Island - Aldous Huxley [100]
“Do many people go in for this kind of thing?” Will asked.
“More and more. In fact I’d say that practically all the couples who decide to have a third child now go in for AI. So do quite a lot of those who mean to stop at number two. Take my family, for example. There’s been some diabetes among my father’s people; so they thought it best—he and my mother—to have both their children by AI. My brother’s descended from three generations of dancers and, genetically, I’m the daughter of Dr. Robert’s first cousin, Malcolm Chakravarti-MacPhail, who was the Old Raja’s private secretary.”
“And the author,” Vijaya added, “of the best history of Pala. Chakravarti-MacPhail was one of the ablest men of his generation.”
Will looked at Shanta, then back again at Vijaya.
“And has the ability been inherited?” he asked.
“So much so,” Vijaya answered, “that I have the greatest difficulty in maintaining my position of masculine superiority. Shanta has more brains than I have; but fortunately she can’t compete with my brawn.”
“Brawn,” Shanta repeated sarcastically, “brawn… I seem to remember a story about a young lady called Delilah.”
“Incidentally,” Vijaya went on, “Shanta has thirty-two half brothers and twenty-nine half sisters. And more than a third of them are exceptionally bright.”
“So you’re improving the race.”
“Very definitely. Give us another century, and our average IQ will be up to a hundred and fifteen.”
“Whereas ours, at the present rate of progress, will be down to about eighty-five. Better medicine—more congenital deficiencies preserved and passed on. It’ll make things a lot easier for future dictators.” At the thought of this cosmic joke he laughed aloud. Then, after a silence, “What about the ethical and religious aspects of AI?” he asked.
“In the early days,” said Vijaya, “there were a good many conscientious objectors. But now the advantages of AI have been so clearly demonstrated, most married couples feel that it’s more moral to take a shot at having a child of superior quality than to run the risk of slavishly reproducing whatever quirks and defects may happen to run in the husband’s family. Meanwhile the theologians have got busy. AI has been justified in terms of reincarnation and the theory of karma. Pious fathers now feel happy at the thought that they’re giving their wife’s children a chance of creating a better destiny for themselves and their posterity.”
“A better destiny?”
“Because they carry the germ plasm of a better stock. And the stock is better because it’s the manifestation of a better karma. We have a central bank of superior stocks. Superior stocks of every variety of physique and temperament. In your kind of environment, most people’s heredity never gets a fair chance. In ours, it does. And incidentally we have excellent genealogical and anthropometric records going back as far as the eighteen-seventies. So you see we’re not working entirely in the dark. For example, we know that Gobind Singh’s maternal grandmother was a gifted medium and lived to ninety-six.”
“So you see,” said Shanta, “we may even have a centenarian clairvoyant in the family.” The baby belched again. She laughed. “The oracle has spoken—as usual, very enigmatically.” Turning to Vijaya, “If you want lunch to be ready on time,” she added, “you’d better go and do something about it. Rama’s going to keep me busy for at least another ten minutes.”
Vijaya rose, laid one hand on his wife’s shoulder and with the other gently rubbed the baby’s brown back.
Shanta bent down and passed her cheek across the top of the child’s downy head. “It’s father,” she whispered. “Good father, good, good….”
Vijaya administered a final pat, then straightened himself up. “You were wondering,” he said to Will, “how it is that we get on so well with the local fauna. I’ll show you.” He raised his hand. “Polly. Polly.” Cautiously, the big bird stepped from his shoulder to the extended forefinger. “Polly’s a good bird,” he chanted. “Polly’s a very good bird.” He lowered his hand to the point where a contact was