By that time, as we had been on Assurdo for well over a year, a number of undifferentiated ones awaited selection. In our role as athyci, Vess and I prayed for Mengatowhai’s intercession in granting us a small miracle, which was, wondrously, granted. At least a ten of the undifferentiated ones had the proper tendencies to become selectors. We double-checked ourselves during the selection process and spent more time than usual in training. At the end of another year, Assurdo was, so to speak, on its feet. The new selectors had been shown the ugliness and disfunctionality caused by the errors of their predecessors, and they had been supervised through selection after selection, learning that they must never, never select someone for a more specialized life simply because that person wants to try it or envies the prestige of those who do it or think it might be interesting. “Num g’klum, num b’flum, humnum te des ai,” we said. “Where there is no affinity and no skill, you cannot make an ai out of a te.” Your people, dear Benita, have the same saying, about the ears of swine, or pearls before pigs, or silk billfolds, or something of the kind.
All that was left for us to do was clean up the loose ends. As I’ve mentioned, of the people we had simply reselected without regression, virtually all had worked out well and were contented in their tasks. A few, however, who at first had seemed to be doing well had in fact had been spoiled by the earlier selection, and their moods and angers affected their work-mates adversely. By the time this was known, both Vess and I were fatigued. We did not wish to take the time for memory wipe, regression, and reselection, so we told the unhappy ones to choose between going to a long-established colony where they might return to specialized caste if they chose, or returning to Pistach-home for regression, conditioning and reselection.
Two chose the colony, so on the way home we made a detour to our detention settlement on Quirk, which was then celebrating its tricentennial. Quirk was designed to serve as a settlement for those of our people who cannot find satisfactory roles in the normal Pistach way. Dissatisfaction happens from time to time, and we take no pleasure in the pain and frustration of those who cannot fit in. Therefore, Quirk: a subtropical planet with a dozen or so towns sprawling across pleasant valleys near the sea. There is food for the picking, water for the drinking, no power needed for warmth, and the sanitation systems are self-repairing. The towns are not particularly pleasing in an aesthetic sense, as they have neither order nor discernable functionality, but Pistach-home provides ample equipment and supplies for its free-spirited population. Naturally, there are no functioning inceptors or receptors among the inhabitants, any of these castes who are sent there are sterilized though not otherwise altered. Lar-vabots and childbots are provided for nootchi. Except for actual reproduction, persons on Quirk may play any roles they like.
One of the persons we set ashore on Quirk was a former proffe, T’Fees, a handsome person, stalwart and strong, who had been reselected as a seemingly perfect campes, but was unhappy in that role. He had been selected originally as an artist, though te had no real talent. Though te could not create art, te had well-formed opinions concerning it and insights that I found remarkably fine. Perhaps if te had been selected to teach art, he would have been content, but his ambitions did not reach in that direction. Or, if we Pistach allowed the role of critic, T’fees would have fulfilled that role. We do not critique the works of others for public edification, however. To question the value of others’ works publicly would be to denigrate them in our society.
I think of T’Fees often when I learn of Earth people who fail at their chosen lives, or those like your Van Gogh, who become a success only after they are dead. On Pistach, we do not change our opinions of former persons. What good does it do an unhappy man to become a genius after his death? Or a living person to be a failure at his dreams? Among Pistach, all except glusi are successful, and even glusi are encouraged to believe they are. All must believe in their success,- otherwise meager aptitudes breed great rancor.