not fewer than is unavoidable!”
He thought it over and eventually shrugged. “Very well. I’ll call you at nineteen-thirty.”
He took his leave. When the door had closed, she said to the air, “In the end you’re going to be cruel. But you won’t be able to help it. So I have to forgive you in advance. Don’t I?”
Then she wiped the silly question from the city-projection and got on with her regular day’s work.
IX
Lorenzo’s voice emanated from a small white box lying on a carved table. It said, “When people hear the name of Jorgen Thorkild, they think of everything that’s associated with it: the Bridge System and the stars it links together, all the marvels that interstellar contact has made possible. But attaining such eminence as yours is not enough. Once attained it must be justified.”
“How would you know?” Thorkild said, picking up the box. “You’re only a machine.”
The air was warm and cloying, syrup-heavy with the scent of the huge flowers covering every bush of the hundreds in the hospital grounds. They were artfully laid out to disguise the supervision and control machinery with monitored the patients wherever they went, whatever they did or said. But for the risk of enhancing the delusions which some of them were suffering from, such as the notion that plants and trees and other objects were talking to them, there would have been no need for identifiable remote speakers like the one Jorgen was now meditatively hefting.
Here and there were shallow pools on whose mirror-still surfaces lay nenuphars, pink, blue and yellow.
He judged the distance to the nearest of them, drew back his arm, and let fly.
“I am a machine, true,” the box allowed judiciously. “But the principles upon which I have been programmed, by human beings, remember, are—”
And splash.
Thorkild dusted his hands and sat down. Within minutes what he had done was bound to be reported to Dr Lorenzo, and he or an automatic solido of him would appear to remonstrate. Nonetheless, even that much relief from the machine’s tireless arguments would be worth having. Why couldn’t Lorenzo get it through his thick pate that what this one out of all his patients wanted most was simply not to have to reason for a while? React, yes; reason—please, no! Not again
yet!
Not when trying to answer a simple question could drive you into a mental blind alley from which there was no escape either to right or left! If he ever found such an escape, it would either have to be upward—into mania—or downward—into suicidal depression. And he didn’t want to be confined to any of those choices! He wanted out, sure! But he wanted to find his own way, not one prescribed in advance by never mind how dedicated a therapist. He wanted to find an escape-route as improbable as the path of a Bridge would have been to his own great-grandfather. Right now he didn’t know whether it existed. He was clinging precariously to the belief that it wasn’t impossible. Which was why he had so far refused to let Lorenzo undertake a total chemical analysis of his body, on the grounds that he was too important (but he hated that term) to risk being destabilised by systemic additives of the kind nowadays routinely prescribed for “transient personality disorder.”
Still, there were additives and additives, and the only item now standing on the low table was a refrigerated wineglass. He had no objection to that, orits contents. Possessing himself of it, he sat down on the grass and prepared to contemplate a nearby flowering shrub.
Among whose thick leaves, he suddenly realised, a naked girl was standing, dappled with shadow. She gazed at him, large-eyed, tremulous, like a shy fawn.
“Nefret!” he said. Replacing the glass, he held out his hand.
“I saw you throw the box in the water,” the girl said. A hint of awe tingled her voice. “You’re lucky!”
“Lucky, Nefret?” Thorkild didn’t mind talking to her; he had done so
He thought it over and eventually shrugged. “Very well. I’ll call you at nineteen-thirty.”
He took his leave. When the door had closed, she said to the air, “In the end you’re going to be cruel. But you won’t be able to help it. So I have to forgive you in advance. Don’t I?”
Then she wiped the silly question from the city-projection and got on with her regular day’s work.
IX
Lorenzo’s voice emanated from a small white box lying on a carved table. It said, “When people hear the name of Jorgen Thorkild, they think of everything that’s associated with it: the Bridge System and the stars it links together, all the marvels that interstellar contact has made possible. But attaining such eminence as yours is not enough. Once attained it must be justified.”
“How would you know?” Thorkild said, picking up the box. “You’re only a machine.”
The air was warm and cloying, syrup-heavy with the scent of the huge flowers covering every bush of the hundreds in the hospital grounds. They were artfully laid out to disguise the supervision and control machinery with monitored the patients wherever they went, whatever they did or said. But for the risk of enhancing the delusions which some of them were suffering from, such as the notion that plants and trees and other objects were talking to them, there would have been no need for identifiable remote speakers like the one Jorgen was now meditatively hefting.
Here and there were shallow pools on whose mirror-still surfaces lay nenuphars, pink, blue and yellow.
He judged the distance to the nearest of them, drew back his arm, and let fly.
“I am a machine, true,” the box allowed judiciously. “But the principles upon which I have been programmed, by human beings, remember, are—”
And splash.
Thorkild dusted his hands and sat down. Within minutes what he had done was bound to be reported to Dr Lorenzo, and he or an automatic solido of him would appear to remonstrate. Nonetheless, even that much relief from the machine’s tireless arguments would be worth having. Why couldn’t Lorenzo get it through his thick pate that what this one out of all his patients wanted most was simply not to have to reason for a while? React, yes; reason—please, no! Not again
yet!
Not when trying to answer a simple question could drive you into a mental blind alley from which there was no escape either to right or left! If he ever found such an escape, it would either have to be upward—into mania—or downward—into suicidal depression. And he didn’t want to be confined to any of those choices! He wanted out, sure! But he wanted to find his own way, not one prescribed in advance by never mind how dedicated a therapist. He wanted to find an escape-route as improbable as the path of a Bridge would have been to his own great-grandfather. Right now he didn’t know whether it existed. He was clinging precariously to the belief that it wasn’t impossible. Which was why he had so far refused to let Lorenzo undertake a total chemical analysis of his body, on the grounds that he was too important (but he hated that term) to risk being destabilised by systemic additives of the kind nowadays routinely prescribed for “transient personality disorder.”
Still, there were additives and additives, and the only item now standing on the low table was a refrigerated wineglass. He had no objection to that, orits contents. Possessing himself of it, he sat down on the grass and prepared to contemplate a nearby flowering shrub.
Among whose thick leaves, he suddenly realised, a naked girl was standing, dappled with shadow. She gazed at him, large-eyed, tremulous, like a shy fawn.
“Nefret!” he said. Replacing the glass, he held out his hand.
“I saw you throw the box in the water,” the girl said. A hint of awe tingled her voice. “You’re lucky!”
“Lucky, Nefret?” Thorkild didn’t mind talking to her; he had done so
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