Part 27 (1/2)
E = MC!
It took man far. He too began an exploration of the stars!
Failure in their first attempt had brought a wisdom to the sentient fields of force. This time they did not rush in with pyrotechnic displays to show the wondrous power they knew. Observing patiently through the centuries, by now they knew man well. They knew his weakness, yet by making thing react with thing, he'd proved his strength. For here he was among the stars.
Perhaps by now he might communicate? Perhaps, by now, he would not prostrate himself and grovel in the dust, if someone said, ”h.e.l.lo!”
But careful, perhaps he would.
There had been a man by name of Galileo, with the first crude telescope he'd made, who first saw the rings of Saturn. But not as rings, but rather in the planet's tilting, he had seen a spot of light on either side. And sometime later, when he looked again, the tilting of the planet back had made the rings edge on, and so they disappeared. He never looked again, nor told of what he'd seen; for legend had it that the G.o.d Saturn periodically devoured his own children, and this phenomenon he'd seen, if it became widely known, would be interpreted as the proof the legend was correct--and do incalculable damage to scientific inquiry. He'd known the temper of his fellow man well enough to take no chances of this kind, to note the experience in his works, perhaps discuss it with a cautious friend or two, but to add no further fuel to the raging fires of superst.i.tion that consumed men's minds and seared out possibility of rational thought.
So walk with care. For superst.i.tion still is paramount, despite the fact that some men know how to reach the stars.
To communicate this time, the fields of force took a sere planet, of barren, blistered rock, and with a concept made it into the garden of man's dreams. On one island, they set up a crystalline structure, a thing, this much concession to the mind of man; a tool, to amplify and clarify their thought to reach the still rudimentary but nevertheless present centers of man's mind--some certain man who might be ready to receive that thought.
Placed in man's exploratory path, the waiting was not long until man found it. They had not led him to it through any intuitive change of course that he might find suspect. The explorers landed, claimed it for Earth, and went away. None among them felt any pull from the crystal tool upon the mountaintop.
The scientists came to make their measurements. Their busy minds were full of weight and size and the relations.h.i.+p of thing to thing. Perhaps by now they too were so committed to the use of a thing to act upon another thing that they could not countenance the thought that thought could act upon a thing direct. They measured the crystal tool, and recorded all their measurements, but found no meaning in its arches and its spires. If any felt the impact of the thinking of the fields of force, he made no sign nor gave response. Indeed, to preserve his status and reputation with his fellow scientists he'd not have dared admit a meaning that could not be measured with his instruments.
Forevermore he'd be outcast, if he but hinted that he thought their science was insufficient to capture everything of meaning there. And to scientist most of all, his status with his fellow man means more than truth. At least to most. But are there some to whom the truth is paramount?
Yes, for had not scientist after scientist through the years risked and lost his status through his questioning? And then perhaps today there are such men.
So walk with care, and wait.
The colonists came, and as the scientists' minds had been filled with measurements and weights and a.n.a.lyses; the colonists' minds were filled with cabins, fields, food.
Surely, among men somewhere, there must be those not wholly captured on the one hand by formless superst.i.tion; and on the other hand not bound within the tightly narrowed circle of weight and measurement! Surely man must know by now he could not capture the inner meaning of a thing through a description of its outer surface.
But as long as man got by, and did great things by using physical things to act upon other physical things, even in considering the universal energy as a thing, he would look no farther.
All right then, a little nudge in another direction. Change the concept of the planet slightly, so that one thing cannot act upon another, no tool be used except this crystal set to act as intermediary. Let that happen, and out from Earth a man would come, perhaps a dozen men, perhaps a hundred s.h.i.+ps, a thousand men, and all to find their s.h.i.+ps, their tools, were gone. But someday there would come a man with mind trained in the ability to conceive that there might be a road to truth outside the useless superst.i.tions that sent man to groveling in the dust at each small breath that blew, and also one who would not quit because he had no weather vane to test the direction of that breath.
And they would know when that mind came.
The first man came. Take away his tools and wait. He did not fall to earth in awe nor freeze in fear. His mind searched curiously. Enough.
The man was here. s.h.i.+eld off the planet from the rest that he be undisturbed in his thought.
Could he go farther? Conceive the purpose of this lack of tools, that it was by design? And still not grovel in the dust? They'd made their move.
Could he respond?
He drew a circle in the sand!
Joy! Ecstasy!
This time there might be surcease to the loneliness, and two intelligences so unlike commune. The very unlikeness of each bringing to the other thought not yet considered, and together going on to find ...
to find ...
Now let him see the fallacy of such strict measurement. Now let him think, to realize that measuring the balance of the status quo of things in only one relations.h.i.+p of an infinity of possibilities, to realize that he can change his measurements to balance an equation designed to express the status quo, or with equal truth, at his desire, he can change the status quo, the shape of things, to fit the equation he desires.