Talking Man

CHAPTER ONE - SASH

"Space is a dead end."

He didn't lean forward in his chair, but he didn't need to. The burning blue eyes and percussive voice provided the intensity that was only increased by his casual posture.

"Science – it's gone the way of religion.

"In the old days, people used to look up at the sky for answers, and you know what they came up with? Mythologies. That's right. Stories fueled by imagination, but inspired by what? Space. And now, look. You've got these smart, supposedly brilliant individuals who are still looking up at the sky for answers. Sure, they can go farther than the fellows who came up with the astrologies and the polytheistic creation myths, but in the end they're just interpreting signs the best ways they know how. They're still running into a wall of darkness that asks more questions than it answers. How much farther do they have to go before they realize the answers aren't out there? I say they'll never come to that realization, not on their own. They're going to keep coming back with new discoveries, new information about the universe that'll help solve the mysteries about how you and me came to be, what we're made of, why we are here. As if any of that matters to you and I, to our children and to the hungry children in unglobalized nations!

"The scientists will ask us to believe them but why should we? Why should we let them dictate how we interpret the signs in the stars?

"How is their work any different from an old Mesopotamian looking up at those same stars, seeing shapes same as a little child might see, and using those to determine the course of the future? Maybe it was enough for them, thousands of years ago. Here in the twenty-second century, those distant shapes won't reduce our poverty rate. They won't stem overpopulation or overcentralization, won't make the World Government more palatable, won't do away with the death sentence, won't stop the Eams virus, won't make trees grow again. We search for answers to our crises and I tell you the answers aren't out there; they're around us and inside us, and that's where they always have been. The world has been distracted by outer space exploration for long enough, and we're ever to make real progress as a species, we need to put a stop to it!"

He didn't need to hear the billions of shaking breaths that now exhaled in excitement and agreement. Nor did he need to see the wide eyes and sweaty foreheads, palms rubbing together and heads nodding ever-so-slightly. He knew they were out there. They always were.

"And we're down," piped the producer. The red blinking lights around the cameras and scanners shut off, and four assistants scurried in to remove the sensors from Traver's head, shoulders and arms. "Good show, Mister Graff."

Traver Graff sat for a moment longer without moving, closing his eyelids over those hypnotizing irises. His hand rose slightly as if to make a point, but he pursed his lips and hesitated – then he went on: "'Science has gone the way of religion' – I should have closed with that."

"I think it was great the way it was. It sounded good to me and, according to the ratings report, to two point seven billion other people." Weston, the head producer, patted Traver on the back – Traver hated the feel of that cold, flabby hand, but smiled nonetheless. He opened his eyes and gifted Weston with a glance.

As he emerged from the studio hallway and into the big front lobby of the building, the talk show host felt an uncharacteristic sense of unease. To all appearances this was just another day at the Secular Alliance for Social Humanities, and outside the glass double doors was expected to be the usual crowd of over-excited interviewers, media-men, and zealots, with some protesters thrown into the mix. Today's crowd would be a little bigger, though – a little wilder. He'd thrown the world a few bones today, given them a reason to listen. He wanted more eyes and ears attentive to him when he stepped out of those doors on this day in particular. He just hadn't expected to be nervous about it.