From the Ocean from teh Stars (30 page)

you're going?
Sorry, dear—too many week-end sailors around. We'll be back in ninety minutes, unless some idiot rams us. Pete says he wants honey for tea. Bye now."

Indra looked thoughtfully at the radio as the sounds of the distant boat ceased abruptly. She half wished that she had accompanied Walter and Pete on their cruise out into the bay, but she had faced the fact that her son now needed his father's company rather than hers. There were times when she grudged this, realizing that in a few months they would both lose the boy whose mind and body they had formed, but who was now slipping from their grasp.

It was inevitable, of course; the ties that bound father and son together must now drive them apart. She doubted if Peter realized why he was so determined to get into space; after all, it was a common enough ambition among boys of his age. But he was one of the youngest ever to obtain a triplanetary scholarship, and it was easy to understand why. He was determined to conquer the element that had defeated his father.

But enough of this daydreaming, she told herself. She got out her file of visiphone numbers, and began to tick off the names of all the wardens' wives who would be at home.

The Policy Board normally met twice a year, and very seldom had much policy to discuss, since most of the bureau's work was satisfactorily taken care of by the committees dealing with finance, production, staff, and technical development. Franklin served on all of these, though only as an ordinary member, since the chairman was always someone from the Marine Division or the World Secretariat. He sometimes came back from the meetings depressed and discouraged; what was very unusual was for him to come back in a bad temper as well.

Indra knew that something had gone wrong the moment he entered the house. "Let me know the worst," she said resignedly as her exhausted husband flopped into the most comfortable chair in sight. "Do you have to find a new job?"

She was only half joking, and Franklin managed a wan smile. "It's not as bad as that," he answered, "but there's more in this business than I thought. Old Burrows had got it all worked out before he took the chair; someone in the Secretariat had briefed him pretty thoroughly. What it comes to is this: Unless it can be proved that food production from whale milk and synthetics will be
drastically
cheaper than the present method, whale slaughtering will continue. Even a ten per cent saving isn't regarded as good enough to justify a switch-over. As Burrows put it, we're

concerned with cost accounting, not abstruse philosophical principles like justice to animals.

"That's reasonable enough, I suppose, and certainly I wouldn't try to fight it. The trouble started during the break for coffee, when Burrows got me into a corner and asked me what the wardens thought about the whole business. So I told him that eighty per cent of them would like to see slaughtering stopped, even if it meant a rise in food costs. I don't know why he asked me this particular question, unless news of our little survey has leaked out.

"Anyway, it upset him a bit and I could see him trying to get around to something. Then he put it bluntly that I'd be a key witness when the inquiry started, and that the Marine Division wouldn't like me to plead the Thero's case in open court with a few million people watching. 'Suppose I'm asked for my personal opinion?' I said. 'No one's worked harder than me to increase whale-meat and oil production, but as soon as it's possible I'd like to see the bureau become a purely conservation service.' He asked if this was my considered viewpoint and I told him that it was.

"Then things got a bit personal, though still in a friendly sort of way, and we agreed that there was a distinct cleavage of opinion between the people who handled whales as whales and those who saw them only as statistics on food-production charts. After that Burrows went off and made some phone calls, and kept us all waiting around for half an hour while he talked to a few people up in the Secretariat. He finally came back with what were virtually my orders, though he was careful not to put it that way. It comes to this: I've got to be an obedient little ventriloquist's dummy at the inquiry."

"But suppose the other side asks you outright for your personal views?"

"Our counsel will try to head them off, and if he fails I'm not supposed to have any personal views."

"And what's the point of all this?"

"That's what I asked Burrows, and I finally managed to get it out of him. There are political issues involved. The Secretariat is afraid that the Maha Thero will get too powerful if he wins this case, so it's going to be fought whatever its merits."

"Now I understand," said Indra slowly. "Do you think that the Thero is after political power?"

"For its own sake—no. But he may be trying to gain influence to put across his religious ideas, and that's what the Secretariat's afraid of."

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," Franklin answered. "I really don't know."

He was still undecided when the hearings began and the Maha Thero
made his first personal appearance before a world-wide audience. He
was not, Franklin could not help thinking as he looked at the small,
yellow-robed figure with its gleaming skull, very impressive at first sight. Indeed, there was something almost comic about him—until he began to
speak, and one knew without any doubt that one was in the presence
both of power and conviction.

"I would like to make one thing perfectly clear," said the Maha
Thero, addressing not only the chairman of the commission but also the
unseen millions who were watching this first hearing. "It is not true that
we are trying to enforce vegetarianism on the world, as some of our oppo
nents have tried to maintain. The Buddha himself did not abstain from
eating meat, when it was given to him; nor do we, for a guest should ac
cept gratefully whatever his host offers.

"Our attitude is based on something deeper and more fundamental than food prejudices, which are usually only a matter of conditioning.
What is more, we believe that most reasonable men, whether their religious beliefs are the same as ours or not, will eventually accept our point
of view.

