Jason put his own cigarette out, changed his mind, lit another one.
"Sort of like the old joke, where does an alien go to register?"
"Sort of."
"It"s a big universe," said Jason, evidently starting at the beginning of something.
"I"m just beginning to learn _how_ big!"
"It would be pretty unimaginative of mankind to consider itself the only sentient form of life, Earth the only home of intelligence, both from a scientific and a religious point of view. We kind of expected to find--neighbors out in s.p.a.ce. Kit, the sky is full of stars, most stars have planets. The universe crawls with life, all sorts of life, all sorts of intelligent life. In short, we are not alone. It would be sort of like taking the jet-shuttle from Washington to New York during the evening rush and expecting to be the only one aboard. In reality, you"re lucky to get breathing s.p.a.ce.
"There are biped intelligences, like humans. There are radial intelligences, one-legged species, tall, gangling creatures, squat ones, pancake ones, giants, dwarfs. There are green skins and pink skins and coal black--and yes, no skins. There are ... but you get the idea."
"Uh-huh."
"Strangely enough, most of these intelligences are on about the same developmental level. It"s as if the Creator turned everything on at once, like a race, and said "okay, guys get started." Maybe it"s because, as scientists figure, the whole universe got wound up and started working as a unit. I don"t know. Anyway, that"s the way it is.
All the intelligences worth talking about are on about the same cultural level. Atomics, crude s.p.a.ceflight, wars they can"t handle.
"And this is interesting, Kit. Most of "em are bipedal. Not really human, not fully human. You can see the difference. But seventy-five percent of the races I"ve encountered have had basic similarities. A case of the Creator trying to figure out the best of all possible life-patterns and coming up with this one. Offers a wide range for action, for adaptation, stuff like that. Anyway, I"m losing track of things."
"Take it easy. From what you tell me I have all the time in the world."
"Well, I said all the races are developmentally parallel. That"s almost true. One of them is not. One of them is so far ahead that the rest of us have hardly reached the crawling stage by comparison. One of them is the Super Race, Kit.
"Their culture is old, incredibly old. So old, in fact, that some of us figure it"s been hanging around since before the Universe took shape. Maybe that"s why all the others are on one level, a few thousand million years behind the Super Race.
"So, take this Super Race. For some reason we can"t understand, it seems to be on the skids. That"s just figurative. Maybe it"s dying out, maybe it wants to pack up and leave the galaxy altogether, maybe it"s got other undreamed of business other undreamed of places.
Anyway, it wants out. But it"s got an eon-old storehouse of culture and maybe it figures someone ought to have access to that and keep the galaxy in running order. But who? That"s the problem. Who gets all this information, a million million generations of scientific problems, all carefully worked out? Who, among all the parallel races on all the worlds of the Universe? That"s quite a problem, even for our Super Race boys.
"You"d think they"d have ways to solve it, though. With calculating machines or whatever will follow calculating machines after Earthmen and all the others find the next faltering step after a few thousand years. Or with plain horse sense and logic, developed to a point--after millions of years at it--where it never fails. Or solve the problem with something we"ve never heard of, but solve it anyway."
"What"s all this got to do with--? I mean, it"s an interesting story and when I get a chance to digest it I"ll probably start gasping, but what about Nowhere and...."
"I"m coming to that. Kit, what would you say if I told you that the most intelligent race the Universe has ever produced solves the biggest problem ever handed anyone--by playing games?"
"I"d say you better continue."
"That"s the purpose of Nowhere, Kit. Every planet, every race has its Nowhere. We all come here and we play games. Planet with the highest score at the end of G.o.d knows how long wins the Universe, with all the science and the wisdom needed to fashion that universe into a dozen different kinds of heaven. And to decide all this, we play games.
"Don"t get the wrong idea. I"m not complaining. If the Superboys say we play, then we play. I"d take their word for it if they told me I had fifteen heads. But it"s the sort of thing which doesn"t let you get much sleep. Oh, Earth has a right to be proud of its record.
United North America is in second place on a compet.i.tion that"s as wide as the Universe. But we"re not first. Second. And I have a hunch from what"s been going on around here that the games are drawing to a close.
