To Prime the Pump - A. Bertram Chandler [49]
"You can say that again," Grimes told him.
The Hereditary Chief ignored this. "You are aware, Mr. Grimes," he went on, "of the nature of our problem on this planet."
"Yes." The spaceman was deliberately flippant. "You miss the pitterpatter of little feet and all the rest of it."
"Crudely put, sir. Crudely put, but true. Even though our lives are enormously prolonged, even though our system of safeguards almost obviates the possibility of accidental death, or death by any kind of violence, we are not immortal. And what use is great wealth if you have nobody to whom to leave it? What comfort is a bloodline stretching back to antiquity if it dies out with yourself?"
"Those," said Grimes, "are worries that I'm never likely to have."
"But you are not one of us," stated Marlene.
Lobenga continued. "All we ask, sir, is to be able to live our own kind of life on the planet of our choice. But for this one, but dreadfully important, factor we have no complaints. We are neither impotent nor frigid. Our sex lives are normal, better than normal. But are sterile, even though our finest medical practitioners assure us that there are no physical abnormalities or deficiencies."
"I was told," said Grimes, "that the women who were already pregnant when they came here were successfully brought to term and that their children lived and are now adults."
"That is correct."
"And I learned tonight that Captain de Messigny has fathered offspring on other planets."
"So he tells us," said Lobenga, adding, before the Comte could flare up, "and I have no reason to doubt his word. Furthermore, the Comte de Messigny has, on occasion, acted as procurer, bringing young men of good family to El Dorado for a vacation. Women with wealth and family lines of their own entertained them. But even though de Messigny's friends could, like himself, offer proof of their capacity for parenthood, they achieved nothing here."
"And what is the explanation?" asked Grimes. "Something in the air, or the water? Some virus or radiation?"
"According to Lord Tarlton and his colleagues, no. And we adherents to the Old Religion, in its various forms, are in agreement with the materialists."
"Then have you a theory?"
"We have, sir. If you will be patient I shall try to explain it to you. But, first of all, I shall ask a question. What is life?"
"I . . . I don't know. Growth? But a crystal does that. Metabolism? Motility? The ability to reproduce? We have inorganic machines that can do all these things."
"Perhaps soul would be the correct word," said Lobenga. "Not used in its conventional sense but, nonetheless, soul. Something indefinable, intangible that makes the difference between the organic and the inorganic, between the warm, soupy primordial seas, the lifeless fluids rich in minerals held in solution, cloudy with suspended matter, and the first viruses. And with those humble and simple beginnings the cycle was started. How did the poet put it? Birth, procreation, death—and there's an end to it. But as long as there's death, there's no end to it."
"And somebody or something," cackled the Duchess, "has put a spoke in the wheel of the cycle."
"Yes, Your Grace," agreed Lobenga. "We have. We have interrupted the natural sequence."
"But how?" asked Grimes.
"Imagine, if you can," said the Negro, "a reservoir of soul-stuff, of life-essence on every inhabited planet. Imagine, too, that soul has evolved, just as physical form has evolved. Visualize the act of conception—the coupling of humans, of dogs, cats, fishes, even the pollenization of a flower—and try to see that before the process of growth can commence there has to be a third factor involved, a priming of the pump, as it were. A drop has to be withdrawn from the reservoir and that reservoir is always kept topped up by the process of death."
"I begin to see."
"Good. Now this world, as you know, was utterly sterile when we purchased it, before we terraformed it, with improvements. We brought in our plant life, our animals, ourselves. Insofar as the plants and animals are concerned