[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
incompetent in their interpersonal relationships. Great leaders you were not.
You couldn't even talk a girl into having sex with you. Then we had one person,
me, who was competent in managing people but equally incompetent at anything
technical. Therefore it made perfect sense for me to handle all the business,
financial, and management tasks, and for the two of you to do the technical
things. Are you with me so far?"
"Yes, of course, that much is obvious. But this island, these cities, all these
women? Wasn't that going way overboard?"
"I don't think so. You see, it eventually became obvious that your technical
endeavors were going to be sucessful far beyond our earlier dreams. This brought
on the need for elaborate security provisions, since wealth of the magnitude
that we were soon generating could not possibly be hidden. At the same time, you
and Ian would soon have to become competent managers in your own rights, since
we were growing outside of the backyard inventor's millieu. You had to be able
to run at least a major engineering company, and lead the people in it. Ian was
quite right about the similarity between humans and baboons. If you wish to be a
great leader of men, you must first have a considerable following of women. I'm
sure that if you asked him, he could give you hundreds of historical examples."
"So you were deliberately manipulating us from the very beginning?" I said.
"True. But I was also manipulating myself, for a few months there, until I
figured out precisely what I would have to do, and what it was that, in a sense,
I had already done. Convincing the women that the three of us were sexually
desirable was a relatively simple matter of adjusting the parameters of their
culture, to make us be perceived as the most desirable possible fathers for
their children, and making it socially permissable for them to aggressively
pursue us. After which, well, Mother Nature simply took her course."
"Horseshit. You were always a lady's man, from the first day that I met you."
"Again true. Or, to put it another way, I was fortunate in being somehow a
culturally approved ideal mate for women in the second half of twentieth-century
America. You and Ian were not. As the saying went, some get it, and some don't.
I arranged matters such that all three of us were in that exalted category in
the Smoothie culture. Surely you can't be angry with me for that."
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...rd%207%20-%20Conrad's%20Time%20Machine.txt (154 of 156) [12/28/2004 4:51:11 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Leo%20Frankowski%20-%20Stargard%207%20-%20Conrad's%20Time%20Machine.txt
"Maybe not. But you just happened to have a whole bloody culture around that you
could manipulate in any way you wished?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. Like many other thinkers, psychologists, and
philosophers throughout history, from Plato on down, I had often dreamed of
creating a perfect culture, a place of peace and harmony where people could live
long, rich lives completely free from the deprivations, the horrors and the
anxieties that the rest of humanity has always been heir to. Unlike the rest of
them, I had the wherewithall, thanks to you and Ian, to actually create it, and
the time to guide it to fruition."
"And you are proud of this thing that you have done?"
"Oh, yes. Infinitely so."
"I think it's a fucked-up mess. You have created a huge mass of mental cripples
who can't think for themselves! They can all play musical instruments, but not
one of them can compose a simple tune! They can each paint a beautiful picture,
but not one of them can create anything original! They can do sound engineering
work, but not one of them can actually invent anything! They can't make up a
fucking joke, for God's sake!"
"I don't completely agree with you, but even if what you claim is true, well, so
what? In the world we both grew up in, not one person in ten thousand was truly
creative. All the rest worked their butts off trying to survive as best they
could, eking out some sort of a living in an absolutely insecure world. My
people feel secure precisely because they know what their futures will be. There
is no crime because everyone knows that every criminal will be caught and
punished for his transgressions. There is no material want because we know
exactly what will be needed and when, and have various sensible means of
providing it. My people live long, contented lives. If that one person in ten
thousand who wants to be creative gets eased out of my society and into one
where he will be appreciated, well, is that so great a price to pay?"
"What 'society where he will be appreciated'?"
"Why, the one that you will build, of course. You know, for quite a while,
there, after you married Barbara, I had hopes that you would change your mind
about the Smoothies, as you call them. I had hopes that you would one day become
my successor, as the leader of this society. I see now that you will never want
to do such a thing. A pity. Ian, of course, has found a lifetime avocation in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]