August 19, 2025 • 27 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sweet Men tell by Randal Garrett Overture a Daggio Mysterioso.
The neurosurgeon peeled the thin surgical gloves from his hands
as the nurse blotted the perspiration from his forehead for
the last time after the long, grueling hours. They're waiting
outside for you, doctor, she said quietly. The neurosurgeon nodded wordlessly.
(00:26):
Behind him, three assistants were still finishing up the operation,
attending to the little finishing touches that did not require
the brilliant hand of the specialist, such things as suturing
up a scalp and applying bandages. The nurse took the
sterile mask no longer sterile now, while the doctor washed
and dried his hands. Where are they? He asked finally,
(00:50):
Outma hall I suppose she nodded. You'll probably have to
push them out of the way to get out of surgery.
Her prediction was almost perfect. The group of men in
conservative business suits, wearing conservative ties and holding conservative soft
felt hats in their hands were standing just outside the door.
(01:13):
Doctor Mallan glanced at the five of them, letting his
eyes stop on the face of the tallest He may live.
The doctor said, briefly. You don't sound very optimistic, doctor Mallan,
said the FBI man. Malan shook his head frankly. I'm not.
He was shot laterally, just above the right temple with
what looks to me like a three fifty seven magnum
(01:33):
pistol slug. It's in there, he gestured back toward the
room he had just left. You can have it if
you want. It passed completely through the brain, lodging on
the other side of the head, just inside the skull
monk kept him alive. I'll never know, but I can
guarantee that he might as well be dead. It was
a rather nasty way to lobottomize, man, but it was effective,
I can assure you. The federal agent frowned, puzzledly. Lobottomized
(01:59):
like those operations they do on psychotics, similar, said Malin.
But no psychotic was ever butchered up like this, And
what I had to do to him to save his
life didn't help anything. The men looked at each other,
then the big one said, I'm sure you did the
best you could, doctor Mellan. The neurosurgeon rubbed the back
of his hand across his forehead and looked steadily into
(02:21):
the eyes of the big Man. You wanted him alive,
he said slowly, And I have a duty to save life.
But Frankly, I think we'll all eventually wish we had
the common human decency to let Paul Wendell die. Excuse me, gentlemen,
I don't feel well. He turned abruptly and strode off
(02:43):
down the hall. One of the men in the conservative
suits said, Louis Pastore lived through most of his life
with only half a brain, and he never even knew it.
Frank Maybe, yeah, maybe, said the big Man. But I
don't know whether to hope he does or hope he doesn't.
He used his right thumb nail to pick a bit
of microscopic dust from beneath his left index finger, studying
(03:05):
the operation without actually seeing it. Meanwhile, we've got to
decide what to do about the rest of those screwballs.
Wendell was the only sane one, and therefore the most dangerous,
But the rest of them aren't what you'd call safe either.
The others nodded in a chorus of silent agreement. Nocturne
temple du voce. Now, what's the matter with me? Thought
(03:29):
Paul Wendell. He could feel nothing, absolutely nothing, no taste,
no sight, no hearing, no anything. Am I breathing? He
couldn't feel any breathing, nor, for that matter, could he
feel heat, nor cold nor pain. Am I dead? No?
At least I don't feel dead. Who am I? What
(03:54):
am I? No answer? Coquito ergo sum? What did that mean?
There was something quite definitely wrong, but he couldn't quite
tell what it was. Ideas seem to come from nowhere,
fragments of concepts that seemed to have no reference. What
did that mean? What is a referent? A concept? He
(04:16):
felt he knew intuitively what they meant, but what use
they were? He didn't know. There was something wrong, and
he had to find out what it was, and he
had to find out through the only method of investigation
left open to him, So he thought about it. Sonata
Allegro Cumbria, the President of the United States, finished reading
(04:37):
the sheaf of papers before him, laid them neatly to
one side, and looked up at the big man seated
across the desk from him. Is this everything, Frank? He asked?
That's everything, mister President. Everything we know. We've got eight
men locked up in Saint Elizabeth's, all of them absolutely psychotic,
and one human vegetable named Paul Wendell. We can't get
(04:58):
anything out of them. The President leaned back in his chair.
I really can't quite understand it. Extrasensory perception, Why should
it drive men insane? Wendell's papers don't say enough. He
claims it can be mathematically worked out, that he did
work it out, but we don't have any proof of that.
The man named Frank scowled. Wasn't that demonstration of his
(05:21):
proof enough? A small, graying, intelligent faced man who had
been sitting silently listening to the conversation spoke at last,
mister President, I'm afraid I still don't completely understand the problem.
If we could go over it and get it straightened out,
he left the sentence hanging expectantly. Certainly, this Paul Wendell
(05:43):
is a well he called himself a psionic mathematician. Actually,
he had quite a respectable reputation in the mathematical field.
