paused.
“So high,” he finished for her, grinning. “Waiter, another round!”
Her first martini had made her bold. “Hans, why don’t you get Gaynor transferred, and get me his job?”
“Gaynor’s my pigeon,” he grinned. “I need him to help me get entropy experts on Flora. I may lose this battle, but the war goes on.”
“You aroused his vanity so strongly with the Charles Gaynor Station that he’s… willing to sacrifice me to get it.”
“Well, I see your judgment’s not impaired. Are you ready for the Hammersmith-Stanford theory?”
“Shoot, Luke,” she said, using a Polino phrase and thinking that she sincerely liked this man with the wire hair and the rank of cabinet minister. She might very well make him her first friend in a high place.
He waited for the waiter to attend their drinks, then said, “Hammersmith and Stanford are two English experimental psychologists who set up an artificial tropical oasis near Loch Ewe, Scotland. In this garden, where dulcimers strummed through the warm and perfumed air, they placed maidens in various stages of dress. Into the garden they brought young spacemen whose profiles showed they had formerly possessed rampant libidos but who were now night walkers. The maidens cooed and sighed and beckoned, but to no avail. The spacemen kept their eyes on the stars.
“In particular, I remember one young lieutenant, Ian Harris, whose fiancée awaited him in the garden. They had planned to be married after his shakedown cruise, but he had returned starstruck from his first voyage.”
Hans paused, rolling his glass around the rim of its base, and Freda could have sworn his eyes moisted over. “Ian’s beloved had volunteered to help him, and she was waiting in the garden when he entered, gazing up at the stars. She was not undraped in the academic sense, but she was tantalizingly clothed. When Ian entered, she said, ‘Ian, this is your Suzanne, and I’m lonely.’
“For a fleeting second, his eyes dropped and he saw her. His responses were instantaneous, obvious, and normal. But his eyes went back to the stars, and in a voice trembling with passion he said, ‘Suzanne, Sagittarius is so clear tonight, you can actually see the archer.’ ”
Hans finished his drink and ordered another round.
“What happened to the girl?” Freda asked.
“She married a swab jockey, better equipped for the rigors of space, who got into OCS through her fathers pull—he was an admiral—and her husband’s now commander in the Royal Space Navy.”
“Why didn’t they put her on a limb,” Freda wondered aloud, “and put Ian underneath her tree?”
“I don’t think that was the error,” Hans said, “but there was an error. Currently I’m corresponding with the chief of the Psychiatric Department at Houston on this matter. I think the Hanford-Stammersmith theory takes a pratfall in the libidinal area.”
“How so?”
“For the intellectual—and, mind you, only the most sensitive minds succumb to space rapture—the primary erogenic zone is the brain. Their libidos are not sublimated but coordinated. Intellectuals don’t ‘fall in love.’ They form value judgments. For instance, if an architect is designing the Chartres Cathedral, a rape case strolling through his office couldn’t draw his attention from the drawing board. Your boy Polino probably attracts you, but your libido, which is stronger than most, is focused on plant life. I contend that Hammerford-Stansmith offered libidinal lures without comcomitant values to be judged.”
“If I have a strong libido, Hans, why do I resent being touched?”
“A defense mechanism, bars to keep the beast caged, levees to keep the flood channeled for socially useful purposes.” Again he whipped out his slide rule, squinting at it in the dim light. “You’ve had three doubles; according to my calculations, your thalamus should be in balance with your cerebrum. Lets try a game of ‘feelies.’ Here, give me your
“So high,” he finished for her, grinning. “Waiter, another round!”
Her first martini had made her bold. “Hans, why don’t you get Gaynor transferred, and get me his job?”
“Gaynor’s my pigeon,” he grinned. “I need him to help me get entropy experts on Flora. I may lose this battle, but the war goes on.”
“You aroused his vanity so strongly with the Charles Gaynor Station that he’s… willing to sacrifice me to get it.”
“Well, I see your judgment’s not impaired. Are you ready for the Hammersmith-Stanford theory?”
“Shoot, Luke,” she said, using a Polino phrase and thinking that she sincerely liked this man with the wire hair and the rank of cabinet minister. She might very well make him her first friend in a high place.
He waited for the waiter to attend their drinks, then said, “Hammersmith and Stanford are two English experimental psychologists who set up an artificial tropical oasis near Loch Ewe, Scotland. In this garden, where dulcimers strummed through the warm and perfumed air, they placed maidens in various stages of dress. Into the garden they brought young spacemen whose profiles showed they had formerly possessed rampant libidos but who were now night walkers. The maidens cooed and sighed and beckoned, but to no avail. The spacemen kept their eyes on the stars.
“In particular, I remember one young lieutenant, Ian Harris, whose fiancée awaited him in the garden. They had planned to be married after his shakedown cruise, but he had returned starstruck from his first voyage.”
Hans paused, rolling his glass around the rim of its base, and Freda could have sworn his eyes moisted over. “Ian’s beloved had volunteered to help him, and she was waiting in the garden when he entered, gazing up at the stars. She was not undraped in the academic sense, but she was tantalizingly clothed. When Ian entered, she said, ‘Ian, this is your Suzanne, and I’m lonely.’
“For a fleeting second, his eyes dropped and he saw her. His responses were instantaneous, obvious, and normal. But his eyes went back to the stars, and in a voice trembling with passion he said, ‘Suzanne, Sagittarius is so clear tonight, you can actually see the archer.’ ”
Hans finished his drink and ordered another round.
“What happened to the girl?” Freda asked.
“She married a swab jockey, better equipped for the rigors of space, who got into OCS through her fathers pull—he was an admiral—and her husband’s now commander in the Royal Space Navy.”
“Why didn’t they put her on a limb,” Freda wondered aloud, “and put Ian underneath her tree?”
“I don’t think that was the error,” Hans said, “but there was an error. Currently I’m corresponding with the chief of the Psychiatric Department at Houston on this matter. I think the Hanford-Stammersmith theory takes a pratfall in the libidinal area.”
“How so?”
“For the intellectual—and, mind you, only the most sensitive minds succumb to space rapture—the primary erogenic zone is the brain. Their libidos are not sublimated but coordinated. Intellectuals don’t ‘fall in love.’ They form value judgments. For instance, if an architect is designing the Chartres Cathedral, a rape case strolling through his office couldn’t draw his attention from the drawing board. Your boy Polino probably attracts you, but your libido, which is stronger than most, is focused on plant life. I contend that Hammerford-Stansmith offered libidinal lures without comcomitant values to be judged.”
“If I have a strong libido, Hans, why do I resent being touched?”
“A defense mechanism, bars to keep the beast caged, levees to keep the flood channeled for socially useful purposes.” Again he whipped out his slide rule, squinting at it in the dim light. “You’ve had three doubles; according to my calculations, your thalamus should be in balance with your cerebrum. Lets try a game of ‘feelies.’ Here, give me your
Similar Books
