Sense of Obligation

  III

  This time there was no way to hold the door. Ihjel didn't try. Hestepped aside and two men stumbled into the room. He walked out behindtheir backs without saying a word.

  "What happened? What did he do?" the doctor asked, rushing in throughthe ruined door. He swept a glance over the continuous recording dialsat the foot of Brion's bed. Respiration, temperature, heart, bloodpressure--all were normal. The patient lay quietly and didn't answerhim.

  For the rest of that day, Brion had much to think about. It wasdifficult. The fatigue, mixed with the tranquilizers and other drugs hadsoftened his contact with reality. His thoughts kept echoing back andforth in his mind, unable to escape. What had Ihjel meant? What wasthat nonsense about Anvhar? Anvhar was that way because ... well itjust was. It had come about naturally. Or had it? The planet had a verysimple history.

  From the very beginning there had never been anything of real commercialinterest on Anvhar. Well off the interstellar trade routes, there wereno minerals worth digging and transporting the immense distances to thenearest inhabited worlds. Hunting the winter beasts for their pelts wasa profitable but very minor enterprise, never sufficient for massmarkets. Therefore no organized attempt had ever been made to colonizethe planet. In the end it had been settled completely by chance. Anumber of offplanet scientific groups had established observation andresearch stations, finding unlimited data to observe and record duringAnvhar's unusual yearly cycle. The long-duration observations encouragedthe scientific workers to bring their families and, slowly but steadily,small settlements grew up. Many of the fur hunters settled there aswell, adding to the small population. This had been the beginning.

  Few records existed of those early days, and the first six centuries ofAnvharian history were more speculation than fact. The Breakdownoccurred about that time and in the galaxy-wide disruption, Anvhar hadto fight its own internal battle. When the Earth Empire collapsed it wasthe end of more than an era. Many of the observation stations foundthemselves representing institutions that no longer existed. Theprofessional hunters no longer had markets for their furs, since Anvharpossessed no interstellar ships of its own. There had been no realphysical hardship involved in the Breakdown, as it affected Anvhar,since the planet was completely self sufficient. Once they had made themental adjustment to the fact that they were now a sovereign world, nota collection of casual visitors with various loyalties, life continuedunchanged. Not easy--living on Anvhar is never easy--but at leastwithout difference on the surface.

  The thoughts and attitudes of the people were however going through agreat transformation. Many attempts were made to develop some form ofstable society and social relationship. Again little record exists ofthese early trials, other than the fact of their culmination in theTwenties.

  * * * * *

  To understand the Twenties, you have to understand the unusual orbitthat Anvhar tracks around its sun, 70 Ophiuchi. There are other planetsin this system, all of them more or less conforming to the plane of theecliptic. Anvhar is obviously a rogue, perhaps a captured planet ofanother sun. For the greatest part of its 780-day year it arcs far outfrom its primary, in a high-angled sweeping cometary orbit. When itreturns there is a brief, hot summer of approximately eighty days beforethe long winter sets in once more. This severe difference in seasonalchange has caused profound adaptations in the native life forms. Duringthe winter most of the animals hibernate, the vegetable life lyingdormant as spores or seeds. Some of the warm-blooded herbivores stayactive in the snow-covered tropics, preyed upon by fur-insulatedcarnivores. Though unbelievably cold, the winter is a season of peace incomparison to the summer.

  This is a time of mad growth. Plants burst into life with a strengththat cracks rocks, growing fast enough for the motion to be seen. Thesnow fields melt into mud and within days a jungle stretches high intothe air. Everything grows, swells, proliferates. Plants climb on top ofplants, fighting for the life-energy of the sun. Everything is eat andbe eaten, grow and thrive in the short season. Because when the firstsnow of winter falls again, ninety per cent of the year must pass untilthe next coming of warmth.

  Mankind has had to adapt to the Anvharian cycle in order to stay alive.Food must be gathered and stored, enough to last out the long winter.Generation after generation had adapted until they look on the madseasonal imbalance as something quite ordinary. The first thaw ofalmost-nonexistent spring triggers a wide reaching metabolic change inthe humans. Layers of subcutaneous fat vanish and half-dormant sweatglands come to life. Other changes are more subtle than the temperatureadjustment, but equally important. The sleep center of the brain isdepressed. Short naps or a night's rest every third or fourth day becomeenough. Life takes on a hectic and hysterical quality that is perfectlysuited to the environment. By the time of the first frost, rapid growingcrops have been raised and harvested, sides of meat either preserved orfrozen in mammoth lockers. With his supreme talent of adaptabilitymankind has become part of the ecology and guaranteed his own survivalduring the long winter.

