Chapter 2

The Astronomer entered the dining room with decorum. He felt very much the guest.

He said, “Where are the youngsters? My son isn’t in his room.”

The Industrialist smiled. “They’ve been out for hours. However, breakfast was forced into them among the women some time ago, so there is nothing to worry about. Youth, Doctor, youth!”

“Youth!” The word seemed to depress the Astronomer.

They ate breakfast in silence. The Industrialist said once, “You really think they’ll come. The day looks so--normal.”

The Astronomer said, “They’ll come.”

That was all.

Afterward the Industrialist said, “You’ll pardon me. I can’t conceive your playing so elaborate a hoax. You really spoke to them?”

“As I speak to you. At least, in a sense. They can project thoughts.”

“I gathered that must be so from your letter. How, I wonder.”

“I could not say. I asked them and, of course, they were vague. Or perhaps it was just that I could not understand. It involves a projector for the focussing of thought and, even more than that, conscious attention on the part of both projector and receptor. It was quite a while before I realized they were trying to think at me. Such thought-projectors may be part of the science they will give us.”

“Perhaps,” said the Industrialist. “Yet think of the changes it would bring to society. A thought-projector!”

“Why not? Change would be good for us.”

“I don’t think so.”

“It is only in old age that change is unwelcome,” said the Astronomer, “and races can be old as well as individuals.”

The Industrialist pointed out the window. “You see that road. It was built Beforethewars. I don’t know exactly when. It is as good now as the day it was built. We couldn’t possibly duplicate it now. The race was young when that was built, eh?”

“Then? Yes! At least they weren’t afraid of new things.”

“No. I wish they had been. Where is the society of Beforethewars? Destroyed, Doctor! What good were youth and new things? We are better off now. The world is peaceful and jogs along. The race goes nowhere but after all, there is nowhere to go. They proved that. The men who built the road. I will speak with your visitors as I agreed, if they come. But I think I will only ask them to go.”

“The race is not going nowhere,” said the Astronomer, earnestly. “It is going toward final destruction. My university has a smaller student body each year. Fewer books are written. Less work is done. An old man sleeps in the sun and his days are peaceful and unchanging, but each day finds him nearer death all the same.”

“Well, well,” said the Industrialist.

“No, don’t dismiss it. Listen. Before I wrote you, I investigated your position in the planetary economy.”

“And you found me solvent?” interrupted the Industrialist, smiling.

“Why, yes. Oh, I see, you are joking. And yet--perhaps the joke is not far off. You are less solvent than your father and he was less solvent than his father. Perhaps your son will no longer be solvent. It becomes too troublesome for the planet to support even the industries that still exist, though they are toothpicks to the oak trees of Beforethewars. We will be back to village economy and then to what? The caves?”

“And the infusion of fresh technological knowledge will be the changing of all that?”

“Not just the new knowledge. Rather the whole effect of change, of a broadening of horizons. Look, sir, I chose you to approach in this matter not only because you were rich and influential with government officials, but because you had an unusual reputation, for these days, of daring to break with tradition. Our people will resist change and you would know how to handle them, how to see to it that--that--”

“That the youth of the race is revived?”

“Yes.”

“With its atomic bombs?”

“The atomic bombs,” returned the Astronomer, “need not be the end of civilization. These visitors of mine had their atomic bomb, or whatever their equivalent was on their own worlds, and survived it, because they didn’t give up. Don’t you see? It wasn’t the bomb that defeated us, but our own shell shock. This may be the last chance to reverse the process.”