organized society without some special body to enforce that
organization. It's a problem which the E's haven't solved, probably
because we know too little about the natural laws affecting the behavior
of man. Perhaps it is still a field belonging to non-science, because
science doesn't know enough yet to take hold of it.
"I would suggest, Gunderson, that you turn your talents and your
organization to solving this problem of how to build an organized
society instead of destroying it."
The chair where Gunderson had sat was empty.
E McGinnis looked at Cal; he too was sitting silent and immobile. But E
science had inured him to shock. He waited because it was E Gray's show,
and he was letting Cal handle it.
"Where is he now?" McGinnis asked when he saw the empty chair.
"Sitting at his desk in his office back on Earth," Cal said with a grin.
"Our boy has a few things to think about."
"You've explained the theory back of all this"--McGinnis changed the
subject--"but I still find it incredible. It's still just theory."
"Well," Cal said, "theory comes first. Even to add two and two, you
first have to get the idea that it can be done, a theory of how it is
done, but that still won't get you four. You've got to learn how to
apply the theory.
"When I first found I knew how, I was pretty concerned. The whole basis
of science is that anybody can do it, anybody who follows the
step-by-step method. It doesn't take any special gifts that can't be
trained. I had visions of a world, a universe of people, in possession
of this theory and method before they were wise enough to use it, and
chaos.
"But when I thought it over, I stopped worrying. The methods of science
are also open to all. But few bother to learn them. Most prefer their
frustrations and their miseries to making the effort which will solve
them. For centuries the libraries containing all the accumulated
knowledge and wisdom of mankind have been free and open to anybody who
wants to read, but few have bothered to absorb that knowledge and that
wisdom.
"This new key we have that unlocks the door to another vista of
knowledge, another point of view whereby we can change material things
to suit our desire, is merely another advance of science. For science,
after all, is no more than organized knowledge of reality. You can't
multiply six times six until you've learned how to add two and two. Most
people won't bother.
"It will be a long, long time before any significant number will
graduate through all the normal seven steps of E science to become ready
for the eighth. Some of the E's will master it, but you know how few E's
there are. And the E's have enough restraint, wisdom, and selflessness
to use this new knowledge for the benefit of man instead of his
detriment.
"I suspect that one has to be graduated beyond the desire to make
me-and-mine ascendant over others before he can absorb this knowledge."
"Maybe that's my trouble," McGinnis said slowly. "I've been thinking,
all along, of how much power this gives the E's. Wondering if even the
E's should have that much power over others."
Linda spoke up.
"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, assigned somewhere else. I've left the
shield 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 ship 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 competition. 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. Competition 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?'
"There is capacity in man, this protoplasmic life, that had to learn an
ingenuity which might surpass even yours.
"This is not the final door in the corridor of thought. Still other
doors, on down the corridor, are yet to be explored. And you may need
these special gifts of man to open them, as he has needed this new room
of thought.
"Be patient. A million or a billion may come here to seek the method
that can change things to fit the equation of desire, before one comes
who asks a question even you have not conceived.
"But someday he _will_ come--and ask."
The lights danced faster now in patterns of delight.
End of Project Gutenberg's Eight Keys to Eden, by Mark Irvin Clifton