Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

KINDNESS ing of those about him. Nothing fell flatter than a joke that had to be reasoned out slowly. | Homo sapiens! In the dim, remote days when -his ancestors had owned the world, they had made jokes about it, shortening it to “homo sap,” and laughing, because they’d known no other species to rival them. It was no longer a joke. Homo intelligens was now the master, and he was only a living fossil, painfully aware that the old pun had become reaiity. Danny. was the last man in a world of supermen, cursing the selfishness of the moiher who had borne him to ease her own loneliness and then died to leave that loneliness as his heritage! He drew farther back on the bench as the steps of a young couple reached his ears, pulling his hat down to avoid recognition. But they went by, preoccupied with their own affairs, leaving only a scattered bit of conversation in his ears. He turned it over, trying senselessly to decode it. Impossible! Even in the casual talk, there were too many steps of logic left out. Reasoning no longer sufficed, among these supermen and women who could short- circuit the cumbersome steps of logic by intuition and arrive instantly at a full pic- ture of the whole from some minor bit added to the facts already stored in their completely organized heads. Homo sapiens had invented reason to replace the uncertain trial-and-error thinking of the other animals, and had ruled supreme for a million years. Now homo intelligens had replaced that with full intuition that leaped from fact to conclusion without going through the painful intermediate steps of reasoning, and the new supremacy was his. Somehow, soon, those escape plans must be completed, before the last of his little courage was gone! Danny stirred restlessly, and the work tokens in his pocket set up a faint jingling sound. More charity, or occu- pational therapy! For six hours a day, five days a week, he worked in a little office. painfully doing routine work that could probably have been done better by machinery. Oh, they assured him that his manual skill was as great as theirs and was needed, but he could never be sure. In their unfailing kindness, they had probably de- cided it was better for him to live as normal a life as they could devise, and then had created the job to fit the decision. Other footsteps came down the little path, but ke did not look up until they stopped. 45 “Hi, Danny! You weren’t at the Library, and Miss Larsen said, pay day, weather, and all, I’d find you here. How’s every- thing?” Outwardly, Jack Thorpe’s body might have been the twin of his own weli-muscled one, and the smiling face above it bore no distinguishing characteristics. The mutation had been within, a quicker, more complex _ relation of brain cell to brain cell that had no accompanying physical changes. Danny nodded at Jack, drawing over reluctantly to make way for this man who had been his playmate when they were both too young for the difference to matter so much. He did not ask the reasons behind the librarian’s knowledge of his whereabouts; so far as he knew, there was no particular pattern to his coming here, but to the others there must be one. He forced a smile onto his own face. 7 “Hi, Jack. Fine! I thought you were on Mars.” Thorpe frowned, as if an effort were needed to remember that the mind beside him was different, and his words bore the careful phrasing of all those who spoke to Danny. “I finished that, for the time being; I'm supposed to report to Venus next. They’re having trouble getting an even bal- ance of sex in their offspring there, you know. Thought you might want to come along. You’ve never been Outside, and you were always bugs about those old space stories, I remember.” “I still am, Jack. But—’ He knew what it meant, of course. Those who looked after him behind the scenes had detected the growing discontent, and were hoping to distract him with this chance to see the places his fathers had conquered in the heyday of his race. But he had no wish to see them as they now were, filled with the busy work of the new men; it was better to imagine them as they had once been, rather than see reality. And the ship was here; there could be no chance for escape from those other worlds. Jack nodded quickly, with the almost telepathic understanding of his race. “Of course. Suit yourself, fellow. Going up the Heights? Miss Larsen says she has some- thing for you.” “Not yet, Jack. I thought I might look at... drop by the old Museum.” “Oh.” Thorpe got up slowly, brushing his suit with idle fingers. “Danny!” vl Bs Ags “Y probably know you better than any- conmilcbooo S ©