A Heritage of Stars Read Free Page B

may be taking place of which we know nothing. But in the small area that we do know, or of which we have some fragmentary knowledge, the highest level of social organization seems to be the tribe or those farming communes, with one which we have set up rudimentary trade relations. Immediately to the east and west of us, in what once were fair and pleasant cities, now largely gone to ruin, are several tribes grubbing a bare existence from the land and occasionally warring with one another over imagined grievances or to gain some coveted territory (although only God knows why coveted) or simply for the illusionary glory that may be gained from combat. To the north is a farm commune of perhaps a dozen families with which we have made trade accommodations, their produce serving to augment the vegetables we grow in gardens and our potato patches. For this food, we pay in trinketry—beadwork, badly constructed jewelry, leather goods—which they, in their simple-mindedness, are avid to obtain for their personal adornment. To such an extent have we fallen—that a once-proud university should manufacture and trade trinkets for its food .
    At one time, family groups may have held on to small homesteads, hiding from the world. Many of these homesteads no longer exist, either wiped out or their members forced to join a tribe for the protection that it offered. And there are always the nomads, the roving, far-wandering bands with their cattle and their horses, at times sending out war parties to pillage, although there now is little enough to pillage. Such is the state of the world as we are acquainted with it; such is our own state, and sorry as it may be, in certain ways we are far better off than many of the others .
    To a certain small extent we have kept alive the flame of learning. Our children are taught to read and write and cipher. Those who wish may gain additional rudimentary learning and there are books to be read, of course, tons of books, and from the reading of those, many in the community are fairly well informed. Reading and writing are skills that few have today, even those basic skills being lost through the lack of anyone to teach them. Occasionally, there are a few who make their way to us to gain the little education we can offer, but not many, for education apparently is not highly regarded. Some of those who come continue to stay on with us and thus some diversity is added to our gene pool, a diversity of which we stand in need. It may be that some of those who come to us, professing a wish for education, may actually come to seek the security of our walls, fleeing the rough justice of their fellows. This we do not mind; we take them in. So long as they come in peace and keep the peace once they are here, they are welcome .
    Anyone with half an eye, however, should be able to see that we have lost much of our effectiveness as an educational institution. We can teach the simple things, but since the second generation of the enclave’s establishment, there has been none qualified to teach anything approaching a higher education. We have no teachers of physics or chemistry, of philosophy or psychology, of medicine or of many other disciplines. Even if we had, there would be little need. Who in this environment needs physics or chemistry? What is the use of medicine if drugs are unobtainable, if there is no equipment for therapy of surgery?
    We have often idly speculated among ourselves whether there may be other colleges or universities still existing in the same manner as we exist. It would seem reasonable that there might be, but we’ve had no word of them. In turn, we have not attempted to find out and have not seen fit to unduly advertise our presence .
    In books that I have read, there are contained many considered and logical prophesies that such a catastrophe as came about would come to pass. But, in all cases, war was foreseen as the cause of it. Armed with incalculable engines of