Wainer
By MICHAEL SHAARA
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science FictionApril 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The man in the purple robe was too old to walk or stand. He was wheeledupon a purple bench into the center of a marvelous room, where unhumanbeings whom we shall call "They" had gathered and waited. Because he wassuch an old man, he commanded a great sum of respect, but he was nervousbefore Them and spoke with apology, and sometimes with irritation,because he could not understand what They were thinking and it worriedhim.
Yet there was no one left like this old man. There was no one anywherewho was as old—but that does not matter. Old men are important not forwhat they have learned, but for whom they have known, and this old manhad known Wainer.
Therefore he spoke and told Them what he knew, and more that he did notknow he was telling. And They, who were not men, sat in silence and thedeepest affection, and listened....
William Wainer died and was forgotten (said the old man) much more thana thousand years ago. I have heard it said that people are like waves,rising and riding and crumbling, and if a wave fell once on a shore longago, then it left its mark on the beach and changed the shape of theworld, but is not remembered. That is true, except for the bigger waves.There is nothing remarkable in Wainer's being forgotten then, because hewas not a big wave. In his own time, he was nothing at all—he evenlived off the state—and the magnificent power that was in him and thathe brought to the world was never fully recognized. But the story of hislife is probably the greatest story I have ever heard. He was thebeginning of You. I only wish I had known.
From his earliest days, as I remember, no one ever looked after Wainer.His father had been one of the last of the priests. Just before youngWainer was born in 2430, the government passed one of the great laws,the we-take-no-barriers-into-space edict, and religious missionarieswere banned from the stars. Wainer's father never quite recovered fromthat. He went down to the end of his days believing that the Earth hadgone over to what he called "Anti-Christ." He was a fretful man and hehad no time for the boy.
Young Wainer grew up alone. Like everyone else, he was operated on atthe age of five, and it turned out that he was a Reject. At the time, noone cared. His mother afterward said that she was glad, because Wainer'shead even then was magnificently shaped and it would have been a shameto put a lump on it. Of course, Wainer knew that he could never be adoctor, or a pilot, or a technician of any kind, but he was only fiveyears old and nothing was final to him. Some of the wonderful optimismhe was to carry throughout his youth, and which he was to need so badlyin later years, was already with him as a boy.
And yet You must understand that the world in which Wainer grew up was agood world, a fine world. Up to that time, it was the best world thatever was, and no one doubted that—
(Some of Them had smiled in Their minds. The old man was embarrassed.)
You must try to understand. We all believed in that world; Wainer and Iand everyone believed. But I will explain as best I can and doubtlessYou will understand.
When it was learned, long before Wainer was born, that the electronicbrains could be inser