“We have been humbled,” Heather said on Friday morning to the somber group. “I believe it was good for us to go through the brainstorming process we did, and maybe something we thought of will still be important in some way. I don’t know. Remember, at this point in the process, I’m in the same boat with you. The only future I know anything about . . . is the one we don’t want.”
The team agreed with nods and weak smiles.
“One of us was insightful enough to realize, weeks ago, that we were looking at an unsolvable problem, at least politically — in other words, a predicament. I know my dear friend and therapist Doctor Bo-kamla is going to hate me for this, but I want her to speak to you today about what she saw back then.”
Heather took her seat and Susan came up.
“Hate is probably too strong a word,” the psychologist said with a smile.
Many people chuckled, knowing how close they were.
“And I knew Heather wanted me to do this. I just wasn’t sure what I was going to say . . . until I listened to Colonel Bo-torin’s final summary on Wednesday.”
The colonel nodded respectfully.
“It started, of course, with Heather’s little matrix that I’m sure you all remember.”
Ginny, handling the records binder that day, found the paper copy and
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handed it to the psychologist.
Susan unfolded it and clipped it to the top of the blackboard. “Even after all our thinking and talking, it’s still a completely-valid picture of the situation.”
“There’s no humane way to get rid of three billion people, and there’s no political way to lower our living standards to the peasant level. And, as we know from both Heather and our scientists, we cannot feed our current population without today’s complex system of commercial agriculture.”
Several professors nodded agreement.
“I could accept, in my own mind, that this was a nasty predicament, but for weeks I didn’t know what to do with it, where to take it. Now I do.”
She looked around at the tired but hopeful faces.
“I believe this team created a trap for itself by assuming that we had to find a solution, that we had to lead the world out of this situation. That assumption was reinforced by the fact that it had to be done now, long before most other people could see and understand the problem for themselves.
“I believe that assumption was wrong, illustrated by Colonel Bo-torin’s . . .
um . . . shredding of our ideas . . .”
Muffled chuckles came from several places in the room.
Susan smiled slightly. “So, I realized what we need to do, and now, with my heart in my throat, I place the idea on the table for this team to consider. I believe we must find the courage to let go of our assumed leadership concerning this . . . predicament . . . tell the world everything we know, and let them . . . um . . . work it out . . . using whatever knowledge and wisdom the human race possesses. Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. I don’t
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know.”
The psychologist quickly returned to the safety of her seat.
Heather closed her eyes and let a long moment pass, half-hoping that someone else would suddenly volunteer to lead the meeting. Eventually she opened her eyes, didn’t see anyone volunteering, and reluctantly stood.
“Thank you, Susan. You surprised me. I was expecting you to go over cognitive dissonance and all that. But it’s certainly true this team has studied that stuff to death, so no harm done.
“Unfortunately, I have to announce that your suggestion would not work
. . . because . . . in the future I know, not far from today, with plenty of time to do something about it, the world will know the essence of what we know, from another source, and will choose to do nothing about it.”
Doctor Bo-kamla, in her seat, briefly reconsidered the strong word Heather had proposed earlier.
But unlike the psychologist, the team leader did not get to sit down before all three generals demanded she elaborate.
Heather took a deep breath. “Starting sometime about . . . now . . . a few scientists will become concerned about pollution, resource depletion, population growth, and other related issues. They’ll start constructing models, and using computers to run those models, just like Betty and Chris did.
“But they won’t have me to nudge them in the right directions, so they won’t pinpoint the problem — the one that will actually get us — for quite a while. They will realize the next century isn’t going to be pretty. They’ll write articles and try to get them published. The first book for non-scientists will come out . . . let me think . . . just two years from now.”
“And what will happen to those articles and that book?” General Ko-fenral asked urgently.
“Most of the articles will never see the light of day. Science, as most of you know, has a system in which nothing gets published unless it is acceptable to established scientists. Predictions of doom and gloom make people uncomfortable. Scientists are people too.”
Doctor Po-selem sighed, then nodded.
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“As for the book, the newspapers and other voices for both liberals and conservatives will go into high gear to demonize and vilify it. The money and power people will attack it ruthlessly. The common people will never know about it. Most of academia won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Even a world war hardly unites people as much as the effort that will go into silencing that book. As a result, few copies will sell, until about 3705, when it will be dusted off, updated, and become a best-seller . . . much too late. Other books like it, sprinkled through the years, will have a similar fate.”
“Where is the military in all this?” General Bo-seklin asked.
Heather looked at him. “As far as I know, the issue never comes to their attention, pro or con. They’re busy with the Beklan Empire, the proxy wars, and all the other things they must do. That’s why, five years ago, I offered my services to the Department of Defense. I already knew, from living through it the first time, that no other sector of society was up to the task. Each sector —
politics, religion, and all the rest — had a wise voice or two, but not enough to change the course of civilization.”
