The Call-Girls (19 page)

John D. John Jr objected to the comparison of the neocortex with a computer that was fed biased data. From the
cybernetician's point of view the whole of the nervous system was a computer which could not be programmed to mislead itself, otherwise it would go haywire.

‘Perhaps it does,' giggled Wyndham.

‘That is not the communication theorist's view,' John D. Jr replied drily.

Burch objected to the distinction Valenti had made between so-called reason and so-called emotion, and his references to a so-called mind, that hypothetical ghost in the machine which nobody had ever seen. All these terms belonged to the vocabulary of an outmoded psychology; modern science considered only the measurable data of observable behaviour as legitimate subjects of study, providing the basis for social engineering.

When it was Petitjacques's turn to speak, he produced with a flourish a roll of Scotch tape and stuck it across his lips. Nobody could make out what the gesture was meant to symbolize, and it failed to impress. Tempers were getting rather frayed; it was past lunch-time. Halder seemed particularly irritable; his gastric juices turned nasty when a meal was delayed.

Wyndham confessed to having been profoundly impressed by Valenti's demonstration, but he wondered whether it really pointed in the right direction for a possible therapy. He could not help still believing that the future of our species would be decided by what he had called ‘the battle of the womb', and ‘the revolution in the cradle'; and thus ultimately by certain new methods of education to which he had referred in his paper …

Tony apologized for feeling impelled to make a frivolous remark. The Middle Ages had made a sharp, and perhaps wise, distinction between white and black magic. It had struck him at certain moments on that morning that the same distinction could possibly be made between the experiments he had referred to in his own talk, and those shown in Dr Valenti's somewhat terrifying demonstrations…

Miss Carey, in her chair, was becoming increasingly fidgety as one critical speech followed the other. Her rather
fixed stare, however, was directed not at the actual speaker but at Claire, who was usurping Miss Carey's rightful place at the tape-recorder. Claire noticed the stare and tried a sympathetic smile, which made no impression. On the contrary, that hypocritical smile reminded Miss Carey even more of her married sister. For a while she fingered the bun on her head, then she produced a half-finished pullover of hideous colours from her bag, and busied herself with knitting.

Valenti's reply to the discussion was brief, delivered in a somewhat strained voice. Owing to the late hour, he explained, he had to concentrate on what seemed to him the most relevant points. He felt confident that neurophysiology would soon find the answer – if it had not already been found by one of the many research teams working in that field – to inhibit not only aggressive impulses, but also what Dr Epsom had called morbid infatuation – whether with a person, a totem or a dogma. As for von Halder's objection, he wholeheartedly agreed that individual therapy was not enough. But he begged to disagree with Halder's whole concept of abreaction-therapy. The methods von Halder proposed, instead of inhibiting aggression, were designed to enhance it. His own methods, and those of his colleagues, aimed in the opposite direction: to enhance the inhibitory control which the new brain exercised over the archaic structures of the old one. This could be done, and was being done, in both animal and man. But it was only the beginning. Science had only just started exploring and mapping that unknown continent, the brain. As our knowledge of it increased, and the maps became more precise, so would our methods of physiological control. We had progressed from the surgeon's knife to the radio-controlled electrode. The next step would perhaps lead from electrical to biochemical controls, Certain aggression-centres, and aggression-blocking centres in the brain were sensitive to particular hormone balances. Already in the 1960s it was shown that the savage rhesus monkey could be readily turned into a friendly animal by the administration of librium – not sedated, but tamed. Other preparations
had a comparable effect on violent psychotics … He paused, then continued slowly in a voice which he tried to make sound casual: ‘It is not unlikely that in a few years, and after a few more wars and massacres, it will be realized that the only salvation for our species is to put specific anti-hostility agents into the water supply, in addition to chlorine and other approved anti-pollutants. Needless to say…'

