<h2>29</h2>
<p>Cal stood within the crystal amphitheater atop the mountain and
watched the interplay of lights until he felt communion come.</p>
<p>Rapture! Joy!</p>
<p>Question?</p>
<p>"Be patient," he said. "There will be more, and more, and more.</p>
<p>"You had an advantage," he reminded Them. "You started with
a crystalline vibration nearer to the force field than that possible
in protoplasm. We've had to come up the hard way.</p>
<p>"But we have come up.</p>
<p>"You had no competition. We've had to fight for our very lives
every inch of the way, endure the setbacks lasting for centuries,
millennia. It is no wonder that the me-and-mine-ascendant concept
has dominated all our thought, and does still. Without it,
we'd not have survived at all.</p>
<p>"It takes time to outgrow it, to learn we can survive without
it. Five hundred years after Copernicus, a survey of the high
school students in the United States revealed that a third of
them still rejected his knowledge, still believed the Earth to be
at the center of the universe and man was the reason why the
universe had been created at all. But two thirds had adjusted.</p>
<p>"More important, there <i>was</i> a Copernicus.</p>
<p>"Don't sell man short because he's slow to learn, and you are<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</SPAN></span>
impatient for fuller, deeper exploration of the truths in reality.
He has much to offer you, as you to him. Competition for survival
has given him ingenuity.</p>
<p>"Once all learned men believed the Earth to be the center of
the universe, but there <i>was</i> a Copernicus who asked the question,
'What if it isn't so?'</p>
<p>"Millions of men watched apples fall to the ground, but one
<i>did</i> ask if this might not be the key to the structure of the universe,
the balance of the stars.</p>
<p>"Billions watched the stars, but finally one <i>did</i> ask, 'What if the
light be curved instead of straight?'</p>
<p>"There is capacity in man, this protoplasmic life, that had to
learn an ingenuity which might surpass even yours.</p>
<p>"This is not the final door in the corridor of thought. Still other
doors, on down the corridor, are yet to be explored. And you may
need these special gifts of man to open them, as he has needed
this new room of thought.</p>
<p>"Be patient. A million or a billion may come here to seek the
method that can change things to fit the equation of desire, before
one comes who asks a question even you have not conceived.</p>
<p>"But someday he <i>will</i> come—and ask."</p>
<p>The lights danced faster now in patterns of delight.</p>
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