prime cause of many bronchial and chest complaints not suffered by
four-footed animals. That’s hardly perfection, is it?’~’ Danchekker
took a sip of water and made an appealing gesture to the room in
general.
“So, we see that any idea of convergence toward the ideal is not
supported by the facts. Charlie exhibits all our faults and
imperfections as well as our improvements. No, I’m sorry-I
appreciate that these questions are voiced in the best tradition of
leaving no possibility unprobed and I commend you for them, but
really, we must dismiss them.”
Silence enveloped the room at his concluding words. On all
sides, everybody seemed to be staring thoughtfully through the
table, through the walls, or through the ceiling.
Caldwell placed his hands on the table and looked around until
satisfied that nobody had anything to add.
“Looks like evolution stays put for a while longer,” he grunted.
“Thank you, Professor.”
Danchekker nodded without looking up.
“However,” Caldwell continued, “the object of these meetings is to
give everyone a chance to talk freely as well as listen. So far,
some people haven’t had much to say-especially one or two of the
newcomers.” Hunt realized with a start that Caidwell was looking
straight at him. “Our English visitor, for example, whom most of
you already know. Dr. Hunt, do you have any views that we ought to
hear about. . . ?”
Next to Caldwell, Lyn Garland was making no attempt to conceal a
wide smile. Hunt took a long draw at his cigarette and used the
delay to collect his thoughts. In the time it took for him to
coolly emit one long, diffuse cloud of smoke and ifick his hand at
the ashtray, all the pieces clicked together in his brain with the
smooth precision of the binary regiments parading through the
registers of the computers downstairs. Lyn’s persistent
cross-examinations, her visits to the Ocean, his presence
here-Caldwell had found a catalyst.
Hunt surveyed the array of attentive faces. “Most of what’s been
said reasserts the accepted principles of comparative anatomy and
evolutionary theory. Just to clear the record for anyone with
misleading ideas, I’ve no intention of questioning them. However,
the conclusion could be summed up by saying that since Charlie
comes from the same ancestors as we do, he must have evolved on
Earth the same as we did.”
“That is so,” threw in Danchekker.
“Fine,” Hunt replied. “Now, all this is really your problem, not
mine, but since you’ve asked me what I think, I’ll state the
conclusion another way. Since Charlie evolved on Earth, the
civilization he was from evolved on Earth. The indications are that
his culture was about as advanced as ours, maybe in one or two
areas slightly more advanced. So, we ought to find no end of traces
of his people. We don’t. Why not?”
All heads turned toward Danchekker.
The professor sighed. “The only conclusion left open to us is
that whatever traces were left have been erased by the natural
processes of weathering and erosion,” he said wearily. “There are
several possibilities: A catastrophe of some sort could have wiped
them out to the extent that there were no traces; or possibly their
civilization existed in regions which today are submerged beneath
the oceans. Further searching will no doubt produce solutions to
this question.”
“If any catastrophe as violent as that occurred so recently, we
would already know about it,” Hunt pointed out. “Most of what was
land then is still land today, so I can’t see them sinking into the
ocean somewhere, either; besides, you’ve only to look at our
civilization to see it’s not confined to localized areas-it’s
spread all over the globe. And how is it that in spite of all the
junk that keeps turning up with no trouble at all from primitive
races from around the same time-bones, spears, clubs, and so
on-nobody has ever found a single example of anything related to
this supposed technologically advanced culture? Not a screw, or a
piece of wire, or a plastic washer. To me, that doesn’t make
sense.”
More murmuring broke out to mark the end of Hunt’s critique.
“Professor?” Caldwell invited comment with a neutral voice.