Nobody ever said it's easy to measure up to what's right all the time." She turned to face him. "I was simply trying to understand your Elders, wondering whether this selfishness they've made a virtue of might not be, well, an instinct with them."

"So they aren't culpable for what you see as a moral failure? No, p'Na is by no means an instinct. Few beings evolve to sapience without having lost all such inbuilt guides. But it consists of something almost as—"

"Hey, birdbrain," a third voice demanded, "ask her when the last time was she screwed her father!"

"What?" Aelbraugh Pritsch leaped up, filled with alarm and unsure, in the interest of continued survival, which direction he should watch. Behind him, half a level up from perch, swing, and brazier, the front door swung aside, pushed by a damp, black nose.

"Mammalshit!" muttered his symbiote, setting its little cup down and diving back into his feathers. "It's that dog, again!"

 

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