BobWrites

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure we all agree that Professor Goldberry's lecture was both sobering and inspiring. The professor has agreed to take your questions. Please remember to speak in Euro-English, Mod 5."

Immediately a dozen hands were raised.

"Yes, the woman in the back. Please identify yourself."

"I'm Dr. Daffodil Massminder. My field is Ecological Extinctions. Professor, was there really no alternative to abandoning the earth. Were Isolation Pods not a viable possibility?"

"Thank you Dr. Massminder. I'm familiar with your excellent work. Unfortunately, Isolation Pods were only a temporary palliative at best. Despite their early promise in the twenty-eighth century, two insuperable problems defied solution.

The first was the effect on the human psyche. The suicide rate among the pod pioneers was inordinately and unacceptably high. It turns out that humans need physical contact with one another far more than had been previously imagined.

The second problem was the virus itself. Somehow it managed to penetrate even the most advanced pod technologies. The mutation rate was so fast and varied that it was impossible to keep pace with viral changes. Furthermore, the climatic changes favored the virus at the expense of the higher organisms. The earth's atmosphere, with its increase of Carbon dioxide and depletion of Oxygen, was no longer congenial to our familiar life forms. We had to leave. Those who remained have long since perished."

"Next question. Yes sir, you in front left. Please identify yourself."

"My name is Questron Philedor. I'm a Director on the Committee for Language Stabilization. Professor, will you please summarize briefly the situation which mankind finds itself facing today."

"I'd be happy to. But I can't be certain that I'll conform to your concept of 'brief'."



Three hours later Professor Goldberry was in his now crowded cubicle, as he entertained five of the attendees of his lecture, Dr.Massminder and Questron Philedor among them.

“Which came first Professor, the notion of private property or the idea of monogamy?” Questron asked.

“We’re not sure. We find monogamy in many lower life forms; it may have come first. We also find territoriality in lower forms. We’re certain that they’re related but we just don’t know which caused the other. We do know that the first person who dragged a stick along the ground, creating a furrow, and then dropped seeds into it, and covered them, was the beginning of man’s changing the earth to suit his desires. For the first time he developed large stores of surplus food. This led to the beginnings of accumulated wealth and the notion of Capitalism, with its pell-mell consumption of the earth’s resources.”

Dr. Massminder nodded, “Yes Professor, and with that, the wanton creation of waste which overwhelmed the earth’s recycling ability and ultimately fouled our nest. It’s why we’re stuck here on this wandering space station, looking for a world that can support our life form.”

Professor Goldberry smiled in agreement.

“Professor, please tell us again about the abortion controversy.”

“Well,”sighed the Professor, “That was a flap that lasted about three centuries. It began in the twentieth century when the Church decided that life began at conception. This was a new idea. Indeed classical Church doctrine had no sacrament for conception. Up to then the first sacrament was at birth. It was call Baptism. It took over two hundred years for the public to realize that life began only once, much earlier, in a primordial soup. After that life simply continued from one generation to the next. Sperm cells and egg cells are living stages of each species. Biologically, individuals are trivial. It’s the continuity of the species that’s important.

It was during the twenty-second century when people realized that the real tragedy was the cruelty of encouraging that unwanted children be born. A child’s birthright should be to be loved and cherished. Unwanted offspring were so often neglected and abused that the social costs of violence and crime among them eventually became clear. Then the issue melted away, much like the controversy of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.”

At this point they were interrupted by three chimes and a voice over a loudspeaker.

“Good evening. This is Captain Dante with a current update. The planet we’ve been examining has been found to be inhospitable to Carbon based life forms. Consequently, in six hours time, we will leave this system and jump to another star region. I’ll give you more details in my next hourly report.” Again three chimes sounded.

“Professor, will you please explain to us how space travel works?”

“Glad to.”



“Until the twenty-fourth century, human space travel was limited to our own solar system,” began the Professor. “The vastness of space, and the limited speed of light, a mere 186,00 miles per second, made travel to other star systems impractical, let alone to other galaxies. Then Archer Einhard discovered the Principle of Folding Space. It then took another two hundred years to develop space station technology to the point where space jumps became possible.”

“I still find it confusing,” interjected Questron.

“Let me try an analogy,” the Professor continued, “Think of a sheet of paper as the universe.”

The Professor picked up an eight by ten sheet from his desk and held it aloft.

“Now let’s suppose that our starting point is at one corner and our destination at the opposite. The Professor then marked the sheet with an ‘X’ in each of two corners. “Notice the considerable distance to be traveled. Now I fold the paper once and the two ‘X’s’ are brought together to where there’s virtually no distance at all between them.”

“I get it,” exulted Questron. “Folded dimensions were first posited back in the twentieth century with the introduction of string theory. At first it was thought to be limited to dimensions four through eleven. Now we know it also applies to the first three as well.”

“Right,” nodded the Professor.

At this moment three chimes sounded and the voice of Captain Dante filled the room.

Fasten your seatbelts everyone. We’re ready for a jump to the Ariana region. Several of our unmanned Prowler Robotic Space Explorers have converged on that region. They’ve possibly found a planet capable of supporting life. We jump at 23:50.”

“I hope this is our last jump,” sighed Dr. Massminder, “I want to get started breeding.”

“Good thinking,” agreed Questrom, smiling hungrily at her.

The Professor also smiled and thought, “We’re going to have some competition here.”