"Fantastic, isn"t it? Out of thousands of entrants, we"re good enough to place second. But some planet out near the star Deneb has us hopelessly outcla.s.sed. We might as well get the b.o.o.by prize. They"ll win and own the Universe--us included."
Jason had leaned forward as he spoke, and was sitting on the edge of his chair now. The room was comfortably cool, but sweat beaded his forehead, dripped from his chin.
Temple lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply. "You said the United States--North America--was second. I thought this was a planet-wide compet.i.tion, planet against planet."
"Earth is the one exception I"ve been able to find. The Deneb planet heads the list, then comes North America. After that, the planet of a star I never heard of. In fourth place is the Soviet Union."
"I"ll be d.a.m.ned," said Temple. "Well, okay. Mind if I store that away for future reference? I"ve got another question. What kind of--uh, games do we play?"
"You name it. Mental contests. Scientific problems to be worked out with laboratories built to our specifications. Emotional problems with scores of men driven neurotic or worse every year. Problems of adaptability. Responses to environmental challenge. Stamina contests.
Tests of strength, of endurance. Tests to determine depths of emotion.
Tests to determine objectivity in what should be an objective situation. But the way everything is organized it"s almost like a giant-sized, never ending Olympic Games, complete with some c.o.c.keyed sports events too, by the way."
"With all the pageantry, too?"
"No. But that"s another story."
"Anyway, what I saw _was_ a foot-race! And sorry, Jase, but I have another question."
Jason shrugged, spread his hands wide.
"How come all this talk about rotation? It isn"t possible, not with a fifty century gap."
"I know. They just let us in on that little deal a couple of years ago. Till then, we didn"t know. We thought it was distance only. In time, after all this was over, we could go home. That"s what we thought," Jason said bitterly. "Actually, it"s twice five thousand years. Five to come here, five to return. Ten thousand years separate us from the Earth we know, and even if we could go home, that wouldn"t be going home at all--to Earth ten thousand years in the future.
"Oh, they had us hoodwinked. Afraid we might say no or something. They never mentioned the length or duration of the trip. I don"t understand it, none of us do and we have some top scientists here. Something to do with suspended animation, with contra-terrene matter, with teleportation, something about latent extra-sensory powers in everyone, about the ability to break down an object--or a creature or a man--to its component atoms, to reverse--that"s the word, reverse--those atoms and send them spinning off into s.p.a.ce as contra-terrene matter.
"It all boils down to putting a man in a machine on Mars, pulling a lever, materializing him here five thousand years later." Jason smiled with only a trace of humor, "Any questions?"
"About a thousand," said Temple. "I--"
Something buzzed on Jason"s desk and Temple watched him pick up a microphone, say: "Co-ordinator speaking. What"s up?"
The voice which answered, clear enough to be in the room with them and without the faintest trace of mechanical or electrical transfer, spoke in a strange, liquid-syllabled language Temple had never heard. Jason responded in the same language, with an apparent ease which surprised Temple--until he remembered that his brother had always had a knack of picking up foreign languages. Maybe that was why he held the Co-ordinator"s job--whatever it was he co-ordinated.
There was fluency in the way Jason spoke, and alarm. The trouble-lines etched deeply on his face stood out sharply, his eyes, if possible, grew more intense. "Well," he said, putting the mike down and staring at Temple without seeing him, "I"m afraid that does it."
"What"s the trouble?"
"Everything."
"Anything I can do?"
"Item. The Superboys have discovered that Earth has two contingents here--us and the Soviets. They"re mad. Item. Something will be done about it. Item. Soviet Russia has made a suggestion, or that is, its people here. They will put forth a champion to match one of our own choosing in the toughest grind of all, something to do with responding to environmental challenge, which doesn"t mean a h.e.l.l of a lot unless you happen to know something about it. Shall I go on?"
And, when Temple nodded avidly. "We automatically lose by default. One of the rules of that particular game is that the contestant must be a newcomer. It"s the sort of game you have to know nothing about, and incidentally, it"s also the sort of game a man can get killed at.
Well, the Soviets have a whole contingent of newcomers to pick from.
We don"t have any. As the Superboys see it, that"s our own tough luck.
We lose by default."