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Urkin sat back in his seat and toyed indifferently with his salad, while Keene
munched silently on a sandwich. Les was normally upbeat and buoyant, managing
to keep up an image that went with his
PR function, but today all that had gone out of him. He stared morosely
through the window by the booth at the early-afternoon mix of people out on
the street, and then looked back at Keene. They had been pals socially for a
number of years, mutually available for helping out with the fixing of cars
and other new-improved-model gadgets, downing a few beers in the Bandana every
now and again, and getting in the occasional game of golf. Also, when the
pressures built up, Les sometimes used Keene's male preserve across town as a
temporary refuge from marital domestic bliss.
"I don't know, Lan," he sighed. "Sometimes you wonder what it's all about. You
think you're getting somewhere, actually making a difference to something that
matters, and then one day you wake up and look around, and you realize that
all you've really been doing is hanging in there while most of what you made
ends up in other pockets, and that's about the way it's always gonna be." He
took a gulp of coffee and shrugged. "And that's it. That's what it's all
about. And you find that some dumb ball game is the high point that you look
forward to in your week. It doesn't feel right. Does it to you? Don't you get
this feeling inside that we were meant for bigger things, better things? . . .
What kinds of things could we be doing if we weren't wiping ourselves out just
trying to make ends meet all the time?"
Starting cathedrals to be completed two generations later, Keene thought to
himself. Bringing a universe to life. He drank from his own mug and looked
around. Three young children at a nearby table were laughing and giggling,
having stopped in for an afternoon ice cream with their mother.
Workers from a power-company truck parked along the street outside were
closing off one of the traffic lanes with orange cones. "I guess if you leave
things even a little bit better than you found them, it means it was
worthwhile," he said, looking back and trying to inject something positive.
"Philosophers ask the wrong question. They spend years wanting to know if
humanity is perfectible. Then, when they finally arrive at the conclusion that
the answer is no which should have been obvious in the first place they get
depressed and commit suicide or something."
"So what should the question be?" Les asked.
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"Whether humanity is improvable. And since the answer will always be yes,
there's always something worthwhile to be doing."
Urkin stared hard as if trying to fault it, apparently couldn't, and settled
for a snort. "All right. So how do we improve this situation we've been
talking about?" he asked. "Have you figured out what's going on? It isn't
science."
"Now you want me to play psychologist. That's not my line, Les. I build
nuclear drives for spaceships."
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"I'd still like to hear your take, anyhow."
"Well . . ." Keene drew a long breath while he thought about it. "I guess it's
the old story of the in-club being threatened by a heresy that's getting
attention. You could lose your standing as the official church and all the
gravy that comes with it, and then your disciples will desert to the other
side. So you fight it with everything you've got."
"Everything?" Urkin objected. "You mean scruples don't matter? I thought there
were supposed to be civilized rules of discourse and conduct."
"Oh, those only apply between gentlemen who are in the club," Keene explained.
"They don't count if you're on the outside."
"But we've got flagrant censorship going on. Suppression of facts. What
happened to all this I
heard about impartial weighing of evidence; seeking objective truth?"
Keene waved a hand. "Like with all religions: it was a nice thought in the
early days. Then different people move in and take over, and in the end it's
the power dynamics that matter. The rest makes good reading for indoctrinating
the initiates."
Urkin looked across curiously. "But that's not true with everyone, is it?" he
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