ONLY the coaches seemed blind to the sings of Arvin's apparent encounter with a threshing machine. It didn't pass without notice, either, that the harassment Linc had been subjected to miraculously ceased. But that had no sooner become a topic of conversation when, weeks before the end of the stay at Seville Trace, it was eclipsed by the announcement of a general address to be given the next day in the dining area, which because of the seating also double as the main auditorium. All classes and other activities were suspended. Everyone was to attend. Rumors immediately began circulating that it had to be the long-awaited revelation of what the program had been preparing the inmates for. For the rest of the day there was little talk that didn't lead back to airing all the standard theories yet again, with occasional new variations. Johnny thought they were being graded for high-skills potential to be sold off to other governments—commanding much better prices than unassessed raw labor, which lesser developed countries had no shortage of anyway. One of Marlene's friends suggested it could be for breeding experiments, which raised a few intriguing and imaginative speculations among some.
The buzz was approaching fever intensity by the time the remains of the late breakfast shift were disposed of, and those who had been elsewhere began arriving to swell the numbers. The Director was there, as expected, along with most of the staff. A number of visitors also showed up for the occasion. Among them, Linc was intrigued to note, with his white hair, bushy eyebrows, and heavy spectacles, still sporting a jacket and bow tie, was Dr. Grober. A number of Linc's colleagues recognized him too. Dr. Grober was evidently a busy man.
It turned out that Linc and those who had been thinking along similar lines as he were close to the truth. The intention was to send them out into space. Or, it would have been more accurate to say, "bring" them out into space. For, as the Director informed the packed room, by then completely hushed:
"The operation that I represent—along with the others of us that you've met since joining this program—is not a creation of government or any corporation, as many of you have been speculating. In fact, we are not from any organization with Earth-based loyalties at all. What we are from is the future." He paused for a moment and nodded at the puzzled looks he knew that would bring. "We are from the only real future that anyone has—the only future that there is for every one of you, the only future that there is for humanity. Specifically, we are from those regions, mostly extending outward beyond the orbit of Mars, that are generally referred to as the Outzone."
There were whistles, murmurs, stares of surprise and wonder, even though going out to space had been one of the possibilities bandied around interminably. But everyone contemplating it had for some reason fixated on the Earth-based alternatives.
Some of those around Linc nudged him or sent nods regardless, as if endorsing him as one of the few who had gotten it right.
Like most of them, Linc was not unaware of the human presence in the Outzone, but he had no idea of the purpose, paying as little attention to the subject as he had to other activities in space and the rest of things that didn't impact his immediate life. The media coverage was usually scornful, treating it as an escape for dreamers and diversion of energies from more important issues closer to home, and people talked about it usually with amusement, as if it were a kind of joke. The Director seemed to have anticipated such reactions, for he continued:
"Let me put you straight about some of the things you've all doubtless heard. What's going on out there is new, something different from anything that's happened before in human history. We're seeing the beginnings of a society built around ideas of human relationships that are different from the ones you're used to—so different, in fact, that your first feelings might be that they don't make sense. Let me list a few. Command through loyalty, not authority. Respect in place of fear. Competence and knowledge, the only true wealth." The Director looked around at their expression as they puzzled over the words. He gave them several seconds and then explained, "Because out where we are, you can't afford to waste human talent. You have to harness the potential that exists in everyone for doing something worthwhile and being needed. There isn't any room for passengers. And in particular, there is no room for a mass of unthinking, obedient sheep, whose only function is to be exploited and controlled by a privileged few. Everyone must be free to become the most they are capable of."
Such a Linc was totally new to those listening. An unusual stillness had taken over the room. The Director made a brief, dismissive motion with a hand.
"Forget all the ideas about government and about corporations that you've been carrying around in your heads. Forget what you've been told by the people who create and control such organizations, and by those who serve them, about how life is and how it just has to be. Nothing 'just has' to be. You . . ." the Director pointed, singling out one of the listeners near the front, then moved his arm and his eyes in a slow circle to bring in all of them—"are the most creative and productive creature ever to appear on the surface of this planet. You built cities, wrote symphonies, turned deserts into gardens, and invented machines that fly. You have the ability inside—all of you, every one—to make life any way you want."
Still extending his finger, the Director raised his arm until it pointed upward.
