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Title: World in a Mirror
Author: Albert Teichner
Release Date: January 28, 2020 [EBook #61257]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD IN A MIRROR ***
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WORLD IN A MIRROR
BY ALBERT TEICHNER
It was a backward world, all right--in
a special and very deadly manner!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
God knows I didn't want Hacker in the preliminary delegation right from
the start. I wasn't thinking, either, of the screwball ways history can
go about poetically repeating itself sometimes. I just knew that an
uppity, smart-alecky kid of fifty could only cause trouble.
He already had.
Rayna had been our earlier landfall on the First Interstellar
Expedition. It possessed a fairly intelligent form of life, even if
the Raynans were oviparous and technologically retarded. Hacker had
taken over the bulldozer to clear the area around our craft, _Terra I_,
and he had been repeatedly told to stay very close to it. But no, he
insisted on flattening out the peat-like top of the nearest hill too.
Unfortunately that hilltop was an incubation bed for Raynan fledglings.
The massacre involved not only a vast number of hatching eggs but five
adult females, and we had to get away pronto while thousands of paper
limbs waved threateningly at the murderers from Earth.
I'm only the Science Chronicler of this expedition but Dr. Barnes is
Chief Medical Officer. His protests should have mattered where mine
didn't. "I'm a hundred per cent behind Johnson," he told Captain
Weber. "That kid's no damned good. The three of us will go into town
with these Newtaneans and, sure as I'm standing here, Hacker will do
something wrong."
Captain Weber, looking worried as usual, tried to explain. "He'll
just do the chauffeuring." But he got off that tack immediately when
he saw we were not following along. "Look, I know he's a pest. But
this is a political matter, for the good of the Space Corps. His
great-great-uncle is President of the World Council. For all I know the
old man hates his guts, won't listen to a word he says, but let's not
take any chances. We're going to need plenty of these expeditions. And
hyper-drive craft take an awful lot out of the economy."
The upshot of the matter was that we patriotically agreed to the setup.
The captain gave Hacker a good chewing-out about respecting the rights
of the Newtaneans.
The kid turned out to be surprisingly amenable on that score. "They're
_human_!" he said, and I could see he was very sincere about it. "I
wouldn't do anything to hurt them, sir. What's more, they must be
almost as smart as we are and I'm not about to commit suicide."
So the three of us got into the jeep and rolled out of _Terra I_ onto
Newtane's soil.
I still felt uncomfortable about Hacker, though. He had tasted blood
on Rayna and the effect of that on him had been unusually bad; he had
acquired a reckless attitude toward the rights of intelligent life,
his own included.
* * * * *
As if to prove me wrong, he drove very carefully over the special
road the Newtaneans had laid out overnight from our landing area
to the highway a mile or so away. The three carloads of scowling
plenipotentiaries up ahead looked appealingly funny. While the
Newtaneans were remarkably, even handsomely, like us (except for a
certain closeness of the eyes and a reversed ordering of their fingers)
their facial muscles carried different emotional convictions. On our
landing ten hours before those officials had thought our smiling faces
indicated angry aggressiveness and we had been equally uncertain about
their intentions. But their Semanticizer had eventually made the true
state of affairs clear. Evolution had determined that an upward set of
Newtanean facial muscles meant a bad situation, a downward set pleasure
and cordiality. The more they scowled the more we smiled and everybody
was very happy about the potential flowering of transgalactic culture
that we were instituting.
When we turned onto the magnificent superhighway, however, Hacker
became furious. He kept trying to pull over to the right but a steady
stream of scarab-shaped cars, filled with curious sightseers, kept
getting in his way.
"This is crazy," he cried.
"I think they drive on the left here," Dr. Barnes tried to explain.
"That's what I mean--they're crazy!"
"They did it that way in England for centuries," I said. "It took a
long time to get them to change."
"Fine, fine." Suddenly he laughed, as if pleased with his capacity
for tolerance. "If it's good enough for them it's good enough for us
visitors. They sure know how to build beautiful roads!"