  Physical survival has been guaranteed. But what about mental survival?Primitive Earth Eskimos can fall into a long doze of half-conscioushibernation. Civilized men might be able to do this, but only for thefew cold months of terrestrial mid-winter. It would be impossible to doduring a winter that is longer than an Earth year. With all the physicalneeds taken care of, boredom became the enemy of any Anvharian who wasnot a hunter. And even the hunters could not stay out on solitary trekall winter. Drink was one answer and violence another. Alcoholism andmurder were the twin terrors of the cold season, after the Breakdown.

  It was the Twenties that ended all that. When they became a part ofnormal life the summer was considered just an interlude between games.The Twenties were more than just a contest--they became a way of lifethat satisfied all the physical, competitive and intellectual needs ofthis unusual planet. They were a decathlon--rather a doubleddecathlon--raised to its highest power, where contests in chess andpoetry composition held equal place with those in ski-jumping andarchery. Each year there were two planet-wide contests held, one for menand one for women. This was not an attempt at sexual discrimination, buta logical facing of facts. Inherent differences prevented faircontests--for example, it is impossible for a woman to win a large chesstournament--and this fact was recognized. Anyone could enter for anynumber of years, there were no scoring handicaps.

  When the best man won he was really the best man. A complicated seriesof playoffs and eliminations kept contestants and observers busy forhalf the winter. They were only preliminary to the final encounter thatlasted a month, and picked a single winner. That was the title he wasawarded. Winner. The man--and woman--who had bested every othercontestant on the entire planet and who would remain unchallenged untilthe following year.

  * * * * *

  Winner. It was a title to take pride in. Brion stirred weakly on his bedand managed to turn so he could look out of the window. Winner ofAnvhar. His name was already slated for the history books, one of thehandful of planetary heroes. School children would be studying him now,just as he had read of the Winners of the past. Weaving daydreams andimaginary adventures around Brion's victories, hoping and fighting sosome day equal them. To be a Winner was the greatest honor in theuniverse.

  Outside, the afternoon sun shimmered weakly in a dark sky. The endlessicefields soaked up the dim light, reflecting it back as a colder andharsher illumination. A single figure on skis cut a line across theempty plain; nothing else moved. The depression of the ultimate fatiguefell on Brion and everything changed, as if he looked in a mirror at apreviously hidden side.

  He saw suddenly--with terrible clarity--that to be a Winner was to beabsolutely nothing. Like being the best flea, among all the fleas on asingle dog.

  What was Anvhar after all? An ice-locked planet, inhabited by a fewmillion human fleas, unknown and unconsidered by the rest of the galaxy.There was nothing here worth fighting for, the wars after the Br
eakdownhad left them untouched. The Anvharian had always taken pride inthis--as if being so unimportant that no one else even wanted to comenear you, could possibly be a source of pride. All the worlds of mangrew, fought, won, lost, changed. Only on Anvhar did life repeat itssameness endlessly, like a loop of tape in a player....

  Brion's eyes were moist, he blinked. _Tears!!_ Realization of thisincredible fact wiped the maudlin pity from his mind and replaced itwith fear. Had his mind snapped in the strain of the last match? Thesethoughts weren't his. Self-pity hadn't made him a Winner--why was hefeeling it now? Anvhar was his universe--how could he even imagine itas a tag-end planet at the outer limb of creation? What had come overhim and induced this inverse thinking.

  As he thought the question, the answer appeared at the same instant.Winner Ihjel. The fat man with the strange pronouncements and probingquestions. Had he cast a spell like some sorcerer--or the devil in"Faust"? No, that was pure nonsense. But he had done something. Perhapsplanted a suggestion when Brion's resistance was low. Or used subliminalvocalization like the villain in "Cerebrus Chained." Brion could find noadequate reason on which to base his suspicions. But he knew that Ihjelwas responsible.

  He whistled at the sound-switch next to his pillow and the repairedcommunicator came to life. The duty nurse appeared in the small screen.

  "The man who was here today," Brion said, "Winner Ihjel, do you knowwhere he is? I must contact him."

  For some reason this flustered her professional calm. The nurse startedto answer, excused herself, and blanked the screen. When it lit again aman in Guard's uniform had taken her place.

