Heinlein, Robert A Lost Legacy

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must be time for as many of our brothers as possible to get into the
administration of the movement in order that the camp executives may be
liberally interspersed with adepts. Fortunately I am a national trustee of the
organization. Yes, I can manage it in two years' time, I believe."
"Good heavens!" protested Phil; "why wouldn't it be more to the point to
teleport them here, teach them, and teleport them back?"
"You do not know what you are saying, my son. Can we abolish force by using it?
Every step must be voluntary, accomplished by reason and persuasion. Each human
being must free himself; freedom cannot be thrust on him. Besides, is two years
long to wait to accomplish a job that has been waiting since the Deluge?"
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Do not be. Your youthful impatience has made it possible to do the job at all."
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CHAPTER TWELVE
"Ye Shall Know the Truth-"
ON THE LOWER SLOPES of Mount Shasta, down near McCloud, the camp grew up. When
the last of the spring snow was still hiding in the deeper gullies and on the
north sides of ridges, U.S. Army Quartermaster trucks came lumbering over a road
built the Previous fall by the army engineers. Pyramid tents were broken out and
were staked down in rows on the bosom of a gently rolling alp. Cook shacks, an
infirmary, a headquarters building took shape. Camp Mark Twain was changing from
blueprint to actuality
Senator Moulton, his toga laid aside for breeches leggings, khaki shirt, and a
hat marked CAMP DI RECTOR, puttered around the field, encouraging, making
decisions for the straw bosses, and searching. ever searching the minds of all
who came into or near the camp for any purpose. Did anyone suspect? Had anyone
slipped in who might be associated with partial adepts who opposed the real
purpose of the camp? Too late to let anything slip now—too late and too much at
stake.
In the middle west, in the deep south, in New York City and New England, in the
mountains and on the coast, boys were packing suitcases, buying special Shasta
Camp roundtrip tickets, talking about it with their envious contemporaries.
And all over the country the antagonists of human liberty, of human dignity—the
racketeers, the crooked political figures, the shysters, the dealers in phony
religions, the sweat-shoppers, the petty authoritarians, all of the key figures
among the traffickers in human misery and human oppression, themselves somewhat
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adept in the arts of the mind and acutely aware of the danger of free
knowledge—all of this unholy breed stirred uneasily and' wondered what was
taking place. Moulton had never been associated with anything but ill for them;
Mount Shasta was one place they had never been able to touch—they hated the very
name of the place. They recalled old stories, and shivered.
They shivered, but they acted. Special transcontinental buses loaded with the
chosen boys—could the driver be corrupted? Could his mind be taken over? Could
tires, or engine, be tampered with? Trains were taken over by the youngsters.
Could a switch be thrown? Could the drinking water be polluted? Other eyes
watched. A trainload of boys moved westward; in it, or flying over it, his
direct perception blanketing the surrounding territory, and checking the motives
of every mind within miles of his charges, was stationed at least one adept
whose single duty it was to see that those boys reached Shasta safely.
Probably some of the boys would never have reached there had not the opponents
of human freedom been caught off balance, doubtful, unorganized. For vice has
this defect; it cannot be truly intelligent. Its very motives are its weakness.
The attempts made to prevent the boys reaching Shasta were scattered and
abortive. The adepts had taken the offensive for once, and their moves were
faster and more rationally conceived than their antagonists.
Once in camp a tight screen surrounded the whole of Mount Shasta National Park.
The Senior detailed adepts to point patrol night and day to watch with every
sense at their command for mean or malignant spirits. The camp itself was
purged. Two of the councilors, and some twenty of the boys, were sent home when
examination showed them to be damaged souls. The boys were not informed of their
deformity, but plausible excuses were found for the necessary action.
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The camp resembled superficially a thousand other such camps. The courses in
woodcraft were the same. The courts of honor met as usual to examine candidates.
There were the usual sings around the camp-fire in the evening, the same
setting-up exercises before breakfast. The slightly greater emphasis on the oath
and the law of the organization was not noticeable.
Each one of the boys made at least one overnight hike in the course of the camp. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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