Looking Forward by Kenneth Jr. (snow like ashes .txt) 📗

helps her remove her fins and breathing membrane. Caressing her ear with his lips, he peels her underwater suit from her body. With a knowing smile she turns and sees that he has already removed his gear. A word to the cybernator brings forth sensuous music with strong repetitive rhythms. She shares his mounting excitement.

Competing with Oneself

Scott and Hella still feel exuberantly energetic even after the underwater trip. They decide to play a game that was adapted from ping-pong of the previous century. The net, the table, the ball, and the paddles are almost unchanged. Their adversary, however, is very different, for Scott and Hella play on the same side of the table as partners against a mechanical paddle directed by a computer. This computer has sensing devices which enable it to judge the direction and speed of every ball returned over the net. Although the computer is able to return every ball with 100 per cent accuracy, it does not do so. The Correlation Center has a record of every time Scott and Hella have played this game as a team, and it has established a norm for them. At this time the norm for the preceding year indicates that Scott and Hella returned 85.967 per cent of the ping-pong balls that were directed to them with an average speed of 7.72, as measured on a 10 point scale. The computer plays a game against Scott and Hella that represents a skill exactly equal to the average of all the games that they have played during the preceding year. If Scott would want to play alone, a different set of records maintained by the Correlation Center would enable the computer to put up a game against him that would be exactly equal to his average performance.

Scott and Hella are thus able to play as a team—against themselves as a team. If they are in good shape today, they will win. If they are not, they will lose. Either way they win, for no matter how the game comes out, they feel good. They have a lot of fun laughing and trying to figure out how to get around the computer.

They enjoy competing against themselves. They would find it repulsive to compete against each other. Such a battle would prove nothing. It could only be damaging in some slight way. If they compete against their past performance, they can tell if they are improving.

During the evening Scott reclines in the massaging contour chair in his underwater apartment. The “bay window” is illuminated so that occasionally he looks out to see if anything is happening on the reef. As he lies relaxed in his chair, he watches a screen that is angled above him where the paragraphs of a book flash by. Scott’s usual reading pace is 22,000 words per minute, but he has slowed down to 7,000 words because he enjoys the languorous intermixing of the abstract thoughts of the book with the colorful underwater world beyond his window. Suddenly, he has an interesting idea: could a range emitter be designed that would repel sharks, barracuda, moray eels, and other marine animals that could endanger swimming? He wonders if this could be built into a lightweight belt for underwater use. He immediately calls Central Correlation and gives his thoughts in detail. Central Correlation then sends this information to men and women who are interested in this area. They will probably have a teleprojection conference sometime in the next week or two to discuss it.

The Disarmament Anniversary

That evening there is a world-wide ceremony scheduled by the Correlation Center. This marks the eighty-second anniversary of the date when the last instrument of death was destroyed. Previous cultures developed a long progression of tools designed to kill fellow human beings. It started with the cave man and his club. It ended with an ultimate weapon that could wipe out all life in an instant.

Scott at one time visited a museum and was appalled that human science and ingenuity could have been applied in such self-destructive ways. He was amazed that humans could have been that hostile toward each other. But he realized that he should not judge other people and other civilizations, for they had problems of which he was only dimly aware. He knew that had he lived in previous times, he probably would have played a part in piloting an airplane to drop a bomb or in rushing up a hill with a gun in his hand to kill the defenders at the top.

No one today wants instruments for killing. In the areas where wildlife exists, man finds no need to kill animals. He protects himself by using computers that communicate with animals in ways that control their behavior.

How remarkable human beings are, after all, Scott thinks. People in the past could live in a threatening world subject to being killed at any minute at the whim of a dictator in a foreign country. And yet they still managed to make a life of it and come through it to develop the present civilization. Scott wonders whether his nerves could have withstood this type of pressure. Would he, too, have developed the neurotic personality, the deep insecurities, hostile aggressiveness, hollowness of ego, and the scramble for a feeling of worth that characterized his ancestors? He is sure he would have in previous times. Fortunately, these are only words to him now. It is even difficult for him to be sure that he is using them in a way that represents the feelings of people who used the same words in previous centuries.

Our Only Enemy

That evening Scott and Hella find a group in front of the large submarine window at the thirty-foot level. They have reason to ponder the long road ahead of them. The Correlation Center recently released their figures showing the degree to which humans are currently developing their intellectual potentials. It pointed out that during the previous century people in the more advanced civilizations used from 2 to 5