The Worlds Of Robert A. Heinlein Part 3

She lived through it. She survived.

Our prospects need not dismay you, not if you or your kin were at b.l.o.o.d.y Nose Ridge, at Gettysburg - or trudged across the Plains. You and I are here because we carry the genes of uncountable ancestors who fought - and won - against death in all its forms. We're tough. We'll survive. Most of us.

We've lasted through the preliminary bouts; the main event is coming up.

But it's not for sissies.

The Last thing to come fluttering out of Pandora's box was Hope - without which men die.

The gathering wind will not destroy everything, nor will the Age of Science change everything. Long after the first star s.h.i.+p leaves for parts unknown, there will still be outhouses in upstate New York, there will still be steers in Texas, and - no doubt - the English will still stop for tea.

Afterthoughts, fifteen years later -

(a) And now we are paying for it and the cost is high. But, for reasons understandable only to bureaucrats, we have almost halted development of a nuclear-powered s.p.a.cecraft when success was in sight. Never mind; if we don't, another country will. By the end of this century s.p.a.ce travel will be cheap.

(b) This trend is so much more evident now than it was fifteen years ago that I am tempted to call it a fulfilled prophecy. Vast changes in s.e.x relations are evident all around us - with the oldsters calling it "moral decay" and the youngsters ignoring them and taking it for granted. Surface signs: books such as "s.e.x and the Single Girl" are smash hits; the formerly-taboo four-letter words are now seen both in novels and popular magazines; the neologism "swinger" has come into the language; courts are conceding that nudity and semi-nudity are now parts of the mores. But the end is not yet; this revolution will go much farther and is now barely started.

The most difficult speculation for a science fiction writer to undertake is to imagine correctly the secondary implications of a new factor. Many people correctly antic.i.p.ated the coming of the horseless carriage; some were bold enough to predict that everyone would use them and the horse would virtually disappear. But I know of no writer, fiction or non-fiction, who saw ahead of time the vast change in the courting and mating habits of Americans which would result primarily from the automobile - a change which the diaphragm and the oral contraceptive merely confirmed. So far as I know, no one even dreamed of the change in s.e.x habits the automobile would set off.

There is some new gadget in existence today which will prove to be equally revolutionary in some other way equally unexpected. You and I both know of this gadget, by name and by function - but we don't know which one it is nor what its unexpected effect will be. This is why science fiction is not prophecy - and why fictional speculation can be so much fun both to read and to write.

( c) I flatly stand by this one. True, we are now working on Nike-Zeus and Nike-X and related systems and plan to spend billions on such systems - and we know that others are doing the same thing. True, it is possible to hit an object in orbit or trajectory. Nevertheless this prediction is as safe as predicting tomorrow's sunrise. Anti-aircraft fire never stopped air attacks; it simply made them expensive. The disadvantage in being at the bottom of a deep "gravity well" is very great; gravity gauge will be as crucial in the coming years as wind gauge was in the days when sailing s.h.i.+ps controlled empires. The nation that controls the Moon will control the Earth - but no one seems willing these days to speak that nasty fact out loud.

(d) Since 1950 we have done so in several theaters and are doing so as this is written, in Viet Nam. "Preventive" or "pre-emptive" war seems as unlikely as ever, no matter who is in the White House. Here is a new prediction: World War III (as a major, all-out war) will not take place at least until 1980 and could easily hold off until 2000. This is a very happy prediction compared with the situation in 1950, as those years of grace may turn up basic factors which (hopefully!) might postpone disaster still longer. We were much closer to ultimate disaster around 1955 than we are today - much closer indeed than we were at the time of the Cuban Confrontation in 1962. But the public never knew it. All in all, things look pretty good for survival, for the time being - and that is as good a break as our ancestors ever had. It was far more dangerous to live in London in 1664-5 than it is to live in a city threatened by H-bombs today.

(e) Here I fell flat on my face. There has been no break-through in housing, nor is any now in prospect - instead the ancient, wasteful methods of building are now being confirmed by public subsidies. The degree of our backwardness in this field is hard to grasp; we have never seen a modern house. Think what an automobile would be if each one were custom-built from materials fetched to your home - what would it look like, what would it do, and how much would it cost. But don't set the cost lower than $100,000, nor the speed higher than 10 m/h, if you want to be realistic about the centuries of difference between the housing industry and the automotive industry.

