Read Online Time Is the Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak - Free Book Online Page A

paranormal kinetics, which was too long to say. And the ones who had it they called parries and shut them up in jails and did even worse than that.
    It was a queer business, once one thought of it—for despite the strange gulf which lay between PK and science, it had taken the orderly mind which science had drummed into the human race to make PK finally work.
    And, strange as it might seem, Blaine told himself, it had been necessary that science should come first. For science had to be developed before Man could understand the forces which had freed his mind from the shackles in which they had been bound, before mental energy could be tapped and put to work by those who quite unsuspectingly had always carried with them that power and energy. For even in the study of PK there had been a need for method, and science had been the training ground in which method had developed.
    There were those who said that in some distant past two roads had forked for mankind, one of them marked “Magic” and the other “Science,” and that Man had taken the “Science” road and let the “Magic” go. Many of these people then went on to say that Man had made a great mistake in the choosing of the roads. See how far we’d have gone, they said, if we had taken “Magic” at the first beginning.
    But they were wrong, Blaine said, talking to himself, for there had never been two roads; there’d only been the one. For Man had had to master science before he could master magic.
    Although science had almost defeated magic, had almost driven it into limbo with laughter and with scorn.
    And would have driven it had there not been stubborn men who had refused to give up the dream of stars. Men who had been willing to do anything at all, to brave the laughter of the world, to accept derision, if they only could lay hands upon the stars.
    He wondered how it must have been in those days when Fishhook had been no more than a feeble hope, a glimmer of the mind, an article of faith. For the little band of hopeful, stubborn men had stood entirely by themselves. When they had asked for help, there had been no help, but only scornful chuckling against such errant foolery.
    The press had made a field day of it when they had appeared in Washington to ask financial aid. There had, quite naturally, been no such aid forthcoming, for the government would have naught to do with such a wildcat scheme. If science in all its might and glory had failed to reach the stars, how could there be hope that such as these might do it? So the men had worked alone, except for such pittances as they might be given here and there—a small grant from India, another from the Philippines and a little from Colombia—plus dribbles that came in from metaphysical societies and a few sympathetic donors.
    Then finally a country with a heart—Mexico—had invited them to come, had provided money, had set up a study center and a laboratory, had lent encouragement rather than guffaws of laughter.
    And almost from that day, Fishhook had become reality, had developed into an institution which did credit not to itself alone, but to the country which had opened up its heart.
    And I am a part of it, thought Blaine, sitting in his cell; a part of this virtually secret society, although secret through no fault of its own. Made secret, rather, by the envy and intolerance and the surging superstition of the entire world. Even though I am running from it, even though it be hunting me, I am still a part of it.
    He got up from the tiny bunk with its dirty blanket and stood at the window, staring out. He could see the sun-baked street and the scraggly trees staggered on the boulevard and across the street the sad, defeated business houses with a few dilapidated cars parked against the curb, some of them so ancient they were equipped with wheels which in turn were driven by internal combustion engines. Men sat on the steps that led up to the store