by.”
“Oh, no!” was his immediate response. And then, as his permament curiosity set in again: “What makes you say so?”
“Oh, I worked it out the night we met the two boys, Lork and Jeckin,” she said with a sigh. “You made it clearer to them what had happened to this culture than the rest of us had managed in a year when talking with the people in charge!”
“I can’t help it!” Hans retorted in an injured tone. And then, as by way of extenuation: “I look at things differently, I’m afraid.”
It was the most personal comment she had ever provoked from him. She smiled and gestured for him to continue.
“I can’t help it!” he repeated, starring to pace up and down in the narrow confines of the room. “I don’t know how true it is, the idea that the existence of computers has forced us into evolutionary hyper-drive, but it does fit, doesn’t it? Someone has to stayin charge! I don’t want to be overtaken by machinery!”
He drove fist into palm.
“It makes me terrified, you know—what I do, what I’m compelled to do! I have to argue with the medical computers whenever they run a check on the ship’s personnel, because they don’t understand what’s driving me! My job engages everything, every single faculty, like clinging with fingers and toes to a sheer rock wall. You inch up, and every inch is an achievement, and one little slip is the end. Do you believe it’s terrifying? Anyone else can fail and start over. A pantologist has to assume he got it right the first time. If it happened to me I’d stop being what I am, and that would be infinitely worse than—oh—being crippled in a wheelchair! Maybe Chen preferred death to failure;
I
don’t know! All I
do
know is that
I
would!”
“So—” Fay ventured. He cut her short.
“Why should I do what I do? Oh, because I’m selfish, of course! Once you’ve succeeded for a while, you don’t want to do anything that entails the risk of defeat. The strain itself becomes attractive. Nothing else uses so much of you! And it earns you admiration, and that’s not enough to repay your efforts, and then sometimes you get a bonus. And you saw me get one. That is enough.”
Confused, she said, “Are you still talking about Lork and Jeckin?”
“What else? They’re going to be liberated. I know! I analysed this culture, broke it down into symbols, weighted them, stored them in the memory-banks, told the computers where they were misunderstanding me, ran tests for interaction with Earth and the other planets in the Bridge System… This culture is sterile. It’s going to collapse. I’ve fed the hunger in those kids’ eyes! Didn’t you
see
it?”
“Yes”—barely breathing the word.
“When they build the Ipewell Bridge, the engineers will be instructed by the computers. But I taught the computers what to say. I set those boys free.”
Seeming suddenly embarrassed at having talked so openly, Hans ceased his pacing. “I guess I have to make a move. They have to fire up an Earthside Bridge for me specially, and I don’t want them to waste any power. I’m sorry, Fay.”
“For what?” she riposted, and then, not giving him time to answer, continued: “Tell me something before you go. Jacob Chen must have been sixty-plus, right?”
“Sixty-two.”
“And he’d been a pantologist all his life?”
Hans blinked. “Well, I guess so. We tend to be infant prodigies as often as not.”
“When did you find out you were going to be one?”
“I didn’t. Other people found out for me. I was just about learning to read when they latched on.”
“And you were how old then?”
“Oh!” He gave a boyish and self-conscious grin. “Not quite past my third birthday.”
“So I’m half a century too late to try and catch up,” she said, and gave a bitter smile. “Never mind. I’ll console myself with the certainty that I shan’t be the last person to break her heart by setting it on you. I just hope there will go on being
“Oh, no!” was his immediate response. And then, as his permament curiosity set in again: “What makes you say so?”
“Oh, I worked it out the night we met the two boys, Lork and Jeckin,” she said with a sigh. “You made it clearer to them what had happened to this culture than the rest of us had managed in a year when talking with the people in charge!”
“I can’t help it!” Hans retorted in an injured tone. And then, as by way of extenuation: “I look at things differently, I’m afraid.”
It was the most personal comment she had ever provoked from him. She smiled and gestured for him to continue.
“I can’t help it!” he repeated, starring to pace up and down in the narrow confines of the room. “I don’t know how true it is, the idea that the existence of computers has forced us into evolutionary hyper-drive, but it does fit, doesn’t it? Someone has to stayin charge! I don’t want to be overtaken by machinery!”
He drove fist into palm.
“It makes me terrified, you know—what I do, what I’m compelled to do! I have to argue with the medical computers whenever they run a check on the ship’s personnel, because they don’t understand what’s driving me! My job engages everything, every single faculty, like clinging with fingers and toes to a sheer rock wall. You inch up, and every inch is an achievement, and one little slip is the end. Do you believe it’s terrifying? Anyone else can fail and start over. A pantologist has to assume he got it right the first time. If it happened to me I’d stop being what I am, and that would be infinitely worse than—oh—being crippled in a wheelchair! Maybe Chen preferred death to failure;
I
don’t know! All I
do
know is that
I
would!”
“So—” Fay ventured. He cut her short.
“Why should I do what I do? Oh, because I’m selfish, of course! Once you’ve succeeded for a while, you don’t want to do anything that entails the risk of defeat. The strain itself becomes attractive. Nothing else uses so much of you! And it earns you admiration, and that’s not enough to repay your efforts, and then sometimes you get a bonus. And you saw me get one. That is enough.”
Confused, she said, “Are you still talking about Lork and Jeckin?”
“What else? They’re going to be liberated. I know! I analysed this culture, broke it down into symbols, weighted them, stored them in the memory-banks, told the computers where they were misunderstanding me, ran tests for interaction with Earth and the other planets in the Bridge System… This culture is sterile. It’s going to collapse. I’ve fed the hunger in those kids’ eyes! Didn’t you
see
it?”
“Yes”—barely breathing the word.
“When they build the Ipewell Bridge, the engineers will be instructed by the computers. But I taught the computers what to say. I set those boys free.”
Seeming suddenly embarrassed at having talked so openly, Hans ceased his pacing. “I guess I have to make a move. They have to fire up an Earthside Bridge for me specially, and I don’t want them to waste any power. I’m sorry, Fay.”
“For what?” she riposted, and then, not giving him time to answer, continued: “Tell me something before you go. Jacob Chen must have been sixty-plus, right?”
“Sixty-two.”
“And he’d been a pantologist all his life?”
Hans blinked. “Well, I guess so. We tend to be infant prodigies as often as not.”
“When did you find out you were going to be one?”
“I didn’t. Other people found out for me. I was just about learning to read when they latched on.”
“And you were how old then?”
“Oh!” He gave a boyish and self-conscious grin. “Not quite past my third birthday.”
“So I’m half a century too late to try and catch up,” she said, and gave a bitter smile. “Never mind. I’ll console myself with the certainty that I shan’t be the last person to break her heart by setting it on you. I just hope there will go on being
Similar Books