Valenti had almost finished when Halder made the mistake of interrupting him, though he could not have foreseen the ghastly consequences. Ruffling his white mane with the familiar King Lear gesture, he shouted, pointing at Miss Carey in her chair:

‘
Ach so!
First you turn this poor lady's brain into a pincushion, and now you want to turn us into zombies. I will not…'

But nobody was to know the end of the sentence. This was altogether too much for Miss Carey. She had been the centre of attention and then forgotten in her chair. All those horrid people were criticizing and attacking her doctor instead of kissing the saviour's hands. The reference to pin-cushions and zombies was the last straw. Miss Carey jumped out of her chair, improbably brandishing her knitting needle. With her other hand she grabbed the wrist-watch which the doctor had left on the conference table after the demonstration. Thus armed, she lunged not at Halder, but at innocent Claire, who so much reminded her of her sister, queening it at the tape-recorder.

The whole action went off so fast that afterwards everybody remembered a different version of it. There was an ugly mess on Claire's arm where the knitting needle had gone in and been torn out again, but she had not uttered a sound. Miss Carey herself, struggling and screaming, was effectively restrained by the athletic Halder, who had been the first to get at her, and to pin her elbows behind her back; while Valenti, white-faced, forced open her fists to retrieve the needle and watch. But that delicate gadget, submitted to such brutal treatment, had lost its magic. Miss Carey had to be half dragged, half carried to her room, uttering vile words
of protest and intermittent shrieks, until Valenti, after another painful struggle, managed to put her to sleep with an injection. The proceedings were watched wide-eyed by Hansie and Mitzie, the impassive Gustav, and by three members of the voluntary fire-brigade who had been drinking beer in the Kongresshaus kitchen. However, by the time the ambulance arrived from the valley there was no need for it, as Miss Carey was fast asleep, smiling like the saintly nun she would no doubt have become but for some schizo-physiological malformation in her caudate nucleus.

After a hurried lunch of soup grown cold under a greasy film, of goulash that had disintegrated in the oven, and fruit salad out of tins from the American army surplus, the call-girls assembled once more in the conference room for the closing session. According to the agenda, it was to be devoted to the summing up by Professor Solovief, followed by the General Discussion, and the drafting of the Resolution or Message. Niko's idea of an ‘action committee' had been quietly dropped somewhere along the line.

They were in a chastened, almost solemn mood – a gang of rowdies attending Sunday school. All had their dossiers, pads and pencils neatly laid out in front of them on the table of polished pine. Claire, ear-phones over her smooth chestnut hair, was again in charge of the tape-recorder. She had a neat bandage over her arm, and had been given a shot of penicillin in spite of her protest against the unnecessary fuss – in fact she was quite glad about it, as the idea of having any trace of Miss Carey's knitting needle in her blood filled her with an irrational horror. Miss Carey herself was still under sedation in her room.

Before Solovief could start on his summary, Valenti got up and made a handsome apology to all those who had witnessed that painful scene, and in particular ‘to our charming hostess, who was in danger of becoming a martyr to science'.
The joke did not go down very well. He had regained his composure, but they had all noticed during the morning session the brittleness of his elegant façade, the hair-line cracks in his self-assurance. He took full responsibility for the incident, explaining that for the last two years Miss Carey, had been under complete control, and had participated in a number of similar demonstrations without a single hitch. The morning's incident had been due to a minute fault in the apparatus which, fortunately, had now been put right. He concluded with his repeated apologies, and the rather unnecessary request that everybody should be nice to Miss Carey when she emerged from her slumbers, and act as if nothing had happened. She herself would in all probability regard the incident as just a bit of ‘silly behaviour' – and feel no emotion, nor remorse.

Valenti's statement was received in silence. Solovief thanked him rather drily and immediately launched into the onerous task of summing up the proceedings of the conference.

He reminded his listeners of his opening address in which he had set out some of the considerations – known to them all – which made the survival of
homo sapiens
a questionable proposition. In those opening remarks he had suggested that the task of the conference should be to inquire into the causes of man's predicament, to formulate a tentative diagnosis, and to suggest possible remedies.