"Out there a new culture is coming into existence, based on values that are different from the ones you've spent your lives having drummed into you. Oh, they've been talked about for centuries, sure enough, but more lately they seem to have been forgotten. In forgetting them, Earth created conditions that allowed no place for people like you, sitting here—and then it told you it has no use for you, that you're no good. We from the Outzone don't agree. To us, every kind of skill and ability is priceless. We can use every one of you in this room, and as many more as they care to send, for as long as Earth is happy to have its 'misfits' and 'undesirables' taken off its hands . . . " A crooked smile lightened the Director's expression for just a second. "And if they want to laugh and think we're a little crazy, well, that's just fine by us too." The moment was well timed and produced smiles. Linc found an excitement rising inside as he heard thoughts and feelings at last being voiced that expressed what he had been waiting for without knowing it. The Director had them all coming around to him now. He moved out to them a few paces, as if drawing them nearer. His voice fell to a more personal, conversational note.
"Let me tell you a little about the way I see things today. Earth is suffering from stagnation of the spirit. The whole focus of its energies, indeed its entire awareness, is on the immediate, the material—to the point that nothing else has come to have any meaning or even to exist. Mankind has lost the ability to dream—to dream the kind of dreams that built nations and civilizations. People no longer know what it means to work together toward a shared vision of something larger than any of them, that will last longer than all of them, and make every individual life that contributed to it that much more worthwhile." The Director's mouth curled distastefully for a moment. "Instead . . . what do we have? A war of all preying upon all. Everyone hostile and alienated, each using everyone else for whatever's up for grabs. You've all heard it every day: 'What do I get out of it, now?'"
He made an empty-handed gesture.
"The problems that have paralyzed the world are diseases of the mind—products of deluded imaginations that see only too many people running out of room and resources, and not enough for them to do. That's what they're telling you. The future that we are building, by contrast, promises infinite room with unlimited resources. And there could never be enough people for all the things out there that will need to be done."
He paused at that point and looked around, as if to give them a few moments to absorb what he had said. But there was little movement or sound. They were hungry for more. He resumed:
"I suppose you're all waiting for the catch. There has to be one, of course . . . Except that, after you've had some more practice at thinking and seeing things in the way I'm talking about, maybe you will come to view it as not so much of a catch after all. But what might seem like one for the moment is that we Outzoners entangle ourselves as little as possible in the political and economic affairs of Earth. Therefore, we can't offer much in the way of what you are accustomed to think of as payment. But then, the concept of individual wealth doesn't mean very much out there, in any case. The only 'wealth' that has any significance is what I alluded to a few minutes ago: the skills and knowledge you contribute to help create the technologies and other assets that secure the enterprise as a whole. That is how people are rated and what they're rewarded for. The reward is freedom to become whatever you choose and are capable of—the only true freedom that matters—and to be valued for that, and that alone.
"And now I'm going to use language you don't hear every day. What we offer is opportunity: the opportunity to serve, not a chance of obtaining privileges; the opportunity to honor obligation, not demand rights. What obligation? The obligation to return the best you are capable of to others, whose doing likewise makes the existence of all of us possible. Cooperation to the utmost degree is what matters out there. Survival itself depends on it. Anything less would equate to mutual destruction—which is what Earth has chosen." The Director turned to take in the whole room with an appealing gesture. "And for the past three months every one of you present in this room has, in a limited way, been practicing just these things I've described. And it appears that, as seems to be true more often than not of younger people, such a philosophy and worldview suits your nature . . . Which, of course, is why you are here."
This was so unlike everything Linc was used to hearing repeated all around him every day and had never questioned that it was almost like listening to a strange language. Yet at the same time the words had a deeply stirring effect, articulating so closely things he realized he had wanted to believe but had never seen in the reality he'd always lived in, and which he had therefore concluded couldn't exist. Now he was hearing not only that they could, but they did, exist; this time he would be there. And all of a sudden he was impatient. He wanted to be out there now, to become a part of it. And more than that, he realized. It wasn't enough just to be a part of it. He wanted to give something to it, to put a part of himself into making it happen. For the first time in his life, he saw a way of doing and being something worthwhile.
The hall had become very still and quiet. Looking around, he saw that others seemed to be affected in the same kind of way. Not all of them—in some places there were frowns, shakings of heads, exchanges of looks that said not me. But the majority, yes! Rocky's lanky frame was leaned back, tilting his chair, his face a picture of distant wonder. Johnny and Patch gave each other thumbs-ups beside him. A couple of tables away, a girl sitting behind Mace leaned forward to punch him on the shoulder, as if to say Hear that! Mace turned his head, nodded, and grinned. Flash was jerking his head to look from one to another of the coaches, as if seeing them in a new light suddenly. Then Arvin, his face still showing bruises, caught Linc's eye from across the room; and just for an instant something communicated itself between them that was devoid of malice . . . . And then Arvin's expression darkened, and he looked away again quickly.
But that was fine by Linc. Arvin no longer troubled him. Now, suddenly, there was a whole new future to think about.