The following Monday, only General Ba-kerga was missing, and Lisa conveyed his apologies, and his intention to arrive by eleven thirty for the Po Publications report and lunch.
It touched Priscilla deeply that an on-duty general would make such an effort to get to the team she had created. Then she looked around, saw two retired generals and all the other officers and professors, and had to hold back tears.
“All last week,” she began, sitting in her new place of honor in front of Susan’s unlit fireplace, “I was juggling emotions and trying to get through that damn grieving process as quickly as possible . . .”
She and her therapist exchanged knowing smiles.
“. . . and George really helped by letting me work in the facility. Then I spent most of the weekend pouring out my hopes and fears to Susan and Brian. Don’t worry, Brian still gets an edited version — I don’t wanna scare him.”
Most people chuckled with sympathy.
“Okay, let’s jump into news, other than Po Pub stuff.”
Doctor Ko-rensis the anthropologist shared the National School Board decision, which had silenced the anti-book crowd, but now they were flooded with complaints from the pro-book people. The chairman had resigned, and teachers were on strike at twenty-three schools over the issue.
Priscilla couldn’t help but laugh deeply, tried to apologize to Doctor
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 262
Ko-rensis, but couldn’t collect herself enough the get her words straight. The tears of sadness that had been close earlier, came out as tears of humor.
Eventually she settled down. “Sorry. Next?”
After grinning at Priscilla, Colonel Bo-torin the political scientist shared that bookstores owned by churches were refusing to carry the book. However, they were finding that too many of their customers wanted the scriptures AND the controversial book, and when they couldn’t get one, they went elsewhere for both.
Sam smiled. “Money does have a way of talking, doesn’t it?”
Several more book-burnings were reported, and numerous libraries were experiencing so much demand that they no longer allowed the book to circulate, but instead set aside reading areas with copies chained to the tables.
In other places, children’s librarians were reporting that seven and eight-year-olds were looking at the pictures and graphs, and struggling to sound out the words, or begging older kids to read to them.
“Amazing,” Sarah breathed. “I think . . . we started something.”
The news reports, and the summaries of scholarly articles the professors were endorsing, took the team to about ten fifteen.
Then silence lingered, with more than an hour before Harold To-kamra was expected.
Priscilla gathered her thoughts. “Normally, we would now explore other little topics about the future that might teach us something. I guess . . . there’s no point in doing that anymore. Thoughts?”
“I just want everyone to understand,” retired General Ko-fenral began,
“that the Department of Defense did not choose to abandon our project. They were ordered to by our civilian leadership — the president, and whatever political forces he is under.”
Most people nodded understanding.
“Thanks, Malcolm. Larry?”
Doctor Bo-leden cleared his throat. “Although that’s good to remember, I think we should avoid putting much energy into finger-pointing and blame.
But I do think we should explore small topics, whenever there’s time, that seem related to anthropogenic climate change. It’s a complex system that
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 263
interacts with many other systems.”
Priscilla nodded. “I agree with both Malcolm and you. Chris?”
The physicist took a deep breath. “I have . . . a small but related topic, at least to me, and I beg an hour of the team’s time to . . . get some feedback . . .
so I will know how to proceed with . . . an opportunity I have in the near future.”
Priscilla looked around. “Any objections to giving Chris this hour?”
No one spoke.
“You have the floor . . . I mean, the seat by the fireplace.”
They switched while others chuckled.
“For reasons I don’t fully understand, during the eight years I’ve been on this team — learning all the things that Priscilla, and the rest of you, and the situations themselves taught us — I got religion.”
Many chuckled and a few moaned.
“Bear with me, as I assure you that my religion is not the book-burning kind, and it doesn’t have an address in the telephone book. In fact, it’s probably a religion of one, just little ol’ me.”
Some of the blank faces in the room changed to smiles.
“In this very-unique religion of mine, I have discovered that communicating with my deity — what most people would call prayer or whatever — is not something that is easy to do. It takes a great deal of thought and preparation, and opportunities to do it are . . . very rare . . . or perhaps once in a lifetime.”
A few murmurs arose, but quickly faded.
“So . . . I’m not here to convert you, or tell you any more about my personal religion. I simply beg your wisdom helping me know what to say — or not say
— if I can send a message to my deity, a message that might, somehow, help us with this situation in which our civilization is about to destroy itself . . .”
Doctor Po-selem’s hour began with an uncomfortable silence. Susan’s hand, hesitantly rising, finally broke the ice.
“I don’t know if this will be useful, but I thought I’d just summarize the psychologist’s understanding of prayer.”
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 264
“I’d appreciate that,” the physicist said.
“Prayer is natural for children, as they live in a magical world in which their needs and wants are turned into real things by asking for them. Even if a child sees a parent buy or make the desired item, they still believe in the magical connection between expressing their desire and it coming true.
“The child’s prayers are mostly selfish, of course. They pray for birthday presents, cake and ice cream, et cetera. With adolescence, the prayers become slightly less selfish, with the recipient becoming the person and a significant peer or small group of peers — couple or tribal.
“In adulthood, the groups become larger — clan, race, nation — but the prayer requests are still basically selfish — help me and mine, not them and theirs. People who pray for strangers or enemies are very rare, and I suppose always will be.”
Doctor Po-selem looked very thoughtful as Susan fell silent.
Eventually another hand came up.
“I must admit, I have not practiced my parents’ religion since leaving home,” retired Colonel Ma-soran began, “but something they taught me comes to mind.”
Chris nodded with interest.
“They taught me that all prayers are answered, but that’s not the same as fulfilled. In other words, God, deity, the universe, whatever you want to call them, give you what they think you need, not what you want.”
“I already believe that,” the physicist shared. “But thank you.”
The silence lingered again.
“I’ve heard,” Doctor Po-morna the biologist began, “that you get something good from every prayer, but only once. If you pray with others watching, you get the social rewards of being seen praying — acceptance, honor, punch and cookies — but that’s it. You got something out of it, now what do you want? If you actually want something deeper, something spiritual, then you must forgo the social rewards. In other words, pray in private, without any other kind of recognition or gain.”
Doctor Po-selem’s mouth was open. “Um . . . I hadn’t thought of that.
Thank you.”
Priscilla could see Susan nodding thoughtfully.
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 265
General Ba-kerga arrived, sharing that he would soon be able to wind down the other two safe houses. Others brought him up to date on news and summarized Doctor Po-selem’s discussion topic.
Harold To-kamra reported on the wild ride that Po Publications’ stock prices had recently taken, and that the eleventh printing had been ordered, which would bring them to one million one hundred thousand copies. He also shared that the overseas office, in conjunction with the authors, was working on a small condensed paperback edition, and expected it to sell like hotcakes to younger readers.
Priscilla agreed, and handed him another cashier’s check. She made the decision, on the spot, that it should be especially for promoting that paperback edition.