At sunset of the second day he sat with Dors watching bloodred shafts spike through orange-tinged clouds. This world was gaudy beyond good taste, and he liked it. The food was tangy, too. His stomach rumbled, anticipating dinner.
He remarked to Dors, “It’s tempting, using pans to build a sort of toy model of psychohistory.”
“But you have doubts.”
“They’re like us but they have, well, uh…”
“Base, animalistic ways?” She smirked, then kissed him. “My prudish Hari.”
“We have our share of beastly behaviors, I know. But we’re a lot smarter, too.”
Her eyelids dipped in a manner he knew by now suggested polite doubt. “They live intensely, you’ll have to give them that.”
“Maybe we’re smarter than we need to be anyway?”
“What?” This surprised her.
“I’ve been reading up on evolution. Not a front rank field anymore; everybody thinks we understand it.”
“And in a galaxy filled with humans and little else, there isn’t much fresh material.”
He had not thought of it that way before, but she was right. Biology was a backwater science. All the academic sophisticates were pursuing something called “integrative sociometrics.”
He went on, laying out his thoughts. Plainly, the human brain was an evolutionary overshoot. Brains were far more capable than a competent hunter-gatherer needed. To get the better of animals, it would have been enough to master fire and simple stone tools. Such talents alone would have made people the lords of creation, removing selection pressure to change. Instead, all evidence from the brain itself said that change accelerated. The human cerebral cortex added mass, stacking new circuitry atop older wiring. That mass spread over the lesser areas like a thick new skin. So said the ancient studies, their data from museums long lost.
“From this came musicians and engineers, saints and savants,” he finished with a flourish. One of Dors’ best points was her willingness to sit still while he waxed professorily longwinded-even on vacation.
“And the pans, you think, are from before that time? On ancient Earth?”
“They must be. And all this evolutionary selection happened in just a few million years.”
Dors nodded. “Look at it from the woman’s point of view. It happened, despite putting mothers in desperate danger in childbirth.”
“Uh, how?”
“From those huge baby heads. They’re hard to get out. We women are still paying the price for your brains-and for ours.”
He chuckled. She always had a special spin on a subject that made him see it fresh. “Then why was it selected for, back then?”
Dors smiled enigmatically. “Maybe men and women alike found intelligence sexy in each other.”
“Really?”
Her sly smile. “How about us?”
“Have you ever watched very many 3D stars? They don’t feature brains, my dear.”
“Remember the animals we saw in the Imperial Zoo? It could be that for early humans, brains were like peacock tails, or moose horns: display items to attract the females. Runaway sexual selection.”
“I see, an overplayed hand of otherwise perfectly good cards.” He laughed. “So being smart is just a bright ornament.”
“Works for me,” she said, giving him a wink.
He watched the sunset turn to glowering, ominous crimson, oddly happy. Sheets of light worked across the sky among curious, layered clouds. “Ummm…” Dors murmured.
“Yes?”
“Maybe this is a way to use the research the Ex Specs are doing, too. Learn who we humans once were-and therefore who we are.”
“Intellectually, it’s a jump. In social ways, though, the gap could be less.”
Dors looked skeptical. “You think pans are only a bit further back in a social sense?”
“Ummm. I wonder if in logarithmic time we might scale from pans to the early Empire and then on to now?”
“A big leap.”
“Maybe I could use that Voltaire sim from Sark as a scaling point in a long curve.”
“Look, to do anything you’ll need more experience with them.” She eyed him. “You like immersion, don’t you?”
“Well, yes. It’s just…”
“What?”
“That Ex Spec Vaddo, he keeps pushing immersions-”
“That’s his job.”
“-and he knew who I was.”
“So?” She spread her hands and shrugged.
“You’re normally the suspicious one. Why should an Ex Spec know an obscure mathematician?”
“He looked you up. Data dumps on incoming guests are standard. And as a First Minister candidate, you’re hardly obscure.”
“I suppose so. Say, you’re supposed to be the ever-vigilant one.” He grinned. “Shouldn’t you be encouraging my caution?”
“Paranoia isn’t caution. Time spent on nonthreats subtracts from vigilance.”
By the time they went in for dinner she had talked him into it.
6.
Hot day in the sun. Dust tickles. Makes me snort.
That Biggest, he walks by, gets respect right away. Plenty. Fems and guys alike, they stick out their hands.
Biggest touches them, taking time with each, letting them know he is there. The world is all right.
I reach out to him, too. Makes me feel good. I want to be like Biggest, to be big, be as big as him, be him.
Fems don’t give him any trouble. He wants one, she goes. Hump right away. He’s Biggest.
Most males, they don’t get much respect. Fems don’t want to do with them as much as they do with Biggest. The little males, they huff and throw sand and all that, but everybody knows they’re not going to be much. No chance they could ever be like Biggest. They don’t like that, but they are stuck with it.
Me, I’m pretty big. I get respect. Some, anyway.
All the guys like stroking. Petting. Grooming. Ferns give it to them and they give it back.
Guys get more, though. After it, they’re not so gruff.
I’m sitting getting groomed and all of a sudden I smell something. I don’t like it. I jump up, cry out. Biggest, he takes notice. Smells it, too.
Strangers. Everybody starts hugging each other. Strong smell, plenty of it. Lots of Strangers. The wind says they are near, getting nearer.
They come running down on us from the ridge. Looking for ferns, looking for trouble.
I run for my rocks. I always have some handy. I fling one at them, miss. Then they in among us. It’s hard to hit them, they go so fast.
Four Strangers, they grab two ferns. Drag them away.
Everybody howling, crying. Dust everywhere.
I throw rocks. Biggest leads the guys against the Strangers.
They turn and run off. Just like that. Got the two ferns though and that’s bad.
Biggest mad. He pushes around some of the guys, makes noise. He not looking so good now, he let the Strangers in.
Those Strangers bad. We all hunker down, groom each other, pet, make nice sounds.
Biggest, he come by, slap some of the ferns. Hump some. Make sure everybody know he’s still Biggest.
He don’t slap me. He know better than to try. I growl at him when he come close and he pretend not to hear.
Maybe he not so Big anymore, I’m thinking.
7.
He stayed with it this time. After the first crisis, when the Stranger pans came running through, he sat and let himself get groomed for a long time. It really did calm him.
Him? Who was he?
This time he could fully sense the pan mind. Not below him-that was a metaphor-but around him. A swarming scattershot of senses, thoughts, fragments like leaves blowing by him in a wind.
And the wind was emotion. Blustering gales, howling and whipping in gusts, raining thoughts like soft hammer blows.
These pans thought poorly, in the sense that he could get only shards, like human musings chopped by a nervous editor. But pans felt intensely.
Of course,he thought-and he could think, nestled in the hard kernel of himself, wrapped in the pan mind. Emotions told it what to do, without thinking. Quick reactions demanded that. Strong feeling amplified subtle cues into strong imperatives. Blunt orders from Mother Evolution.