Memories of the Future Read Online Free Page A

livid. There was a throbbing in his temple, too, and his hand was no longer merely twitching; it was tingling. There was no doubt about it: He was in for a spell, and a bad one.
    “Sometimes I wonder,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what you people expect of an educational system. We relieve you of your offspring from the day of their birth, enabling both parents to work full time so they can afford and enjoy all the luxuries civilized beings are entitled to. We give your offspring the best of care: We employ the most advanced identification techniques to give them not only an induced elementary education but an empathic background as well, a background that combines the best elements of Tom Sawyer , Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm , and A Child’s Garden of Verses .
    “We employ the most advanced automatic equipment to develop and maintain unconscious oral feeding and to stimulate the growth of healthy tissue. In short, we employ the finest educational incubators available. Call them mechanized extensions of the womb if you will, as some of our detractors insist upon doing, but no matter what you call them, there is no gainsaying the fact that they provide a practical and efficient method of dealing with the plethora of children in the country today, and of preparing those children for home high school and correspondence college.
    “We perform all of these services for you to the best of our ability and yet you, Mr. Meadows, have the arrogance to express doubt of our competence! Why, you people don’t realize how lucky you are! How would you like to be living in the middle of the twentieth century, before the invention of the educational incubator? How would you like to have to send your son to some rundown firetrap of a public school and have him suffocate all day long in an overcrowded classroom? How would you like that, Mr. Meadows?”
    “But I only said—” Mr. Meadows began.
    The principal ignored him. He was shouting now, and both Mr. and Mrs. Meadows had risen to their feet in alarm. “You simply don’t appreciate your good fortune! Why, if it weren’t for the invention of the educational incubator, you wouldn’t be able to send your son to school at all! Imagine a government appropriating enough money to build enough old-style schools and playgrounds and to educate and pay enough teachers to accommodate all the children in the country today! It would cost more than a war! And yet, when a workable substitute is employed, you object, you criticize. You went to the little red schoolhouse yourself, Mr. Meadows. So did I. Tell me, did our methods leave you with any scar tissue?”
    Mr. Meadows shook his head. “No, sir. But I didn’t fall in love with my teacher.”
    “Shut up!” The principal gripped the edge of the desk with his right hand, trying to stop the almost unbearable tingling. Then, with a tremendous effort, he brought his voice back to normal. “Your son will probably be on the next delivery train,” he said. “And now, if you will please leave—”
    He flicked on the intercom. “Show Mr. and Mrs. Meadows out,” he said to his secretary. “And bring me a sedative.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Mr. and Mrs. Meadows seemed glad to go. The principal was glad to see them leave. The tingling in his hand had worked all the way up his arm to his shoulder and it was more than a mere tingling now. It was a rhythmic pain reaching forty years back in time to the little red schoolhouse and beautiful, cruel Miss Smith.
    The principal sat down behind his desk and closed his right hand tightly and covered it protectively with his left. But it wasn’t any good. The ruler kept rising and falling, anyway, making a sharp thwack each time it struck his flattened palm.
    When his secretary came in with the sedative, he was trembling like a little child and there were tears in his bleak blue eyes.

Goddess in Granite
    W HEN HE REACHED THE UPPER RIDGE of the forearm, Marten stopped to rest. The climb had