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the way oh the way anybody accepts being changed by a great experience. The trouble's been, there
were no great experiences left for us, for any organic beings. We've got to make our own." That was not
how most of his fellows would have put it. But to say that they wanted power to deal directly with the
Proserpinans and the stardwellers would have touched a sore spot. Anyhow, Chuan knew it perfectly
well. It had been discussed openly, sometimes globally, for years. In fact, why the flame was the
synnoiont wasting time on arguments gone threadbare?  Be-sides, only a minority would leave Earth. The
mother polity will stay home."
"Scarcely unaffected." Chuan's gaze searched him. "My friend may I call you my friend, now when we
speak frankly? I fear this future you mean to strive for. And so does not only the cybercosm, but many
thought-ful humans also. The consequences are incalculable, consequences to our whole race, yours and
mine and the Lunarians and your Keiki Moana, everyone. We have already suffered the impact of news
from Alpha Centauri in the Lahui Kuikawa too, am I right? Dis-content, alienation, rebelliousness with
no clear object, crime insanity.''
The challenge stiffened Fenn.  Has that been due sim-ply to the news, or did the news and the
wondering how much of the truth we're being told did that touch off a fire that'd been smoldering all
along?"
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"You imply that humankind is incapable of sanity," Chuan said. "That a peaceful, prosperous, tolerant,
just, and marvelously diverse world has by its very nature be-come unendurable."
"Well " muttered Fenn, taken aback.
"I do not choose to believe that. Neither sociodynamic theory nor empirical fact require me to. But it is
true that we humans are still, genetically, primitive hunters and foragers, savages. Not wild animals it
would be easier, less dangerous for us if we were no, the oldest domes-ticated animal is man himself,
who will go as crazily, suicidally ferocious as any dog when the master com-mands. Civilization is an
artifact. It is the supreme artifact invention, drama, work of art and the most fragile. Do not stress it
beyond its breaking strength, Fenn."
"How would we? Seems to me we'd be enlarging it, taking it back to the planets and pointing it toward
the stars."
"You know full well what I mean. You have heard it over and over. But let me repeat it. Something as
radical as this would upset too many social balances. Imagine, for a single example, what a renewal of
extensive space traffic and a growth of major new industry would do to Luna: the small businesses that
give purpose to so many people's lives going under, the customs and traditions that bind them together
dissolving. Economic rivalry; the resources of the Solar System remain vast, but they are more widely
scattered and less easily harvested than for-merly. The bitterness in those who try and fail.
Unfore-seeable new ideas, faiths, desires; and some are sure to prove as troublesome as Catharism,
Communism, Avan-tism, or a hundred others were in their day. More im-mediately, what of the
Lunarians, also here on Mars? Few of them have renounced irredentism. What may they do after space
commerce and a reinvigorated planet have given them a prospect of reclaiming their ancestral Moon? No
matter whether they could succeed or not; consider the monstrous tragedies that an attempt would bring
about. As for the Lunarians of Proserpina we do not know. Nor can we foretell anything whatsoever
about those at Centauri.
"I will raise a subject that is not much discussed, be-cause repeated reminders would provoke
widespread indignation a feeling of having been humiliated and certain persons might react in horrible
ways. Think of that fanatic who murdered your Keiki comrade yes, we heard of it on Mars and
multiply him by several thou-sand. But there is no arrogance or contempt behind the policy. The fact is
that the field-drive spaceship technol-ogy is being withheld from publication while we search for a
solution to the problem it poses. It is too hazardous. Bad enough that the Proserpinans have it. They are
few in number, distant from us, and thus far not strongly in-terested in our concerns. Spread through the
inner Solar System Fenn, the field drive makes interplanetary war possible.
"In everything everywhere, the equilibrium is fearsomely precarious. I implore you, do not throw random
weights at it."
He sat back and chuckled ruefully. "Forgive me. I have a bad habit of delivering lectures. Our mutual
friend Kinna Ronay has often teased me about it."
Fenn ignored the touch of lightness offered him. He hunched his shoulders. His beard bristled at the
other. "Tell me," he said, "does the cybercosm well, the Synesis, the trustees and councillors and
committees, ad-vised by machines does it really want to freeze us into our present shapes forever? Can
it?"
Chuan spread his palms. "No, no, absolutely not. That is neither desirable nor practicable. But we need
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not sur-render to chaos either, and indeed it is our duty not to a duty that I would call sacred." Fenn
remembered hearing from Kinna about the religious background from which this man sprang. "Let me be
honest, blunt. What you and your associates call progress is actually the opposite. At best, quite apart
from the dangers, it would divert us back to an archaic stage of development. Our proper fu-ture, our
true evolution, lies in the growth of intellect, consciousness, spirit."
"So you say," Fenn grunted. "Seems kind of over-blown to me."
"It is a millennial vision, yes. But it makes sense of what would otherwise be a cosmos without rhyme or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]