My Ishmael (Ishmael 3) - Page 10

“Well, that’s great,” I said. “But how does that help us?”

“It would help us if we knew how they did it, wouldn’t it?”

“Certainly.”

For a second it looked like they were going to get stuck again, but then Gammaen found a way to carry on.

“We’re going out there to learn,” she said.

“Who is?”

“We are. All the recruits—you, us.”

“Going out where?” I asked, still not able to take in what she was getting at.

“Out into the universe,” she said.

Finally it got spelled out: We were waiting to be picked up.

It was expected that we’d be gone for decades. We wouldn’t be going to school. We’d be visiting planets, observing—figuring it out.

And what we learned we’d bring back to the people of earth.

That was the program.

And that was the daydream.

Meet Mother Culture

Stupid, huh?”

Ishmael frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, I mean, it’s a daydream. It’s meringue. Fluff. Twaddle.”

He shook his head. “No story is devoid of meaning, if you know how to look for it. This is as true of nursery rhymes and daydreams as it is of novels and epic poems.”

“Okay.”

“Your daydream isn’t fluff or twaddle, Julie, I can assure you of that. And what’s more, it’s done what I wanted it to do. I asked for a story that would explain what you’re doing here, and you’ve given me that. I now understand what you’re looking for. Or to put it more precisely, I now under stand what you’re prepared to learn—and without that I couldn’t proceed at all.”

I didn’t really understand what he was getting at, but I told him I was glad to hear it.

“Even so,” he went on, “I’m not sure as yet how to go on with you. Whether you know it or not, you present me with a special problem.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not like the teachers at your school, Julie, who merely teach you subjects that your elders have decided you should know—things like mathematics, geography, history, biology, and so on. As I explained earlier, I’m a teacher who acts as a midwife to his pupils, bringing out into the open air the ideas that are growing inside of them.” Ishmael paused for a moment to think, then asked what I thought the difference was between me and Alan Lomax—educationally speaking.

“Well, I suppose he’s finished high school and probably college.”

“That’s right. And so?”

“So he knows some things I don’t know.”

“That’s true,” Ishmael said. “Nevertheless, the same ideas are growing inside of both of you.”

“How do you know that?”

Tags: Daniel Quinn Ishmael Classics
Source: readsnovelonline.net
readsnovelonline.net Copyright 2016 - 2024