Beyond This Horizon Read Free Page A

Because he will start with the assumption that there is something wrong with you. He can’t find it, so he’s stuck. It doesn’t occur to him that there might be nothing wrong with you and that might be what was wrong.”
    The other man looked weary. “I don’t understand you. But he does claim to be following a clue.”
    “What sort?”
    “Well… I’m a deviant, you know.”
    “Yes, I know,” Hamilton answered shortly. He was reasonably familiar with his friend’s genetic background, but disliked to hear him mention it. Some contrary strain in Hamilton rebelled against the idea that a man was necessarily and irrevocably the gene pattern handed to him by his genetic planners. Furthermore he was not convinced that Monroe-Alpha should be considered a deviant.
    “Deviant” is a question-begging term. When the human zygote resulting from the combination of two carefully selected gametes is different from what the geneticists had predicted but not so different as to be classified with certainty as a mutation, that zygote is termed a deviant. It is not, as is generally believed, a specific term for a recognized phenomenon, but a catch-all to cover a lack of complete knowledge.
    Monroe-Alpha (this particular Monroe-Alpha—Clifford, 32-847-106 B62) had been an attempt to converge two lines of the original Monroe-Alpha to recapture and reinforce the mathematical genius of his famous ancestor. But mathematical genius is not one gene, nor does it appear to be anything as simple as a particular group of genes. Rather, it is thought to be a complex of genes arranged in a particular order .
    Unfortunately this gene complex appears to be close-linked in the Monroe-Alpha line to a neurotic contra-survival characteristic, exact nature undetermined and not assigned to any set of genes. That it is not necessarily so linked appears to be established, and the genetic technicians who had selected the particular gametes which were to produce Monroe-Alpha Clifford believed that they had eliminated the undesired strain.
    Monroe-Alpha Clifford did not think so.
    Hamilton fixed him with a finger. “The trouble with you, my fine foolish friend, is that you are bothering your head with things you don’t understand. Your planners told you that they had done their level best to eliminate from you the thing which caused your great grandfather Whiffenpoof to raise garter snakes in his hat. There is a long chance that they failed, but why assume that they did?”
    “My great grandfathers did nothing of the sort. A slight strain of anhedonism, a tendency to—”
    “Then why act like they had to be walked on a leash? You make me tired. You’ve got a cleaner pedigree than ninety-nine out of a hundred, and a chromosome chart that’s as neat and orderly as a checker board. Yet you’re yiping about it. How would you like to be a control natural? How would you like to have to wear lenses against your eyeballs? How would you like to be subject to a doz-dozen filthy diseases? Or have your teeth get rotten and fall out, and have to chew your meals with a set of false choppers?”
    “Of course, nobody would want to be a control natural,” Monroe-Alpha said reflectively, “but the ones I’ve known seemed to be happy enough.”
    “All the more reason for you to snap out of your funk. What do you know of pain and sickness? You can’t appreciate it any more than a fish appreciates water. You have three times the income you can spend, a respected position, and work of your own choosing. What more do you want out of life?”
    “I don’t know, Cliff. I don’t know, but I know I’m not getting it. Don’t ride me about it.”
    “Sorry. Eat your dinner.”
    The fish stew contained several large crab legs; Hamilton ladled one into his guest’s trencher. Monroe-Alpha stared at it uneasily. “Don’t be so suspicious,” Hamilton advised. “Go ahead. Eat it.”
    “How?”
    “Pick it up in your fingers, and crack the shell.” Monroe-Alpha