daughter. In his own time, people had at least paid lip service to appearances. But here he was, sleeping with Edith, and seemingly it was of no importance whatsoever to them. Well, at least hypocrisy wasn’t involved; certainly that was progress in the development of human relations.
The academician, his expression disgruntled, was staring into the library booster screen on the living room desk. He looked up when Edith and Julian entered.
“Ridiculous!” he said, gesturing at the screen.
“What’s ridiculous. Father?” Edith asked.
He looked at her, closing one eye in disgust. “My looking at the news. Every time I do, I become irritated.”
She sighed as though she had been through this before. “What is the world currently doing that you disapprove of?”
“This star probe to the Alpha Centauri system. Ridiculous!”
Julian asked with some surprise, “Has the space program gotten to that point?”
“No. That’s why it’s ridiculous,” Leete said. “Do you know what that robot spacecraft will find when it gets to Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, assuming that the two companion stars have habitable planets?”
“No. What?”
“It’ll find men who have been there possibly for years.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Father?”
“About going off half-cocked. Why not wait another decade or two until we know more about space drive? What’s the hurry? It’s the same story all over again. Back in the 1950s when the United States and the Soviet Union began exploring space, instead of getting together—and utilizing German and British science as well—America went racing off. Billions upon billions of dollars, billions of man-hours of our top scientists and technicians, millions of tons of materials that were needed elsewhere.”
Julian said, “They made it, though. Landing a man on the moon was one of the biggest events in my time.”
The academician flicked off the screen in a gesture of disgust. “They made it; they put a man on the moon— two men, as I recall. Now, suppose they had taken their time, amalgamated their efforts with the Russians and any other interested countries: united effort would have cut the cost in half, and twice as much probably would have been learned.”
Edith said patiently, “What has that got to do with the Alpha Centauri probe?”
“It’s the same situation. What’s the hurry? In ten years we will have twice the information we have now. For all I know, we’ll have figured out a faster-than-light drive. By the time this ridiculous robot space probe gets to the vicinity, there’ll already be men there, waiting for it—if there’s any suitable place there for waiting.”
Julian was out of his depth, as usual.
“All right,” Edith said. “According to Stephen Dole, the F2 to Kl stars are of the spectral classes that might be suitable for the nurturing of planets habitable by mankind, planets that can be colonized. Sooner or later, we’ve got to reach out. This is the first step.”
“But premature! What is the damned hurry? Only twenty-five thousand years ago, we were painting bison and deer on the walls and ceilings of our caves. Why can’t we slow down a bit these days and wait until we’ve progressed a little further before sending out inadequate expeditions that will be anachronisms five years after they’ve taken off?”
Edith said, “Perhaps you’re right. However, we’ve got another problem on our hands at this moment. Jule has recurring nightmares.”
“Nightmares? In this day and age?”
Julian said wearily, “Remember, I’m not of this day and age.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Edith interrupted, “I’ve got an errand to run for Jule. When this project began, our job was to take care of him as if he were a four-year-old child. Now we’ve gotten to the point where we’re running around on
When she was gone, the doctor waited for Julian to begin.
“It’s nothing important. I’ve had them since I was a kid. Very vivid. I usually wake up sweating. I saw an auto accident once when I was about twelve years old. Four people killed. They looked like mincemeat. The first dead persons I had ever seen. I’ve dreamed about it since then about once every two months. I know it’s abnormal, but I’ve been to a multitude of doctors, from psychiatrists to acupuncture specialists, and it’s never done me any good.”
“But that was over thirty years ago, Julian. Today, we can not only cure you of your nightmares but give you a new set of pleasant dreams to order.”
“Give me dreams?”
“Yes, of course. Programmed dreams. Anything from pleasant dreams of childhood, to dreams of heroic deeds with you the hero. How would you like to be Horatius at the Bridge? Or we can give you erotic fantasies beyond your wildest dreams.” The academician chuckled at his own joke. “Now, I’m not suggesting that you turn to sleep to get your sexual release, but it can and has been done.”
Julian slumped in his chair. “This has been the cross I’ve borne all my life. How often have you killed an eight-year-old child, Raymond? I do it vividly about once a month.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
The doctor put a call through to Vienna with Julian watching, hardly daring to breathe. To be cured of the exhausting, terrifying dreams that he’d had as far back as he could remember!
Leete turned to him and indicated the phone screen. He had been speaking into it in Interlingua and using medical terminology with which Julian was unfamiliar.
“Doctor Oswaldo Schon wishes to speak with you.”
The face in the screen was typically Germanic, thin with very intense blue eyes.
“It is very interesting to speak to you, Mr. West,” Dr. Schon said in excellent English. “Some time in the future, when you are more adjusted to your new environment, I would enjoy an opportunity to discuss medical practice of a third of a century ago.”
“It would be a pleasure, Doctor,” Julian replied.
The other asked him a series of questions which didn’t seem to probe too deeply. Evidently it wasn’t even necessary to see the patient in person. Finally, he asked to speak to Academician Leete again. The conversation swung back to Interlingua, and Dr. Leete took several notes before switching off the phone.
He turned to Julian. “Evidently a very routine matter. I’ll see about the prescription immediately and treat you before evening.”
Julian expressed his great relief, then said, “I’m surprised at how many people speak English—even this Austrian.”
Leete chuckled. “He wasn’t speaking English; he was speaking Interlingua. The computer translated his Interlingua into English for you, and your English into Interlingua for him. You could talk to an Eskimo if you wished, and his tribal tongue would be translated into English for you.”
Julian shook his head. “They were just beginning to experiment with computer translaters when I went under.” He shifted in his chair and said by way of changing the subject, “There have been a few questions that have accumulated that I wanted to ask you about.”
“Of course.”
“Edith mentioned the other day that if someone wanted to read pornography, he could do so until his eyes dropped out. Would that apply to everybody? Even to a six-year-old child?”
“Why yes, certainly. A six-year-old usually can’t read any too well, even with our modern means of education, but if he was interested in books on sex, pornography or otherwise, I suppose he could look at the pictures.”
Julian was unhappy with that answer. “As a doctor, don’t you think that would be bad for the child?”
“Why? There’s nothing wrong with sex, and the sooner the youngster finds out about it, the better. The old arguments against freedom to portray sexual scenes were that they aroused sexual passions. So what? A photograph of a well-presented meal can arouse the appetite. Children become curious about sex at a very early age. They begin sex play with each other or with themselves almost as soon as they can toddle around. When 1
