The Best of Science Fiction 12

One streak of illumination was a collaboration between two astronomers making an excellent case for the existence of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Holden Day, 1966) — or at least on Earth. The book is knowledgeable, imaginative, literate, entertaining, instructive and also (doubly) opinionated. In the preface, Carl Sagan, of Harvard and the Smithsonian, says of his colleague I. S. Shklovskii, of the Sternberg Institute and Soviet Academy:

... Since he does not travel out of the Soviet Union and I have never traveled to the Soviet Union, we have been unable to discuss the present edition in person. "The probability of our meeting is unlikely to be smaller than the probability of a visit to the Earth by an Extra-terrestrial cosmonaut," he once wrote ... As the reader might expect ... there are occasional differences. I have not tried to avoid these problems ... I do not think the reader will be distressed by the occasional appearance of a dialogue.

What with Alliluyeva and Glassboro, too, the Soviet-American dialogue gets steadily more sociable, if not more sensible. Even the Orange (Yellow/Red) Menace looms less lurid in the light of popular dissatisfaction, dissent, and spasmodic riot and rebellion, in the provinces of China as in the cities of America. And then there was The Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace (Dial, 1967).

1967 was a big year all around for reports and most of those not concerned with Vietnam or the Kennedy assassination seemed to concentrate on the year 2000 (perhaps the influence of RAND's 'Delphi' predictions; or the — again — imminent release of the Clarke-Kubrick film 2001 ?), including the extraordinary (February 1967) '2001+' issue of Architectural Design. Along with broad forecasts and detailed technical prospectuses, it reprinted a speech on 'The Year 2006' by Buckminster Fuller:

... In ten years from now we will have changed so completely that no one will say you have to demonstrate your right to live, that you have to earn a living ... It will be normal for a man to be successful ... Politics will become obsolete. ...

There will be a rediscovery of what Einstein described in 1930, in an article on the 'cosmic religious sense' ... We are going to have an increasing number of human beings as scientists and philosophers thinking about the total significance of human experience and ... of man's development. An era of extraordinary integrity might ensue.

The 'cosmic religious sense' and the integrity potential of man are the dominant themes of the most readably provocative theological s-f since A Canticle for Leibowitz — R. A. Lafferty's first novel, The Past Master (Ace, 1968). Here he offers a report on scientists and philosophers and the PTA and things.

ABSTRACT FROM JOINT REPORT TO THE GENERAL DUBUQUE PTA CONCERNING THE PRIMARY EDUCATION OF THE CAMIROI, Subtitled Critical Observations of a Parallel Culture on a Neighbouring World, and Evaluations of THE OTHER WAY OF EDUCATION.

Extract from the Day Book:

"Where," we asked the Information Factor at Camiroi City Terminal, "is the office of the local PTA?"

"Isn't any," he said cheerfully.

"You mean that in Camiroi City, the metropolis of the planet, there is no PTA?" our chairman Paul Piper asked with disbelief.

"Isn't any office of it. But you're poor strangers, so you deserve an answer even if you can't frame your questions properly. See that elderly man sitting on the bench and enjoying the sun? Go tell him you need a PTA. He'll make you one."

"Perhaps the initials convey a different meaning on Camiroi," said Miss Munch the first surrogate chairman. "By them we mean — "

"Parent Teachers Apparatus, of course. Colloquial English is one of the six Earthian languages required here, you know. Don't be abashed. He's a fine person, and he enjoys doing things for strangers. He'll be glad to make you a PTA."

We were nonplussed, but we walked over to the man indicated.

"We are looking for the local PTA, sir," said Miss Smice, our second surrogate chairman. "We were told that you might help us."

"Oh, certainly," said the elderly Camiroi gentleman. "One of you arrest that man walking there, and we'll get started with it."

"Do what?" asked our Mr. Piper.

"Arrest him. I have noticed that your own words sometimes do not convey a meaning to you. I often wonder how you do communicate among yourselves. Arrest, take into custody, seize by any force physical or moral, and bring him here."

"Yes, sir ," cried Miss Hanks our third surrogate chairman. She enjoyed things like this. She arrested the walking Camiroi man with force partly physical and partly moral and brought him to the group.

"It's a PTA they want, Meander," the elder Camiroi said to the one arrested. "Grab three more, and we'll get started. Let the lady help. She's good at it."

Our Miss Hanks and the Camiroi man named Meander arrested three other Camiroi men and brought them to the group.

"Five. It's enough," said the elderly Camiroi. "We are hereby constituted a PTA and ordered into random action. Now, how can we accommodate you, good Earth people?"

"But are you legal? Are you five persons competent to be a PTA?" demanded our Mr. Piper.

"Any Camiroi citizen is competent to do any job on the planet of Camiroi," said one of the Camiroi men (we learned later that his name was Talarium). "Otherwise Camiroi would be in a sad shape."

"It may be," said our Miss Smice sourly ... "It all seems very informal. What if one of you had to be World President?"

"The odds are that it won't come to one man in ten," said the elderly Camiroi (his name was Philoxenus). "I'm the only one of this group ever to serve as president of this planet, and it was a pleasant week I spent in the Office. Now to the point. How can we accommodate you?"

"We would like to see one of your schools in session," said our Mr. Piper. "We would like to talk to the teachers and the students. We are here to compare the two systems of education."

"There is no comparison," said old Philoxenus, " — meaning no offense. Or no more than a little. On Camiroi, we practice Education. On Earth, they play a game, but they call it by the same name. That makes the confusion. Come. We'll go to a school in session."

"And to a public school," said Miss Smice suspiciously. "Do not fob off any fancy private school on us as typical."

"That would be difficult," said Philoxenus. "There is no public school in Camiroi City and only two remaining on the Planet. Only a small fraction of one per cent of the students of Camiroi are in public schools. We maintain that there is no more reason for the majority of children to be educated in a public school than to be raised in a public orphanage. We realise, of course, that on Earth you have made a sacred buffalo of the public school."

"Sacred cow," said our Mr. Piper.

"Children and Earthlings should be corrected when they use words wrongly," said Philoxenus. "How else will they learn the correct forms? The animal held sacred in your own near orient was of the species bos bubalus rather than bos bos, a buffalo rather than a cow. Shall we go to a school?"

"If it cannot be a public school, at least let it be a typical school," said Miss Smice.

"That again is impossible," said Philoxenus. "Every school on Camiroi is in some respect atypical."

We went to visit an atypical school.

Incident:Our first contact with the Camiroi students was a violent one. One of them, a lively little boy about eight years old, ran into Miss Munch, knocked her down, and broke her glasses. Then he jabbered something in an unknown tongue.