The Sinners of Erspia

“Yes, I am familiar with your social organisation. It is a feature of the lower orders of life. You are the mammalian parallel of the social insects—ants, bees and termites, to name those that occur on your original Earth. The only difference is that where you are concerned the social phenomenon incorporates a mild degree of intellectual functioning. But no human being would have any intellectual functioning at all were he raised outside human society."

“And you would?” Laedo asked in amazement.

“One of my kind, if born and left to develop without any company or education, would grow up fully conscious and with full reasoning ability. That is the case with all the intelligent species which I-Klystar have encountered, with the sole exception of yours. That is why I-Klystar took the trouble to study you.

You are a curiosity. You are a species which can think, to some extent, and yet which lacks inner determination."

Klystar's eyes shifted again. “The condition can be attributed to your species having evolved too quickly.

Your native biosphere is less than four billion years old. Ten billion years is the normative time frame in which to evolve an intelligent species. A series of accidents on the Earth home world would appear to be responsible for this premature development. Your scientists must have wondered why your galaxy rarely contains anything higher than animal life."

“Yes, they have,” Laedo admitted thoughtfully. Klystar was right. The galaxy abounded with life, but nowhere did it get any further than the equivalent of a mouse or a horse or a lizard, or a fish or even a bacterium. And yet many of the biospheres examined were much older than Earth's.

Astronomers had come up with an explanation which tended to agree with Klystar's assertion. The planets and moons of the solar system were heavily cratered as a result of long-term bombardment by asteroids and meteorites. It came as a surprise to discover that the same had not happened to other planetary systems, which had known more peaceful and orderly histories. Something unusual must have happened to the solar system early on. It was now accepted that there really had once been a planet between Mars and Jupiter, and that it had disintegrated, filling the system with dangerous debris. While evolution elsewhere proceeded at a sedate pace, on Earth it had been forced to cope with recurrent catastrophes—mass extinctions from asteroid strikes which sometimes had nearly extinguished the biosphere altogether. The repeated twists and turns of fate had accelerated evolutionary change.

What could have shattered a planet? Collision between neighbouring worlds, while possible, would not have scattered the fragments far and wide, as had happened. They would have slumped back together by self-gravitation. Something more energetic was needed, and for that one had to look outside the solar system. The current hypothesis was that an interstellar intruder, zipping through the solar system with enormous velocity from high above the ecliptic plane, was the culprit.

Collision was more plausible if a cluster of interstellar transients was involved. Another might have struck Uranus a glancing blow, tilting its axis to its present unusual alignment nearly parallel to its orbital plane.

So far so good. But for the accident to have resulted in a premature and half finished mankind, flawed, inadequate, below the cosmic standard, was a new and unwelcome idea.

“Come with me,” Klystar said. “I-Klystar will show you what I mean."

He resumed striding down the rubble-strewn slope. Laedo followed. Once they neared the valley floor, the crater's panorama vanished. The horizon intervened, leaving only the lip of the crater wall visible to the eye.

Klystar's approach had been noticed. A crowd of people poured from the barracks and fields to welcome him. They reminded Laedo of primitives on some island paradise, naked except for a simple piece of white cloth worn around the waist, by both men and women. They fell to their knees before Klystar, placing their hands together in an attitude of prayer.

A hoarse, windy voice arose from one of the older men.

"We have buried our dead, O Klystar! How have we failed?"

In a stentorian voice, completely different from the one he had used when speaking to Laedo, Klystar answered.

"YOU HAVE NOT HAD ENOUGH FAITH! BEGIN AGAIN! HAVE MORE FAITH! YOU MUST

BEGIN A NEW TOWER TOMORROW!"

A chant grew from the crowd. "We will have faith! We will begin again!"

The crowd melted away as the people returned from whence they had come.