He did very important work in cybernetic theory, but he
dropped it several years ago, said that the human mind
couldn't be worked at from a sachonistic angle. He studied
various branches of psychology and eventually dropped them all. He
(06:06):
built several of those queer psionic machines, gold detectors, and
something he called a hexer. He's done a lot of
different things. Evidently, sounds like he was unable to make
up his mind, said the small man. The President shook
his head firmly. Not at all. He did new creative
work in every one of the fields he touched. He
(06:27):
was considered something of a mystic, but not a crack
pot or a screwball. But anyhow, the point is that
he evidently found what he'd been looking for for years.
He asked for an appointment with me. I okayed the
request because of his reputation. He would only tell me
that he'd stumbled across something that was vital to national
defense and the future of mankind. But I felt that
(06:48):
in view of the work he had done, he was
entitled to a hearing. And he proved to you beyond
any doubt that he had this power, the small man asked.
Frank shifted his big body uneasily in his chair. He
certainly did, mister Secretary, the President nodded, I know it
might not sound too impressive. When her second hand. But
(07:08):
Paul Wendell could tell me more of what was going
on in the world than our central intelligence agents have
been able to dig up in twenty years. And he
claimed he could teach the trick to any one. I
told him I'd think it over. Naturally, my first step
was to make sure that he was followed twenty four
hours a day. A man with information like that simply
could not be allowed to fall into enemy's hands. The
(07:30):
President scowled, as though angry with himself. I'm sorry to
say that I didn't realize the full potentialities of what
he had said for several days, not until I got
Frank's first report. You could hardly be expected to, mister President,
Frank said, after all, something like that is pretty heady stuff.
I think I follow you, said the secretary. You found
(07:51):
he was already teaching this trick to others. The President
glanced at the FBI man. Frank said, that's right. He
was holding meetings classes. I suppose you'd call them twice
a week. There were eight men who came regularly. That's
when I gave the order to have them all picked up.
Can you imagine what would happen if everybody could be
taught to use this ability, or even a small minority,
(08:14):
they'd rule the world, said the secretary softly. The President
shrugged that off. That's a small item. Really, The point
is that nothing would be hidden from any one. The
way we play the game of life to day is
similar to playing poker. We keep a straight face and
play the cards tight to our chest. But what would
happen if everyone could see everyone else's cards. It would
(08:35):
cease to be a game of strategy and become a
game of pure chance. We'd have to start playing life
another way. It would be like chess, where you can
see the opponents every move. But in all human history
there has never been a social analog for chess. That's
why Paul Wendell and his group had to be stopped
for a while at least. But what could you have
(08:56):
done with them, asked the secretary. Imprison them sularily, have
them shot? What would you have done? The President's face
became graver than ever. I had not yet made that decision.
Thank Heaven, it has been taken out of my hands.
One of his own men shot him. That's right, said
the big fby eye man. We went into his apartment
(09:17):
an instant too late. We found eight madmen in a
near corpse. We're not sure what happened, and we're not
sure we want to know. Anything that can drive eight
reasonably stable men off the deep end in less than
an hour is nothing to meddle around with. I wonder
what went wrong, asked the secretary of No. One in particular,
(09:38):
Scerzo Presto. Paul Wendell, too, was wondering what went wrong. Slowly,
over a period of immeasurable time, memory seeped back into him.
Bits of memory here and there, crept in from nowhere,
sometimes to be lost again, sometimes to remain. Once, he
found himself mentally humming in an awed, rather funeral tune. Now,
(10:01):
though you'd have said that the head was dead, for
its owner, dead was he? It stood on its neck
with a smile, well bred, and bowed three times to me.
It was none of your impudent off hand nods. Wendell
stopped and wondered what the devil seemed so important about
the song. Slowly, slowly memory returned. When he finally realized,
(10:27):
with crashing finality, where he was and what had happened
to him, Paul Wendell went violently insane or he would
have if he could have become violent march f neebor lento.
Open your mouth, Paul, said the pretty nurse. The hulking
mass of not quite human gazed at her with vacuous
(10:49):
eyes and opened its mouth dexterously. She spooned his mouthful
of baby food into it. Now swallow it, Paul. That's
it now. Another in pretty bad shape, isn't he. Nurse
Peters turned to look at the man who had walked
up behind her. It was doctor Benwick, the new intern.
He's worthless to himself and anyone else, she said. It's
(11:11):
a shame too. He'd be rather nice looking if there
were any personality behind that face. She shoveled another spoonful
of mashed asparagus into the gaping mouth. Now swallow it, Paul.
How long has he been here, Benwick asked, eyeing the
scars that showed through the dark hair on the patient's head.
Nearly six years. Miss Peters said, hum, but they outlawed
(11:34):
lobotomies back in the sixties. Open your mouth, Paul, then
to Benwick, this was an accident, bullet in the head.
You can see the scar on the other side of
his head. The doctor moved around to look at the
left temple. Doesn't leave much of a human being, does it.
It doesn't even leave much of an animal. Miss Peters said,
he's alive. But that's the best you can say for him. Now, swallow, Paul.
