“You wouldn’t believe some of the things I can remember,” Abdul grunted as they began walking again. “Darned machines… always did just what we told ’em. For a time we thought they were pretty stupid; but it turned out it
was us.” –
“How old were you then?” Eve asked curiously.
“Oh, I don’t know… four, five, maybe. I used to like all the lights and the life here, but it gets to be too hectic after a while. Now I prefer the hills. ‘It’s mainly the youngsters who live right inside Franklin these days, but some of the Founders are still here.”
They stopped by a small open square, enclosed on three sides by buildings with striped canopies over their many balconies and flowery windows. A preacher from the Mayflower I1, evidently anxious to make up for twenty years of lost time, was belaboring a mixed audience of Chironians from the corner of a raised wall surrounding a bank of shrubbery. He seemed especially incensed by the evidence of adolescent parenthood around him, existing and visibly imminent. The Chironians appeared curious but skeptical. Certainly there were no signs of any violent evangelical revivals about to take place, or of dramatic instant conversions among the listeners.
“It seems irrational to me to argue one way or another about things there’s no evidence for,” a boy of about four’ teen remarked. “You can make up anything you want if there’s no way of testing whether it’s true or not, so what’s the point?”
“We must have faith/” the preacher roared, his eyes wide with fervor.
“Why?” a girl in a pink jacket asked.
“Because the Book tells us we must.”
“How do you know it’s right?”
“There are some things which we must accept” the preacher thundered.
“That’s my point,” the boy told him. “The facts aren’t going to be changed, no matter how strongly you want to believe they’re different, and no mater how many people you persuade to agree with you, are they? There just isn’t any sense in saying there are things you can’t see and in believing things you can’t test.”
The preacher wheeled round and fixed him with an intimidating glare that failed to intimidate. “Do you believe in atoms?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Aha!” The preacher made an appealing gesture to the audience. “Is there any difference, my friends? Can we see atoms? Is this not arrogant insolence?” He looked back at the boy and jabbed an accusing finger at him. ‘Do you claim to have seen atoms? Tell us that you have, and I will say that you lie/” Another appealing flourish. “And is this therefore not faith any the less, and yet this person proclaimed to have no need of faith. Does he not, therefore, contradict himself before us?”
“Your comparison is quite invalid,” a girl who was with the boy pointed out. “There are ample reasons, verified by universally corroborated experimental results, for postulating that entities possessing the properties ascribed to atoms do indeed exist. Whether or not they are detectable by 1he senses directly is immaterial. Where are your comparable data?”
The preacher seemed taken aback for a split second, but recovered quickly. “The world around us,” he bellowed, throwing his arms wide. “Is it not there? Do I not see it? Who created it? Tell us. Is that not evidence enough?”
“No,” the boy answered after a moment’s reflection. “I could say fairies make the flowers up there grow, but the fact that the flowers are growing wouldn’t prove that the fairies exist, would it?”
“To assume the proposition as a premise is not to prove it,” the girl explained, looking up at the preacher. “Your argument, I’m afraid, is completely circular.”
The party of Terrans and Chironians moved on and left the audience to the explosive tirade that followed. “Those were hardly more than children,” Eve Verritty murmured.
“You seem surprised,” Rastus said to Bernard.
“Those kids,” Bernard replied, gesturing behind them. “There are some pretty sharp minds among them. Is everyone here like that?”
“Of course not,” Rastus said. “But everyone values what they have. I said the mind was an infinite resource, but only if you don’t squander it. Don’t you think that makes an interesting paradox?”