In the year 2750 logical thought has grown out of control. Entrenched corporate structures gluttonize Earth’s natural resources and pollute the environment. These behemoths become unmanageable and error creeps in.
‘Unreasoning rage’ and a ‘fine honed fanaticism’ grips society sparking a revolt against technology. Machines are destroyed along with any literary reference to them. Man closes his mind.
Over the next fifteen hundred years illiteracy paves the way for superstition. Man’s massive governmental systems digress to small feudal societies who fear change. The end of mankind approaches
The Learning
Thomas Cushing, an orphaned ‘woods runner’, travels alone through the woods of an America that has been reclaimed by nature. His travels lead him to the last bastion of learning, the University of Minnesota. The residents of the University accept Thomas. Over time he learns to read and farm potatoes.
By accident he comes across a lost manuscript written five hundred years after the collapse. It tells of a ‘Place of Going to the Stars’ located somewhere in the west. Curiosity grows. Thomas becomes restless. Studying and potato farming are no longer fulfilling. He needs to know what secret from the past lies in the west.
The Journey
As a result of the collapse of logical thought, certain individuals, known as Sensitives, have developed innate awareness of thoughts, emotions, and complex patterns that are not evident through the use of the five senses.
These types of people are attracted to Cushing’s quest and he soon finds that his lone pilgrimage has turned into a group effort. What Cushing does not realize, at first, is that each of these members possesses some quality or object that is essential to the success of the mission.
The Place of Going to the Stars
The culmination of this tale occurs at ‘The Place of Going to the Stars’. It is a confusing place, not at all what Thomas Cushing expected to find. There are no launch pads, no visible signs of ancient technology, only a large enigmatic building which houses an entity known as the ‘A and R’.
Here Thomas Cushing and his scraggly group of Sensitives must unlock the secrets of ‘The Place of Going to the Stars’. What they find could change the course of mankind for better, or for worse.
Conclusion
A Heritage of Stars is a story about the abuse of technology, it also points toward its proper use. In this story Clifford D. Simak attempts to show that the development of technology is currently out of control. And that its value should be weighed on the scales of its affect on the planet and on society as a whole.
He implies that the use of logical thought, which is necessary for the development of technology, should be balanced with the advancement of creative mind endeavors. And that technology should be a means to further the preservation of human creativity and of the Earth’s resources, not an end in itself.
The story can be taken as a cautionary tale for us today who live in a society of corporations who have grown too large to manage themselves. Our society has placed such importance on the development of technology that it disregards the environmental and social damage that this headlong rush has caused.
A Heritage of Stars, by Clifford D. Simak, Copyright 1977, SBN 399-11946-9, Berkley Putnam
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