"If we're trying to decide where we're going," explained the Eldest, "it's a help to have an idea where we came from, where we are now, and how we got here. This is a very big subjectalmost the biggest subject there isbut buried within it is an even bigger idea, an idea so big that sometimes it frightens even me."
At his last five words, a stir went through the crowded room.
"Some six hundred million years ago," he went on, "life wasn't new to the Earth. Living things had already been around for 2500 million years. Yet the number of existing species was but a tiny fraction of those living today, and they made their living very differently from today's species, absorbing chemicals directly from the water around them, taking energy from the sun, scavenging the dissolving remains of their fellows. It all sounds rather boring, doesn't it? But it's what life was like, had been like, for twenty-five million centuries, right up to the line dividing the `Precambrian' from the `Cambrian' eras."
Since this "most important gathering" at Eichra Oren's house had begun, the giant amoebalike being had turned out to be extremely voluble. Perhaps, Empleado thought, this was what came from spending millions of years with nobody else to talk to. In any case, had anybody been inclined, it would probably have proven difficult to shut the remarkable organism up.
"Notice what was missing," the Eldest continued. "It was a period utterly without conflict, the very Utopia of nonviolence many urge on you today. There was no predation, no exploitation of one species by another. So far, it had never `occurred' to any organism that it might liven up its lifenot to mention its dietby absorbing another organism before it rotted away to its constituent chemicals.
"In short, no living thing had ever eaten another."
Empleado had more pressing affairs on his mind. During the recent battle with Earth he'd been orderedthrough an agent planted among the Russian drop troops they'd capturedto disrupt nautiloid activity on the asteroid until the bitter end. His heart had never been in it, but the command had come from the Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, indicating the highest possible KGB priority. In that moment, the Committee for the Preservation of Antiquities had been born.
"Nothing would be the same once this `original sin' had been committed," the Eldest continued. "From that moment on, all life would feed on the death of other life. This evolutionary Big Bang is called the `Cambrian Explosion' by some. Compared to the dull, empty eons preceding it, competition and progress increased a millionfoldalong with the number of species found in the strata of that time. No longer content to scrape dead slime from sea bottoms, life-forms began evolving better ways to grab unwilling food, resist if they were on the menu, run away, disguise themselves, or hide. They had no other choice except to die. Life began to proliferateto differentiateto fill up every available niche that nature offered."
Along with his unwelcome orders, Empleado had been handed a big black Heckler & Koch P9Syet another relic of a more prosperous centuryand a pair of seven-round magazines with it, crammed full of 11.43x23mm Remington 185-grain hollow points marked +P. An extra cartridge had even been included for the chamber. Empleado had never liked guns and carried them in the line of duty only when he couldn't avoid it. The handle of this one was so big that his index finger barely reached the trigger.
"Others might say that the first hammer-blow had been struck upon the Forge of Adversity. The sparks are still scattering today."
Empleado shook his head in disgust. That was a nautiloid idea, this goddamned Forge of Adversity, part of the p'Na garbage the squid-things were always going on about. It amounted to little more than dimestore Darwinism, the notion that individuals and whole species "transcended themselves" when they were mortally stressed. The trouble with that theory was that it produced casualtieswouldn't work, in fact, unless it didand Empleado felt he was about to become one of those casualties. Frightened at the thought, he tried to focus his attention on what the Eldest was saying.
"Given the nature of language, which may reflect the nature of a species better than it does reality, it's hard to consider the process of evolution-by-natural-selection without lapsing into teleology, an unintended implication that the random motions of inanimate nature are somehow meant to arrive at a predetermined goal."
"That difficulty is associated," Mister Thoggosh agreed, with a wave of his tentacles that humans had learned to take for a nod, "over the history of a thousand sapient species with every absurdity from belief in deities to movies about talking animals."