(11:57):
That's it. Even an amoeba can find food good for itself. Yeah,
even a single settle is better off than he is.
Chop out a man's forebrain and he's nothing. It's a
case of the whole being less than the sum of
its parts. I'm glad they outlawed the operation on mental patients,
Miss Peters said, with a note of disgust in her voice.
Doctor Benwick said, it's worse than it looks. Do you
(12:20):
know why the anti lobotomists managed to get the bill passed.
Let's drink some milk, now, Paul, No, doctor, I was
only a little girl at that time. It was a
matter of electro encephalographic records. They showed that there was
electrical activity in the prefrontal lobes even after the nerves
had been severed, which could mean a lot of things,
but the a L supporter said that it indicated that
(12:42):
the forebrain was still capable of thinking. Miss Peters looked
a little ill. Why that's horrible. I wish you'd never
told me. She looked at the lump of vegetablized humans
sitting placidly at the table. Do you suppose he's actually
thinking somewhere deep inside? Oh? I doubt it, Benwick said hastily.
(13:03):
There's probably no real self awareness, none at all. There
couldn't be, I suppose not, Miss Peters said, But it's
not pleasant to think of. That's why they outlawed it,
said Benwick. Rondo Andante Manomboco. Insanity is a retreat from reality,
an escape within the mind, from the reality outside the mind.
(13:26):
But what if there is no detectable reality outside the mind?
What is there to escape from? Suicide? Death in any
form is an escape from life. But if death does
not come and cannot be self inflicted, what then? And
when the pressure of nothingness becomes too great to bear
it becomes necessary to escape. A man under great enough
(13:47):
pressure will take the easy way out. But what if
there is no easy way? Why then a man must
take the hard way. For Paul Wendell, there was no
escape from his dark, senseless Gaehenna by way of death,
and even insanity offered no retreat. Insanity in itself is senseless,
and senselessness was what he was trying to flee. The
(14:07):
only insanity possible was a psychosis of regression, a fleeing
into the past, into the crystallized, unchanging world of memory.
So Paul Wendell explored his past every year, every hour,
every second of it, searching to recall and savor every
bit of sensation he had ever experienced. He tasted and smelled,
(14:28):
and touched and heard and analyzed each of them minutely.
He searched through his own subjective thought processes, analyzing, checking,
and correlating them. Know thyself. Time and time again, Wendell
retreated from his own memories in confusion or shame or fear,
But there was no retreat from himself, and eventually he
(14:49):
had to go back and look again. He had plenty
of time, all the time in the world. How can
subjective time be measured when there is no objective reality?
Eventually there came the time when there was nothing left
to look at, nothing left to see, nothing left to
check and remember, nothing that he had not gone over
in every detail. Again, boredom began to creep in. It
(15:12):
was not the boredom of nothingness but the boredom of
the familiar imagination. What could he imagine except combinations and
permutations of his own memories. He didn't know. Maybe there
might be more to it than that. So he exercised
his imagination. With a wealth of material to draw upon,
he would build himself worlds where he could move around, walk, talk,
(15:35):
and make love, eat, drink, and feel the caress of
sunshine and wind. It was while he was engaged in
this project that he touched another mind. He touched it,
fused for a blinding second, and bounced away. He ran,
gibbering up and down the corridors of his own memory,
mentally reeling from the shock of identification. Who was he
(15:57):
Paul Wendell. Yes, he knew with in controvertible certainty that
he was Paul Wendell. But he also knew with almost
equal certainty that he was Captain Sir Richard Francis Purton.
He was living, had lived in the latter half of
the nineteenth century. But he knew nothing of the Captain
other than the certainty of identity. Nothing else of that
(16:18):
blinding mind touch remained. Again, he scoured his memory, Paul
Wendell's memory, checking and rechecking the area just before that
semi fatal bullet had crashed through his brain. And finally,
at long last, he knew with certainty where his calculations
had gone astray. He knew positively why eight men had
gone insane. Then he went again in search of other minds,
(16:42):
and this time he knew he would not bounce Kazi
unifantasia pocoandante pienis Simon. An old man sat quietly in
his lawn chair, puffing contentedly on an expensive briar pipe
and making corrections with a fountain pen on a thick
sheaf of type written manuscript. Around him stretched an expanse
(17:03):
of green lawn, dotted here and there with squat sidecads
that looked like overgrown pineapples. In the distance, screening the
big house from the road, stood a row of stately palms,
their fronds stirring lightly in the faint, warm California breeze.
The old man raised his head as a car pulled
into the curving driveway. The warm hum of the turboelectric
(17:23):
engine stopped, and a man climbed out of the vehicle.
He walked with easy strides across the grass to where
the elderly gentleman sat. He was lithe of indeterminate age,
but with a look of great determination. There was something
in his face that made the old man vaguely uneasy,
not with fear, but with a sense of deep respect.
(17:44):
What can I do for you, sir? I have some
news for you, mister president, the younger one said. The
old man smiled rily. I haven't been president for fourteen years.
