XXXII
(From an interview with Professor Nikko Kumalo on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday.)
You might have thought that experiences like those we’d gone through would have made us more cautious, even frightened us off. But it didn’t work that way. The orcs had been our great bete noir— Draco our Gog and orcdom our Magog so to speak—and the orcs had been broken and we were disengaged from them. Thanks to the Neovikings and that remarkable young man they called their Youngling.
Oh, we all realized there were other hazards as deadly as the orcs, if somewhat less horrible: brigand bands and horse barbarians and feudal lords, as well as others we presumed must exist but didn’t know about. But we committed ourselves to stay—Now I don’t want you to imagine we were being brave and noble in the service of science or man. It was more a sense of adventure and destiny and something like innocence. It seemed like the only thing to do. So we turned and went back down, with no real misgivings or fear. We were still somehow eager to learn more, and for experiences that would make us feel even more alive, albeit at some risk of becoming dead. You have to remember that our engineered and programmed agrarian democracy had become deadly dull for people with the life and spirit needed to get into that first space program.
I mentioned a sense of destiny. That was part of it. And the feeling wasn’t just mine, or something an old woman has added to the rememberings of her youth. We’ve all reminisced on it together many times, those of us who could.
It’s good that we did go back, of course, despite the cost. Our world and our future would be quite different if we hadn’t—much less interesting. Much less promising. But even so, it’s well that we don’t know our future, or at least not clearly or with any certainty. First of all it wouldn’t be much fun that way. And secondly—no, there isn’t any secondly. It just wouldn’t be much fun. That’s why people like change and resent those who try to prevent it. To a large degree, quality of life is a function of not knowing what will happen, of trying to influence it, and experiencing some amount of success.
That, young man, is what makes a rich life: uncertainty, and anticipation, and succeeding when it counts most. But some people simply can’t tolerate much richness. I can, and I’ve had a fine full share of it. The only person I’ve ever envied is Nils Järnhann, not for his marvelous talents but for what he would eventually undertake.