Stewards of the Flame (21 page)

Kira said, “Since way back in the twentieth century, people have been conditioned to believe that all their problems ought to be considered medical problems—even that they ought to seek medical attention when they aren’t sick, just in case they might get sick later. And so-called preventative medicine
doesn’t
prevent, except in the sense of shifting the odds of getting one disease instead of another.”

“Rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic
,” Michelle agreed.

“Huh?”

“Oh, that’s an old saying about a ship—not a starship, an ocean liner on Earth—that was doomed to sink. I don’t know if it was a real one or just a legend.”

“Take cardiovascular disease, for example,” Kira went on. “For several hundred years advocates of preventative medicine have been raising alarms over the fact that it’s the leading cause of death—”

“I always wondered,” said Jesse, “which other disease they thought should lead.”

“My point exactly. Actually, despite all the propaganda, the percentage of deaths due to cardiovascular disease has risen steadily, for the simple reason that past scourges like cancer and Alzheimer’s can now be cured. Nothing is going to change that, short of the appearance of some new infectious plague that wipes out a significant part of Earth’s population. Exhorting people to spend their lives trying to avoid it merely brings illness on earlier by increasing their ongoing stress level.”

“Are you saying stress-based illness can’t be prevented, then?”

“Not by medical science. And not by any other physical means, either, except indirectly. All sorts of alternative practices are legal on Earth, and their advocates say many of the same things we do about mainstream medicine—but the alternatives don’t work, either. They’re based on the same underlying fallacy.”

“When it comes to treatment, most of those practices help some people, some of the time,” Greg added. “But then, so does standard medicine. All health care theories, except for a few wholly spiritual ones, assume that the way to avoid illness is to do something to the body. In the long run, whether it’s high-tech drugs or herbal remedies or nutrition or physical manipulation doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. Some things do less direct damage than others. The end result doesn’t change.”

Jesse considered this. “Accepted treatments have been proven better than placebos in controlled trials, haven’t they? Doesn’t that mean they’re effective?”

“For well-defined illnesses that are already established, yes. But not in terms of overall health and longevity.”

“What’s more, in most trials the placebo works for about a third of the subjects,” Kira said. “Often the percentage is much higher. All that’s required for the treatment for to be judged better is for it to work on more subjects than that, not necessarily a lot more. So in reality the majority of the patients treated with powerful drugs aren’t really helped by them, not to mention the people who weren’t sick in the first place. Decade after decade, century after century, this fact has been carefully ignored—not only by pharmaceutical companies, who have an obvious motive for suppressing it, but by well-meaning doctors who want to believe they can help people and patients who want to believe medication will help them.”

“But placebos wouldn’t help if the patients stopped thinking they were drugs.”

“No. What the placebo effect does is to mobilize the body’s own healing ability—but not for long, not after a person starts to doubt.”

“I don’t think it’s just a matter of believing,” Jesse insisted. “Doctors, and sometimes even faith healers, cure people with no faith in the treatment.”

Kira laughed. “Peter and I heal skeptics, too. Many of us in the Group do.”

“You use some sort of telepathy, though,” Jesse recalled uncomfortably.

“So do faith healers,” she informed him. “So do alternative practitioners who are successful with skeptics. And so, in fact, do talented physicians. It’s on an unconscious level, of course; they don’t know they’re doing it. But apart from strictly mechanical procedures like surgery, one can’t be an effective healer without giving some form of telepathic help. That’s been true since the beginning of time.”

“Oh, Kira, I can’t believe that!”

“You’d rather not, I know.”

Jesse was silent, listening to the waves lap against the nearby shore. It was true that he didn’t like the thought of widespread telepathy; for some reason it chilled him. “I’m getting more and more confused,” he admitted finally. “You say stress is universal and stress-based illness can’t be prevented, yet you all stay healthy, and supposedly I’m to be trained to do the same.”

