Critical Threshold (2 page)

“It costs a hell of a lot to do a survey. It doesn't even end when the team returns—there are more experiments to be done with material brought back. This is long and tedious because it has to be done under strict quarantine—a precaution which, though necessary, does limit the scope of the investigation.

“At the end of it all it's a grade A tragedy if the scientists come back and say: ‘Sorry, it's no good.' The trouble is, though, that they can never really say: ‘Great, it's perfect.' The best they can do is come up with an estimate of the possible risk—a guess which, though it be the most educated guess in the world, remains a guess. Things like the organic correspondence factor between Earth and the alien world can be measured exactly, but that isn't necessarily anything to do with the probability that a colony will survive. But someone, or a whole series of someones, has to take the hard data, weigh it up, and come up with a figure.

“That's science, even if it is a bit rough-hewn and speculative. But now we move out of the realms of science. Because another someone, or a whole series of other someones, has to make the decision as to what level of probability constitutes an
acceptable
risk. Is an eighty per cent chance of success worth taking? Or an eighty-five percent chance? How about eighty-one, or maybe eighty-one and a half? This kind of political bargaining is made all the more difficult because the probabilities themselves can't pretend to be accurate, and certainly not precise to one or two percent.

“The politicians take into account all kinds of extraneous factors like the cost of mounting a colony project, the cash they've already ploughed in, the climate of public opinion and the pressures of all kinds of power-groups as they're felt at that particular moment. All these things may influence the critical threshold—the level of acceptable risk.

“Now, the reports offered by the Dendra team were more uncertain than almost any other set. In this particular case the team didn't feel they had enough data. But can you imagine what a bureaucrat would say to a scientist who said: ‘Well, we've gone through the whole procedure, and we just can't come up with a figure.' That's not what bureaucrats pay scientists for. The survey team had to provide an answer, so they turned one in, along with the qualification that in this particular case the estimate was less confident than usual. The figure they turned in was below the critical threshold, and so, in effect, was advice against attempting colonization.

“But it seems—and I only say
seems—
that the political mind didn't quite approach the issue in the way the scientists anticipated. Imagine a committee of bureaucrats looking at the report. They think: We've put an awful lot of money into this for a negative result; and we haven't sent a colony ship out for some time. We're under pressure. And look at this here: it says that this estimate is only tentative. As it is, it's not
far
below the critical threshold, and if the scientists aren't sure, well then the
real
figure might be
above
the critical threshold. Can we afford to abandon this world because the scientists are hesitant? Wouldn't it be ridiculous if we rejected an ideal world because the survey team doesn't think they had long enough to look around? Is there a single scrap of hard evidence that this world may prove inhospitable?'

“And the answer, of course, is no. So what happens?”

“They send a colony anyway,” said Karen.

“Wrong,” I said. “The political mind moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. What they do is to
pass the buck.
They refuse to come to a firm decision. They don't back up the risk-estimate provided by the scientists, and they do their best to discredit it. But they also won't take on to themselves the responsibility of mounting a colony project.

“And so the thing passes out of normal channels, and becomes a special case. Special cases are the bread and butter of professional politicians, because they can be shaped to fit specific and momentary needs—party needs, personal needs—it all depends who catches the buck and gets to slice it. I think Dendra was used in some back-handed political maneuver. What actually happened was that a cut-price colony was planned. Fewer ships than usual, less cash spent on supplies and equipment. The responsibility for the cut-price aspect certainly wasn't accepted by the usual UN planning authority, and probably not by the guy who actually arranged it. it was probably shifted on to the colonists themselves. Some particular group which had been agitating for a different system of emigration-selection, or even an organization of would-be emigrants who wanted to go as a group, were bought off with the offer of a substandard world. ‘Here, you can have this one. It's rated below threshold, but don't worry about that—just these conservative scientists. It's really okay, but naturally you go at your own risk. Officially, we can't let you go; but officially, of course, you'd have to go through the normal balloting procedure, which is exactly what you want to avoid. Best of luck; and goodbye forever.'

“You see the theme?”

“You have a nasty mind, Alex,” she said.

“Haven't
you?
” I countered.

“Oh sure,” she replied. “I believe every word. It's not quite what shows up in the reports, though. There's no evidence.”