I underestimated ( through wishful thinking ) the power of human stupidity - a fault fatal to prophecy.

(f) In the meantime spectacular progress has been made in organ transplants - and the problem of regeneration is related to this one. Biochemistry and genetics have made a spectacular breakthrough in "cracking the genetic code." It is a tiny crack, however, with a long way to go before we will have the human chromosomes charted and still longer before we will be able to "tailor" human beings by gene manipulation. The possibility is there - but not by year 2000. This is probably just as well. If we aren't bright enough to build decent houses, are we bright enough to play G.o.d with the architecture of human beings?

(g) Our editor suggested that I had been too optimistic on this one - but I still stand by it. It is still thirty-five years to the end of the century.

For perspective, look back thirty-five years to 1930 - the American Rocket Society had not yet been founded then. Another curve, similar to the one herewith in shape but derived entirely from speed of transportation, extrapolates to show faster-than-light travel by year 2000. I guess I'm chicken, for I am not predicting FTL s.h.i.+ps by then, if ever. But the prediction still stands without hedging.

(h) Predicting intelligent life on Mars looks pretty silly after those dismal photographs. But I shan't withdraw it until Mars has been thoroughly explored. As yet we really have no idea - and no data - as to just how ubiquitous and vaned life may be in this galaxy; it is conceivable that life as we don't know it can evolve on any sort of a planet . . . and nothing in our present knowledge of chemistry rules this out. All the talk has been about life-as-we-know-it-which means terrestrial conditions.

But if you feel that this shows in me a childish reluctance to give up thoats and zitidars and beautiful Martian princesses until forced to, I won't argue with you - I'll just wait.

(i) I must hedge number thirteen; the "cent" I meant was scaled by the 1950 dollar. But our currency has been going through a long steady inflation, and no nation in history has ever gone as far as we have along this route without reaching the explosive phase of inflation. Ten-dollar hamburgers?

Brother, we are headed for the hundred-dollar hamburger - for the barter-only hamburger.

But this is only an inconvenience rather than a disaster as long as there is plenty of hamburger.

(j) This prediction stands. But today physics is in a tremendous state of flux with new data piling up faster than it can be digested; it is anybody's guess as to where we are headed, but the wilder you guess, the more likely you are to hit it lucky. With "elementary particles" of nuclear physics now totaling about half the number we used to use to list the "immutable" chemical elements, a spectator needs a program just to keep track of the players. At the other end of the scale, "quasars" - quasi-stellar bodies - have come along; radio astronomy is now bigger than telescopic astronomy used to be; and we have redrawn our picture of the universe several times, each time enlarging it and making it more complex - I haven't seen this week's theory yet, which is well, as it would be out of date before this gets into print. Plasma physics was barely started in 1950; the same for solid-state physics. This is the Golden Age of physics - and it's an anarchy.

(k) I stand flatly behind prediction number fifteen.

(I) I'll hedge number eighteen just a little. Hunger is not now a problem in the USA and need not be in the year 2000 - but hunger as a world problem and problem for us if we were conquered . . . a distinct possibility by 2000. Between our present status and that of subjugation lies a

whole spectrum of political and economic possible

shapes to the future under which we would share the

worldwide hunger to a greater or lesser extent. And

the problem grows. We can expect to have to feed

around half a billion Americans circa year 2000-our

present huge surpluses would then represent acute

shortages even if we never s.h.i.+pped a ton of wheat to

India.

(m) I stand by prediction number nineteen.

I see no reason to change any of the negative predictions which follow the numbered affirmative ones. They are all conceivably possible; they are all wildly unlikely by year 2000. Some of them are debatable if the terms are defined to suit the affirmative side - definitions of "life" and "manlike,"

for example. Let it stand that I am not talking about an amino acid in one case, nor a machine that plays chess in the other.

