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discriminated class ?

    Some critics were probably right. For humans to attempt such a thing would be like an orphaned and abused teen trying to foster a wild baby. There were bound to be mistakes and tragedies along the way.

    Are we good enough? Wise enough? Do we deserve such power ?

    It wasn't the sort question Hacker used to ask himself. He felt changed by his experience at sea. At the same time, he realized that just asking the question was part of the answer.

    Maybe it'll work both ways. They say you only grow while helping others .

    His father would have called that "romantic nonsense." And yet . . .

    Exploring one of the laboratories, Hacker found a cheap but working phone that someone had left behind—then had to work at a lab bench for an hour, modifying it to tap the sonic implant in his jaw. He was about to call his manager and broker—before they had a chance to declare him dead and start liquidating his empire. But then Hacker stopped.

    He paused, then keyed the code for his lawyer instead.

    At first Gloria Bickerton could not believe he survived. She wouldn't stop shouting with joy. I didn't know anyone liked me that much , he mused, carrying the phone back to the dome's atrium. He arrived in time to witness the water polo game conclude in a frothy finale.

    "Before you arrange a pickup, there's something I want you to do for me," he told Gloria, after she calmed down. Hacker gave her the WorldNet codes for the Uplift Project, and asked her to find out everything about it, including the current disposition of its assets and technology—and how to contact the experts whose work had been interrupted here.

    Gloria asked him why. He started to reply.

    "I think I've come up with a new . . ."

    Hacker stopped there, having almost said the word hobby . But suddenly he realized that he had never felt this way about anything before. Not even the exhilaration of rocketry. For the first time he burned with a real ambition. Something worth fighting for.

    In the pool, several members of the Tribe were now busy winding their precious net around the torso of the biggest male, preparing to go foraging again. Hacker overheard them gossiping as they worked, and chuckled when he understood one of their crude jokes. A good natured jibe at his expense.

    Well, a sense of humor is a good start. Our civilization could use more of that .

    "I think—" He resumed telling his lawyer.

    "I think I know what I want to do with my life."

    Probing the Near Future

" If science continues burgeoning the way it did in the Twentieth Century, by the year 2070 everyone on Earth will be a postdoctoral research fellow ."

" If knowledge systems like the Internet proliferate at their present pace, all the world's data will fit into a pill, cheaper and easier to digest than a potato chip ."

    These two wry forecasts illustrate the problem with futuristic punditry. Extrapolations can fool you. It never pays to project tomorrow based on the past.

    That doesn't keep us from trying, though.

    Elsewhere I talk about humanity's obsession with the future, rooted in unique bits of brain-matter called the prefrontal lobes—the "lamps on the brow" that enable and drive us to contemplate what's to come. The urge to look ahead is so compelling, we devote much of our economy to all kinds of forecasting, from weather reports and stock analyses to financial and strategic planning, from sports handicapping to urban design, from political prophets to those charlatans on psychic hotlines. Which variety of seer you listen to can often be a matter of style. Some prefer horoscopes, while others like to hear consultants in Armani suits present a convincing "business case."

    Each of us hopes to prepare for what's coming, to improve our fate in the years ahead. This may be humanity's most distinctive trait, explaining our mastery over the world. But the task is muddied by life's essential competitiveness. If several rivals get the same data and plot the same