“Look at the colony list,” I said. “The cut-price aspect is obvious in the way the ships were crowded and under-supplied. The get-rid-of-the-agitators-at-their-own-risk aspect isn't so clear, but look at the names of the colonists. One hundred per cent Euroamerican. If they were selected by standard ballot the laws of probability were on holiday that week. You want to bet those ships weren't filled by invitation to certain people with significantly louder voices than their less troublesome brethren from nations whose influence in UN affairs wasn't so great in that wonderful Golden Age?”

“You could be right,” she agreed.

“See what Nathan thinks,” I said. “If he reads between the lines the way I do....”

“The last thing he'd do would be to start broadcasting his findings. He'd keep quiet about it.”

I thought about that, and decided that it might well be so. Nathan, after all, was their kind of animal. A political mind, moving in its own secret orbit around the truth.

“You think they shouldn't have colonized Dendra?” she asked.

Again, I retreated to my non-committal pedestal. “We'll find out who was wrong and who was lucky when we get there,” I said. “Not before.”

“And if it's failed?”

“We find out
why
it failed. That's vital. We have to know where the thinking went wrong, and how. We have to know just why the educated guess wasn't educated enough.”

“I could almost believe,” she said, “that you want this colony to have failed. And for the right reason—some little thing that the survey team didn't find because they didn't have the time. You want to vindicate the scientists who put in the low probability estimate.”

“That's garbage,” I said, dourly. “If that colony has failed, it will be a tragedy on a big scale.”

“Not your tragedy, Alex.”

“Everybody's tragedy,” I insisted.

“I still think you have mixed feelings,” she persisted.

“My feelings are always mixed,” I said. “Just like everybody else's. But not that kind of mixture.”

Her eyes were fixed on my face, as if she were trying to see right into my skull, like Mariel. But Karen hadn't any advantages of that kind. She had to take my word for what I was thinking.

“And yet,” she said, “it's you that can't sleep at night.”

I grunted, dismissing the point as irrelevant, though I wasn't wholly sure that it was. Karen, of course, had long since abandoned any concern over man's inhumanity to man (or woman). She took it all in her stride. She had a hard heart. She saved her sympathies for personal matters, and could withdraw it if and when the need arose. Sometimes, I wished I had her detachment.

Only sometimes.

“We could have
real
problems on Dendra,” she said, idly. “Not so childishly easy as on Floria.”

I smiled at that, largely because it was intended to make me smile. But I was still taking it seriously.

Her eyes strayed briefly to the clock. It was the barest of glances, confirming what she already knew.

“Time to check that we haven't blown up,” she said, getting to her feet. She paused slightly as she turned away.

I stayed put for a second, then shrugged. “Maybe I can muster enough lethargy to get me to sleep,” I said, getting up. And I added to lighten the note of our parting: “Suppose we are blowing up?”

“Don't worry about
that
,” she said, ironically. “We're outside spacetime. The universe won't even notice we've gone.”

It was a comforting thought.

CHAPTER TWO

I hadn't intended that what I said to Karen about Dendra should be in strict confidence. I knew the rumor would get around, even if I didn't help it. I also suspected that Nathan Parrick might not approve. I wasn't really surprised when he sought me out for a confidential word.

It was some days later, shortly before we were scheduled to reach our destination. I was in my room, scanning the reports for the
n
th time. I was just feeding data into my head and letting my imagination go to work, trying to anticipate problems. Sometimes I can be a real glutton for punishment.

I was reading the atmosphere analysis, and marveling at its complexity. It wasn't the gas mixture that was important—that had to be fairly standard in order to qualify the world for a second look—but the abundance of organic traces. There was a fourteen page list of complex molecules drifting around in minute quantities, detected by mechanical olfactory apparatus. About three dozen were deadly poisons, some were ataractic, several hallucinogenic, three were powerfully narcotic and nearly a hundred unknown. They were all biological products and all biodegradable. They couldn't accumulate in living tissue and weren't present in anywhere near active concentrations. They were just sufficient to scent the air. Oddly enough, the olfactory analysis, though magnificent in scope, missed out on one little detail.

It didn't say whether the overall smell was pleasant or not.

