Free Beyond This Horizon by Robert A. Heinlein Page A

was a strong tendency to regard the whole matter as a hoax. Nevertheless, attempts had been made to guess the secret of that blank plaque.
    Monroe-Alpha had heard that it had at last been read, but he had not paid much attention. The newscasts were always full of wonders which amounted to little in the long run. He did not even recall how the inscription had been read—a reflected image, using polarized light, or something equally trivial.
    “That isn’t the matter of real interest,” spoke up a third man. “Let us consider the purely intellectual problem of the hypothetical man who might thus be passed down to us, out of the Dark Ages.” He was a slender, youngish man—in his late twenties, Clifford judged—and was dressed in a turquoise blue satin which brought out the pallor of his face. He spoke with slow intensity. “What would he think of this world in which he suddenly finds himself? What have we to offer him in exchange for that which he has left behind?”
    “What have we to offer him! Everything! Look around you.”
    The young man answered with a superior smile. “Yes—look around you. Gadgets—but what need has he for gadgets? He comes from an earlier, braver world. A world of independence and dignity. Each man tilled his own plot of ground with his woman by his side. He raised his own children, straight and strong, and taught them to wrest their food from Mother Earth. He had no artificial lights, but he had no need for them. He was up with the dawn and busy with his serious, fundamental affairs. At sundown he was tired and welcomed the rest of night. If his body was sweaty and dusty with honest labor, he took a dip in his own brook. He needed no fancy swimming baths. He was based, rock solid, on primitive essentials.”
    “And you think he actually liked that better than modern comforts?”
    “I certainly do. Those men were happy. They lived naturally, as the Great Egg intended they should.”
    Monroe-Alpha turned the idea over in his mind. There was something devilishly appealing about it. He felt, quite sincerely, that he cared nothing for gadgets. Not even for his master accumulator. It was not the machine he cared about but the mathematical principles involved. And since when did a mathematician need any tools but his own head? Pythagoras had done well enough with a stick and a stretch of sand. As for other matters, if he and Hazel were partners in the old, old, fight to win a living from the eternal soil, would they have drifted apart?
    He closed his eyes and visualized himself back in the simple, golden days of 1926. He was dressed in homespun, woven by his wife’s capable hands—or even in the skins of animals, cured on their cabin door. There would be children somewhere about—three, he thought. When the day’s work was over, he would walk to the top of the hill with his oldest son, and show him the beauty of the sunset. When the stars came out he would explain to him the intricate wonders of astronomy. Wisdom would be passed down from father to son, as it had been.
    There would be neighbors—strong, silent men, whose curt nod and hard handclasp meant more than the casual associations of modern “civilization.”
    There were others present who did not accept the thesis as readily as Monroe-Alpha. The argument was batted back and forth until it grew somewhat acrimonious. The young man who had started it—Gerald seemed to be his name—got up and asked the company to excuse him. He seemed slightly miffed at the reception his ideas had gotten.
    Monroe-Alpha arose quickly and followed him out of the room. “Excuse me, gentle sir.”
    Gerald paused. “Yes?”
    “Your ideas interest me. Will you grant me the boon of further conversation?”
    “Gladly. You do me honor, sir.”
    “The benefit is mine. Shall we find a spot and sit?”
    “With pleasure.”
    Hamilton Felix showed up at the party somewhat late. His credit account was such that he rated an invitation to any of Johnson-Smith