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old they are? And how much they've learned? No," he said, shaking his head, "I
didn't learn the whole history of their race or how to go about causing a
universe to fall back on itself. In fact, I didn't learn any of those
practical things at all."
"Hell," I said, "why not?"
"I didn't ask," he said simply.
I thought that over. I said, "Well, I suppose when the time is ripe, they'll
have all sorts of things to tell us-"
"I doubt that very much," Albert said. "Why should they? Would you try
to teach space navigation to a cat? Maybe some day, when everyone has
progressed to the next stage of evolution-"
"You mean like you?"
"I mean like us, Robin," he said gently. "When all the humans and
Heechee who are alive decide to be more alive, and permanently alive- as we
are-then maybe there'll be a chance to carry on a real dialogue . . . But for
the next few million years, I think they'll just leave us alone-if we leave
them alone."
I shuddered. "That," I said, "I will certainly be happy to do."
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"I'm glad," said Albert.
There was something about his voice that made me turn and look at him.
It wasn't Albert's voice anymore. It was another voice, one that I had heard
before. And it wasn't Albert speaking to me anymore.
It was Someone quite different. "After all," He added, smiling, "the others
are My children, too."
So maybe I never will reach that wonderful time of wisdom and maturity when I
know the answers to all the questions that continue to worry at me.
But maybe just to go on asking them is enough.
About the Author
Frederik Pohl has been everything one man can be in the world of science
fiction: fan (a founder of the fabled Futurians), book and magazine editor,
agent, and, above all, writer. As editor of Galaxy in the 1950s, he helped set
the tone for a decade of sf-including his own memorable stories such as The
Space Merchants (in collaboration with Cyril Kornbluth). The Annals of the
Heechee is his latest novel. He has also written The Way the Future Was, a
memoir of his first forty-five years in science fiction. Frederik Pohi was
born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1919, and now lives in Palatine, Illinois.
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