Most people call me senator or just plain mister. The
younger man smile back, very well, Senator, my name is Camberton,
James Camberton. I brought some information that may possibly relieve
(18:07):
your mind, or again it may not. You sound ominous,
mister Camberton. I hope you'll remember that I've been retired
from the political field for nearly five years. What is
this shattering news? Paul Wendall's body was buried yesterday. The
senator looked blank for a second. Then recognition came into
his face. Wendell, Eh, after all this time, poor Chap.
(18:32):
He'd have been better off if he'd died twenty years ago.
Then he paused and looked up. But just who are you,
mister Camberton, And what makes you think I would be
particularly interested in Paul Wendell. Mister Wendall wants to tell
you that he is very grateful to you for having
saved his life, Senator. If it hadn't been for your orders,
he would have been left to die. The Senator felt
(18:53):
strangely calm, although he knew he should feel shocked. That's ridiculous, sir.
Mister Wendall's brain was hopelessly damaged. He never recovered his
sanity or control of his body. I know. I used
to drop over to see him occasionally, until I finally
realized that I was only making myself feel worse and
doing him no good. Yes, sir, and mister Wendell wants
(19:13):
you to know how much he appreciated those visits. The
Senator grew red, What the devil are you talking about?
I just said that Wendell couldn't talk. How could he
have said anything to you? What do you know about this?
I never said he spoke to me, Senator, he didn't.
And as to what I know of this affair, evidently
you don't remember my name. James Camberton. The Senator frowned.
(19:37):
The name is familiar, but then his eyes went wide. Camberton,
you were one of the ape man. Who what you're
the man who shot Wendall? Camberton pulled up an empty
lawn chair and sat down. That's right, Senator, but there's
nothing to be afraid of. Would you like to hear
about it? I suppose I must. The old man's voice
(19:58):
was so low that it was scarcely audible. Tell me
were the other seven released? Two? Have you all regained
your sanity? Do you remember he stopped? Do we remember
the extra sensory perception formula? Yes, we do, all eight
of us remember it well. It was based on faulty
premises and incomplete, of course, but in its own way
(20:20):
it was workable enough. We have something much better now.
The old man shook his head slowly. I failed. Then.
Such an idea is as fatal to society as we
know it as a virus plague. I tried to keep
you men quarantined, but I failed. After all those years
of insanity, now the chess game begins. The poker game
(20:41):
is over. It's worse than that, Camberton said, chuckling softly.
Or actually it's much better. I don't understand. Explain it
to me. I'm an old man, and I may not
live to see my world collapse. I hope I don't,
Camberton said, I'll try to explain in word, Senator, therein adequate,
but a fuller explanation will come later, and he launched
(21:04):
into the story of the two decade search of Paul Wendell,
Coda Andantino telepathy time travel. After three hours of listening,
the ex President was still not sure he understood. Think
of it this way, Camberton said, think of the mind
at any given instant as being surrounded by a shield,
(21:26):
a shield of privacy, a shield which you yourself have erected,
though unconsciously. It's a perfect insulator against telepathic prying by others.
You feel you have to have it in order to
retain your privacy, your sense of identity. Even but here's
the kicker. Even though no one else can get in,
you can't get out. You can call this shield self consciousness.
(21:48):
Perhaps shame is a better word. Everyone has it to
some degree. No telepathic thought can break through it. Occasionally,
some people will relax it for a fraction of a second,
but the instant they receive something, the barrier goes up again. Then,
how is telepathy possible? How can you go through it?
The senator looked puzzled as he thoughtfully tamped tobacco into
his friar. You don't go through it, you go around it. Now,
(22:14):
wait a minute, that sounds like some of those fourth
dimension stories I've read. I recall that when I was younger,
I read a murder mystery, something about a morgue, I
think it. At any rate, the murder was committed inside
a locked room. No one could possibly have gotten in
or out. One of the characters suggested that the murderer
traveled through the fourth dimension in order to get at
(22:35):
the victim. He didn't go through the walls, he went
around them. The Senator puffed a match flame into the
bowl of his pipe, his eyes on the younger man.
Is that what you're driving at exactly? Agreed Pemberton. The
fourth dimension time you must go back in time to
an instant when that wall did not exist. An infant
has no shame, no modesty, no shield against the world.
(22:58):
You must travel back down your own four dimensional tube
of memory in order to get outside it. And to
do that you have to know your own mind completely,
and you must be sure you know it. For only
if you know your own mind can you communicate with
another mind, because at the instant of contact you become
that person. You must enter his own memory at the
(23:18):
beginning and go up the hypertube. You will have all
his memories, his hopes, his fears, his sense of identity.
Unless you know, beyond any trace of doubt, who you are,
the result is insanity. The senator puffed his pipe for
a moment, then shook his head. It sounds like oriental
mysticism to me. If you can travel in time, you'd
(23:40):
be able to change the past. Not at all. Camberton said,
that's like saying that if you read a book, the
author's words will change time. Isn't like that. Look suppose
you had a long trough filled with super cooled water.
