Neuroscience was a subject of popular satire; but, no other workable system of remedy presenting itself, since nobody was prepared to turn themselves into hangman or jailer, the mentatropists continued their work.
So gradually the dispute regarding the treatment of criminals died down, as other matters arose to be considered.
Signals were still being sent to Earth Control, the technical centre, and to the UN, both on roughly Feneloni’s suggested lines. The response was evasive. The ramifications of EUPACUS’s collapse had bitten deep into the socio-political structure of the planet. Until the recession was over, all matrix operations had been suspended. So we were told.
Now an extra body of advisers congregated about Tom, who continued to be unwell. Supporters included Val Kissorian and Sharon Singh, the woman who had found the rock crystal. I must confess I was jealous of the way in which Tom so clearly doted on her. Sharon was an amiable but shallow personality.
Of the new questions arising, the most pressing concerned the education of children.
Following the murder of Alysha, the Oort Crowd closed down and the cephalopods disappeared. I ceased to associate with Paula Gallin, who was not much to be seen.
A crowd of us used to go to the Captain Nemo to sit around and talk in the evenings, while sipping coffdrinks.
Generally the talk was about Chimborazo. When I could bear Kathi’s silence no longer, I called her on my Ambient.
‘So what’s new, Kathi? Why don’t I hear from you? Are we not friends any more?’
‘Friends for ever, Cang Hai – however long that may be,’ she said in her best sarcastic tone. ‘Just to prove it, I will tell you a secret. Don’t go spreading it around, eh?’
‘What is it? Are you in love with someone else?’
‘Yes, with that great alien intellect on our doorstep, ninny! You know what? We have discovered that it is accelerating towards us!’
‘What?’ I was shocked.
‘It’s making much faster progress, babe! It’s accelerating at such a rate that it could even collide with the science unit in a year or two…’
‘Kathi! What does this mean? How awful!’
‘And I’m luring it on!’ She screamed with laughter and closed down. Her face sank into oblivion.
I managed to keep quiet about Kathi’s news, although I wondered if Tom had been told. I sat in the Nemo with Alpha on my knee as if nothing had happened.
One day Belle Rivers appeared, accompanied by Crispin Barcunda, carrying several pages downloaded from her Ambient which she spread before us. Belle was her usual majestic self, rock crystal beads jangling down to the waist of her long dress. Crispin was diminished beside her, lightly though he carried his age. We noticed with what old-fashioned courtesy he behaved towards Belle. He sported a long, floppy white moustache and his eyes at least were full of life as he smiled at the company.
‘Crispin and I have become firm friends,’ Belle said, cocking her head to one side. ‘Between us we encompass much experience of dealing with difficult people. I wish to get away from the concept of good and bad persons, and to speak of difficult people. I know the difficult ones as children, Crispin as adults, when he was Governor of the Seychelles. We have a plan for decreasing the difficulties experienced by difficult people, which we wish to present to you.’
‘We have to talk about this plan,’ said Crispin. ‘Maybe it will never get further than talk, since it requires many years for its fruition and we may not have that long.’
‘Well, now, it all sounds very mysterious,’ said Tom, in rather grumpy fashion.
‘On the contrary, Tom,’ said the old man, laughing. ‘Like all good radical plans for mankind’s happiness, it contains nothing that most sensible people don’t already know.’
Belle began to talk. She said that her educational regime was now running smoothly. It included, as yet informally, the education of parents in the pleasure of being parents, of reading to and listening to their progeny. The Becoming Individual classes she had established received a good response from the children. She had been interested to perceive – here she shot a stern glance at Tom – how most children had what she called ‘a religious sense of life’.