"
Cochrane halted, to watch something which was flat like a disk of
gray-green flesh and which moved slowly out of their path with
disquieting writhing motions. It vanished, and he said:
"Yes. Bill's an honest man, even if he is a psychiatrist. He wants
desperately to do something for the poor devils back home who're so
pitifully frustrated. There are tens of millions of men who can't hope
for anything better than to keep the food and shelter supply intact for
themselves and their families. They can't even pretend to hope for more
than that. There isn't more than so much to go around. But Bill wants to
give them hope. He figures that without hope the world will turn
madhouse in another generation. It will."
"You're trying to do something about that!" said Babs quickly. "Don't
you think you're offering hope to everybody back on Earth?"
"No!" snapped Cochrane. "I'm not trying anything so abstract as
furnishing hope to a frustrated humanity! Nobody can supply an
abstraction! Nobody can accomplish an abstraction! Everything that's
actually done is specific and real! Maybe you can find abstract
qualities in it after it's done, but I'm a practical man! I'm not trying
to produce an improved psychological climate, suitable for debilitated
psychos! I'm trying to get a job done!"
"I've wondered," admitted Babs, "what the job is.
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