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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1980, 2012 by Brian Stableford
Also published under the title, Optiman.
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
PROLOGUE
Of all the objections which have been raised by opponents of this scheme, there are three in particular which have “crystalized out” into slogans to be wielded by the unthinking as if they were lances mounted with colored pennants. Each slogan represents a different mode of argument, and they may be categorized as the ontological argument, the teleological argument and the pragmatic argument. We live, of course, in an age of enlightened pragmatism, and it could be claimed that the pragmatic argument is the only one which we need to refute in order to justify the scheme. However, it is easy enough to show that all three arguments are equally insubstantial.
The ontological argument usually takes the form of the cant phrase: “Men who cannot fear cannot love.” The basic claim advanced here is that by training our children not to feel fear we are also training them not to feel a wide spectrum of emotions. Some people claim that we are actually training them not to feel at all, and that we are destroying the emotional basis of their being. The graduates of our present training schools, however, give ample evidence in their behavior that they are perfectly capable of feeling not only such emotions as rage and detestation but also loyalty, devotion and sexual passion. Adherents of this line of argument, when confronted with this testimony, may follow one of two contrasting lines of defense. Some will argue that none of these qualities is actually the kind of “love” which they mean, and that what they mean is not compounded out of any combination of these qualities. This is a familiar argumentative ploy used by those determined to evade any possible evidence which threatens to disprove their case, and is quite illegitimate. Others who wish to defend the case despite the evidence will go on to claim that the men who have already undergone this kind of training only appear to feel these emotions, and are in fact compensating behaviorally for their loss. In view of the fact that appearances are all that we have to build upon in claiming to know anything about the world whatsoever, this kind of argument ultimately extends skepticism into solipsism. If we were to be as skeptical as this of claims made by others about their feelings, then it is not merely the graduates of our training schools who would be suspect but the entire human race.
The teleological argument against training is usually contained within the phrase: “Men without fear are men without purpose.” If the purpose referred to were the divine purpose for which God supposedly created man, or the purpose which motivated the seeders to distribute genetic material across the known galaxy, this argument would be worthless. Its metaphysical nature would remove it from the realm of rational inquiry, and it would be equally plausible to establish a counter-claim alleging that the human conquest of fear is, in fact, an essential step in the fulfillment of that purpose. What the sentence is actually held to imply, however, is that men trained to feel no fear cannot be well enough motivated to lead lives which are both useful to the human community as a whole and satisfying to themselves. Once again, the graduates of our training schools provide a dramatic refutation of this case, for they have proved themselves to be excellent fighting men whose recruitment to the war zones has already made a significant difference to our progress there. These men without fear have settled into the army way of life better than the recruits who have undergone no such special preparation, and are in every way better adjusted to it. They are the stuff of which heroes are made, and they take considerably joy from their accomplishments. They seem in every way to be better motivated than their comrades.
The pragmatic argument leveled against the crusade to extirpate fear from human affairs is one which is not normally heard within the military establishment, though if it had any substance it would certainly cause anxiety there. It is the claim that: “Men without fear make bad strategists.” The argument used to support this contention is that men who do not fear death, injury or pain will take risks on their own behalf which are injudicious, and that they will be casual in putting at risk the lives of such men as they command. This is not so. Indeed, it is only when a man has conquered his own fear that he becomes capable of a calm and rational assessment of a tactical situation. Only then is he able to calculate the risks accurately, operating not only to maximize the chance of humans emerging from any particular conflict situation victorious but also to maximize the chance of their emerging having suffered as little loss of life as possible. Only a man without fear knows the true value of a human life, whether it be his own or that of another. Only a man without fear can weigh up a situation without the risk that some irrational terror or anxiety may blind him to some of its possibilities and probabilities. The truth is that fear, far from serving to protect men from injury, failure and shame, actually renders them more vulnerable.
In brief, the banners under which our opponents are marching are tattered and torn: the slogans which they shout are empty of sense. There is, in fact, no good reason why the training of children in the suppression of phobic responses should not be extended throughout the educational system, to apply to all human infants from the earliest practicable moment in their lives.
The human species cannot be said to have reached evolutionary maturity until every single individual has conquered fear.
(Quotation from a speech later incorporated into the book Men of Destiny by Corvo Carrien. The speech was broadcast at least once on every world inhabited by humans in the year 2242 AD)
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
F. W. Nietzsche (1844-1900)
CHAPTER ONE
Remy reached into the shoulder-high recess and tugged the bell cord. His tug was a sharp flick of the wrist, and he released the cord immediately. The way that the bell sounded was a kind of signature—no two men pulled the cord in exactly the same fashion. In Ziarat, a rich man always knew who was at his door.
The door was opened by a siocon servant, who stood aside, eyes averted, to let Remy pass into the main hallway. The night air outside had been warm and heavy, carrying the scent of the night-blooming flowers that were planted throughout the district to protect the inner city from the stench that drifted on the wind from the poorer quarters which surrounded it. Inside the house, the air was cooler, and there were garlands of yellow flowers mounted on the walls, whose more delicate odor slowly overpowered the echo of the other. The hallway was lit by a chandelier containing wax candles. In most of the rooms Yerema had installed electric lighting, but he followed the habit of the Calvar merchants in maintaining an area which mimicked the ways of the siocon aristocracy. Any siocon nobleman entering Yerema’s house would feel that he, like the other aliens in their midst, was deferring to their customs and acknowledging the traditions of Ziarat. It was part of the price of tolerance, and even benefactors need to be tolerated. Ziarat owed its fortunes to the traders of the Calvar clan, and its security to Yerema’s mercenaries, but the veich were no less alien for that, and had to pay close attention to the niceties of interracial diplomacy. The same applied to Remy, but his predicament was more complex still: a human under the protection of the veich in a siocon city.
Remy didn’t wait for the servant to bolt the heavy door behind him and scuttle on ahead again. He strode forward to a room that was set aside for the reception of visitors not of the siocon species, opening and closing the door of the antechamber for himself, and then parting the screening curtains.
There was a table set for a light meal—a token of hospitality rather than a full-scale affair. Yerema was not in the room but his daughter, Valla, was waiting to receive the visitor. She touched her forefingers to his, and then touched her own forehead.