(n) Today the forerunners of these synthesists are already at work in many places. Their t.i.tles may be anything; their degrees may be in anything - or they may have no degrees. Today they are called "operations researchers,"

or sometimes "systems development engineers," or other interim tags. But they are all interdisciplinary people, generalists, not specialists - the new Renaissance Man. The very explosion of data which forced most scholars to specialize very narrowly created the necessity which evoked this new non-specialist. So far, this "unspecialty" is in its infancy; its methodology is inchoate, the results are sometimes trivial, and no one knows how to train to become such a man. But the results are often spectacularly brilliant, too - this new man may yet save all of us.

I'm an optimist. I have great confidence in h.o.m.o Sapiens.

We have rough times ahead - but when didn't we? Things have always been "tough all over." H-bombs, Communism, race riots, water shortage - all nasty problems. But not basic problems, merely current ones.

We have three basic and continuing problems: The problem of population explosion; the problem of data explosion; and the problem of government.

Population problems have a horrid way of solving themselves when they are not solved rationally; the Four Hors.e.m.e.n of the Apocalypse are always saddled up and ready to ride. The data explosion is now being solved, mostly by cybernetics' and electronics' men rather than by librarians - and if the solutions are less than perfect, at least they are better than what Grandpa had to work with. The problem of government has not been solved either by the 'Western Democracies" or the "Peoples' Democracies," as of now. (Anyone who thinks the people of the United States have solved the problem of government is using too short a time scale.) The peoples of the world are now engaged in a long, long struggle with no end in sight, testing whether one concept works better than another; in that conflict millions have already died and it is possible that hundreds of millions will die in it before year 2000. But not all.

I hold both opinions and preferences as to the outcome. But my personal preference for a maximum of looseness is irrelevant; what we are experiencing is an evolutionary process in which personal preference matters, at most, only statistically. Biologists, ecologists in particular are working around to the idea that natural selection and survival of the fittest is a notion that applies more to groups and how they are structured than it does to individuals. The present problem will solve itself in the cold terms of revolutionary survival, and in the course of it both sides will make changes in group structure. The system that survives might be called "Communism" or it might be called "Democracy" (the latter is my guess) - but one thing we can be certain of: it will not resemble very closely what either Marx or Jefferson had in mind. Or it might be called by some equally inappropriate neologism; political tags are rarely logical.

For Man is rarely logical. But I have great confidence in Man, based on his past record. He is mean, ornery, cantankerous, illogical, emotional - and amazingly hard to kill. Religious leaders have faith in the spiritual redemption of Man; humanist leaders subscribe to a belief in the perfectibility of Man through his own efforts; but I am not discussing either of these two viewpoints. My confidence in our species lies in its past history and is founded quite as much on Man's so-called vices as on his so-called virtues. When the chips are down, quarrelsomeness and selfishness can be as useful to the survival of the human race as is altruism, and pig-headedness can be a trait superior to sweet reasonableness. If this were not true, these "vices" would have died out through the early deaths of their hosts, at least a half million years back.

I have a deep and abiding confidence in Man as he is, imperfect and often unlovable - plus still greater confidence in his potential. No matter how tough things are, Man copes. He comes up with adequate answers from illogical reasons. But the answers work.

Last to come out of Pandora's Box was a gleaming, beautiful thing - eternal Hope.

FREE MEN.

"THAT MAKES three provisional presidents so far," the Leader said. "I wonder how many more there are?" He handed the flimsy sheet back to the runner, who placed it in his mouth and chewed it up like gum.

The third man shrugged. "No telling. What worries me - " A mockingbird interrupted. "Doity, doity, doity," he sang. "Terloo, terloo, terloo, purty-purty-purty-purty."

The clearing was suddenly empty.

"As I was saying," came the voice of the third man in a whisper in the Leader's ear, "it ain't how many worries me, but how you tell a de Gaulle from a Laval. See anything?"

"Convoy. Stopped below us." The Leader peered through bushes and down the side of a bluff. The high ground pushed out toward the river here, squeezing the river road between it and the water. The road stretched away to the left, where the valley widened out into farmland, and ran into the outskirts of Barclay

ten miles away.