I suppose I should have been pleased with this shift toward good
humor but I wasn't. I just could not like the youngster. He had been
forgivably cocky for his age before, but now something nasty had been
added.
Still, he remained on his best behavior as we approached Crona, the
capital city. Its golden towers gleamed in the sun and everywhere there
were crowds of beautiful tan people, waving to us and happily scowling
their welcome.
The lead cars stopped before a particularly elegant skyscraper that was
set in the middle of vast, symmetrical gardens. We got out and were
greeted by dignitaries accompanied by technicians with Semanticizing
equipment. (If this equipment worked slowly, it was still faster than
any we'd developed.) The men who came toward us were puzzled when we
extended our hands but, once the translation came through and they
understood it was an Earth custom, they copied our gesture. Only they
all put out their left hands. It took a while before reasonable contact
could be made.
"Interesting," said Dr. Barnes. "They all seem to be left-handed."
"I don't see what's so interesting about that," Hacker snorted through
his puggish nose. "I've seen left-handed people on Earth."
"Good for you," the doctor answered drily.
Hacker looked a little annoyed but for once managed to keep quiet.
I explained to the receiving delegation how hyper-radio contact could
be established with our system for information exchanges and then told
them tomorrow's group from _Terra I_ would be much larger. It would
be in a position to set out the technical arrangements in all the
necessary detail.
The dialogue crept along as translations were made, but finally an
especially regal figure stepped forward and told us the rest of the
proceedings would take place within the building. We followed the
Newtaneans into a hall so vast that we still seemed to be outdoors.
Subtle colors were playing free-form patterns on the walls and the
synesthetic reaction was that of hearing a music too beautiful, too
perfect, for the relative crudity of the human ear to grasp alone.
"This," Hacker laughed, "is my idea of heaven!"
* * * * *
I wasn't about to unbend and openly agree with him on anything. But
celestial it really was. And then the subtly rich smells of the food
began to play on our nostrils. It was brought out on great automatic
servers and robot arms set heaping, steaming plates before the fifty
Newtaneans. We, of course, had to refuse, taking out our compacted
rations and setting them before us.
All the Newtaneans were still meat-eaters. The main course was a small
fowl, thoroughly browned in gravy. For me the most interesting thing
about it was that four drumstick legs stuck out of each torso rather
than the regulation two found on all earth-based birds. For Hacker,
though, a more practical matter was involved.
"I'd sure like to try a helping of that bird," he said.
The two of us, naturally, were shocked. "That must have been a living
creature once," said Barnes.
"So what?"
"Well, our civilization is essentially vegetarian. They just haven't
reached our level as yet in that respect."
"Nuts loaf to you!" Hacker snapped. "And synthetic yeast pie too! I've
eaten flesh."
That _really_ upset me. I know there's still a little surreptitious
meat-consumption on Earth--genetics shows we must get a few throwbacks
in every generation--but I'd never before met anyone who openly boasted
about it. Synthetic foods meet gourmet needs better than traditional
ones do anyway. (Of course, I don't mean the dull compacted stuff
we get on long space hops but the food served on Terran planets
themselves.) Any Earthman eating flesh back home is deliberately trying
to taste the atavistic sensations of savagery.
"You know how immoral that is," I told him.
"Hacker, let's forget the moral issue," Barnes said, considering him
with disgust. "Let's just be sensible. We don't know enough about
Newtane yet to eat _anything_."
Hacker laughed. "Why, it smells just like our own food, only better."
He picked at his vita-concentrate. "Oh, let's forget about the whole
thing."
We tried to. Several dignitaries rose to their full seven feet and
spoke slowly into Semanticizers, flinging their queer hands out for
emphasis with their thumbs waving where our pinkies do. Suddenly,
though, Hacker got up from his seat and hurried down the long table to
the place where the leading spokesman was eating. He leaned over him,
speaking into the nearest translator, and I could see the Newtanean
smiling broadly, as if trying to refuse something, while Hacker
frowned. Finally the smile faded into a friendly scowl. Nothing good
could be coming out of this.