“We said it can’t be prevented by
physical
techniques,” Greg told him. “With the mind—that’s another story. Telepathy acts on the unconscious mind, not on the body directly, just as the placebo effect does. And we ourselves learn to consciously control our bodies’ reactions to stress, so that they aren’t damaged by it.”

“So Peter said. That seems pretty fantastic to me.”

“He taught you to control pain, didn’t he? The same principles apply.”

“But that didn’t affect my body—only my perceptions.”

“Jesse,” Kira reminded him, “he did explain that your brain, which is part of your body, is responsible for your perceptions—and that you were controlling what your brain did. It’s more complicated, of course. The biochemical responses of the nervous system are involved. You don’t need to know the scientific details, but you’ll find that volitional control works.”

“It’s not as new a concept as you may think,” Michelle said. “I’ve read up on its history. As long ago as the twentieth century, experiments showed that simply
being in control,
or believing that you’re in control, has a big impact on biochemistry—not just in people, but in rats. Those early studies produced evidence that people who have control over their situation are healthier, and have fewer illnesses, than people who don’t.”

“Which, incidentally, was absolute proof of the objective value of freedom,” Greg declared. “Needless to say, the Med government here has discounted it. But medical science never followed through even on Earth. People want to believe magic pills will ward off illness, and the drug companies don’t want them to believe otherwise.”

“Neither do the health care professionals, I suppose,” Jesse reflected grimly. “Even where it’s not a matter of political power, their prestige and their jobs depend on keeping patients dependent.”

“Besides,” Michelle said, “free choice in action isn’t enough. It helps; for instance, that’s why diet came to be considered an effective prevention strategy even though widely different diets all made the same claims—in most cases it’s the
control
people exercise, not the food itself, that improves their health. To get really significant control of bodily responses, though, you need more than indirect effects. You need to use conscious volition.”

“And that’s what you’ll learn to do in the neurofeedback lab,” Kira said. “Nobody can learn it just by thinking about it, and even with our advanced lab technology it couldn’t be learned quickly without the telepathic help we provide. But once you do learn, you’ll be permanently protected. You’ll feel emotional stress just as anyone does, but you’ll be able to keep it from damaging your body.”

“And from being detected in your compulsory health checkups,” Greg added. “It’s a matter of self-defense if you don’t want to be forcibly medicated.”

Turning away, Jesse reached over the side of the boat and trailed his hand in the water. There was something disturbing in the thought of having to control his bodily processes, something he couldn’t put a finger on. And earlier, it had been implied that the training would involve experiences more frightening than mere lab sessions. . . .

Kira, picking up his thought, said, “There are psychological barriers to learning these skills that you’re not yet ready to understand. It takes a good deal of courage, Jesse. As you’ve probably noticed, we put a lot of emphasis on dealing with fear. The aim’s not to turn you into some sort of hero, but—among other things—to help you stay healthy.”

“I’m still not sure I see the connection.”

“No, because you’ve been conditioned by Med propaganda,” Greg said. “You’ve been taught to believe that your body is a machine to be controlled by physical intervention. We use drastic methods to break that conditioning, starting with what you went through during testing.”

Michelle added, “Some of the things we do would seem impossibly hard if we described them to you now. You’ll find you’re able to do them—even, in most cases, to enjoy doing them. And that will enable you to handle ongoing everyday fears without letting stress wear you down.”

Well, Jesse thought, life in the Group wasn’t going to be boring. “If that kind of control takes aptitude and courage to learn,” he protested, “then isn’t it unrealistic to say that medicine ought to rely on it? Even if it weren’t for the political situation here, I don’t think the majority would go along with the idea. Surely they wouldn’t give up all drugs.”

“No, of course not,” Kira said. “Outsiders often do need medication, especially after stress has done lasting damage. In any case, without the techniques we’ve developed comparatively few people can alter the mindset they’ve absorbed both from conditioning and from mass telepathic influence. There’s no way around that in today’s culture, nor would there have been in past centuries. Our discoveries can’t help the majority at this stage of human history.”

