ZORAC had the whole thing figured out. Admittedly the machine had been able to start out with a number of key items of in-formation that had taken Hunt and his colleagues a long time to uncover, but nevertheless it was a staggering piece of logical analysis.
Hunt was still marveling at the achievement when ZORAC spoke again. “I still do not know why the Lunarians destroyed Minerva.”
“They didn’t intend to,” Hunt explained. “There was a war on Minerva. We believe the planet’s crust was thin and unstable. The weapons used were very powerful. The planet exploded in the process.”
“Sorry. War? Crust? Weapon? Don’t follow.”
“Oh God. . .” Hunt groaned. He paused to select and light a cigarette from a pack lying on the locker. “The outside of a planet is cold and hard-near the surface. That’s its crust.”
“Like a skin?”
“Yes, but brittle . . . it breaks into pieces easily.”
“Okay.”
“When many people fight in large groups, that’s war.”
“Fight?”
“Oh hell . . . violent action between one group of people and another group. When they organize themselves to kill.”
“Kill what?”
“The other group of people.”
ZORAC gave one distinct impression of confusion. For a second the machine seemed to be having difficulty in believing its microphone.
“Lunarians organized themselves to kill other Lunarians,” it said, slowly and carefully as if anxious not to be misunderstood.
“They did this deliberately?” The turn of conversation had caught Hunt somewhat unprepared. He began to feel uneasy and even a little embarrassed, like a child being insistently cross-examined over some transgression that it would sooner forget.
“Yes,” was all he could manage.
“Why did they wish to do such a thing?” The emotional inflection was there again, now registering undisguised incredulity.
“They fought because . . . because . . .” Hunt wrestled for something to say. The machine, it seemed, had no comprehension whatsoever of such matters. What way was there to summarize the passions and complexities of millennia of history in a few sentences? “To protect themselves . . . to defend their own group from other groups. . .”
“From other groups who were organized to kill them?”
“Well, the matter is very complicated . . . but yes, you could say that.”
“Then logically the same question still applies-why did the other groups wish to do such things?”
“When one group made another group angry about something or when two groups both wanted the same thing, or when
one group wanted another group’s land, maybe . . . sometimes they would fight to decide.” What he was saying didn’t seem an adequate explanation, Hunt admitted to himself, but it was the best he could do. A short silence ensued; even ZORAC, it seemed, had to think hard about this one.
“Did all the Lunarians have brain problems?” it asked at last, having evidently deduced what it considered the most probable common factor.
“They were naturally a very violent race, we believe,” Hunt replied. “But at the time they lived, they faced the prospect of extinction-all dying out. Minerva was freezing all over fifty thousand years ago. They wanted to go to a warmer planet to live. We think they wanted to go to Earth. But there were many Lunarians, few resources, and little time. The situation made them afraid and angry. . . and they fought.”
“They killed each other to prevent them from dying? They destroyed Minerva to protect it from freezing?”
“They didn’t intend to do such a thing,” Hunt said again.
“What did they intend?”
“I suppose they intended that the group that was left after the war would go to Earth.”
“Why couldn’t all groups go? The war must have needed resources that would have been used better for other things. All Lunarians could have used their knowledge. They wanted to live but did everything to make certain that they would not. They had brain problems.” The tone of ZORAC’s final pronouncement was definite.
“All this was not something they had planned deliberately. They were driven by emotions. When men feel strong emotions, they do not always do the most logical things.”
“Men . . . Earthmen . . . ? Earthmen feel strong emotions too, that make them fight like the Lunarians did?”