“Seymour’s book?” Keene said. Entitled Gods, Myth, and Cataclysm, it was a popular-level treatment supporting the Kronian cause, which had been scheduled months before to hit the stores when the subject was topical.
“Right. Well, now it looks as if it’s being put on hold because scientific buyers are threatening to boycott the publisher’s textbook division, which is a big line with them. They’re also being subjected to a letter and e-mail campaign protesting about the book. . . . And listen to this. I got the name of one of the scientists who sent in the letters—a geologist in Minnesota, called Quine—and I called him out of curiosity to ask what it was, specifically, in the book that he objected to. Want to know what he said, Lan? He admitted he didn’t know too much about it. He never got an advance copy, so he’d never actually read it.”
“What? Then how . . .”
“He said he tried to tell them that, but they said that was all right. They’d write the letter; all he had to do was sign it.
” `They’? Who’s `they’?” Keene demanded.
“He wouldn’t tell me. He just said they included someone who sits on the review committee of just about everything Quine gets published. You see what he was being told, Lan: his career could be on the line.”
Urkin sat back in his seat and toyed indifferently with his salad, while Keene munched silently on a sandwich. Les was normally upbeat and buoyant, managing to keep up an image that went with his PR function, but today all that had gone out of him. He stared morosely through the window by the booth at the early-afternoon mix of people out on the street, and then looked back at Keene. They had been pals socially for a number of years, mutually available for helping out with the fixing of cars and other new-improved-model gadgets, downing a few beers in the Bandana every now and again, and getting in the occasional game of golf. Also, when the pressures built up, Les sometimes used Keene’s male preserve across town as a temporary refuge from marital domestic bliss.
“I don’t know, Lan,” he sighed. “Sometimes you wonder what it’s all about. You think you’re getting somewhere, actually making a difference to something that matters, and then one day you wake up and look around, and you realize that all you’ve really been doing is hanging in there while most of what you made ends up in other pockets, and that’s about the way it’s always gonna be.” He took a gulp of coffee and shrugged. “And that’s it. That’s what it’s all about. And you find that some dumb ball game is the high point that you look forward to in your week. It doesn’t feel right. Does it to you? Don’t you get this feeling inside that we were meant for bigger things, better things? . . . What kinds of things could we be doing if we weren’t wiping ourselves out just trying to make ends meet all the time?”
Starting cathedrals to be completed two generations later, Keene thought to himself. Bringing a universe to life. He drank from his own mug and looked around. Three young children at a nearby table were laughing and giggling, having stopped in for an afternoon ice cream with their mother. Workers from a power-company truck parked along the street outside were closing off one of the traffic lanes with orange cones. “I guess if you leave things even a little bit better than you found them, it means it was worthwhile,” he said, looking back and trying to inject something positive. “Philosophers ask the wrong question. They spend years wanting to know if humanity is perfectible. Then, when they finally arrive at the conclusion that the answer is no—which should have been obvious in the first place—they get depressed and commit suicide or something.”
“So what should the question be?” Les asked.
“Whether humanity is improvable. And since the answer will always be yes, there’s always something worthwhile to be doing.”
Urkin stared hard as if trying to fault it, apparently couldn’t, and settled for a snort. “All right. So how do we improve this situation we’ve been talking about?” he asked. “Have you figured out what’s going on? It isn’t science.”