Dimension of Miracles (9 page)

‘It’s scenic,’ I pointed out.

‘I don’t care from scenic!’ the fellow thundered. ‘Oh, sure, one ocean, a dozen lakes, a couple rivers, one or two mountain ranges, that would have been fine. Dresses the place up, gives the inhabitants a good feeling. But what you gave me is
shlock!

‘There’s a reason for it,’ I said. (In point of fact, we couldn’t make the job pay except by using reconstituted mountains, a lot of rivers and oceans as filler, and a couple of deserts I had bought cheap from Ourie the Planet-Junker. But I wasn’t going to tell
him
that.)

‘A reason!’ he screamed. ‘What will I tell my people? I’m putting an entire race on that planet, maybe two or three. They’ll be humans, made in my own image; and humans are notoriously picky, just as I am. What am I supposed to tell them?’

Well, I knew what he could tell them; but I didn’t want to be offensive, so I pretended to give the matter some thought. And strangely enough, I
did
think. And I came up with the gimmick to end all gimmicks.

‘You just tell them the plain scientific truth,’ I said. ‘You tell them that, scientifically, everything that
is
must be.’

‘Huh?’ he said.

‘It’s determinism,’ I said, making up the name on the spur of the moment. ‘It’s quite simple, though a bit esoteric. To start with, form follows function; therefore your planet is exactly as it should be by the simple fact of
being
at all. Next, science is invariable; so if anything isn’t invariable, it ain’t science. And finally, everything follows definite rules. You can’t always figure out what those rules are, but you can be sure they’re there. So, it stands to reason that no one ought to ask
why this instead of that?
Instead, everyone ought to ask
how does it work?’

Well, he asked me some pretty tough questions, and he was a pretty smart old fellow. But he didn’t know damn-all about engineering; his field was ethics and morals and religion and spook stuff like that. So of course, he just wasn’t able to come up with any real objections. He was one of these types who love abstractions, and he started repeating, ‘“That which
is
is that which
must be.
” Hmm, a very intriguing formula and not without its patina of stoicism. I shall incorporate some of these insights into the lessons I give to my people … But tell me this: how can I reconcile this indeterminate fatality of science with the free will I plan to give to my people?’

Well, the old boy almost had me there. I smiled and coughed to give myself time to think, and then I said, ‘The answer is obvious!’ Which is always a good answer, as far as it goes.

‘I daresay it is,’ he said. ‘But I don’t perceive it.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘this free will you’re giving your people, isn’t that a kind of fatality also?’

‘It could be considered as such. But the difference –’

‘And besides,’ I said hastily, ‘since when are free will and fatality incompatible?’

‘They certainly seem incompatible,’ he said.

‘That’s only because you don’t understand science,’ I said, performing the old switcheroo right under his hooked nose. ‘You see, my dear sir, one of the most basic laws of science is that chance plays a part in everything. Chance, I’m sure you know, is the mathematical equivalent of free will.’

‘But what you’re saying is quite contradictory,’ he said.

‘That’s how it goes,’ I said. ‘Contradiction is one more of the fundamental rules of the Universe. Contradiction generates strife, without which everything would reach a stage of entropy. So we couldn’t have any planet or any universe if things didn’t exist in an apparently irreconcilable state of contradiction.’

‘Apparently?’ he said, quick as a flash.

‘Right as rain,’ I said. ‘Contradiction, which we can define provisionally as the existence of reality-paired opposites, isn’t the last word on the subject. For example, let’s posit a single isolated tendency. What happens when you push a tendency to the limit?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ the old guy said. ‘The lack of specifics in this sort of discussion –’

‘What happens,’ I said, ‘is that the tendency turns into its
opposite.
’

‘Does it really?’ he asked, considerably shook up. These religious types are something when they try to tackle science.

‘It really does,’ I assured him. ‘I’ve got the proofs in my lab, though the demonstrations are a bit tedious –’

‘No, please, I take your word,’ the old guy said. ‘After all, we did make a Covenant.’

That was the word he always used for ‘contract.’ It meant the same thing, but sounded better.

‘Paired opposites,’ he mused. ‘Determinism. Things becoming their opposites. It’s all quite intricate, I’m afraid.’

‘And aesthetic as well,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t finish about the transformation of extremes.’

‘Kindly go on,’ he said.

‘Thanks. Now then, we have entropy, which means that things persist in their motion unless there is outside influence. (Sometimes even when there is outside influence, in my experience.) But so, we got entropy driving a thing towards its opposite. If one thing is driven towards its opposite, then all things are driven towards their opposite, because science is consistent. Now you get the picture? We’ve got all these opposites transforming themselves like crazy and becoming their opposites. On a higher level of organization, we have groups of opposites going through the same bit. And higher and higher. So far so good?’

‘I suppose so,’ he said.

‘Fine. Now, the question naturally arises, is this
all
? I mean, these opposites turning themselves inside out and then outside in, is that the whole ball game? And the beauty part is, it’s not! No, sir. These opposites flipping around like trained seals are only an aspect of what’s really happening. Because –’ And here I paused and spoke in a very deep voice. ‘– because there is a wisdom that sees beyond the clash and turmoil of the phenomenal world. This wisdom, sir, sees through the illusory quality of these real things, and sees beyond them into the deeper workings of the Universe, which are in a state of like great and magnificent harmony.’

‘How can a thing be both illusory and real?’ he asked me, quick as a whip.

‘It is not for me to know an answer like that,’ I told him. ‘Me, I am a mere humble scientific worker and I see what I see and act accordingly. But maybe there’s an ethical reason behind it.’