  "You made an inquiry," the Guard said, "about Winner Ihjel. We areholding him here in the hospital following the disgraceful way in whichhe broke into your room."

  "I have no charges to make. Will you ask him to come and see me atonce?"

  The Guard controlled his shock. "I'm sorry, Winner--I don't see how wecan. Dr. Caulry left specific orders that you were not to be--"

  "The doctor has no control over my personal life," Brion snapped at him."I'm not infectious, or ill with anything more than extreme fatigue. Iwant to see that man. At once."

  The Guard took a deep breath, and made a quick decision. "He is on theway up now," he said, and rung off.

  * * * * *

  "What did you do to me?" Brion asked as soon as Ihjel had entered andthey were alone. "You won't deny that you have put alien thoughts in myhead?"

  "No, I won't deny it. Because the whole point of my being here is to getthose 'alien' thoughts across to you."

  "Tell me how you did it," Brion insisted. "I must know."

  "I'll tell you--but there are many things you should understand first,before you decide to leave Anvhar. You must not only hear them, you willhave to believe them. The primary thing, the clue to the rest, is thetrue nature of your life here. How do you think the Twentiesoriginated?"

  Brion carefully took a double dose of the mild stimulant he was allowedbefore he answered. "I don't think," he said, "I know. It's a matter ofhistorical record. The founder of the games was Giroldi, the firstcontest was held in 378 A.B. The Twenties have been held every yearsince then. They were strictly local affairs in the beginning, but weresoon well established on a planet-wide scale."

  "True enough," Ihjel said, "but you're describing _what_ happened. Iasked you _how_ the Twenties originated. How could any single man take abarbarian planet, lightly inhabited by half-mad hunters and alcoholicfarmers, and turn it into a smooth-running social machine built aroundthe artificial structure of the Twenties? It just can't be done."

  "But it was done!" Brion insisted. "You can't deny that. And there isnothing artificial about the Twenties. They are a logical way to live alife on a planet like this."

  Ihjel had to laugh, a short ironic bark. "Very logical," he said, "buthow often does logic have anything to do with the organization of socialgroups and governments? You're not thinking. Put yourself in founderGiroldi's place. Imagine that you have glimpsed the great idea of theTwenties and you want to convince others. So you walk up to the nearestlouse-ridden, brawling, superstitious, booze-embalmed hunter and explainclearly. How a program of his favorite sports--things like poetry,archery and chess--can make his life that much more interesting andvirtuous. You do that. But keep your eyes open and be ready for a fastdraw."

  Even Brion had to smile at the absurdity of the suggestion. Of course itcouldn't happen that way. Yet, since it had happened, there must be asimple explanation.

  "We can beat this back and forth all day," Ihjel told him, "and youwon't get the right idea unless--" He broke off suddenly, staring at thecommunicator. The operation light had come on, though the screen stayeddark. Ihjel reached down a meaty hand and pulled loose the recentlyconnected wires. "That doctor of yours is very curious--and he's goingto stay that way. The truth behind the Twenties is none of his business.But it's going to be yours. You must come to realize that the life youlead here is a complete and artificial construction, developed bySocietics experts and put into application by skilled field workers."

  "Nonsense!" Brion broke in. "Systems of society can't be dreamed up andforced on people like that. Not without bloodshed and violence."

  "Nonsense, yourself," Ihjel told him. "That may have been true in thedawn of history, but not any more. You have been reading too many of theold Earth classics, you imagine that we still live in the Ages ofSuperstition. Just because Fascism and Communism were once forced onreluctant populations, you think this holds true for all time. Go backto your books. In exactly the same era democracy and self-governmentwere adapted by former colonial states, like India and the Union ofNorth Africa, and the only violence was between local religious groups.Change is the lifeblood of mankind. Everything we today accept as normalwas at one time an innovation. And one of the most recent innovationsis the attempt to guide the societies of mankind into something moreconsistent with the personal happiness of individuals."

  "The God complex," Brion said, "forcing human lives into a mold whetherthey want to be fitted into it or not."

