Bernard wasn’t getting through, he could see. ‘Take Kath as an example,” he said, turning toward Nanook. “A lot of people around here seem to accept her as… boss,
for want of a better word… for a lot of things, anyhow.” Nanook nodded. “Right. I do most of the time.”
“Because she knows what she’s talking about, right?” Bernard said.
“Sure. Why else?”
“So suppose someone else showed up who thought he knew just-as much. What if half the people around here thought so too, and the others didn’t? Who decides? How would you resolve something like that?”
Nanook rubbed his chin and looked dubious. ‘That situation sounds very farfetched,” he said after a few seconds. “I can’t see how anyone else could walk in with the same experience. But if it did happen, and it was true… then I suppose Kath would have to agree with him. She’d be indebted by that amount. And -that would decide it for everyone else.”
Bernard stared at him in open disbelief. “You’re not saying she’d simply back down? That’s crazy!”
“We all have to pay our debts,” Nanook said unhelpfully.
“If she was dumb enough not to, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Juanita added, trying to be helpful.
That didn’t explain anything. Jay couldn’t see it either. “Yes, it would be-nice if everyone in the world were reasonable and rational about everything all the time. But they can’t be, can they? Chironians have the same mix of genes as everyone else. There can’t be anything radically different.”
“I never said there was,” Nanook answered.
“So what about the nuts?” Jay asked. “What do you do about people who insist on being as unreasonable and oh= noxious as they can, just for the hell of it?”
“We get them,” Nanook agreed. “But not a lot. People usually get to learn very early on what’s acceptable and what isn’t. They’ve all got eyes, ears, and brains.”
“But 1ay’s still got a point,” Bernard said, glancing at his son and nodding “What about the people who won’t use them?”
“We don’t get a lot of those,” Nanook told them again. “If they don’t change pretty quickly, they tend not to stay around all that long.” 1uanita looked from Bernard to Jay
as if satisfied that everything was now clear. It wasn’t. “Why? What happens with them?” Bernard asked. Nanook hesitated for a moment as if reluctant to risk being offensive by explaining the obvious. He shrugged. “Well . . . usually somebody ends up shooting them,” he replied. “So it never gets to be .a real problem.”
For a few seconds Bernard and lay were too stunned to say anything. “But… that’s crazy,” Bernard protested at last. “You can’t just let everybody go round shooting anyone they don’t like.”
“What else can you do?” Juanita asked.
“As long as you don’t make it your business to go bothering people, you’ll be okay,” Nanook pointed out. “So it never affects most people. And when it happens . . . it happens.”
After a few seconds of silence 1ay conceded, “Okay, I can see how it might be a good way of getting rid of the odd freak here and there. But what do you do when a whole bunch of them get together?”
“How can they when there are hardly any around to start with?” Juanita asked him. “We told you–if they’re like that, they don’t last very long.”
“And in any case, whatever would a bunch like that want to get together for?” Nanook asked.
Jay shrugged. “All the things crazy people usually follow crazy leaders for, I guess.”
“Like what?” Nanook asked.
Jay shrugged again. “Protection, maybe.”
“What from?”
A good point, 1ay admitted to himself. “Security_’ he tried. “To get rich… Whatever.”
“They’ve already got security,” Nanook declared. “And if they’re not rich enough already, how is some crazy supposed to help?”
Bernard threw up his hands in exasperation. “Well, hell, let’s Say because they’re just plain crazy. They don’t need any reason. Never mind why, but let’s say it’s happened. What do you do?”
Nanook sighed heavily. “We have had one or two things like that from time to time,” he confessed. “But it never lasts. In the end a bigger bunch gets itself together and gets rid of them. It comes to the same thing–they end up getting shot anyhow.”