That's the trouble with mechanical devices. They miss out on the important things.

I was looking through the individual molecule-counts, trying to find a freak high enough to worry about. Sometimes the incidence of such trace factors is very variable, and they can build up very quickly to toxic levels, especially in the pollen season. Of such things are disasters made.

I wasn't finding anything, because Dendra didn't have a pollen season. There wasn't any kind of cycle at all. All natural processes were continuous.

When Nathan interrupted me I was pleased to see him. It can be frustrating, looking for something that isn't there.

“We're in normal space again,” he said, pleasantly. “We'll be in orbit very soon.”

“Welcome back to spacetime,” I said, dryly.

I got along well enough with Nathan. It had become obvious on Floria that we operated from different conceptual standpoint, but there had been no real clash of opinions since the troubled period when we had landed on Floria and precipitated an abortive rebellion. Once things had settled down and our goals coincided perfectly, we could happily work away in our respective spheres without conflict. We both suspected, however, that the potential for more conflict was still implicit in our attitudes.

“I hear,” he said, coming straight to the point, “that you have your doubts about what we might find on Dendra.”

“Haven't we all?” I replied, stalling. “We'll be there soon. Then we can all find out.”

“I wanted to talk to you first,” he said.

I sighed, and moved along the bunk. “Sit down,” I invited.

He sat.

“Do you think we need a referee?” I asked.

He refused to be amused. “We land tomorrow,” he said. “All being well. I think it might be wiser if we didn't take down too many preconceived notions about what we might find there.”

I saw the point of the eleventh hour approach. He wanted to undermine the ideas that my nasty mind had come up with—or the attitude born of them—at the right strategic moment.

“It's okay,” I assured him. “I'm not going down there with a bee in my bonnet about uncovering evidence to crucify a bunch of long-dead political cowboys. I have my priorities in order.”

“I know that. What I want to try to avoid, before it crops up, is the kind of communication-breakdown we suffered on Floria. I'd like to agree, if we can, on the principles we work on.”

I folded up the reports and stacked them neatly on my knee.

“State your principles,” I invited, “and I'll tell you which ones I agree with.”

“You're not being very helpful.”

“True,” I admitted.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that you're anticipating a conflict of opinions before there's any need for it. You seem to be assuming that my approach to this world—whatever the situation we find there—is going to be radically different from yours.”

I shook my head. “If you think that's because of the things I've deduced about the way the Dendra colony was set up, you're wrong. It's not just Dendra, it's everywhere. Our approaches
are
different. You're here to write propaganda. I'm here to help. Well, okay, it's not for me to reason why. I'm not going to interfere with your work, and you won't interfere with mine. But you can't expect me to declare solemnly that I'll agree with what you have to say and do. If we find Dendra—or any other colony—in grave difficulties, then I'm not going to misrepresent the fact in my reports.”

“I'm not talking about misrepresentation,” he said. “And you're jumping way ahead of me. This assumption of implicit hostility is a handicap to the whole mission, and that's what I want to talk about. We're on the same side. We ought to be able to work together.”

I had to admit, even to myself, that the prejudice I felt against Nathan was really an emotional one. I didn't even dislike him personally—I just disliked the kind of man I thought he was. I ought to have been able to put the prejudice aside, but it wasn't easy. It didn't make it any easier, either, that he could come to me and ask me to put it aside.

“I came out here,” I said, “to do a job. To recontact the colonies and give them whatever help I could. I believe that we should reinstitute a space program, if not to colonize new worlds, at least to give proper support to the ones already colonized. But you're here to make what we do into a big story—something to be used for propaganda purposes, to make a new space program acceptable to the world. So we want the same thing, but not the same way. I don't want a new space program simply because someone managed to sell the idea in the political marketplace, with the corollary assumption that someone at some future date might sell the idea of abandoning it again. I don't think the matter belongs to the political marketplace at all. I think we should begin the space program again for reasons which go much deeper than that—because we need to become an interstellar community. The reason you and I don't work on the same wavelength is that I'm committed and you're just a professional doing a job, without even believing in it. Your idea of need isn't the same as mine.”

He let me run on and finish, and he even left a decent interval to make sure I was completely through.

