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Olaf's comment that our breakthrough achievements wouldn't work on Earth caused a great deal of speculation among us.
Mahesh came closest to a useful answer. He spoke about distorted points of reference. He said he had seen lots of examples on his planet. At the height of its prosperity, everything began to be measured by cost rather than by its potential value or by its significance in promoting the welfare of society. On this basis the very best the people had to offer out of the depth of their common Soul, invariably appeared as too expensive because it demanded the best from them. "If you look for the cheapest," he said, "you certainly don't look for the best, and the cheapest is what you will get. By this measure, you'll invest into poverty! Poverty always looks cheap, while in reality it is the most potent drain on the wealth of a society ever invented. The logic behind this is, that you don't measure correctly if you don't measure the right thing."
Mahesh said that when society measures cost, it doesn't measure the substance of life; it doesn't measure its technologies that open doors: it doesn't measure its strengths that push back frontiers, or its dynamics that open new horizons. "How can you talk about costs," he asked, "when it comes to investing into life itself, without which you are dead, out of which wealth is derived in the first place?"
Here, he began to laugh. As far as I recalled, I had never heard Mahesh laugh before. "In measuring costs, you measure poverty," he said, "and poverty is always 'cost' effective! It is highly effective in costing a lot for what you get in return. Its cheapness can collapse whole civilizations," he said, and he didn't joke. He suggested that this seems to be a fundamental law, which he suspects sets the Earth apart from planet 'O' just as it had been the case on his own planet where the real law of universal love and the general welfare has been trampled under foot.
We decided on Bohr's planet to let mankind's research ship return home. Olaf said that he didn't need it anymore. The 'O' people's language had been decoded. Also, he wouldn't want to keep it any longer if humanity couldn't profit from the result of his work in keeping the ship utilized, as seemed to be the case. Nor could we see a safety exposure in letting the ship go. None of its crew had been exposed to Olaf's lecture on the BME. On the positive side, the ship's archives of films and broadcasts were rich with information that could aid mankind to end its struggle against itself if it cared to make the effort to become human again. Olaf assured us that we would know when this begins. He suggested that we would sense the light of it right across the galaxies.
So it was, that one of the last orders issued by Captain Natalia Ostropovitch, was a call to the crew to return to the ship. Her last official entry in the captain's log contained the names of those who were staying behind on planet 'O' and on Bohr's planet, and the reasons for staying. Her final duty after that was to appoint a successor. With that duty completed she withdrew herself from the ship. Moments later the ship was transposed into a close trajectory to earth, a homeward bound trajectory at a velocity suitable for orbit insertion within three months. We all felt that the crew needed a few months to prepare the ship and itself for their arrival on Earth. Its arrival would be five years ahead of time.
Natalia herself was most deeply affected by this farewell to a place that had been our home where so much personal development had taken place, and profound discoveries had been made. She also felt that because of all the archives the ship now contained that it would keep humanity busy for decades, though it was a shame to send the ship back so 'empty' handed.
"I wouldn't exactly call it that," I countered her. "The ship has had a successful mission. It had reached its original destination. The researchers had a first hand look at what a civilization can become when its society fails to maintain its development. Then the crew has had a chance to explore a highly developed society at a period of time when it was fighting for its very existence. The crew also has explored Bohr's planet. I would say this is infinitely more than what we all had hoped for when the ship was launched. We would have been happy if Gamma .8 would have been at a primitive plant-life stage, with nothing bigger inhabiting it than frogs. The crew would have explored the life cycle of these frogs for something to do. Instead, the ship is going home richly loaded with treasures that no one on Earth ever imagined to even exist. The very fact that the people on the ship have witnessed and experienced the Bohr/Miller effect, even if they can't replicate it, should make the mission a success."
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