A minute later a robot arm proffered a loaded plate to Hacker and he
started back to us with it. Barnes rose to stop him, but before Hacker
reached us he had taken two mouthfuls of the meat.
I have never seen such sheer self-satisfied delight on a human face as
after those first bites.
"You shouldn't be doing that," Barnes said when he sat down next to us
again.
"You're just old fogies," Hacker grunted through a meat-stuffed mouth.
"This is the best food I've ever eaten."
He somehow shoveled another load of meat between his lips.
Thirty seconds later his face twisted into a caricature of the human
physiognomy, all writhing lines, as if every muscle were breaking loose
from its neighbors. The last unswallowed portion of food erupted from
his mouth and he fell forward into the vile mess.
He was dead.
* * * * *
Pandemonium spread through the hall. Everywhere wildly smiling faces
expressed despair at such an end for an honored guest. Barnes sprang
into action, pulling the portable medical kit from his belt and
immediately starting blood tests while some native doctors joined him
with their emergency equipment. "Must start revitalizing immediately,"
he said, then stopped, ashen-faced, as he studied an analyzer tube.
"Fantastic! No, it can't be!"
The Newtaneans were equally bewildered. They rushed Hacker to a nearby
treatment chamber. All I could do was wait, while the Newtanean leader
explained that Hacker had told him we had authorized his trying the
food. There was no need to doubt his story. It was just what the
kid would have done. I did my best to assure him that we knew his
intentions had been honorable.
A half-hour later Barnes returned, a robot platform following with
Hacker, body covered by a preservative glaze, on it.
"Nothing can be done," he said. "I've tried everything. Hacker's too
thoroughly dead for anything ever to bring him back. We'll just have to
take his body home for further study."
"But what killed him?" I demanded.
"A dozen or so things out of a thousand possibilities."
"You mean you don't have any idea?"
"Oh, I have _some_ idea. Too many ideas in fact. Look, Johnson,
chemistry's not your specialty but this is fairly elementary. All life
contains protein, right?"
"Right."
"And all protein consists of amino acids. _Every_ natural protein
back home is built on levo--left turn--amino acids. Here it is just
the opposite, the mirror image of what we know. Every amino acid is
dextro--to the right!"
"But how can it be different here?"
"Johnson, they could ask the same question about us with equal
justification--or, rather, equal lack of justification."
I was trying to feel my way through the confusion. "Barnes, I know a
world could be made of anti-matter but--"
"No, no. Anti-matter is a reversal of changes within the atom.
These atoms are the same as ours. It's the organization that is
different--regular molecules with a different twist."
"But why should it have killed him then? We absorb starch and reject
cellulose which is closely related. But the body just refuses to accept
the cellulose. It doesn't necessarily go ahead and die."
"Starch and cellulose are both dextro, old man. This is a more
fundamental difference. Maybe the body just throws off some of these
compounds too. But there were some--plenty, I suspect--it couldn't
throw off." He glanced toward the stiffening corpse, sympathetically.
"The poor kid couldn't leave well enough alone."
* * * * *
Well, we are two universal days out from Newtane and soon we will drop
from hyper-drive as we reach the orbit of Pluto. I shouldn't still
be feeling as uneasy as I do. I'm sure I shouldn't. We have had five
friendly, informative days with the people of a great civilization
remarkably like ours, and President Hacker has radioed he understands
perfectly that we were not responsible for the tragedy, nobody was. The
kid, it seems, wasn't the apple of his eye anyway.
Ninety men and one corpse returning to the security of _terra firma_.
I should, when all is said and done, be happy with the way most things
have worked out. But I am a Chronicler and I know the peculiarly
symbolic, seemingly superficial ways in which history manages to repeat
itself.
It is more than three centuries since the last war on Earth between
rightists and leftists. That was a matter of differing concepts of
economics and politics. I can't help wondering, though, whether there
are not even more fundamental points of eventual conflict in the
universe that we have barely discovered. If there are, I'm beginning
to suspect they'll still have something to do with the unfathomable
difference between Right and Left, a difference that took many lives
centuries ago--and may not be through with us yet.
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