Veda wished them success and intended to continue on her way. A tall, thin lad with absolutely yellow hair stepped forward.

“You came here with Evda Nahl, didn’t you? Then may I ask you a couple of questions?”

Veda laughingly consented.

“Evda Nahl works at the Academy of Sorrow and Joy. We have studied the social organization of our planet and of several other worlds, but we have not been told the significance of that Academy.”

Veda told them of the great census conducted by the Academy to compute sorrow and happiness in the lives of individuals and investigate sorrow by age groups. It was followed by an analysis of sorrow and joy for all the stages of the historical development of mankind. No matter what qualitative differences there may have been in emotions, the sum totals, investigated by big number stochastic[23] methods, showed some important regularities. The Councils that directed the further development of society did their utmost to correct any worsening and ensure improvement. Only when joy predominated, or at least counterbalanced sorrow, was it considered that society was developing successfully.

“And so the Academy of Sorrow and Joy is the most important?” asked another boy, one with bold eyes. The others smiled and the boy who had first spoken to Veda Kong explained what they were laughing at.

“Oil is always looking for what is most important. He dreams about the great leaders of the past….”

“That’s a dangerous thing to do,” smiled Veda. “As an historian I can tell you that the great leaders were people who were themselves tied hand and foot and very dependent.”

“Tied up by the conventionalism of their actions?” asked the yellow-haired boy.

“Exactly. But you must remember that that was in the unevenly and spontaneously developing ancient societies of the Era of Disunity or even earlier. Today, leadership [a invested in each of the Councils and is expressed by the fact that the action of all the others is impossible without it.”

“What about the Economic Council? Without that Council nobody can undertake anything big,” Oil objected cautiously, somewhat abashed but still not confused.

“That’s true because economics are the only real basis of our existence. But it seems to me that you don’t have quite the right idea of what constitutes leadership. Have you studied the cytoarchitectonics[24] of the human brain?”

The boys said that they had.

Veda took a stick from one of them and in the sand drew circles to represent the administrative bodies.

“Here in the centre is the Economic Council. We will draw direct links from it to the consultative bodies: the ASJ, the Academy of Sorrow and Joy, the APF, the Academy of Productive Forces, the ASP the Academy of Stochastics and Prognostication, the APL, the Academy of the Psychophysiology of Labour. There is lateral connection with the Astronautical Council, a body that functions independently. From the latter there is direct communication with the ADR, the Academy of Directed Radiation, and the Outer Stations of the Great Circle. Further….”

Veda drew an intricate diagram in the sand and continued.

“Isn’t that just like the human brain? The research and registration centres are the sensory nerve centres. The Councils are the associative centres. You know that all life consists of the dialectics of attraction and repulsion, the rhythm of dispersal and accumulation, excitation and inhibition. The chief inhibition centre is the Economic Council that translates everything into the actual possibilities of the social organism and its objective laws. Our brain and our society, both of which are persistently advancing, have this dialectic interplay of opposing forces brought into harmonic action. There was a time, long ago, when this was incorrectly termed cybernetics, or the science of control, in an attempt to reduce the most intricate interplay of inhibitions to the relatively simple functioning of a machine. That attempt, however, was due to ignorance; the greater the knowledge we acquired the more complicated we found the phenomena and laws of thermodynamics, biology, and economics, and simplified conceptions of nature or the processes of social development disappeared for ever.”

The boys listened to Veda spellbound.

“What is the chief thing in such a social structure?” she asked the lover of “chiefs” and “leaders.” He was so put out that he could not think of an answer and the first boy came to his rescue.

“Its forward movement!” he answered, boldly.

“A prize for such an excellent answer!” exclaimed Veda admiringly; she looked at herself and then took an enamel brooch, depicting an albatross over the blue sea, from her left shoulder. She offered it to the lad on the palm of her hand. He was shyly hesitant.

“As a reminder of today’s talk and… of forward movement!” Veda insisted and the lad took the albatross.

Holding up the blouse that was slipping from her shoulder Veda made her way back through the park. The brooch had been a present from Erg Noor and her sudden urge to give it away meant o lot — amongst other things it meant a strange desire to get rid of the past as quickly as possible, to get rid of what had been or was being left behind….

The entire population of the school-town gathered in the round hall in the centre of the school building. Evda Nahl, in a black dress, stood on the central dais, illuminated from above, calmly studying the rows of people in the audience. The people maintained perfect silence, listening to her clear but not loud voice. Screaming loudspeakers were used only for safety precautions and large halls had ceased to be necessary since the stereoscopic televisophone (TVP) had come into general use.

“Seventeen is the turning point in life. Soon you will pronounce the traditional words at a meeting of the Irish Educational Division:

“You, my elders, who have called me to a life of endeavour, accept my ability and my desire, accept my labour and teach me by day and by night. Hold out to me the hand of help, for the road is a hard one, and I will follow you.’

“A very great deal is understood between the lines of this ancient formula and that is what I am going to talk about today.

“From childhood you have been taught the philosophy of dialectics that long ago, in the secret books of the ancients, was called the Secret of Duality. It was believed that its power could only be achieved by the initiated — mentally and morally lofty and strong individuals. From childhood you have looked upon the world through the laws of dialectics and its mighty strength is now at everybody’s service. You have been born into a well-ordered society created by countless generations of unknown toilers and those who struggled for a better life in the dark ages of cruelty and tyranny. Five hundred generations have passed since the formation of the first society with a division of labour. In the course of that time the various races and nations of the globe have mingled. Every one of us has drops of blood, or, as we should say today, the mechanics of heredity, in him from each of those peoples. A tremendous amount of work has been done to purge heredity of the consequences of the incautious handling of radioactive materials and from the diseases that were formerly widespread and interfered with it.

“The upbringing of the new man is an elaborate task involving personal analysis and a very cautious approach to each individual. The time has gone beyond recall when society could be satisfied with people who had been brought up casually, whose insufficiencies were excused by heredity or by man’s inherent nature. Every badly brought up person is today a reproach to the whole community, a grave mistake made by a large number of people.