As regards the first point, several causative factors had been suggested by various participants, which might complement each other, but as yet hardly provided a coherent synthesis. Thus, for instance, Dr Wyndham had hinted at the possibility that man's troubles began with the pre-natal squeeze on the embryo in the womb, the trauma of a clumsily laborious birth, and, above all, the protracted helplessness and suggestibility of the human infant. Another theory put the blame on the dramatic increase of mutual dependence and tribal solidarity during the critical period when man's hominid ancestors emerged from the forests onto the plains and – in a first outburst of
hubris
– took to hunting
prey faster and stronger than themselves. Both factors taken together may have moulded man into the worshipful, frightened and fanatical creature that he became. Other primate societies were also held together by social forces, but the family bonds did not grow into neurotic attachments; the cohesive forces within the group did not attain the intensity and fervour of tribal feelings; and occasional tensions between groups did not result in war and genocide. As Dr Epsom had pointed out, these fratricidal tendencies were enhanced, instead of being diminished, by the acquisition of language, with its power to erect intra-specific barriers, to promote dogmatic beliefs, and formulate explosive battle slogans. A fourth factor was the simultaneous acceptance of death by the intellect, and its rejection by instinct, which implanted the sinister double helix of anxiety and guilt into the collective mind. Lastly, Dr Valenti had attempted to define the physiological malfunction underlying the paranoid streak reflected in man's history – the chronic conflict between emotion and reason, instinct and intelligence; the compulsion to live, die and kill for irrational beliefs which were unaffected by logic, and overrode the instinct of self-preservation.

Niko paused. He kept glancing sideways at Claire, worried about the possibility of an infection. She on her side was achingly aware of how tired he looked. He kept clearing his throat, which was not his habit.

‘So much, then,' he continued, ‘for the pathogenic factors which seem to have made us into what we are. I realize that I have left out much of what was said on this subject – but we have the tape-recordings which will put that right in the printed version of the proceedings.'

This was no doubt correct; but it did not prevent several participants – Halder and Burch in particular – from resenting not having been so far mentioned by name. The main function of a Chairman winding up a symposium is to hand out chocolates.

But Niko would have none of it. If this was a circus, he was still the ringmaster. He had to make a last effort, and try
to make them face up to their responsibilities. He lowered his head, recovering his former bellicosity, and his voice regained its resonance.

He declared himself in essential agreement with the view that man was an evolutionary misfit – a glorious freak who built cathedrals and composed symphonies, but still a freak, with built-in compulsions which drove him towards ultimate self-destruction. Von Halder had reminded them that social animals fought harmless duels for mating partners and territorial possession; man did the reverse – he fought for mirages with liquid phosphorus, fought for slogans with nuclear bombs.

Dr Kaletski had repeatedly warned the conference against taking a catastrophic view of recent developments. Niko recommended the opposite attitude as the only realistic approach to a situation without precedent in history. In all previous generations man had had to come to terms with the prospect of his death as an individual; the present generation was the first to face the prospect of the death of the species.
Homo sapiens
had arrived on the stage about a hundred thousand years ago – which was but the blinking of an eye on the evolutionary time-scale. If he were to vanish now, his rise and fall would have been a brief episode, unsung and unlamented. Other planets in the vastness of space were no doubt humming with life; that brief episode would never come to their notice…

‘Mr Chairman,' Halder interrupted in a mock-distressed voice, ‘what is this – a summary or a requiem?'

‘It's a summary,' Niko said drily, ‘leading to my last point: the remedies we are meant to propose. If we presume to call ourselves men of science, we must work up the courage to propose the radical remedies which might give humanity a chance of survival. We cannot wait for another hundred thousand years, hoping for a favourable mutation to remedy our ills. We must engineer that mutation ourselves, by biological methods which are already within our reach – or soon will be…'