Greg said, “We see the worst of it here because of the compulsion. But on Earth things are just as bad as far as conditioning goes, and the problem is harder to recognize. It may never be surmountable there.”

“I guess not, when learning to stay healthy by your methods seems to require paranormal ability on the part of the instructors. That couldn’t become widespread anywhere, even in the future.” Nor would he want it to, Jesse thought nervously, putting aside the remainder of his unfinished lunch. He was suddenly aware that he was no longer hungry.

“Well, of course control over our bodies isn’t the only thing we learn—” Michelle began, but Kira frowned and shook her head. “As I’m sure Peter told you, we’re not trying to transform society,” she said. “We’re simply experimenting with the kind of advance we believe will come in the future, trying to find out if the development of new mind powers is practical for different kinds of people over a long period of time.”

“As a vanguard—yes, he said that. But even supposing we find it works with everybody who joins us, and enough telepaths can be found to instruct, how could humanity ever make the transition?”

Michelle hesitated. “There’s just one possibility,” she said finally. “If kids could be brought up from earliest childhood according to our principles, without any conflicting influence and in a supportive telepathic environment—”

“But that could never happen.”

“Not as far as civilization as a whole is concerned. But there might someday be a new world, a colony established specifically for that purpose—and ultimately that world would be on the cutting edge of human evolution. Other colonies would emulate it.”

Kira nodded. “One of the reasons colonization is vital to evolution is that only separate colonies can experiment with new ways that can’t ever prevail within the established mass culture of Earth,” she said. “Undine has tried one experiment, and it’s a miserable failure. We trust that someday, others will try the opposite approach.”

“A future like that is beyond our power to bring about, of course,” Greg said, hauling in the boat’s anchor. “But we’re collecting data in the hope that we can pass it on. We consider ourselves stewards of that knowledge, and we take steps to ensure that even if we’re wiped out by the authorities here, it won’t be lost.”

Jesse drew breath. He had not realized that the goal was so far-reaching. A world where illness was truly abolished—not by policing people, not by herding them into the care of professionals and manipulating their bodies, but by teaching them to use their own minds. . . . He would not, of course, want to be personally involved in the telepathic side of it. But after all, it would take centuries to come to fruition. Such a colony would start small, like all colonies, and would have to remain isolated. Those who established it would never see the culmination of their hopes.

Just as the Group here on Undine would never see even the beginning. And yet somehow, imagining such a goal
felt
right. He was thoughtful as they headed back across the bay toward the Lodge, and at first did not notice the sound of an approaching plane.

“That’s not one of ours,” Greg remarked. “Not unless somebody’s put more money into extra power than shaving half an hour off the flight warrants.”

Then, as the plane swooped low over them and touched down only a short way ahead, Kira rose up, reaching for the scuba masks and shoving them hastily under the seat. “Dear God,” she said, “it’s an air ambulance. The police.”

~
 
23
 
~

“Jesse,” Kira went on urgently, “can you swim a little way without fins?”

“Yes, but—”

“Get into the water, now! Michelle, you too—he hasn’t enough experience to swim alone, and anyway it wouldn’t look natural. Angle over to the swimming cove and mix with the people there.”

“But why?” Michelle protested, as Greg cut power and the boat slowed. “Jesse’s not wanted by the Hospital anymore, is he?”

“No, I don’t think so. But Peter left strict orders that his presence here must not be known to any outsider. I don’t think the police will note who’s at the Lodge; they never have before. Still, we mustn’t take the chance.”

Jesse went over the side and held onto the gunwale. “Do they come often?” he inquired in dismay.

“The health inspectors show up unannounced about twice a year, but it’s nowhere near time for them. They were here only a few shifts back, and found no violations; we keep all the contraband food downstairs. I don’t know what’s up, but I’m in charge and I should get to the dock before they collar someone else. So go—and stay on the swimming beach until I send for you.”