Chapter Nine Fledglings Fly
“We could hang around here for fifty years, learning new things, but in the mean time we wouldn’t be getting anywhere. I, for one, am ready to go back.” Phil crushed out a cigaret and looked around at his two friends.
Coburn pursed his lips and slowly nodded his head. “I feel the same way, Phil. There is no limit to what we could learn here, of course, but there comes a time when you just have to use some of the things you leam, or it just boils up inside. I think we had better tell the Senior, and get about doing it.”
Joan nodded vigorously. “Uh huh. I think so, too. There’s work to be done, and the place to do it is Western U.—not up here in Never-Never land. Boy, I can hardly wait to see old Brinckley’s face when we get through with him!”
Huxley sought out the mind of Ephraim Howe. The other two waited for him to confer, courteously refraining from attempting to enter the telepathic conversation. “He says he had been expecting to hear from us, and that he intends to make it a full conference. He’ll meet us here.”
“Full conference? Everybody on the mountain?”
“Everybody—on the mountain, or not. I gather it’s customary when new members decide what their work will be.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Joan, “that gives me stage fright just to think about it. Who’s going to speak for us? It won’t be little Joan.”
“How about you, Ben?”
“Well. . . if you wish.”
“Take over.”
They meshed into rapport. As long as they remained so, Ben’s voice would express the combined thought of the trio. Ephraim Howe entered alone but they were aware that he was in rapport with, and spokesman for, not only the adepts on the mountainside, but also the two-hundred- odd full- geniuses scattered about the country.
The conference commenced with direct mind-to- mind exchange: —”We feel that it is time we were at work. We have not learned all that there is to learn, it is true; ne vertheless, we need to use our present knowledge.”
—”That is well and entirely as it should be, Benjamin. You have learned all that we can teach you at this time. Now you must take what you have learned out into the world, and use it, in order that knowledge may mature into wisdom.”
—”Not only for that reason do we wish to leave, but for another more urgent. As you yourself have taught us, the crisis approaches. We want to fight it”
—”How do you propose to fight the forces bringing on the crisis?”
—”Well . . .” Ben did not use the word, but the delay in his thought produced the impression.
“As we see it, in order to make men free, free so that they may develop as men and not as.animals; it is necessary that we undo what the Young Men did. The Young Men refused to permit any but their own select few to share in the racial heritage of ancient knowledge. For men again to become free and strong and independent it is necessary to return to each man his ancient knowledge and his ancient powers.”
—”That is true; what do you intend to do about it?”
—”We will go out and tell about it. We all three are in the educational system; we can make ourselves heard—I, in the medical school at Western; Phil and Joan in the department of psychology. With the training you have given us we can overturn the traditional ideas in short order. We can start a renaissance in education that will prepare the way for everyone to receive the wisdom that you, our elders, can offer them.”
—”Do you think that it will be as simple as that?”
—”Why not? Oh, we don’t expect it to be simple. We know that we will run head on into some of the most cherished misconceptions of everyone, but we can use that very fact to help. It will be spectacular; we can get publicity through it that will call attention to our work. You have taught us enough that we can prove that we are right. For example—suppose we put on a public demonstration of levitation, and proved before thousands of people that human mind could do the things we know it can? Suppose we said that anyone could learn such things who first learned the techniques of telepathy? Why, in a year, or two, the whole nation could be taught telepathy, and be ready for the reading of the records, and all that that implies!”