[at-l] A.N.W.R. VOTE

[mfuller@somtel.com (Malcolm Fuller)]

Jan Leitschuh wrote:

> I agree! Do we humans have to put our finger into EVERYTHING? 
> Is no place sacred?
> 
> Nature, (and the universe), is NOT human-centered.  And that 
> scares the crap out of us.  Do we have to poison, exterminate, 
> bulldoze and blast ALL of Nature into submission to soothe our
> underlying uneasiness and awareness of this unsettling fact? 
> What, exactly, underlies our greed? How much is enough? WHATS
> SO BAD ABOUT DOING WITH LESS?


                               PART XVI

                                Finale


     An observatory at a high point above Everytown. A telescopic
     mirror of the night sky showing the cylinder as a very small
     speck against a starry background. Cabal and Passworthy stand
     before this mirror.

        CABAL: "There! There they go! That faint gleam of light."

        Pause.

        PASSWORTHY: "I feel--what we have done is--monstrous."

        CABAL: "What they have done is magnificent."

        PASSWORTHY: "Will they return?"

        CABAL: "Yes. And go again. And again--until the landing
     can be made and the moon is conquered. This is only a
     beginning."

        PASSWORTHY: "And if they don't return--my son, and your
     daughter? What of that, Cabal?"

        CABAL (with a catch in his voice but resolute): "Then
     presently--others will go."

        PASSWORTHY: "My God! Is there never to be an age of
     happiness? Is there never to be rest?"

        CABAL: "Rest enough for the individual man. Too much of it
     and too soon, and we call it death. But for MAN no rest and
     no ending. He must go on--conquest beyond conquest. This
     little planet and its winds and ways, and all the laws of
     mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about
     him, and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when
     he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries
     of time--still he will be beginning."

        PASSWORTHY: "But we are such little creatures. Poor
     humanity. So fragile--so weak."

        CABAL: "Little animals, eh?"

        PASSWORTHY: "Little animals."

        CABAL: "If we are no more than animals--we must snatch at
     our little scraps of happiness and live and suffer and pass,
     mattering no more--than all the other animals do--or have
     done." (He points out at the stars.) "It is that--or this?
     All the universe--or nothingness.... Which shall it be,
     Passworthy?"

http://leonscripts.tripod.com/scripts/THINGSTOCOME.htm

-MF