At one end, you drop in a piece of ice.
Immediately the water begins to freeze. The crystallization front moves
(24:00):
toward the other end of the trough. Behind that front
there is ice, frozen, immovable, unchangeable. Ahead of it, there
is water, fluid, mobile, changeable. The instant we call the
present is like that crystallization front. The past is unchangeable,
the future is flexible. But they both exist. I see,
(24:21):
at least I think I do, and you cannot do
all this, not yet, said Camberton, not completely. My mind
isn't as strong as Wendell's, nor as capable. I'm not
the shall we say, the superman he is. Perhaps I
never will be, But I'm learning. I'm learning. After all,
it took Paul twenty years to do the trick under
(24:42):
the most favorable circumstances imaginable. I see. The Senator smoked
his pipe in silence for a long time. Camberton lit
a cigarette and said nothing. After a time, the Senator
took the briar from his mouth and began to tap
the bowl gently on the heel of his palm. Mister Camberton,
why do you tell me all this? I still have
(25:04):
influence with the Senate. The present president is a protegee
of mine. It wouldn't be too difficult to get you
men put away again. I have no desire to see
our society ruined, our world destroyed. Why do you tell me?
Camberton smiled apologetically. I am afraid you might find it
a little difficult to put us away again, sir, but
(25:26):
that's not the point. You see, we need you. We
have no desire to destroy our present culture until we've
designed a better one to replace it. You are one
of the greatest living statesmen, Senator. You have a wealth
of knowledge and ability that can never be replaced, knowledge
and ability that will help us to design a culture
and a civilization that will be as far above this
(25:46):
one as this one is above the wolf pack. We
want you to come in with us, help us. We
want you to be one of us. I I am
an old man, mister Camberton. I will be dead before
this civilization falls. How can I help build a new one?
And how could I, at my age be expected to
learn this technique? Paul Wendell says you can. He says
(26:08):
you have one of the strongest minds now existing. The
Senator put his pipe in his jacket pocket. You know, Camberton,
you keep referring to Wendell in the present tense. I
thought you said he was dead again. Camberton gave him
the odd smile. I didn't say that, Senator. I said
they buried his body. That's quite a different thing, you see,
(26:29):
Before the poor useless hulk that held his blasted brain died,
Paul gave the aid of us his memories. He gave
us himself. The mind is not the brain, Senator, we
don't know what it is yet, but we do know
what it isn't. Paul's poor damaged brain is dead, but
his memories, his thought processes, the very essence of all
that was Paul Wendell is still very much with us.
(26:51):
Do you begin to see now why we want you
to come in with us? There are nine of us now,
but we need the tenth. You will you come? I
A ah, I'll have to think it over, the old
statesman said, in a voice that had a faint quaver.
I'll have to think it over. But they both knew
what his answer would be, and of sweet ment heal
(27:17):
by Randall Garrett
Sweet Men tell by Randal Garrett Overture a Daggio Mysterioso.
The neurosurgeon peeled the thin surgical gloves from his hands
as the nurse blotted the perspiration from his forehead for
the last time after the long, grueling hours. They're waiting
outside for you, doctor, she said quietly. The neurosurgeon nodded wordlessly.
(00:26):
Behind him, three assistants were still finishing up the operation,
attending to the little finishing touches that did not require
the brilliant hand of the specialist, such things as suturing
up a scalp and applying bandages. The nurse took the
sterile mask no longer sterile now, while the doctor washed
and dried his hands. Where are they? He asked finally,
(00:50):
Outma hall I suppose she nodded. You'll probably have to
push them out of the way to get out of surgery.
Her prediction was almost perfect. The group of men in
conservative business suits, wearing conservative ties and holding conservative soft
felt hats in their hands were standing just outside the door.
(01:13):
Doctor Mallan glanced at the five of them, letting his
eyes stop on the face of the tallest He may live.
The doctor said, briefly. You don't sound very optimistic, doctor Mallan,
said the FBI man. Malan shook his head frankly. I'm not.
He was shot laterally, just above the right temple with
what looks to me like a three fifty seven magnum
(01:33):
pistol slug. It's in there, he gestured back toward the
room he had just left. You can have it if
you want. It passed completely through the brain, lodging on
the other side of the head, just inside the skull
monk kept him alive. I'll never know, but I can
guarantee that he might as well be dead. It was
a rather nasty way to lobottomize, man, but it was effective,
I can assure you. The federal agent frowned, puzzledly. Lobottomized
(01:59):
like those operations they do on psychotics, similar, said Malin.
But no psychotic was ever butchered up like this, And
what I had to do to him to save his
life didn't help anything. The men looked at each other,
then the big one said, I'm sure you did the
best you could, doctor Mellan. The neurosurgeon rubbed the back
of his hand across his forehead and looked steadily into
(02:21):
the eyes of the big Man. You wanted him alive,
he said slowly, And I have a duty to save life.