At General Bo-seklin’s request, Doctor Bo-leden the philosopher stood to give the team a better understanding of how any controversial scientific article was excluded from publication, and, often enough, the scientist’s reputation ruined in the process.
Then Colonel Bo-torin the political scientist verified Heather’s analysis of the groups that would battle against the book she mentioned. Liberals and conservatives might have a different approach to handling problems, he explained, but the suggestion that any problem needed more than slight adjustments to existing policies was completely unthinkable.
Susan nodded agreement.
Finally, General Ko-fenral himself stood and spoke. The military rarely looked more than four years into the future, as any effort to do so could be, and usually was, made worthless by a new president coming into office. The only such efforts were the P-series programs, and they were probably all failures in the future Heather knew. It was, therefore, quite believable that in that future, the military played no decisive role, one way or the other.
With eleven o’clock approaching, Heather declared a short break. She
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immediately dashed to Susan, just rising from her seat, and stood before her, head bowed. “I’m sorry.”
The psychologist smiled down at her young charge. “You are only allowed to reveal things about the future that do not offend anyone.”
Heather looked up, saw the barely-suppressed grin on Susan’s face, and they both burst out laughing at the same moment.
“In that case . . . I wouldn’t be able to say anything! ”
The psychologist continued laughing and wrapped her arms around her young friend. “Your task in life does not allow you to pander. That’s why you need a team of good people around you. Otherwise, you’d just be a carnival freak or a street-corner preacher.”
They separated and Heather twisted her face. “Eeew.”
Susan laughed again, then slipped away to find a free toilet room.
As the team returned to their seats, Heather felt that either the room and all its furnishing were coming to life around her, or Maria had slipped something into the scrambled eggs. She looked at Susan, and the psychologist looked back with a mischievous smile and sparkling eyes, not at all her usual facial expressions.
As soon as everyone got settled, Doctor Po-selem raised his hand.
“Chris?”
“I’d like to propose a vote.”
A rumble immediately arose throughout the large room.
The P-Seventeen team, a program of the Department of Defense, was not a democratic body that took votes on every little issue, indeed on any little issue. Only one program action would call for a vote — a substantial effort to change the future they were studying.
In the entire five years of the program’s existence, no such vote had ever been taken, nor even proposed. Whether they remembered the early sessions personally, or had listened to those tapes later, every team member knew that any effort to change the future would probably result in Heather losing her memories and becoming just another twelve-year-old girl.
Only the security corporal standing by the stairs was unaware of the implications.
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“Now wait a . . .” Three-star General Ko-fenral tried to say.
“You’ll get your vote!” Heather asserted so forcefully, and made eye contact so sternly, that the general fell silent.
“Doctor Po-selem,” she continued more softly. “You have the floor.”
He stood, ran his fingers through his wild hair, and took a deep breath. “I do not make this proposal lightly. I, perhaps more than anyone else, am painfully aware of what it could do to . . . our beloved Heather.”
She smiled from her seat.
“But we need to find something we can do, since everything else we’ve thought of has been eliminated. The one thing I am absolutely certain is that no one on this team wants to just sit here, week after week, year after year, while our window of opportunity passes.
“So my proposal is simply this — that we help bring relevant articles and books to publication, and widest possible distribution, by giving them the endorsement of this elite team of high-ranking military officers and prominent scientists.”
No one broke the silence that followed.
“I realize we will want to take a vote on each item — each article or book —
so I include that step in my proposal.”
Without waiting for the physicist to go into any more detail, Heather stood. Doctor Po-selem saw the determination in her eyes and quickly sat down.
“Since the proposal includes another layer of voting, I’m not going to call for discussion today — we’ll have plenty of time for that, and we’ve been doing little else for six weeks.”
Several people chuckled deeply.
“First, the team will vote, excluding Sam, Malcolm, and me. Ben, please make sure everyone has paper and pencil, and remember that the enlisted security people are all on the team.”
While Lieutenant Ta-nibon circulated with a pad of paper and extra pencils, Heather noticed that General Ko-fenral still looked a bit sore, but was making a good effort to breathe deeply and contain himself. Sam looked completely happy with the situation, and somewhat to Heather’s surprise, George also.
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The team members voted, folded their papers, and handed them to Ben, who returned to the records specialists’ couch.
“Sam and Malcolm get separate votes,” Heather went on.
Two-star General Bo-seklin smiled at her. “I vote yes.”
Three-star General Ko-fenral took one more slow, deep breath. “I vote . . .
yes.
Heather looked at Ben, busy sorting his pile of votes. A pregnant silence lingered while he finished.
“I have fifteen yes votes, and one question mark.”
“That was me,” the security corporal by the stairs said. “I just don’t know enough.”
“That’s okay,” Heather assured him.
Then she saw everyone looking at her, but only smiled.
