“All right. But what about the snakes, the knives, and the man that appeared in the corridor out there. They were real. And we’ve got the dead snake and the knives.”
“Sure, but how do we prove where they came from? Just suppose we had visual records of the whole thing. It still wouldn’t prove anything to anyone else, because it could have been faked. And if we got a record that couldn’t possibly be faked by present techniques, it would merely show that we’d developed a clever new technique in advance of the times. The only way that we could convince the authorities would be to bring them here. How do we do that?”
The minutes crept past as the three men groped for an answer to this problem. In due time they ate, and then retired to Connely’s small cabin, just off the control room. MacIntyre settled in the armchair, Connely sat down at the desk and tilted back the chair, and Barnes stretched out on the bunk. Time crept past. Connely, unable to bridge the gap between unyielding authority and unblinkable fact, found himself drawing a sketch of maniacs gibbering from behind iron bars. Suddenly, as he looked at this sketch, it seemed to mean something. He pulled over another piece of paper and began to write:
TOP SECRET
To: Sector GHQ
Planetary Development Authority
Subject: Acute Infectious Insanity
Sirs:
We enclose herewith the official logs of Stellar Scout Ships 82 and 87. On the dates mentioned in the logs, the following events took place:
a) Scout Ship 82, after a routine planetary inspection, was landed by Stellar Scout J. R. Barnes, on the planet identified in the coded data sheet enclosed. Taking normal precautions in the absence of any visible danger, Barnes left his ship to observe the planet at first hand. Though thoroughly experienced in his work, and well armed, he experienced the following subjective phenomena:
1) attack by a large dog-like animal, which was unaffected by Barnes’ weapons, and which later vanished;
2) a voice, though no visible person was present;
3) alteration of his surroundings, the ship becoming invisible;
4) visitation by mysterious local inhabitants, who became engaged in a violent controversy caused by his (Barnes’) presence;
5) imprisonment by the said local inhabitants.
b) Stellar Scout Ship 87 was landed on the same planet by Stellar Scout James Connely, accompanied by Sector Chief of Scouts Gregory MacIntyre, who was on board to inspect the functioning and operation of new equipment. Although neither man left the ship at any time while on the planet, they experienced the following subjective phenomena:
1) Sector Chief MacIntyre believed himself attacked by a snake of moderate size, which attempted to choke him by constriction;
2) Stellar Scout Connely believed himself attacked twice with thrown knives;
3) both men observed, through the forward fusion turret, realistic illusions of objects, external to the ship, which did not appear on the outside viewscreen.
Full details of these occurrences are enclosed in the accompanying report.
In explanation, it is suggested that the three men were, during their landing on the planet, rendered temporarily insane by the action of some unknown highly infectious agent or agents.
Although this condition subsided promptly upon leaving the vicinity of the planet, it is clear that the planet should not at the present time be opened to colonization and development. Warning satellites have, therefore, been put in orbit about the planet, according to the regulations concerning medically dangerous planets.
* * *
MacIntyre read the paper carefully. “I think you’ve got it, Con! They can accept this. And, of course, once they do, they’ll be bound to investigate it. Meanwhile, in the more complete report, we can put enough information so anyone who can understand will see what actually happened.”
Barnes read the paper and nodded approval. “Better that we suggest we were temporarily nuts than that they think of it.”
Connely said, “It’s too bad we can’t just say what actually happened.”
MacIntyre nodded. “Still, it’s always this way. We’ve got a science-based civilization, and if psychic phenomena occur, they’re either rationalized away, or denied outright. It’s as if science were somehow allergic to psychic phenomena, like a hay-fever sufferer who can’t stand ragweed. Although why that should be, I don’t know.”
Barnes said, “I can answer that one, Mac. When I was stuck on that planet, as I said, some of the natives tried to ‘reteach’ me their language, which they thought I must have forgotten. I got good enough at it so that they could understand me, and I tried to explain what had actually happened. One day, they told me how they knew my explanation couldn’t be the true one.”
“How?”
“Well, they said, at the base of my argument was this thing I called ‘science.’ And ‘science,’ they said, was a transparent impossibility, because it was built on an assumption that was provably false.”
MacIntyre frowned. “What assumption is that?”
“That experiments can be repeated, and give the same results at different times and for different investigators.”
“They don’t believe that?”
“No, and what’s more, to prove it wasn’t true, they followed my instructions and got some copper wire and magnets, had a small compass made, and then passed the magnetic field through the wire, using the compass to detect the induced electric current. They carried out a series of experiments, in which the current flowed in either direction or not at all, as they wished.”
MacIntyre whistled. Then he said, “Oh, you mean, they made that illusion.”
“I don’t think it was an illusion, Mac. I think their psychic control was strong enough to reverse a weak current flow caused by a weak electromotive force. But regardless whether it was an illusion or not, the result was the same: to make a perfectly good experiment worthless. Can you imagine trying to develop science on a planet where, so far as you can tell with your senses, the same experiment gives you one result on Tuesday, and another on Wednesday, depending on your own or somebody else’s attitude? On this basis, science could never even get started.”
“Yes,” said Connely, “but wait a minute. The whole point of science is that the experimenter is disinterested. He comes to Nature, and puts the question. Whatever answer Nature gives, he accepts, and then goes on from there. These natives of yours didn’t have the right scientific attitude.”
“I’ll say they didn’t,” said Barnes. “They willed the current to go one way or the other.”
“All right. Get them to suspend use of their psychic powers, hold the right mental attitude, and experiments will work for them, too.”
“Sure,” said Barnes. He glanced around at some inexpensive novels Connely had brought along, pulled one out, opened it, and handed it to Connely. He put his finger beside one of the lines and said, “Look at that.”
Connely glanced at it:
” . . . at him furiously. She cried out, ‘if you do, I’ll . . .’ ”
Connely nodded. “I see it. What of it?”
“Look at it. But don’t read any of it.
Connely tried it, and said, “The only way I can do that is to unfocus my eyes. Otherwise, if I see it, I’ve read it.”
Barnes nodded and closed the book. “There’s the trouble the natives have. Once you do something automatically, how do you not do it? They’ve probably been exerting psychic influence all their lives. They can no more suspend it and take up a proper scientific attitude than we can glance at a line of print without reading it.”
MacIntyre said, “Speaking of a ‘proper scientific attitude.’ I have doubts that many of our own scientists are ‘disinterested observers,’ anyway. It strikes me there wouldn’t be much experimenting done if they were.”
“Maybe so,” said Barnes. “But that doesn’t matter so long as they don’t have, or for whatever reason don’t exert, enough psychic influence to affect the result. And the schools, with their standard experiments, would tend to screen out at the beginning those who didn’t get the usual results, for psychic reasons or otherwise.”
“So,” said MacIntyre frowning, “what we end up with is that a scientific civilization just naturally inhibits the development of psychic phenomena, and a ‘psychic’ civilization just naturally inhibits the development of science. So whichever one gets a big enough lead tends to get a stranglehold on the other one.”
“Right,” said Barnes.
MacIntyre sat silent for a long moment, thinking it over. Finally he said, “Well, all we can do is send in that report. But first, we’d better get your ship fixed, and get started back.”
Barnes got up. “The sooner we get out of here, the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
They went into the control room, where Connely took a long look at the viewscreen. “Boy, whoever gets put in charge of investigating ‘acute infectious insanity’ has some jolts in front of him.”
Barnes nodded. “But bear in mind, down there they’re just as bigoted and pig-headed about science being impossible, as people are elsewhere about psychic phenomena being impossible.”