But Frankly, I think we'll all eventually wish we had
the common human decency to let Paul Wendell die. Excuse me, gentlemen,
I don't feel well. He turned abruptly and strode off
(02:43):
down the hall. One of the men in the conservative
suits said, Louis Pastore lived through most of his life
with only half a brain, and he never even knew it.
Frank Maybe, yeah, maybe, said the big Man. But I
don't know whether to hope he does or hope he doesn't.
He used his right thumb nail to pick a bit
of microscopic dust from beneath his left index finger, studying
(03:05):
the operation without actually seeing it. Meanwhile, we've got to
decide what to do about the rest of those screwballs.
Wendell was the only sane one, and therefore the most dangerous,
But the rest of them aren't what you'd call safe either.
The others nodded in a chorus of silent agreement. Nocturne
temple du voce. Now, what's the matter with me? Thought
(03:29):
Paul Wendell. He could feel nothing, absolutely nothing, no taste,
no sight, no hearing, no anything. Am I breathing? He
couldn't feel any breathing, nor, for that matter, could he
feel heat, nor cold nor pain. Am I dead? No?
At least I don't feel dead. Who am I? What
(03:54):
am I? No answer? Coquito ergo sum? What did that mean?
There was something quite definitely wrong, but he couldn't quite
tell what it was. Ideas seem to come from nowhere,
fragments of concepts that seemed to have no reference. What
did that mean? What is a referent? A concept? He
(04:16):
felt he knew intuitively what they meant, but what use
they were? He didn't know. There was something wrong, and
he had to find out what it was, and he
had to find out through the only method of investigation
left open to him, So he thought about it. Sonata
Allegro Cumbria, the President of the United States, finished reading
(04:37):
the sheaf of papers before him, laid them neatly to
one side, and looked up at the big man seated
across the desk from him. Is this everything, Frank? He asked?
That's everything, mister President. Everything we know. We've got eight
men locked up in Saint Elizabeth's, all of them absolutely psychotic,
and one human vegetable named Paul Wendell. We can't get
(04:58):
anything out of them. The President leaned back in his chair.
I really can't quite understand it. Extrasensory perception, Why should
it drive men insane? Wendell's papers don't say enough. He
claims it can be mathematically worked out, that he did
work it out, but we don't have any proof of that.
The man named Frank scowled. Wasn't that demonstration of his
(05:21):
proof enough? A small, graying, intelligent faced man who had
been sitting silently listening to the conversation spoke at last,
mister President, I'm afraid I still don't completely understand the problem.
If we could go over it and get it straightened out,
he left the sentence hanging expectantly. Certainly, this Paul Wendell
(05:43):
is a well he called himself a psionic mathematician. Actually,
he had quite a respectable reputation in the mathematical field.
He did very important work in cybernetic theory, but he
dropped it several years ago, said that the human mind
couldn't be worked at from a sachonistic angle. He studied
various branches of psychology and eventually dropped them all. He
(06:06):
built several of those queer psionic machines, gold detectors, and
something he called a hexer. He's done a lot of
different things. Evidently, sounds like he was unable to make
up his mind, said the small man. The President shook
his head firmly. Not at all. He did new creative
work in every one of the fields he touched. He
(06:27):
was considered something of a mystic, but not a crack
pot or a screwball. But anyhow, the point is that
he evidently found what he'd been looking for for years.
He asked for an appointment with me. I okayed the
request because of his reputation. He would only tell me
that he'd stumbled across something that was vital to national
defense and the future of mankind. But I felt that
(06:48):
in view of the work he had done, he was
entitled to a hearing. And he proved to you beyond
any doubt that he had this power, the small man asked.
Frank shifted his big body uneasily in his chair. He
certainly did, mister Secretary, the President nodded, I know it
might not sound too impressive. When her second hand. But
(07:08):
Paul Wendell could tell me more of what was going
on in the world than our central intelligence agents have
been able to dig up in twenty years. And he
claimed he could teach the trick to any one. I
told him I'd think it over. Naturally, my first step
was to make sure that he was followed twenty four
hours a day. A man with information like that simply
could not be allowed to fall into enemy's hands. The
(07:30):
President scowled, as though angry with himself. I'm sorry to
say that I didn't realize the full potentialities of what
he had said for several days, not until I got
Frank's first report. You could hardly be expected to, mister President,
Frank said, after all, something like that is pretty heady stuff.
I think I follow you, said the secretary. You found
(07:51):
he was already teaching this trick to others. The President
glanced at the FBI man. Frank said, that's right. He
was holding meetings classes. I suppose you'd call them twice
a week. There were eight men who came regularly. That's
when I gave the order to have them all picked up.
