Poul Anderson sketches a future society effectively in the opening pages of this story. For reference, see here.
The narrator has spent a year helping with the construction of a Galactic Analyzer fifty astronomical units away from Earth;
he and his wife are holidaying in a primitive cottage on Kauai where they can be alone with sea, sand, flowers, sun and rainbows;
their phone, visual as well as auditory, can be set to respond only to important messages;
the narrator is a "linker" and his friend, David Rhys, is a "holothete";
both somehow interact with computers;
the narrator's wife is a school teacher;
most children are taught by computers although gifted children of well-off parents can instead have human teachers;
there is an Institute of Holothetes and also a Peace Command (the latter sounds familiar from other Anderson futures);
the Peace Command lends the Institute a sub-orbital rocket to take the narrator to France where his friend is catatonic.
A future full of information technology has been outlined and a human drama is about to begin.
See also here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I myself have been to Kauai. My older brother used to own a house there many years ago. And I do agree on how John Henry and his wife could "be alone with sea, sand, flowers, sun and rainbows." Every time I went to Hawaii I saw lots of rainbows!
Sean
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