A Choice of Gods

17

He felt old and lonely. It was the first time in years that he had felt lonely and the first time ever that he'd had a sense of being old.

"I debated telling you," said Martha. "Perhaps I should not have told you, Jason, but you had to know. They were all polite and understanding…"

"And a bit amused," he said.

"I don't think quite that," she told him. "But a little baffled as to why you should be so upset. Earth can't mean as much to them, of course, as it means to you and me. Some of them have never been here. To them Earth is only an old and beautiful story. And all of them pointed out that the others may have no intention of coming back and staying; it might simply be an exploratory trip to satisfy their curiosity."

"The point is," said Jason, "that they don't really care. They have the stars; they don't need Earth. As you say, it's just a story to them. I had thought of calling a conference—some of the old and trusted friends, some of the younger ones to whom we've been the closest."

"It still might be a good idea," Martha said. "They would come, I'm sure. All of them would come, I think, if we really needed them. It might do a lot of good. There are so many things that they have learned. We don't know of all the things they've learned."

"I wouldn't count too much on what they've learned," said John. "Collectively, they have learned a great deal. Since they've gone to the stars the sum total of the knowledge they have gained probably is as great or greater than all that man had learned on Earth before the Disappearance. But this knowledge is superficial. They have learned the surface facts, that a certain thing is possible or that certain action will bring about a prescribed effect, but they've gained no real understanding for they have not sought the why and wherefore of it. And because of this, while they know many strange and unguessed things, the knowledge does them little good, for they cannot use it. And a lot of it, as well, is defiant of any human understanding. Much of it is so alien to the human concept of the universe that it can't be understood until a man has mastered alien viewpoints and intellectual processes and…"

"You need not go on," said Jason, bitterly. "I know how impossible it is."

"I've not wanted to point this out," said John, "because I know you will not like it. But, if worse comes to worst, you and Martha can go to the stars."

"John, you know I can't do that," said Jason. "And I don't think Martha could. Earth is in our bones. We've lived with it too long. It's too much a part of us."

"I've often wondered what it would be like," said Martha. "I've talked to so many people and they've told me so much of it. But if it came to going, I don't think I could go."

"You see," said Jason, "we're just two old selfish people."

And that's the truth of it, he told himself. It's a selfish thing to hang onto Earth, to claim it, all of it, for one's own. When one came right down to it, the People had a right to return to Earth if that should be their wish. They'd not left Earth of their own free will; they had been abducted from it; they had been taken from it. If they could find their way back to it, there was no legal and no moral stricture barring their return. The worst thing about it all, he realized, would be their insistence on sharing with those still left on Earth all that they had learned and gained, all their technological advances, all their bright new concepts, all their shimmering knowledge, determined to give free-handedly to the benighted people left on Earth all the advantages of the continuing human heritage. And what of the tribes, who wanted none of this? And the robots, too? Although maybe the robots would welcome their return. He knew little of the robots or how they might feel about such a circumstance.

In a day or two he'd know how the robots felt about it. Tomorrow morning he and John and Hezekiah would set out up the river with Red Cloud and his men.