Maybe that's the way, he thought. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe that's the only answer.
He swung around.
"Cabinet."
"What is it, sir?"
"Nothing," Bishop said. "Nothing at all... that is. Thanks for fixing up my hand."
"That's quite all right," said the cabinet. "Good night."
Maybe that's the answer.
To act like a child.
And what does a child do?
He goes to bed when he is told.
He minds his elders.
He goes to school.
He -
Wait a minute!
He goes to school!
He goes to school because there is a lot to learn. He goes to kindergarten so he can get into first grade, and he goes to high school so he can go to college. He realized there is a lot to learn, that before he takes his place in the adult world it must be learned and that he has to work to learn.
But I went to school, Bishop told himself. I went for years and years. I studied hard and I passed an examination that a thousand others failed to pass. I qualified for Kimon.
But just suppose.
You went to kindergarten to qualify for first grade.
You went to high school to qualify for college.
You went to Earth to qualify for Kimon.
You might have a doctorate on Earth, but still be no more than a kindergarten youngster when you got to Kimon.
Monty knew a bit of telepathy and so did some of the others. Maxine could teleport herself and she had made the glass stop before it hit the floor. Perhaps the others could, too.
And they'd just picked it up.
Although just telepathy or stopping a glass from hitting the floor would not be all of it. There'd be much more of it. Much more to the culture of Kimon than the parapsychic arts.
Maybe we are ready, he thought. Maybe we've almost finished with our adolescence. Maybe we are on the verge of being ready for an adult culture. Could that be why the Kimonians let us in, the only ones in the galaxy they are willing to let in?
His brain reeled with the thought.
On Earth only one of every thousand passed the examination that sent them on to Kimon. Maybe here on Kimon only another one in every thousand would be qualified to absorb the culture that Kimon offered them.
But before you could even start to absorb the culture, before you could start to learn, before you ever went to school, you'd have to admit that you didn't know. You'd have to admit that you were a child. You couldn't keep on polishing up false pride to use as a shield between you and the culture that waited for your understanding.
Morley, Bishop said, I may have the answer - the answer that you're awaiting back on Earth.
But I can't tell it to you. It's something that can't be told. It's a thing that each one must find out for himself.
And the pity of it is that Earth is not readily equipped to find it out. It is not a lesson that is often taught on Earth.
Armies and guns could not storm the citadel of Kimonian culture, for you simply could not fight a war with a parapsychic people. Earth aggressiveness and business cunning likewise would fail to crack the deadpan face of Kimon.
There is only one way, Morley, Bishop said, talking to his friend. There is only one thing that will crack this planet, and that is humility.
And Earthmen are not humble creatures.
Long ago they forgot the meaning of humility.
But here it's different.
Here you have to be different.
You start out by saying I don't know.
Then you say I want to know.
Then you say I'll work hard to learn.
Maybe, Bishop thought, that's why they brought us here, so that the one of us in every thousand who has a chance of learning would get that chance to learn. Maybe they are watching, hoping that there may be more than one in every thousand. Maybe they are more anxious for us to learn than we are to learn. For they may be lonely in a galaxy where there are no others like them.
Could it be that the ones at this hotel were the failures, the ones who had never tried, or who might have tried and could not pass?
And the others - the one out of every thousand - where were they?
He could not even guess.
There were no answers.
It was all supposition.
It was a premise built upon a pipe-dream - built on wishful thinking.
He'd wake up in the morning and know that it was wrong.
He'd go down to the bar and have a drink with Maxine or with Monty and laugh at himself for the things that he'd dreamed up.
School, he'd told himself. But it wouldn't be a school - at least not the kind of school he'd ever known before.
I wish it could be so, he thought.
The cabinet said, "You'd better get off to bed, sir."
"I suppose I should," said Bishop. "It's been a long, hard day."
"You'll want to get up early," said the cabinet, "so you aren't late for school."