"It can be summed up very simply, though it is the result of twenty-
six centuries of thought. We consider that it is wrong to inflict injury or
death on any living creature, but we are not so foolish as to imagine that
it can be avoided altogether. Thus we recognize, for example, the need
to kill microbes and insect pests, much though we may regret the necessity.

"But as soon as such killing is no longer essential, it should cease. We
believe that this point has now arrived as far as many of the higher ani
mals are concerned. The production of all types of synthetic protein from
purely vegetable sources is now an economic possibility—or it will be
if the effort is made to achieve it. Within a generation, we can shed the
burden of guilt which, however lightly or heavily it has weighed on in
dividual consciences, must at some time or other have haunted all think
ing men as they look at the world of life which shares their planet.

"Yet this is not an attitude which we seek to enforce on anyone against
his will. Good actions lose any merit if they are imposed by force. We will be content to let the facts we will present speak for themselves, so
that the world may make its own choice."

It was, thought Franklin, a simple, straightforward speech, quite de
void of any of the fanaticism which would have fatally prejudiced the
case in this rational age. And yet the whole matter was one that went beyond reason; in a purely logical world, this controversy could never
have arisen, for no one would have doubted man's right to use the animal

kingdom as he felt fit. Logic, however, could be easily discredited here;
it could be used too readily to make out a convincing case for cannibal
ism.

The Thero had not mentioned, anywhere in his argument, one point
which had made a considerable impact on Franklin. He had not raised
the possibility that man might someday come into contact with alien life forms that might judge him by his conduct toward the rest of the animal
kingdom. Did he think that this was so far-fetched an idea that the general
public would be unable to take it seriously, and would thus grow to regard his whole campaign as a joke? Or had he realized that it was an
argument that might particularly appeal to an ex-astronaut? There was
no way of guessing; in either event it proved that the Thero was a shrewd
judge both of private and public reactions.

Franklin switched off the receiver; the scenes it was showing now were
quite familiar to him, since he had helped the Thero to film them. The
Marine Division, he thought wryly, would now be regretting the facilities
it had offered His Reverence, but there was nothing else it could have
done in the circumstances.

In two days he would be appearing to give his evidence; already he felt more like a criminal on trial than a witness. And in truth he was on
trial—or, to be more accurate, his conscience was. It was strange to
think that having once tried to kill himself, he now objected to killing
other creatures. There was some connection here, but it was too com
plicated for him to unravel—and even if he did, it would not help him to
solve his dilemma.

Yet the solution was on the way, and from a totally unexpected di
rection.

☆
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

F
ranklin was boarding the plane that would take him
to the hearings when the "Sub-Smash" signal came through. He stood in
the doorway, reading the scarlet-tabbed message that had been rushed
out to him, and at that moment all his other problems ceased to exist.

The SOS was from the Bureau of Mines, the largest of all the sections
of the Marine Division. Its title was a slightly misleading one, for it did
not run a single mine in the strict sense of the word. Twenty or thirty years ago there had indeed been mines on the ocean beds, but now the

sea itself was an inexhaustible treasure chest. Almost every one of the natural elements could be extracted directly and economically from the
millions of tons of dissolved matter in each cubic mile of sea water. With the perfection of selective ion-exchange filters, the nightmare of metal
shortages had been banished forever.

The Bureau of Mines was also responsible for the hundreds of oil
wells that now dotted the sea beds, pumping up the precious fluid that was
the basic material for half the chemical plants on earth—and which
earlier generations, with criminal shortsightedness, had actually burned for fuel. There were plenty of accidents that could befall the bureau's
world-wide empire; only last year Franklin had lent it a whaling sub in an unsuccessful attempt to salvage a tank of gold concentrate. But this
was far more serious, as he discovered after he had put through a few
priority caEs.

Thirty minutes later he was airborne, though not in the direction he had expected to be going. And it was almost an hour after he had taken
off before all the orders had been given and he at last had a chance of
calling Indra.

She was surprised at the unexpected call, but her surprise quickly
turned to alarm. "Listen, dear," Franklin began, "I'm not going to Berne
after all. Mines has had a serious accident and has appealed for our
help. One of their big subs is trapped on the bottom—it was drilling a
well and hit a high-pressure gas pocket. The derrick was blown over and
toppled on the sub so that it can't get away. There's a load of VIPs
aboard, including a senator and the director of Mines. I don't know how
we're going to pull them out, but we'll do our best. I'll call you again
when I've got time."

"Will you have to go down yourself?" asked Indra anxiously.

"Probably. Now don't look so upset! I've been doing it for years!"

"I'm
not
upset," retorted Indra, and Franklin knew better than to
contradict her. "Good-by, darling," he continued, "give my love to Anne,
and don't worry."

Indra watched the image fade. It had already vanished when she
realized that Walter had not looked so happy for weeks. Perhaps that was
not the right word to use when men's lives were at stake; it would be
truer to say that he looked full of life and enthusiasm. She smiled, know
ing full well the reason why.

Now Walter could get away from the problems of his office, and
could lose himself again, if only for a while, in the clear-cut and elemental
simplicities of the sea.