Physical survival has been guaranteed. But what about mental
survival? Primitive Earth Eskimos can fall into a long doze of
half-conscious hibernation. Civilized men might be able to do this,
but only for the few cold months of terrestrial midwinter. It would
be impossible to do during a winter that is longer than an Earth
year. With all the physical needs taken care of, boredom became the
enemy of any Anvharian who was not a hunter. And even the hunters
could not stay out on solitary trek all winter. Drink was one
answer, and violence another. Alcoholism and murder were the twin
terrors of the cold season, after the Breakdown.
It was the Twenties that ended all that. When they became a
part of normal life the summer was considered just an interlude
between games. The Twenties were more than just a contest—they
became a way of life that satisfied all the physical, competitive
and intellectual needs of this unusual planet. They were a
decathlon—rather a double decathlon—raised to its highest power,
where contests in chess and poetry composition held equal place
with those in ski-jumping and archery. Each year there were two
planet-wide contests held, one for men and one for women. This was
not an attempt at sexual discrimination, but a logical facing of
facts. Inherent differences prevented fair contests—for example, it
is impossible for a woman to win a large chess tournament—and this
fact was recognized. Anyone could enter for any number of years.
There were no scoring handicaps.
When the best man won he was really the best man. A complicated
series of playoffs and eliminations kept contestants and observers
busy for half the winter. They were only preliminary to the final
encounter that lasted a month, and picked a single winner. That was
the title he was awarded. Winner. The man—and woman—who had bested
every other contestant on the entire planet and who would remain
unchallenged until the following year.
Winner. It was a title to take pride in. Brion stirred weakly on his
bed and managed to turn so he could look out of the window. Winner
of Anvhar. His name was already slated for the history books, one of
the handful of planetary heroes. School children would be studying
him
now, just as he had read of the Winners of the past. Weaving
daydreams and imaginary adventures around Brion's victories, hoping
and fighting to equal them someday. To be a Winner was the greatest
honor in the universe.
Outside, the afternoon sun shimmered weakly in a dark sky. The
endless icefields soaked up the dim light, reflecting it back as a
colder and harsher illumination. A single figure on skis cut a line
across the empty plain; nothing else moved. The depression of the
ultimate fatigue fell on Brion and everything changed, as if he
looked in a mirror at a previously hidden side.
He saw suddenly—with terrible clarity—that to be a Winner was to
be absolutely nothing. Like being the best flea, among all the fleas
on a single dog.
What was Anvhar after all? An ice-locked planet, inhabited by a few
million human fleas, unknown and unconsidered by the rest of the
galaxy. There was nothing here worth fighting for; the wars after
the Breakdown had left them untouched. The Anvharians had always
taken pride in this—as if being so unimportant that no one else
even wanted to come near you could possibly be a source of pride.
All the other worlds of man grew, fought, won, lost, changed. Only
on Anvhar did life repeat its sameness endlessly, like a loop of
tape in a player....
Brion's eyes were moist; he blinked.
Tears!
Realization of this
incredible fact wiped the maudlin pity from his mind and replaced it
with fear. Had his mind snapped in the strain of the last match?
These thoughts weren't his. Self-pity hadn't made him a Winner—why
was he feeling it now? Anvhar was his universe—how could he even
imagine it as a tag-end planet at the outer limb of creation? What
had come over him 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
probing questions. Had he cast a spell like some sorcerer—or the
devil in
Faust
? No, that was pure nonsense. But he had done
something. Perhaps planted a suggestion when Brion's resistance was
low. Or used subliminal vocalization like the villain in
Cerebrus
Chained
. Brion could find no adequate reason on which to base his
suspicions. But he knew, with sure positiveness, that Ihjel was
responsible.
He whistled at the sound-switch next to his pillow and the repaired
communicator came to life. The duty nurse appeared in the small screen.
"The man who was here today," Brion said, "Winner Ihjel. Do you know
where he is? I must contact him."
For some reason this flustered her professional calm. The nurse
started to answer, excused herself, and blanked the screen. When
it lit again a man in guard's uniform had taken her place.
"You made an inquiry," the guard said, "about Winner Ihjel. We are
holding him here in the hospital, following the disgraceful way in
which he broke into your room."
"I have no charges to make. Will you ask him to come and see me at
once?"
The guard controlled his shock. "I'm sorry, Winner—I don't see how
we can. Dr. Caulry left specific orders that you were not to be—"
"The doctor has no control over my personal life." Brion
interrupted. "I'm not infectious, nor ill with anything more than
extreme fatigue. I want to see that man. At once."
The guard took a deep breath, and made a quick decision. "He is on
the way up now," he said, and rung off.
"What did you do to me?" Brion asked as soon as Ihjel had entered
and they were alone. "You won't deny that you have put alien
thoughts in my head?"
"No, I won't deny it. Because the whole point of my being here is
to get those '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 will have to believe them. The primary thing, the clue
to the rest, is the true nature of your life here. How do you think
the Twenties originated?"
Before he answered, Brion carefully took a double dose of the mild
stimulant he was allowed. "I don't think," he said; "I know. It's
a matter of historical record. The founder of the games was Giroldi,
the first contest was held in 378 A.B. The Twenties have been held
every year since then. They were strictly local affairs in the
beginning, but were soon well established on a planet-wide scale."
"True enough," Ihjel said. "But you're describing
what
happened.
