Part 30 (2/2)
”E McGinnis,” she said, ”Cal has solved the problem of what happened to the colonists, why they didn't communicate. Do you think this will qualify him for his big E?”
Both men burst into laughter.
”No question of it, Linda,” E McGinnis said with a chuckle. ”But I doubt it really matters to E Gray, now. He can do things none of the rest of us can do, and the real question now is whether we have the right to call ourselves Seniors until we can match his ability.”
”I think,” Cal said slowly, ”we'd better recommend to E.H.Q. that the colonists be withdrawn from Eden, a.s.signed somewhere else. I've left the s.h.i.+eld around the planet so none can enter or leave without the eighth key. I can unlock the door and close it again. Perhaps Eden should become the next step for the E, the next hurdle he must cross.
”When I've sent my s.h.i.+p and crew back to Earth, and we've removed all the colonists, it might be a good idea to restore Eden to what it was when I arrived--a place where no tools will work, no physical tools. To qualify for E, a man will be put on the island, where he can live as we lived, to work out the step-by-step method. When he's ready, he can go into the thought-amplifier on top of the mountain, and if his mind is open enough to the potentials he'll receive the final step of instruction--as I did.
”One by one, as the E's shake free of their present projects, they can take this next step.”
”I'm not working on any project right now,” E McGinnis said hopefully.
”I'll be right back,” Cal said with a grin, ”and we'll get started on it.”
The chair where he had been sitting was empty.
29
Cal stood within the crystal amphitheater atop the mountain and watched the interplay of lights until he felt communion come.
Rapture! Joy!
Question?
”Be patient,” he said. ”There will be more, and more, and more.
”You had an advantage,” he reminded Them. ”You started with a crystalline vibration nearer to the force field than that possible in protoplasm. We've had to come up the hard way.
”But we have come up.
”You had no compet.i.tion. We've had to fight for our very lives every inch of the way, endure the setbacks lasting for centuries, millennia.
It is no wonder that the me-and-mine-ascendant concept has dominated all our thought, and does still. Without it, we'd not have survived at all.
”It takes time to outgrow it, to learn we can survive without it. Five hundred years after Copernicus, a survey of the high school students in the United States revealed that a third of them still rejected his knowledge, still believed the Earth to be at the center of the universe and man was the reason why the universe had been created at all. But two thirds had adjusted.
”More important, there _was_ a Copernicus.
”Don't sell man short because he's slow to learn, and you are impatient for fuller, deeper exploration of the truths in reality. He has much to offer you, as you to him. Compet.i.tion for survival has given him ingenuity.
”Once all learned men believed the Earth to be the center of the universe, but there _was_ a Copernicus who asked the question, 'What if it isn't so?'
”Millions of men watched apples fall to the ground, but one _did_ ask if this might not be the key to the structure of the universe, the balance of the stars.
”Billions watched the stars, but finally one _did_ ask, 'What if the light be curved instead of straight?'
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