  "Societics can be that," Ihjel agreed. "It was in the beginning, andthere were some disastrous results of attempts to force populations intoa political climate where they didn't belong. They weren't allfailures--Anvhar here is a striking example of how good the techniquecan be when correctly applied. It's not done this way anymore, though.Like all of the other sciences, we have found out that the more we know,the more there is to know. We no longer attempt to guide culturestowards what we consider a beneficial goal. There are too many goals,and from our limited vantage point it is hard to tell the good ones fromthe bad ones. All we do now is try to protect the growing cultures, givea little jolt to the stagnating ones--and bury the dead ones. When thework was first done here on Anvhar the theory hadn't progressed thatfar. The understandably complex equations that determine just where inthe scale from a Type I to a Type V a culture is, had not yet beencompleted. The technique then was to work out an artificial culture thatwould be most beneficial for a planet, then bend it into the mold."

  "But how?" Brion asked.

  "We've made some progress--you're finally asking 'how'. The techniquehere took a good number of agents, and a great deal of money. Personalhonor was emphasized in order to encourage dueling, this led to aheightened interest in the technique of personal combat. When this waswell intrenched Giroldi was brought in, and he showed how organizedcompetitions could be more interesting than haphazard encounters. Tyingthe intellectual aspects onto the framework of competitive sports was alittle more difficult, but not overwhelmingly so. The details aren'timportant, all we are considering now is the end product. Which is you.You're needed very much."

  "Why me?" Brion asked. "Why am I special? Because I won the Twenties? Ican't believe that. Taken objectively there isn't that much differencebetween myself and the ten runners-up. Why don't you ask one ofthem--they could do your job as well as I."

  "No they couldn't. I'll tell you l
ater why you are the only man I canuse. Our time is running out and I must convince you of some otherthings first." Ihjel glanced at his watch. "We have less than threehours to dead-deadline. Before that time I must explain enough of ourwork to you to enable you to decide voluntarily to join us."

  "A very tall order," Brion said. "You might begin by telling me just whothis mysterious 'we' is that you keep referring to."

  "The Cultural Relationships Foundation. A nongovernmental body,privately endowed, existing to promote peace and ensure the sovereignwelfare of independent planets, so that all will prosper from the goodwill and commerce thereby engendered."

  "Sounds like you're quoting," Brion told him. "No one could possiblymake up something that sounds like that on the spur of the moment."

  "I was quoting from our charter of organization. Which is all very finein a general sense, but I'm talking specifically now. About you. You arethe product of a tightly knit and very advanced society. Yourindividuality has been encouraged by your growing up in a society sosmall in population that only a mild form of government control isnecessary. The normal Anvharian education is an excellent one, andparticipation in the Twenties has given you a general and advancededucation second to none in the galaxy. It would be a complete waste ofyour entire life if you now took all this training and wasted it on somerustic farm."

  "You give me very little credit. I plan to teach--"

  "Forget Anvhar!" Ihjel cut him off with a chop of his hand. "This worldwill roll on quite successfully whether you are here or not. You mustforget it, think of its relative unimportance on a galactic scale, andconsider instead the existing, suffering, hordes of mankind. You mustthink what you can do to help them."

  "But what can I do--as an individual? The day is long past when asingle man, like Caesar or Alexander, could bring about world-shakingchanges."

  "True--but not true," Ihjel said. "There are key men in every conflictof forces, men who act like catalysts applied at the right instant tostart a chemical reaction. You might be one of those men, but I must behonest and say that I can't prove it yet. So in order to save time andendless discussion, I think I will have to spark your personal sense ofobligation."

  "Obligation to whom?"

  "To mankind of course, to the countless billions of dead who kept thewhole machine rolling along that allows you the full, long and happylife you enjoy today. What they gave to you, you must pass on to others.This is the keystone of humanistic morals."

  "Agreed. And a very good argument in the long run. But not one that isgoing to tempt me out of this bed within the next three hours."

  * * * * *

  "A point of success," Ihjel said. "You agree with the general argument.Now I apply it specifically to you. Here is the statement I intend toprove. There exists a planet with a population of seven million people.Unless I can prevent it, this planet will be completely destroyed. It ismy job to stop that destruction, so that is where I am going now. Iwon't be able to do the job alone. In addition to others I need you. Notanyone like you--but you and you alone."

  "You have precious little time left to convince me of all that," Briontold him, "so let me make the job easier for you. The work you do, thisplanet, the imminent danger of the people there--these are all factsthat you can undoubtedly supply. I'll take a chance that this wholething is not a colossal bluff and admit that given time, you couldverify them all. This brings the argument back to me again. How can youpossibly prove that I am the only person in the galaxy who can helpyou?"

  "I can prove it by your singular ability, the thing I came here tofind."

  "What ability? I am different in no way from the other men on myplanet."