The old boy mused on that one for a while, and I could see he was having quite a tussle with himself. He could detect a logical fallacy as fast as anyone, of course, and my reasons had been shot through with them. But like all eggheads, he was fascinated with contradictions and he had the strong urge to incorporate them into his system. And all the propositions I had proposed, well, his common sense told him that things couldn’t be
that
tricky; but his intellectuality told him that maybe things did indeed seem that complicated, but maybe there was a nice simple unifying principle underneath it all. Or, if not a unifying principle, at least a good solid moral. And finally, I had hooked him all over again just because I had used the word ‘ethics.’ Because this old gent was a perfect demon for ethics, he was supersaturated with ethics; you could call him Mr Ethics, make no mistake. And so, quite accidentally, I had given him the idea that the whole bloody Universe was a series of homilies and contradictions, of laws and inequities, all leading to the most exquisite and rarefied sort of ethical order.

‘There is a greater depth here than I had considered,’ he said after a while. ‘I had planned to instruct my people in ethics only; and to direct their attention to morally imperative questions such as how and why a man should live instead of what constitutes living matter; I wanted them to be explorers plumbing the depths of joy, fear, piety, hope, despair, rather than scientists who examine stars and raindrops and form grandiose and impractical hypotheses on the basis of their findings. I was aware of the Universe, but considered it superfluous. Now you have corrected me.’

‘Well, look,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just thought I should point out this stuff …’

The old man smiled. ‘By causing me trouble,’ he said, ‘you have spared me greater trouble. I can create in my own image; but I will not create a world peopled with miniature versions of myself. Free will is important to me. My creatures will have it, to their glory and their sorrow. They will take this glittering useless toy which you call science and they will elevate it to an undeclared Godhead. Physical contradictions and solar abstractions will fascinate them; they will pursue knowledge of these things and forget to explore the knowledge of their own heart. You have convinced me of this, and I am grateful for the forewarning.’

I’ll be frank, he got me a little nervous just about then. I mean, he was a nobody, he didn’t know any important people; and yet, he had the grand manner. I had the feeling that he could cause me one hell of a lot of trouble, and I felt that he could do it with a few words, a sentence like a poisoned dart lodged in my mind and never to be removed. And that scared me a little, to tell the truth.

Well sir, the old joker must have been reading my mind. For he said, ‘Do not be frightened. I accept without reservation the world you have built for me; it will serve very well, exactly as it is. As for the flaws and defects which you also built into my world, I accept those also, not entirely without gratitude; and I pay for those, too.’

‘How?’ I asked. ‘How do you pay for errors?’

‘By accepting them without dispute,’ he said. ‘And by turning away from you now and going about my business and the business of my people.’

And the old gentleman left without another word.

‘Well, it left me pretty thoughtful. I’d had all the good arguments, but the old boy left somehow with the last word. I knew what he meant; he had fulfilled his contract with me and that ended it. He was leaving with no word for me personally. From his point of view, it was a kind of punishment.

‘But that’s only the way
he
saw it. What did I need with his word? I wanted to hear it, of course; that’s only natural; and for quite a while I tried to look him up. But he didn’t care to see me.

‘So it really doesn’t matter. I made a pretty nice profit on that world, and even if I bent the contract here and there, I didn’t break it. That’s how things are; you owe it to yourself to make a profit. You can’t get too worked up over the consequences.

‘But I was trying to make a point out of all this, and I want you boys to listen carefully. Science is filled with a lot of rules, because I invented it that way. Why did I invent it that way? Because rules are a great assistance to a smart operator, just as a lot of laws are a great help to lawyers. The rules, doctrines, axioms, laws, and principles of science are there to help you, not to hinder you. They’re there in order to provide you with reasons for what you do. Most of them are true, more or less, and that helps.

‘But always remember – these rules are there to help you explain to the customers what you do
after you do it,
not before. When you have a project, do it exactly as you see fit; then fit the facts around the event, not the other way around.

‘Remember – these rules exist as a verbal barrier against people who ask questions. But they should
not
be used as a barrier by you. If you’ve learned anything from me, you’ve learned that our work is inevitably inexplicable; we simply do it, and sometimes it comes out well and sometimes not.

‘But never try to explain to yourselves why some things happen and why other things don’t happen. Don’t ask, and don’t imagine that an explanation exists. Get me?’

The two assistants nodded vehemently. They looked enlightened, like men who have found a new religion. Carmody would have bet anything that those two earnest young men had memorized every one of the Builder’s words, and would now proceed to elevate those words into – a rule.

CHAPTER 13

After finishing his story, Maudsley was silent for a long time. He seemed morose and withdrawn, and filled with unhappy thoughts. But after a while he roused himself and said, ’Carmody, a person in my position is always beset by requests from various charities. I give generously every year to the Oxygen Fund for Indigent Carbon-Forms. I also contribute to the Interstellar Redevelopment Foundation, the Cosmic Settlement Home, and the Save-the-Immature programme. This seems to me quite sufficient, and is also tax-deductible.’

‘All right,’ Carmody said, with a sudden flash of pride. ‘I don’t want your charity anyhow.’

‘Please do not interrupt me,’ Maudsley said. ‘I was saying that my charities are quite sufficient to fulfil my humanitarian instincts. I do not like to take up individual cases because it gets messy and personal.’

‘I quite understand,’ Carmody said. ‘I think I had better go now,’ he added, though he didn’t have the slightest idea of where he was going or how he would get there.

‘I asked you not to interrupt me,’ Maudsley said. ‘Now, I don’t like to take personal cases, as I said. But I am going to make an exception this time and help you get back to your planet.’

‘Why?’ Carmody asked.

‘A whim,’ Maudsley said. ‘The merest fancy, with perhaps a touch of altruism thrown in. Also –’