Then he said: “I was hired as a professional, to do a professional job. So were you. You aren't here because you're a committed man but because you're good at your job. Pete Rolving and Karen Karelia are here because they can fly a starship as well as anyone else. Conrad Silvian and Linda Beck are here because, like you, they're totally capable in handling their equipment and analyzing ecological problems. Nobody was hired for their ideals, Alex. It's ridiculous to think that they should have been.”

“Maybe so,” I said. I didn't add anything else, just let it hang stubbornly.

“You may not think the political marketplace operates the right way,” he went on, “but it operates. It's the place where things are decided, and in practical terms there is no other. It's the only place where ideas—and principles, and needs, and moralities—
can
be bought and sold.”

“I know.”

“But you insist on making it difficult for yourself.”

“It
is
difficult,” I said. “That's the way it is all right. But I can't accept it and capitulate with it just because it exists. I can't square it with my conscience. You can. You find it all too easy to adopt the stance that's handed out to you by the
status quo
. Okay. That's you. But it isn't me and it never will be.”

The atmosphere in the cabin seemed thick. Most of the tension was on my side. He was still relaxed. He didn't hold it against me. Much.

“I was screened by the UN,” I pointed out. “They selected me, warts and all.”

“Don't you think that you owe them something, then?” he said, with a casual cutting edge. “A duty to do your job without the emotional extras.”

“Is that what we're arguing about?” I asked. “Emotional extras?”

“If you like,” he replied

It was no use reminding him that on Floria things had worked out fine. I hadn't paid much attention to the instructions laid down for us, but it had worked out—in the end. But he wouldn't concede that point. From his point of view, I'd done it all wrong, had
been
in the wrong. It's like backing a winning horse against the form. No serious student of probability will ever admit you did the right thing even while he watches you count your money.

“Look, Alex,” he said. “There's no point working up a sweat. I came here to try and prevent this kind of thing happening on the ground. We may have differences, but let's keep them in second place. The mission comes first.”

“What do you want from me?” I said. “What do I have to promise?”

“All I ask,” he said, “is that when we land you take whatever situation we find as it comes. No judgments. No condemnations. Never mind who gets the credit or who gets the blame. Just do what we came to do, okay?”

“In a calm, detached, professional manner?”

“In a calm, detached, professional manner,” he echoed. He was dead serious.

“The way I work,” I said, “is to get involved. I don't solve problems by clinical analysis and aloof meditation. I have to be in amongst them. Feeling them.”

He didn't sigh. He didn't show any trace of annoyance. Maybe he'd expected it. In any case, it seemed that he knew when to leave things be.

He pointed to the files.

“Find anything?” he asked, levelly. He could have said something along the lines of ‘What do your feelings tell you,' and made it sarcastic. He didn't. He was keeping it neutral. He really did want a peace pact.

I thought maybe it was time to climb down just a little. No harm in making things a little easier, on the surface.

“I don't know,” I said. “I'm just absorbing it all. I won't be able to read anything into it until I see it on the ground. Twenty minutes in the forest will probably tell me as much as three weeks combing the reports.”

“Why comb them then?”

I allowed myself a tiny smile. “It's
because
I've combed them so thoroughly that twenty minutes on the ground will be able to tell me so much more. The way you get to see so much is standing on the shoulders of giants, remember?”

He was ready to smile, too.

He stood up, but before he could reach out to open the door someone else did it for him. It was Pete Rolving, apparently in too much of a hurry to bother knocking.

“You better come,” he said. “I got an answer to the radio signal.”

That was good news. I shot to my feet, and I could see the relief in Nathan's face. Obviously he'd been worried about the prospect of getting no answer at all.

But Pete was quick to jump in on top of our elation. “They don't make much sense,” he said. “In fact, they don't make any sense at all.”

He was already moving back along the corridor. We followed. Looking back over his shoulder, he said: “They're like children. Moronic. Half the time I can't tell what they say. They made contact in response to the alarm, but I don't think they know what they're doing at all. I get the impression that they think it's God talking. They keep saying ‘Thank God' over and over.”

Nathan wouldn't look at me. I don't think he wanted to see my face.

“Something,” said Pete Rolving, as we reached the radio, “is wrong.”