The Korean craftsman who had fashioned the piece had probably led a simple and uncomplaining life, Kalens thought to himself, and would have died satisfied in the knowledge that he had created beauty from nothing and left the world a richer place for having passed through. Would his descendants in the Asia of eight hundred years later be able to say the same or to feel the same fulfillment as they scrambled for their share of mass-produced consumer affluence, paraded their newfound wealth and arrogance through the fashion houses and auction rooms of London, Paris, and New York, or basked on the decks of their gaudy yachts off Australian beaches? Kalens very much doubted it. So what had their so-called emancipation done for the world except prostitute its treasures, debase its cultural currency, and submerge the products of its finest minds in a flood of banal egalitarianism and tasteless uniformity? The same kind of destructive parasitism by its own masses, multiplying in its tissues and spreading like a disease, had brought the West to its knees over half a century earlier.
In its natural condition a society was like an iceberg, eight*ninths submerged in crude ignorance and serving no useful purpose other than to elevate and support the worthy minority whose distillation and embodiment of all that was excellent of the race conferred privilege as a fight and authority as a duty. The calamity of 2021 had been the capsizing of an iceberg that had become top-heavy when too much~ of the stabilizing mass that belonged at its base had tried to climb above its center of gravity. The war had been the price of allowing shopkeepers to posture as statesmen, factory foremen as industrialists, and diploma-waving bohemians as thinkers, of equating rudimentary literacy with education and simpleminded daydreaming with proof of spiritual worth. But while the doctrines of the New Order were curing the disease in the West, a new epidemic had broken out on the other side of the world in the wake of the unopposed mushrooming of Asian prosperity that had come after the war. Mankind as a whole, it seemed, would never learn.
“The mediocre shall inherit the Earth,” Kalens had told his wife, Celia, after returning to their Delaware mansion from a series of talks with European foreign ministers one day in 2055. “Or else, eventually, there will be another war.” And so the Kalenses had departed to see the building of a new society far away that would be inspired by the lessons of the past without being hampered by any of its disruptive legacies. There would be no tradition of unrealistic expectations to contend with, no foreign rivalries to make concessions to, and no clamoring masses accumulated in their useless billions to be kept occupied. Chiron would be a clean’ canvas, unspoiled and ‘unsullied, awaiting, the fresh imprint of Kalens’s design.
Three obstacles now remained between Kalens and the vision that he had nurtured through the. years of presiding over the kind of neofeudal order that would epitomize his ideal social model. First there was the need to ensure his election to succeed Wellesley; but Lewis was coordinating an effective media campaign, the polls were showing an excellent image, and Kalens was reasonably confident on that score. Second was the question of the Chironians. Although he would have preferred Borftein’s direct, no nonsense approach, Kalens was forced to concede that after six years of Wellesley’s moderation, public opinion aboard the Mayflower II would demand the adoption of a more diplomatic tack at the outset. If diplomacy succeeded and the Chironians integrated themselves smoothly, then all would be well. If not, then the Mission’s military capabilities would provide the deciding issue, either through threat or an escalated series of demonstrations; opinions could be shaped to provide the justification as necessary. Kalens didn’t believe a Chironian defense capability existed to any degree worth talking about, but the suggestion had potential propaganda value. So although the precise means ‘remained unclear, he was confident that he could handle the Chironians. Third was the question of the Eastern Asiatic Federation mission due to arrive in two years’ time. , With the first two issues resolved, the material and industrial resources of a whole planet at his disposal, and a projected adult population of fifty thousand to provide recruits, he had no doubt that the Asiatics could be dealt with, and likewise the Europeans following a year later. And then he would be free to sever Chiron’s ties to Earth completely. He hadn’t confided that, part of the dream to anyone, not even Celia.,