“FEA?” Ivo asked.
“Florida Education Association. That was the teachers’ group, and they still may be, for all I know. I really came to appreciate their stand. I never worked so hard in my life, in the face of such abuse. Oh. the newspapers were full of editorials! ‘Wonderful Volunteers Filling In For Errant Teachers,’ ‘Nobody Cares About Our Innocent Children,’ ‘Governor Unavailable For Comment’ and so on. But I was in a position, as I had not been before, to comprehend the truth. The boys were a lot less innocent than the editorialists! I was a scab — a strikebreaker — and while I think there may have been some better way to protest, the teachers certainly had compelling arguments on their side.
“The extra pay had seemed nice at first, like so much lagniappe. It enhanced my normal gross by a good fifty percent. But it wasn’t worth it! For one thing, my time was never my own; I was grading papers every night and trying to do something about the ones with identical mistakes — pretty sure sign of cheating, but not proof — and preparing for the next day’s sessions. I had trouble sleeping. I kept seeing those vulpine young faces peering at me, waiting for any slip, eager for my attention to wander so that they could sling another spitwad at the windowpane. And I realized that their regular teacher had to do this all the time — for no more pay than that fifty percent!
“But the worst shock came at the end. The teacher walkout collapsed after a couple of weeks, and most of them came back to fill their old places. I went back to my own job with voluminous relief. It was the weight of the world off my shoulders! But I paid one more visit to that school, after things were settled, because I wanted to meet the man I had replaced. I wanted to apologize to him for my ignorance and interference, and congratulate him for being a better man than I was. The education had been mine, really, and I had learned a lot of respect for him, knowing how good a job he had done under such conditions. I had seen his books and records, and knew he was a very fine engineer, too; he was right up to date, even if the texts he had to use weren’t.
“But he wasn’t there. His classes had been redistributed among other teachers. The school board had refused to hire him back. It turned out that he was an officer of the FEA, and one of the organizers of the walkout. So the board had its revenge on him and those like him, even though they were among the best teachers in the system. The mediocre teachers they kept; those were not ‘troublemakers’ who insisted on pushing for school improvements. I learned that this was happening all over the state, and I knew that the educational system there was never going to be the same again. They had brutally purged their most dedicated men and women, the ones who cared the most, rather than admit that the teachers’ complaints were valid.”
“Why didn’t they pay their teachers more?” Ivo asked. “Buy better texts, and so on? Why did they let so many other states forge ahead where it counted?”
“The state was in a financial bind at the time. If they had allocated more for the teachers, they would have had to do the same for the other neglected professions — the police, the social workers, even migrant labor. That would have meant an increase in taxes—”
“Oh.”
“Or a closing of tax loopholes,” Brad added. “And that would have been even worse for the special interests in power at the time.”
Ivo had a sudden vision of the proboscoids of planet Sung, abusing their resources into extinction. This is how it happens, he thought. Public apathy led to control by the special interests and unscrupulous individuals, and the trend was disastrous.
Had Brad known that the conversation would take this turn? Was this his way of showing Ivo that the tide had to be turned at this last frontier, the frontier of space? Senator Borland, representing the reactionary power of—
Groton smiled. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to run on like that. I don’t usually—”
“You never told me, dear,” Beatryx said. “Nobody likes to advertise his mistakes. That’s why I tried to forget what my ‘teaching’ really was. It still gets to me, when I think about it — that hellish two weeks — it seemed like several months. It was a long time before I felt really settled again. Before I could forget that terrible insecurity of responsibility without authority, of degradation at the hands of the precious youth of our country, of the bitterness at unworkable and unfair policies and useless effort.”
Yet he had not done anything about it himself, Ivo thought. How could mankind turn about, when even those who were shocked by the visible carnage merely retreated from it?
“At least I know better now,” Groton said. “Now that I have Beatryx. And I stay out of ‘causes.’ Maybe I just had to get the mistaken idealism out of my system before settling down.”
Oh.
Brad took Ivo to the confrontation. Afra was busy elsewhere, and he tried to keep his mind off her.
Senator Borland reminded him, shockingly, of the catatonic Dr. Johnson Afra had introduced him to in the infirmary. Borland’s manner dissipated that initial impression in a hurry, however; he was younger and far more forceful than the scientist could ever have been. Ivo tried not to think of him automatically as the enemy. Borland had probably had nothing to do with the closing of schools and suppression of teachers.
It was amazing that one so young as Brad should be trusted to deal with such a man. But Brad was — Brad.
The Senator arrived with his personal secretary: a noisy young man who could only be properly described as a “flunky.” The flunky did the talking, speaking of Borland always in the third person as though he were not present, while Borland himself looked alertly about as though not concerned with the dialogue.
“You!” the flunky cried imperiously, spying Brad. “You’re American, right? The Senator wants to talk to you.”
Brad approached slowly. Ivo could tell he was repressing irritation; he was hardly one to be ordered about abruptly.
The flunky consulted his clipboard. “You’re Bradley Carpenter, right? Boy genius from Kennedy Tech, right? The Senator wants to know what you’re pulling here.”
“Astronomy,” Brad said. There was a small stir among the assembled personnel of the station, and one big man with the Soviet insignia on his lapel smiled, not hesitant to show his contempt of the capitalist hierarchy. The West Europeans kept straight faces, though one had to cough. Borland had no power over them, but there were courtesies to maintain.
“Stargazing. Uh-huh,” the flunky remarked. “The Senator means to put a stop to needless and wasteful expense. Do you have any idea how much of the taxpayer’s hard-earned money you’ve squandered here in the past year?”
“Yes,” Brad replied.
“The Senator means to get to the bottom of this foolishness. This—” There was a doubletake. “What?”
“None.”
“None what?”
“None squandered. You seem to assume that the purpose of research is the production of tangible commodities. The research is not in error; your definitions are.”
Borland swung around to cover Brad. He touched one finger to his subordinate’s arm and the youth froze. “Hold on there, lad. Suppose you prove that statement. What’s so special about your telescope, makes it worth this many billion dollars? Just give me the tourist-class rundown, now.”
“It isn’t a telescope.”
“The Senator didn’t ask you what it wasn’t!”
Ivo could tell by the silence that even the non-English-speaking personnel present were waiting to see the gadfly get swatted. Brad’s obscure humor was not the only trait friends had come to appreciate.
They were disappointed this time. Brad did go into the elementary lecture reserved for visiting dignitaries. After a moment Ivo realized why: Brad was swatting for the gad, not the gadfly.