"Indeed," replied the Eldest. "Likewise, when one contemplates a sweep of billions of years, it's difficult to remain focused on the heart of the process, which is brute simple. Bundles of data, protein chains called deoxyribonucleic acid, order the birth, growth, and to an extent, the behavior of organic machines which carry it prior to its self-replication. If the nature of the machines is such that they carry it long enough, and in the proper circumstances, to replicate, then it gives rise to yet another generation of carrier-machines."
God, it was like listening to talking bookends! Across the room, Empleado could see Rosalind Nguyen sitting next to the bug-doctor, Dlee Raftan Saon, both of them nodding, agreeing with the Eldest and the Elder as they spoke. For some reason he refused to examine, it made him want to smash their faces in, human and bug-thing alike.
"If a machine fails to survive, then replication can't occur, and to any extent the data the machine carried were at faulthaving given rise to an inefficacythey're erased from the overall body of data we call the `gene pool.' This is natural selection. One may not approve of the criterion, but it's fundamental to life. Complaining about it is like complaining that parallel lines never meet."
"Or that planned economies don't work," the woman put in, making everyoneexcept Empleadolaugh.
"Chemicals, radiation, or microorganisms may interfere with the replication itself. When it occurs, it is often imperfect. In most cases, mutationschanges in the dataeither prevent birth of a carrier altogether, or don't affect its efficacy one way or another. In rare instances, mutation enhances a carrier's chances of survival. Science once believed this process occurred in tiny increments, as single molecules, or even atoms were rearranged. But evidence prevails that evolution occurs in large steps as sections of DNA are knocked out, inserted in the wrong place, or even turned end-for-end."
Dlee Raftan Saon raised a forearm. "Nonetheless, the overall process remains very slow."
"Quite so, Raftan," the Proprietor responded. "I often suspect that it's nothing more than a dull-witted inability to conceptualize the gulf of time involved that keeps otherwise intelligent beings from accepting it for the truth it represents."
Llessure Knarrfic, the plant-being, waved one of her odd number of leafy branches. "But Eldest, haven't you left out the effect of an organism's surroundings?"
"You're quite correct, my dear," the amoeba-thing told her. "No question regarding efficacy can be answered without reference to the organism's environment. A mutant polar bear born without hair dies at birth. A hairless tropical bear may well survive to reproduce. A bear belonging to a hypothetical species already trending toward a marine existencethe path followed by porpoises and sealsmay enjoy certain advantages over its `normal' fellows.
"Some species, notably those to which we all belong, alter the impact of the environment. This stratagem has proven so successful that, through the feedback inherent in such a process, evolution often accelerates fantastically in such species. On discovering fossil evidence of this acceleration, some observers even begin to doubt the theoretical basis for evolution."
"Although a better understanding of biophysics, and the selective power of factors such as language-use, inevitably reverse that first inclination," replied Dlee Raftan Saon.
"At least it is to be hoped," the Eldest agreed. "Let us see now how the process works in application. About two hundred thirty million years ago, three quarters of all life on most versions of Earth, animal and plant, marine and land species, diedwhether on a geologic timescale or literally overnight remains unclearfor reasons that are still a source of controversy in scientific circles."
Pulaski sat up straight. "You're speaking of the Permian-Triassic Extinction."
"Indeed I am. Theories, naturally, abound to account for it. One holds that a nearby supernova bathed the planet in radiation, another that a meteor or comet struck it, filling the atmosphere with dust that blocked the sun, plunging the world into centuries of winter. Others claim a great volcano erupted, accomplishing the same thing or that continents drifted together, eliminating enough coastline to upset the balance of marine life and altering the overall ecology."
"Maybe they adopted one too many Five Year Plans," Owen laughed, "and died of starvation."
Gutierrez shook his head. "Or maybe they declared war on drugs and arrested so many of each other that nobody was left on the outside to keep things going."
"It isn't that I don't share your sympathies," the Eldest told them, "but what concerns us most is what happened afterward. The planet had once teemed with life in abundant variety occupying every possible niche, making a living in every conceivable manner. Now most of it was gone. But a previously insignificant group, now deprived of natural enemies and competitors, began to proliferate and differentiate until, within a short span, they filled all the empty niches."
