Looking Forward, Kenneth Jr. [best android ereader txt] 📗

reach us from this star. Our own galaxy contains one hundred billion stars with, we presume, countless planets on which life exists. And our galaxy is only one out of tens of billions of similar galaxies scattered throughout the expanding universe. It would be simpler to study every grain of sand on every beach in the world than to explore the universe.

“The uncharted seas of space are almost without limit. If we make an analogy with the explorations of Columbus, it would seem by comparison that this wily old explorer did little more than stick his big toe out the back door. The decisions that we make in the next few years will deeply affect the destiny of the human race and, who knows, perhaps the universe. Man has a way of cutting an ever-widening trail wherever he goes.”

At this point the Director sits down, obviously filled with a deep sense of the interaction of present and future. The scientists gradually leave the room. There is no conversation. Everyone is engaged in his own thoughts. Scott wonders whether he can still meet Hella on the moon as they have planned.

15. The New Personality

Hella has tentative plans to meet Scott at the main celestial mechanics observatory on the moon. Scott, however, has become absorbed in space research that will play a part in the first face-to-face contact with extra-terrestrial beings. In the meantime, an opportunity has come to Hella that is too interesting to turn down. Corcen has checked with her regarding her interest in observing a group of people from the twentieth century that have been thawed out.

In the latter part of the twentieth century, to avoid the finality of death many people had themselves quick-frozen immediately before or after death. They hoped that by having their bodies preserved they could be thawed out at a later date with minimal damage so the medical skill of a future civilization could bring them back to life. One of the more dubious legacies of the past was about twenty-two thousand of these frozen people.

No one knows exactly what to do with these corpses. Should an attempt be made to resurrect them? Should they simply be disposed of? Since the population of the world is maintained at a constant level, most people feel that it is preferable to create a new life that is genetically and psychologically prepared for participation in the twenty-first century. Resurrection of one of these bodies with an uncertain adjustment in the twenty-first century might be a sticky business.

When this problem was referred to Corcen, a firm conclusion was returned in seconds: make no attempt at resurrection. The individuals of the twenty-first century deeply accept Corcen. They have found it reliable in 99.97 per cent of its predictions during the past eighteen years (it had inadequate data on the .03 per cent it missed). Yet, many individuals feel they can not ignore the human hopes that lay frozen in these modern catacombs.

Corcen does not dictate how things should be run in the twenty-first century, it only advises. As it perceives the thoughts of the people, it operates in a manner that fulfills their needs. It usually has better insight into what brings people happiness than any individual person. This has been proved time and time again by its successful predictions.

Nevertheless, people are free to do as they wish. Finally, a group decided they would attempt the revival of 100 of the bodies. They picked fifty males and fifty females whose records seemed to be especially promising and thawed them out. They have been successful in bringing 93 per cent of them back to life, and replacing the defective organs that were responsible for death with synthetic organs.

The real problem arose when they found that these individuals are completely out of touch with patterns of life in the twenty-first century. You could no more leave them on their own than you could turn a baboon loose in the middle of a research center. They seem so full of hostilities and have ego motivations that are so alien to the twenty-first century that people have finally given up the task of trying to train them to fit into the new world. These “thawees” are so disruptive of the routines of life in the twenty-first century that the group that has brought them to life realizes they are saddled with a custodial problem. They are beginning to understand the types of pressures and twenty-four-hours-a-day watchfulness that burdened mothers in previous centuries.

Their reverence for human life does not permit them to refreeze these “unsane” individuals. They finally decide to set up a twentieth-century behavioral research laboratory on an isolated island and turn these people loose there. They provide the ninety-three men and women with every material resource requested and build a laboratory for psychologists and anthropologists to observe them. The thawees are free to set up their own social structure.

Hella flies down to the isolated Pacific island. The staff is most delighted to see her. Although they are equipped with all of the twenty-first-century aids to living, including three-dimensional color telecommunication with all parts of the world, they feel cooped up. Varying one’s environment is a part of twenty-first-century living.

Their Pathetic Heritage

By means of monitoring pickups, the custodians are able to make a recording of most of the behavior of the twentieth-century thawees. One evening as Hella is watching them on the teleprojection screen, two men begin to quarrel. One man suspects that another man has attempted to obtain a sexual relationship with a woman he feels belongs to him. Although the woman protests that his suspicions are not correct, he slaps her in the face and hits her in the ribs so hard that it sends her sprawling across the room. The man with whom she has been accused of intimacy stands up and rushes toward the attacking man. A fight begins that lasts several minutes.

Neither Hella nor anyone in the group has ever seen anyone strike another person in anger. They