  "You're wrong," Ihjel said. "You are the embodied proof of evolution.Rare individuals with specific talents occur constantly in any species,man included. It has been two generations since an empathetic was lastborn on Anvhar and I have been watching carefully most of that time."

  "What in blazes is an empathetic--and how do you recognize it when youhave found it?" Brion chuckled, this talk was getting preposterous.

  "I can recognize one because I'm one myself--there is no other way. Asto how projective empathy works, you had a demonstration of that alittle earlier, when you felt those strange thoughts about Anvhar. Itwill be a long time before you can master that, but receptive empathy isyour natural trait. This is mentally entering into the feeling, or whatcould be called the spirit of another person. Empathy is not thoughtperception, it might better be described as the sensing of someoneelse's emotional makeup, feelings and attitudes. You can't lie to atrained empathetic because he can sense the real attitude behind theverbal lies. Even your undeveloped talent has proved immensely useful inthe Twenties. You can outguess your opponent because you know hismovements even as his body tenses to make them. You accept this withoutever questioning it."

  "How do you know--?" This was Brion's understood, but never voicedsecret.

  Ihjel smiled. "Just guessing. But I won the Twenties too, remember, alsowithout knowing a thing about empathy at the time. On top of our normaltraining, it's a wonderful trait to have. Which brings me to the proofwe mentioned a minute ago. When you said you would be convinced if Icould prove you were the only person who could help me. I _believe_ youare--and that is one thing I cannot lie about. It's possible to lieabout a belief verbally, to have a falsely based belief, or to change abelief. But you can't lie about it to yourself."

  "Equally important--you can't lie about a belief to an empathetic. Wouldyou like to see how I feel about this? 'See' is a bad word--there is novocabulary for this kind of thing yet. Better, would you join me in myfeelings? Sense my attitudes, memories and emotions just as I do?"

  Brion tried to protest, but he was too late. The doors of his senseswere pushed wide and he was overwhelmed.

  "Dis ..." Ihjel said aloud. "Seven million people ... hydrogen bombs ...Brion Brandd." These were just key words, land marks of association.With each one Brion felt the rushing wave of the other man's emotions.

  There could be no lies here, Ihjel was right in that. This was the rawstuff that feelings are made of, the basic reactions to the things andsymbols of memory.

  DIS ... DIS ... DIS ... it was a word it was a planet and the wordthundered like a drum a drum the sound of its thunder surrounded and was

  a wasteland a planet of death a planet where living was dying and dying was very better than living crude barbaric backward miserable dirty beneath consideration planet #DIS# hot burning scorching wasteland of sands and sands and sands and sands that burned had burned will burn forever

  the people of this planet so crude dirty miserable barbaric subhuman in-human less-than-human but they were going to be DEAD and DEAD they would be seven million blackened corpses that would blacken your dreams all dreams dreams forever because those HYDROGEN BOMBS were waiting to kill them unless ... unless ... unless ... you Ihjel stopped it you Ihjel (DEATH) ... you (DEATH) ... you (DEATH) alone couldn't do it you (DEATH) must have

  BRION BRANDD wet-behind-the-ears-raw-untrained-Brion-Brand-to help-youhe was the only one in the galaxy who could finish the job....

  As the flow of sensation died away, Brion realized he was sprawled backweakly on his pillows, soaked with sweat, washed with the memory of theraw emotion. Across from him Ihjel sat with his face bowed into hishands. When he lifted his head Brion saw within his eyes a shadow of theblackness he had just experienced.

  "Death," Brion said. "That terrible feeling of death. It wasn't just thepeople of Dis who would die. It was something more personal."

  "Myself," Ihjel said, and behind this simple word were the repeatedechoes of nig
ht that Brion had been made aware of with his newlyrecognized ability. "My own death, not too far away. This is thewonderfully terrible price you must pay for your talent. _Angst_ is aninescapable part of empathy. It is a part of the whole unknown field ofpsi phenomena that seems to be independent of time. Death is sotraumatic and final that it reverberates back along the time line. Thecloser I get, the more aware of it I am. There is no exact feeling ofdate, just a rough location in time. That is the horror of it. I _know_I will die soon after I get to Dis--and long before the work there isfinished. I know the job to be done there, and I know the men who havealready failed at it. I also know you are the only person who canpossibly complete the work I have started. Do you agree now? Will youcome with me?"

  "Yes, of course," Brion said. "I'll go with you."