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more convinced of the need for positive, immediate
action than we were when we left but we are con-
vinced, too, that we aren't strong enough nor wise
enough to handle it alone. We've come back to ask
for help, and to urge the council to abandon its
policy of teaching only those who show that they are
ready, and, instead, to reach out and teach as many
minds as can accept your teachings.
"You see, sir, our antagonists don't wait. They are
active all the time. They've won in Asia, they are in
the ascendancy in Europe, they may win here in
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America, while we wait for an opportunity."
"Have you any method to suggest for tackling the
problem?"
"No, that's why we came back. When we tried to
teach others what we knew, we were stopped."
"That's the rub," Howe agreed. "I've been pretty
much of your opinion for a good many years, but it is
hard to do. What we have to give can't be printed in
a book, nor broadcast over the air. It must be passed
LOST LEGACY 219
directly from mind to mind, wherever we find a
mind ready to receive it."
They finished the discussion without finding a solu-
tion. Howe told them not to worry. "Go along," he
said, "and spend a few weeks in meditation and
rapport. When you get an idea that looks as if it
might work, bring it in and we'll call the council
together to consider it."
"But, Senior," Joan protested for the trio, "you
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see Well. we had hoped to have the advice of the
council in working out a plan. We don't know where
to start, else we wouldn't have come back."
He shook his head. "You are the newest of the
brethren, the youngest, the least experienced. Those
are your virtues, not your disabilities. The very fact
that you have not spent years of this life in thinking
in terms of eons and races gives you an advantage.
Too broad a viewpoint, too philosophical an outlook
paralyzes the will. I want you three to consider it
alone."
They did as he asked. For weeks they discussed it
in rapport as a single mind, hammered at it m spo-
ken conversation, meditated its ramifications. They
roamed the nation with their minds, examining the
human spirits that lay behind political and social
action. With the aid of the archives they learned the
techniques by which the brotherhood of adepts had
interceded in the past when freedom of thought and
action in America had been threatened. They pro-
posed and rejected dozens of schemes.
"We should go into politics," Phil told the other
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two, "as our brothers did in the past. If we had a
Secretary of Education, appointed from among the
elders, he could found a national academy in which
freedom of thought would really prevail, and it could
be the source from which the ancient knowledge
could spread."
Joan put in an objection.
220 Robert A. Heinlein
"Suppose you lose the election?"
"Huh?"
"Even with all the special powers that the adepts
have, it *ud be quite a chore to line up delegates for
a national convention to get our candidate nomi-
nated, then get him elected in the face of all the
political machines, pressure groups, newspapers, fa-
vorite sons, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
"And remember this, the opposition can fight as
dirty as it pleases, but we have to fight fair, or we
defeat our own aims."
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Ben nodded. "I am afraid she is right, Phil. But
you are absolutely right in one thing; this is a prob-
lem of education." He stopped to meditate, his mind
turned inward.
Presently he resumed. "I wonder if we have been
tackling this Job from the right end? We've been
thinking of reeducating adults, already set in their
ways. How about the children? They haven't crystal-
lized; wouldn't they be easier to teach?"
Joan sat up, her eyes bright. "Ben, you've got it!"
Phil shook his head doggedly. "No. I hate to throw
cold water, but there is no way to go about it.
Children are constantly in the care of adults; we
couldn't get to them. Don't think for a moment that
you could get past local school boards; they are the
tightest little oligarchies in the whole political system."
They were sitting in a group of pine trees on the
lower slopes of Mount Shasta. A little group of hu-
man figures came into view below them and climbed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]