Clifford Simak - A Choice of Gods

"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.

(Excerpt from journal of Oct. 9, 3935)… I have hesitated to accept the business of going to the stars. I knew it was being done; I knew it was possible; I saw them go and, after a time, return. And I talked with them about it; all of us have talked about it at great length and, being human, have sought to determine the mechanism that makes it possible and even at times, although less often now, have debated the desirability of this trait we discovered. And the use of that word, trait, is most revealing, for it lends emphasis to the fact that we know nothing whatever about how we do it or how it might have come about.

I say there has been some hesitancy on my part to accept going to the stars and that is, I know, a somewhat confusing statement and I am not sure at all that I can make it clear. I, of course, have accepted it intellectually and even emotionally in that I have been as excited about this seeming impossibility as have any of the others. But the acceptance is not total. It is as if I were shown some impossible animal or plant (impossible for any number of good and logical reasons). Seeing it, I would be forced to admit that it did, indeed, exist. But turning and walking away from it, I'd find myself doubting the evidence of my eyes and telling myself that I had not actually seen it, in consequence of which I'd have to go back and see it once again. And when I turned away from it the second time, and the third and fourth and fifth, I'd still find myself doubtful of what I had seen and have to turn back to reassure myself. Perhaps there is something more as well. Try as I may, I cannot make up my mind that this is a beneficial, or even a proper, thing for any human being to do. A built-in caution, perhaps, or a resistance to anything too revolutionary (an attitude not uncommon in one of my biological age) niggles at me continually, whispering warnings of catastrophe as a result of this new ability. The conservatism in me will not accept that so great a thing can be conferred upon the human race without the exaction of some sort of heavy payment. Feeling so, I suppose that unconsciously I have gone on the assumption that until I unreservedly admit that it is so, it cannot be so and that until it actually becomes so, the payment can be deferred.

All of this, of course, is egocentric and, more than that, plain foolish and I have felt at times, although everyone has been at great pains not to make it so appear, that I have made a great fool of myself. For the trips to the stars have been going on for some years now and by this time almost everyone has gone for at least one short trip. I have not gone, of course; my doubts and reservations no doubt would act as a psychological block to my going, which is something that is idle to speculate upon, for I don't intend to try. My grandson Jason and his excellent Martha are among the few who have not gone and my prejudice makes me very glad of this. I seem to see in Jason some of the same love of the ancestral acres that I have myself and I am inclined to believe that this love will keep him forever from the stars which, mistaken though I may be, I account no tragedy. His brother, John, however, was among the first to go and he has not come back. I have spent many hours of worry over him.

It is ridiculous, of course, for me to persist in this illogical attitude. Whatever I may say or think, man finally has severed, quite naturally and as a matter of course, his dependence on the Earth. And that may be the core of how I feel about it—an uneasiness that Man should, after long millennia, finally end his dependence on the Earth.

The house is filled with mementos from the stars. Amanda just this morning brought the beautiful bouquet of most strange flowers that sits upon my desk, plucked on a planet of which I now quite forget the name—although the name is not important, for it is not really its name (if it ever had a name) but a name by which two human beings, Amanda and her boyfriend, George, have designated it. It is out toward a bright star of which I now also forget the name—not a planet of that particular star, of course, but of a smaller neighbor, so much fainter that even if we had a large telescope we could not pick up its light. All about the house are strange objects— branches with dried berries, colorful rocks and pebbles, chunks of exotic wood, fantastic artifacts picked from sites where intelligent creatures once had lived and built and fabricated the cultural debris that we now bring back. We have no photographs and that's a pity, for while we have the cameras, still in working condition, we have no film to load them with. Some day someone may develop a way of making film again and we'll have photographs. Strangely, I am the only one who has considered photographs; none of the others have any interest in them.