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Wendy looked perplexed, puzzled, stunned. "Well, I've never met a man who hasn't started as a baby and developed from this point on," she countered Olaf.
"Some haven't moved from this stage," Olaf explained, "and many who did, found themselves mentally murdered."
She shrugged her shoulders. "How can a person grow up under these circumstance if everything about reality is shrouded in mystery, hidden behind taboos, subjected simultaneously to ridicule or false promotion?"
"Olaf nodded. "To blame it all on the prostitutes is like blaming the military for inventing the nuclear bombs."
"It's the artificially created klutz that society nourishes, who's the real culprit in both cases," said Olaf to Heisenberg. "For more than a millennium now, the human society has had no real compassion for its own offspring," he added in a rather sad voice.
"I should have warned you about Olaf," I said to Wendy.
She shook her head. "No, don't say that! You should have warned him, about me!"
"Has it ever occurred to you that you could have felt proud to have been propositioned for our exciting appearance?" said Olaf to both of us, and grinned.
"Oh you!" Wendy grinned back and punched him gently.
"Some consolation that is!" I replied.
She grinned, even after everyone was gone, and gave me a great big bear hug. "Your friends are certainly interesting people!" she said.
"Unpredictable and interesting?" I began to grin.
"So, you don't mind staying here, then?"
"Mind? Why should I mind? It's fascinating here! We had never talked about things like that at home. And here, a few words and a joke, can change a mental position that one has held for a lifetime."
"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet!" I said. "Just wait a few days!"
We slept until late afternoon.
"To be honest, I can't imagine now why I've been so hard headed about coming here," she said. "It's a lovely place to be."
"You couldn't have acted any different than you had," I replied.
We went back to Earth several times after that, to talk with our two sons. I offered them the same option, to join us on Bohr's planet. Initially they were exited about it, but then both turned the offer down. They told us that they had no option but to remain on the Earth and dedicate their lives to the survival of humanity. I was disappointed of course, but I could understand their reason. On our next visit, I brought a crate of diamonds along, a war chest to see them through. "People sell their souls for these rocks," I commented as they examined them.
Peter, the younger one, smiled. His face radiated. He must have been captivated by their sparkle, or perhaps by the realization of the fantastic riches these rocks represented. But he bit his lips together, shook his head, and declared that this was the very reason he couldn't accept them. He said it wasn't right to induce others to sell their soul for a bunch of rocks! I know Olaf would have been proud of them had he heard them. "To sell these diamonds is like selling our own soul," said to older one. "It is like cutting off the very hand that one needs to fight for the continued existence of the world."
He closed the lid of the crate and gave it back to me. "Take them home with you," he said and cried, "they are too costly for us to have. They are too costly as jewels and too precious for industrial uses."
I took the elder of my sons, aside. "That problem is easily solved," I said to him. "Just take a hammer and smash them into dust until they become industrial-grade diamond, useful only for making tools."
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