Can you imagine what would happen if everybody could be
taught to use this ability, or even a small minority,
(08:14):
they'd rule the world, said the secretary softly. The President
shrugged that off. That's a small item. Really, The point
is that nothing would be hidden from any one. The
way we play the game of life to day is
similar to playing poker. We keep a straight face and
play the cards tight to our chest. But what would
happen if everyone could see everyone else's cards. It would
(08:35):
cease to be a game of strategy and become a
game of pure chance. We'd have to start playing life
another way. It would be like chess, where you can
see the opponents every move. But in all human history
there has never been a social analog for chess. That's
why Paul Wendell and his group had to be stopped
for a while at least. But what could you have
(08:56):
done with them, asked the secretary. Imprison them sularily, have
them shot? What would you have done? The President's face
became graver than ever. I had not yet made that decision.
Thank Heaven, it has been taken out of my hands.
One of his own men shot him. That's right, said
the big fby eye man. We went into his apartment
(09:17):
an instant too late. We found eight madmen in a
near corpse. We're not sure what happened, and we're not
sure we want to know. Anything that can drive eight
reasonably stable men off the deep end in less than
an hour is nothing to meddle around with. I wonder
what went wrong, asked the secretary of No. One in particular,
(09:38):
Scerzo Presto. Paul Wendell, too, was wondering what went wrong. Slowly,
over a period of immeasurable time, memory seeped back into him.
Bits of memory here and there, crept in from nowhere,
sometimes to be lost again, sometimes to remain. Once, he
found himself mentally humming in an awed, rather funeral tune. Now,
(10:01):
though you'd have said that the head was dead, for
its owner, dead was he? It stood on its neck
with a smile, well bred, and bowed three times to me.
It was none of your impudent off hand nods. Wendell
stopped and wondered what the devil seemed so important about
the song. Slowly, slowly memory returned. When he finally realized,
(10:27):
with crashing finality, where he was and what had happened
to him, Paul Wendell went violently insane or he would
have if he could have become violent march f neebor lento.
Open your mouth, Paul, said the pretty nurse. The hulking
mass of not quite human gazed at her with vacuous
(10:49):
eyes and opened its mouth dexterously. She spooned his mouthful
of baby food into it. Now swallow it, Paul. That's
it now. Another in pretty bad shape, isn't he. Nurse
Peters turned to look at the man who had walked
up behind her. It was doctor Benwick, the new intern.
He's worthless to himself and anyone else, she said. It's
(11:11):
a shame too. He'd be rather nice looking if there
were any personality behind that face. She shoveled another spoonful
of mashed asparagus into the gaping mouth. Now swallow it, Paul.
How long has he been here, Benwick asked, eyeing the
scars that showed through the dark hair on the patient's head.
Nearly six years. Miss Peters said, hum, but they outlawed
(11:34):
lobotomies back in the sixties. Open your mouth, Paul, then
to Benwick, this was an accident, bullet in the head.
You can see the scar on the other side of
his head. The doctor moved around to look at the
left temple. Doesn't leave much of a human being, does it.
It doesn't even leave much of an animal. Miss Peters said,
he's alive. But that's the best you can say for him. Now, swallow, Paul.
(11:57):
That's it. Even an amoeba can find food good for itself. Yeah,
even a single settle is better off than he is.
Chop out a man's forebrain and he's nothing. It's a
case of the whole being less than the sum of
its parts. I'm glad they outlawed the operation on mental patients,
Miss Peters said, with a note of disgust in her voice.
Doctor Benwick said, it's worse than it looks. Do you
(12:20):
know why the anti lobotomists managed to get the bill passed.
Let's drink some milk, now, Paul, No, doctor, I was
only a little girl at that time. It was a
matter of electro encephalographic records. They showed that there was
electrical activity in the prefrontal lobes even after the nerves
had been severed, which could mean a lot of things,
but the a L supporter said that it indicated that
(12:42):
the forebrain was still capable of thinking. Miss Peters looked
a little ill. Why that's horrible. I wish you'd never
told me. She looked at the lump of vegetablized humans
sitting placidly at the table. Do you suppose he's actually
thinking somewhere deep inside? Oh? I doubt it, Benwick said hastily.
(13:03):
There's probably no real self awareness, none at all. There
couldn't be, I suppose not, Miss Peters said, But it's
not pleasant to think of. That's why they outlawed it,
said Benwick. Rondo Andante Manomboco. Insanity is a retreat from reality,
an escape within the mind, from the reality outside the mind.
(13:26):
But what if there is no detectable reality outside the mind?
What is there to escape from? Suicide? Death in any
form is an escape from life. But if death does
not come and cannot be self inflicted, what then? And
when the pressure of nothingness becomes too great to bear
it becomes necessary to escape. A man under great enough
(13:47):
pressure will take the easy way out. But what if
there is no easy way? Why then a man must
take the hard way. For Paul Wendell, there was no
escape from his dark, senseless Gaehenna by way of death,
and even insanity offered no retreat. Insanity in itself is senseless,
and senselessness was what he was trying to flee. The
(14:07):
only insanity possible was a psychosis of regression, a fleeing
into the past, into the crystallized, unchanging world of memory.
