I had lots of time to think before they let me out of the hospital—and lots to think about. I thought about my coming trip to Earth, to go back to school I had missed the Covered Wagon, of course, but that didn’t mean anything; I could take the Mayflower three weeks later. But did I want to go? It was a close thing to decide.
One thing I was sure of: I was going to take those merit badge tests as soon as I was out of bed. I had put it off too long. A close brush with the hereafter reminds you that you don’t have forever to get things done.
But going back to school? That was another matter. For one thing, as Dad told me, the council had lost its suit with the Commission; Dad couldn’t use his Earthside assets.
And there was the matter that Paul had talked about the night he had to let his hair down—the coming war.
Did Paul know what he was talking about? If so, was I letting it scare me out? I honestly didn’t think so; Paul had said that it was not less than forty years away. I wouldn’t be Earthside more than four or five years—and, besides, how could you get scared of anything that far in the future?
I had been through the Quake and the reconstruction; I didn’t really think I’d ever be scared of anything again.
I had a private suspicion that, supposing there was a war, I’d go join up; I wouldn’t be running away from it. Silly, maybe.
No, I wasn’t afraid of the War, but it was on my mind. Why? I finally doped it out. When Paul called I asked him about it. “See here, Paul—this war you were talking about: when Ganymede reaches the state that Earth has gotten into, does that mean war here, too? Not now—a few centuries from now.”
He smiled rather sadly. “By then we may know enough to keep from getting into that shape. At least we can hope.”
He got a far-away look and added, “A new colony is always a new hope.”
I liked that way of putting it. “A new hope—” Once I heard somebody call a new baby that.
I still didn’t have the answer about going back when Dad called on me one Sunday night. I put it up to him about the cost of the fare. “I know the land is technically mine, George—but it’s too much of a drain on you two.”
“Contrariwise,” said George, “well get by and that’s what savings are for. Molly is for it. We will be sending the twins back for school, you know.”
“Even so, I don’t feel right about it. And what real use is there in it, George? I don’t need a fancy education. I’ve been thinking about Callisto: there’s a brand new planet not touched yet with great opportunities for a man in on the ground floor. I could get a job with the atmosphere expedition—Paul would put in a word for me—and grow up with the project. I might be chief engineer of the whole planet some day.”
“Not unless you learn more about thermodynamics than you do now, you won’t be!”
“Huh?”
“Engineers don’t just ‘grow up’; they study. They go to school.”
“Don’t I study? Ain’t I attending two of your classes right now? I can get to be an engineer here; I don’t have to drag back half a billion miles for it.”
“Fiddlesticks! It takes discipline to study. You haven’t even taken your merit badge tests. You’ve let your Eagle Scoutship lapse.”
I wanted to explain that taking tests and studying for tests were two different things—that I had studied. But I couldn’t seem to phrase it right.
George stood up. “See here, Son, I’m going to put it to you straight. Never mind about being chief engineer of a planet; these days even a farmer needs the best education he can get. Without it he’s just a country bumpkin, a stumbling peasant, poking seeds into the ground and hoping a miracle will make them grow. I want you to go back to Earth and get the best that Earth has to offer. I want you to have a degree with prestige behind it—M.I.T., Harvard, the Sorbonne. Some place noted for scholarship. Take the time to do that and then do anything you want to do. Believe me, it will pay.”