"Dinosaurs," Pulaski declared.
The transparent entity bent slightly, giving the girl a polite nod. "Few know what killed their predecessors or why they survived. One surmise, and it happens to be correct, is that they were different somehow from the seventy percent that died. They had different habits, lived in different places, were awake different hours, ate different things, required different atmospheric gases, had different muscles, different nervous systems, different organs, or different skin. It's not my function to be the back of the textbook. I don't intend giving you the answers. You'll profit more by finding them yourselves. Whatever the difference, it kept dinosaurs alive while almost everything else around them perished."
Mister Thoggosh lifted a glistening tentacle. "Life went on because they were different."
"Precisely. Because they were different. Roughly one hundred seventy million years later," the Eldest continued, "sixty-five million years ago, a large fraction of all life on Earth died out for reasons that remain unclear: a nearby supernova, a meteor or comet, a great volcano, drifting continents."
"The Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction," Pulaski stated. "It's the disaster that everybody talks about, although it wasn't as bad as the earlier Permian-Triassic."
"This time," declared the Eldest, "the dinosaurs of most worlds weren't so lucky. They died, while a previously insignificant group, different in some way from those who perished, began to proliferate and differentiate just as the dinosaurs once had, until, in a short span, they filled up all the empty niches."
"Again," responded Mister Thoggosh.
"We call them mammals." Pulaski nodded.
Owen grinned. "And they are us."
"Some of us, anyway," added Remgar d'Nod.
The Eldest was persistent. "In any case, it should be clear by now that differentiation is the ultimate form of life insurance. Evolution by itself has no plan, but proceeds through random changes winnowed by the exigencies of harsh realityas if the output of a million typewriting monkeys were edited to eliminate the gibberish, leaving something that looks purposeful. Call it an optical illusion of the mind's eye, but it's what makes each generationbarring an occasional Permian-Triassic or Cretaceous-Tertiary super-disasterharder to kill. It has preserved life itself for three billion years, even through those super-disasters."
The Chinese commanderwhat was his name?Colonel Tai spoke up. "Are you implying?"
"That there's an overall pattern to evolution after all, one that might be expressed as a single `Commandment'? Perhaps, Colonel. If so, then it's the same sort of conceptual illusion, but one which explains everything. The Evolutionary Imperative is this: for life to prosper, living things mustn't only be fruitful and multiply, they must be as different from one another as possible."
Tai shook his head. "But as far as humanI mean sapient beings are concerned, doesn't that"
The Eldest interrupted again. "Thoughtful individuals often seek a meaningful distinction between sapient and nonsapient life: `nautiloids are the tool-using animal,' they say, or `sea-scorpionoids are the language-employing animal,' or `insectoids are the fire-making animal,' or `arachnoids are the time-binding animal,' or `humans are the problem-solving animal'"
"So much," observed Rosalind, "that when they run out of problems to solve, they're unhappy until they make new ones." General laughter suggested that this was not a condition unique to Homo sapiens.
Seeing where they were headed, Empleado grimaced. He didn't think he could take one more of the mind-boggling events which had marked his stay on this asteroid. One by one, each of the values for which he'd fought all his life had been confronted here, defeated, and dismissed, with nothing to replace them but excuses for the blatant, self-interested profit-seeking he'd always believed unspeakably evil.
"Permit me to propose the vital distinction: the real difference between sapient and nonsapient organisms is that what nonsapients do as speciesbe as different from one another as possible in order to fill every nichesapients do as individuals. Political regimes that limit this natural urge represent a mortal danger to individuals, to species, and to life itself. My nautiloid Successors are correct: a single prohibition maximizes the differentiation possible to individuals living together in civilization, without imposing any real limits on them. It is this: nobody has a right to initiate physical force against another sapient for any reason."