The Planet on the Table by Kim Stanley Robinson Page A

a big block of it. Peter puts a tortilla in his lap, squeezes peanut butter out of a plastic tube onto it. He picks up a bottle of liquid butter and squirts a stream of it over the peanut butter.
    Brian looks at the concoction and squints. “That looks like shit.”
    “Hey,” Peter says. “Food is food. I thought you were the big pragmatist.”
    “Yeah, but…“
    Pete wolfs down the tortilla, Brian works on the block of cheese.
    “So how did you like the morning’s hike?” Brian asks.
    Pete says, “I read that snowshoes were invented by Plains Indians, for level places. In the mountains, those traverses”—he takes a bite—”those traverses were terrible.”
    “You used to love it up here.”
    “That was in the summers.”
    “It’s better now, there’s no one else up here. And you can go anywhere you want over snow.”
    “I’ve noticed you think so. But I don’t like the snow. Too much work.”
    “Work,” Brian scoffs. “The old law office is warping your conception of work, Peter.”
    Peter chomps irritably, looking offended. They continue to eat. One of Joe’s nonsense songs floats by.
    “Speaking of warped brains,” Peter says.
    “Yeah. You keeping an eye on him?”
    “I guess so. I don’t know what to do when he loses it, though.”
    Brian arches back and turns to look over the boulder. “Hey, Joe!” he shouts. “Come eat some lunch!” They both watch Joe jerk at the sound of Brian’s voice. But after a moment’s glance around, Joe returns to playing with the rocks.
    “He’s out again,” says Brian.
    “That,” Peter says, “is one sick boy. Those doctors really did it to him.”
    “That
crash
did it to him. The doctors saved his life. You didn’t see him at the hospital like I did. Man, ten or twenty years ago an injury like that would have left him a vegetable for sure. When I saw him I thought he was a goner.”
    “Yeah, I know, I know, The man who flew through his windshield.”
    “But you don’t know what they
did
to him.”
    “So what did they do to him?”
    “Well, they stimulated what they call axonal sprouting in the areas where neuronal connections were busted up—which means, basically, that they grew his brain back!”
    “
Grew
it?”
    “Yeah! Well some parts of it—the broken connections, you know. Like the arm of a starfish. You know?”
    “No. But I’ll take your word for it.” Peter looks over the boulder at Joe. “I hope they grew back everything, yuk yuk. He might have one of his forgetting spells and walk over the edge there.”
    “Nah. He just forgets how to talk, as far as I can tell. Part of the reorganization, I think. It doesn’t matter much up here.” Brian arches up. “Hey, JOE! FOOD!”
    “It does too matter,” Peter says. “Say he forgets the word
cliff
. He forgets the concept, he says to himself I’m just going to step down to that lake there, and whoops, over the edge he goes.”
    “Nah,” Brian says. “It doesn’t work that way. Concepts don’t need language.”
    “What?” Peter cries. “Concepts don’t need language? Are you kidding? Man I thought Joe was the crazy one around here.”
    “No seriously,” Brian says, shifting rapidly from his usual reserve to interested animation. “Sensory input is already a thought, and the way we field it is conceptual. Enough to keep you from walking off cliffs anyway.” Despite this assertion he looks over his shoulder again. There stands Joe nodding as if in agreement with him.
    “Yes, language is a contact lens,” Joe says.
    Peter and Brian look at each other.
    “A contact lens at the back of the eyeball. Color filters into this lens, which is made of nameglass, and its reflected to the correct corner of the brain, tree comer or rock corner.”
    Peter and Brian chew that one over.
    “So you lose your contact lenses?” Brian ventures.
    “Yeah!” Joe looks at him with an appreciative glance. “Sort of.”
    “So what’s in your mind then?”
    Joe shrugs. “I wish I