“When they did that, they classified themselves as a natural disaster. Disasters take any form. Bipeds with guns could easily be included in the category. The Pyrran animals attacked, were shot, and the war began. The survivors kept attacking and informed all the life forms what the fight was about. The radioactivity of this planet must cause plenty of mutations-and the favorable, survival mutation was now one that was deadly to man. I’ll hazard a guess that the psi function even instigates mutations, some of the deadlier types are just too one-sided to have come about naturally in a brief three hundred years.
“The settlers of course fought back, and kept their status as a natural disaster intact. Through the centuries, they improved their killing methods, not that it did the slightest good, as you know. You city people their descendants, are heirs to this heritage of hatred. You fight and are slowly being defeated. How can you possibly win against the biologic reserves of a planet that can recreate itself each time to meet any new attack?”
Silence followed Jason’s words. Kerk and Meta stood white-faced a the impact of the disclosure sunk in. Brucco mumbled and checked points off on his fingers, searching for weak spots in the chain of reason. The fourth city Pyrran, Skop, ignored all these foolish word that he couldn’t understand-or want to understand-and would have killed Jason in an instant if there had been the slightest chance of success.
It was Rhes who broke the silence. His quick mind had taken in the factors and sorted them out. “There’s one thing wrong,” he said. “What about us? We live on the surface of Pyrrus without perimeters or guns Why aren’t we attacked as well? We’re human, descended from the same people as the junkmen.”
“You’re not attacked,” Jason told him, “because you don’t identify yourself as a natural disaster. Animals can live on the slopes of a dormant volcano, fighting and dying in natural competition. But they’ll flee together when the volcano erupts. That eruption is what make the mountain a natural disaster. In the case of human beings, it is their thoughts that identify them as life form or disaster. Mountain or volcano. In the city everyone radiates suspicion and death. They enjoy killing, thinking about killing, and planning for killing. This is natural selection too, you realize. These are the survival traits that work best in the city. Outside the city, men think differently. If they are threatened individually, they fight, as will any other creature. Under more general survival threats, they cooperate completely with the rules for universal survival that the city people break.”
“How did it begin-this separation, I mean, between the two groups? Rhes asked.