I asked you
how
the Twenties originated. How could any single man
take a barbarian planet, lightly inhabited by half-mad hunters and
alcoholic farmers, and turn it into a smooth-running social machine
built around the artificial structure of the Twenties? It just
couldn't be done."
"But it
was
done!" Brion insisted. "You can't deny that. And there
is nothing artificial about the Twenties. They are a logical way to
live a life on a planet like this."
Ihjel laughed, a short ironic bark. "Very logical," he said; "but
how often does logic have anything to do with the organization of
social groups and governments? You're not thinking. Put yourself in
founder Giroldi's place. Imagine that you have glimpsed the great
idea of the Twenties and you want to convince others. So you walk up
to the nearest louse-ridden, brawling, superstitious, booze-embalmed
hunter and explain clearly. How a program of his favorite
sports—things like poetry, archery and chess—can make his life
that much more interesting and virtuous. You do that. But keep your
eyes open at the same time, and be ready for a fast draw."
Even Brion had to smile at the absurdity of the suggestion. Of
course it couldn't happen that way. Yet, since it had happened,
there must be a simple explanation.
"We can beat this back and forth all day," Ihjel told him, "and you
won't get the right idea unless—" He broke off suddenly, staring at
the communicator. The operation light had come on, though the screen
stayed dark. Ihjel reached down a meaty hand and pulled loose
the recently connected wires. "That doctor of yours is very
curious—and he's going to 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 you lead here is a complete and
artificial construction, developed by Societics experts and put into
application by skilled field workers."
"Nonsense!" Brion broke in. "Systems of society can't be dreamed up
and forced on people like that. Not without bloodshed and violence."
"Nonsense, yourself," Ihjel told him. "That may have been true in
the dawn of history, but not any more. You have been reading too
many of the old Earth classics; you imagine that we still live in
the Ages of Superstition. Just because fascism and communism were
once forced on reluctant populations, you think this holds true for
all time. Go back to your books. In exactly the same era democracy
and self-government were adapted by former colonial states, like
India and the Union of North Africa, and the only violence was
between local religious groups. Change is the lifeblood of mankind.
Everything we today accept as normal was at one time an innovation.
And one of the most recent innovations is the attempt to guide the
societies of mankind into something more consistent with the
personal happiness of individuals."
"The God complex," Brion said; "forcing human lives into a mold
whether they want to be fitted into it or not."
"Societies can be that," Ihjel agreed. "It was in the beginning, and
there were some disastrous results of attempts to force populations
into a political climate where they didn't belong. They weren't all
failures—Anvhar here is a striking example of how good the
technique can be when correctly applied. It's not done this way any
more, though. As with 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 cultures towards 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 from the bad ones. All we do now
is try to protect the growing cultures, give a little jolt to the
stagnating ones—and bury the dead ones. When the work was first
done here on Anvhar the theory hadn't progressed that far. The
understandably complex equations that determine just where in the
scale from a Type I to a Type V a culture is, had not yet been
completed. The technique then was to work out an artificial culture
that would be most beneficial for a planet, then bend it into the
mold."
"How can that be done?" Brion asked. "How was it done here?"
"We've made some progress—you're finally asking 'how.' The
technique here took a good number of agents, and a great deal of
money. Personal honor was emphasized in order to encourage dueling,
and this led to a heightened interest in the technique of personal
combat. When this was well intrenched Giroldi was brought in, and
he showed how organized competitions could be more interesting than
haphazard encounters. Tying the intellectual aspects onto the
framework of competitive sports was a little more difficult, but
not overwhelmingly so. The details aren't important; 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? I can't believe that. Taken objectively, there isn't that
much difference between myself and the ten runner-ups. Why don't you
ask one of them? They could do your job as well as I."
"No, they couldn't. I'll tell you later why you are the only man
I can use. Our time is running out and I must convince you of some
other things first." Ihjel glanced at his watch. "We have less than
three hours to dead-deadline. Before that time I must explain enough
of our work to you to enable you to decide voluntarily to join us."
"A very tall order," Brion said. "You might begin by telling me just
who this mysterious 'we' is that you keep referring to."
"The Cultural Relationships Foundation. A non-governmental body,
privately endowed, existing to promote peace and ensure the
sovereign welfare of independent planets, so that all will prosper
from the good will and commerce thereby engendered."
"Sounds as if you're quoting," Brion told him. "No one could
possibly make up something that sounds like that on the spur of
the moment."
"I
was
quoting, from our charter of organization. Which is all
very fine in a general sense, but I'm talking specifically now.
About you. You are the product of a tightly knit and very advanced
society. Your individuality has been encouraged by your growing up
in a society so small in population that a mild form of government
control is necessary. The normal Anvharian education is an excellent
one, and participation in the Twenties has given you a general and
advanced education second to none in the galaxy. It would be a
complete waste of your entire life if you now took all this training
and wasted it on some rustic farm."
"You give me very little credit. I plan to teach—"
"Forget Anvhar!" Ihjel cut him off with a chop of his hand. "This
world will roll on quite successfully whether you are here or not.
You must forget it, think of its relative unimportance on a galactic
scale, and consider instead the existing, suffering hordes of
mankind. You must think what you can do to help them."
"But what can I do—as an individual? The day is long past when
a single man, like Caesar or Alexander, could bring about
world-shaking changes."