So Paul Wendell explored his past every year, every hour,
every second of it, searching to recall and savor every
bit of sensation he had ever experienced. He tasted and smelled,
(14:28):
and touched and heard and analyzed each of them minutely.
He searched through his own subjective thought processes, analyzing, checking,
and correlating them. Know thyself. Time and time again, Wendell
retreated from his own memories in confusion or shame or fear,
But there was no retreat from himself, and eventually he
(14:49):
had to go back and look again. He had plenty
of time, all the time in the world. How can
subjective time be measured when there is no objective reality?
Eventually there came the time when there was nothing left
to look at, nothing left to see, nothing left to
check and remember, nothing that he had not gone over
in every detail. Again, boredom began to creep in. It
(15:12):
was not the boredom of nothingness but the boredom of
the familiar imagination. What could he imagine except combinations and
permutations of his own memories. He didn't know. Maybe there
might be more to it than that. So he exercised
his imagination. With a wealth of material to draw upon,
he would build himself worlds where he could move around, walk, talk,
(15:35):
and make love, eat, drink, and feel the caress of
sunshine and wind. It was while he was engaged in
this project that he touched another mind. He touched it,
fused for a blinding second, and bounced away. He ran,
gibbering up and down the corridors of his own memory,
mentally reeling from the shock of identification. Who was he
(15:57):
Paul Wendell. Yes, he knew with in controvertible certainty that
he was Paul Wendell. But he also knew with almost
equal certainty that he was Captain Sir Richard Francis Purton.
He was living, had lived in the latter half of
the nineteenth century. But he knew nothing of the Captain
other than the certainty of identity. Nothing else of that
(16:18):
blinding mind touch remained. Again, he scoured his memory, Paul
Wendell's memory, checking and rechecking the area just before that
semi fatal bullet had crashed through his brain. And finally,
at long last, he knew with certainty where his calculations
had gone astray. He knew positively why eight men had
gone insane. Then he went again in search of other minds,
(16:42):
and this time he knew he would not bounce Kazi
unifantasia pocoandante pienis Simon. An old man sat quietly in
his lawn chair, puffing contentedly on an expensive briar pipe
and making corrections with a fountain pen on a thick
sheaf of type written manuscript. Around him stretched an expanse
(17:03):
of green lawn, dotted here and there with squat sidecads
that looked like overgrown pineapples. In the distance, screening the
big house from the road, stood a row of stately palms,
their fronds stirring lightly in the faint, warm California breeze.
The old man raised his head as a car pulled
into the curving driveway. The warm hum of the turboelectric
(17:23):
engine stopped, and a man climbed out of the vehicle.
He walked with easy strides across the grass to where
the elderly gentleman sat. He was lithe of indeterminate age,
but with a look of great determination. There was something
in his face that made the old man vaguely uneasy,
not with fear, but with a sense of deep respect.
(17:44):
What can I do for you, sir? I have some
news for you, mister president, the younger one said. The
old man smiled rily. I haven't been president for fourteen years.
Most people call me senator or just plain mister. The
younger man smile back, very well, Senator, my name is Camberton,
James Camberton. I brought some information that may possibly relieve
(18:07):
your mind, or again it may not. You sound ominous,
mister Camberton. I hope you'll remember that I've been retired
from the political field for nearly five years. What is
this shattering news? Paul Wendall's body was buried yesterday. The
senator looked blank for a second. Then recognition came into
his face. Wendell, Eh, after all this time, poor Chap.
(18:32):
He'd have been better off if he'd died twenty years ago.
Then he paused and looked up. But just who are you,
mister Camberton, And what makes you think I would be
particularly interested in Paul Wendell. Mister Wendall wants to tell
you that he is very grateful to you for having
saved his life, Senator. If it hadn't been for your orders,
he would have been left to die. The Senator felt
(18:53):
strangely calm, although he knew he should feel shocked. That's ridiculous, sir.
Mister Wendall's brain was hopelessly damaged. He never recovered his
sanity or control of his body. I know. I used
to drop over to see him occasionally, until I finally
realized that I was only making myself feel worse and
doing him no good. Yes, sir, and mister Wendell wants
(19:13):
you to know how much he appreciated those visits. The
Senator grew red, What the devil are you talking about?
I just said that Wendell couldn't talk. How could he
have said anything to you? What do you know about this?
I never said he spoke to me, Senator, he didn't.
And as to what I know of this affair, evidently
you don't remember my name. James Camberton. The Senator frowned.
(19:37):
The name is familiar, but then his eyes went wide. Camberton,
you were one of the ape man. Who what you're
the man who shot Wendall? Camberton pulled up an empty
lawn chair and sat down. That's right, Senator, but there's
nothing to be afraid of. Would you like to hear
about it? I suppose I must. The old man's voice
(19:58):
was so low that it was scarcely audible. Tell me
were the other seven released? Two? Have you all regained
your sanity? Do you remember he stopped? Do we remember
the extra sensory perception formula? Yes, we do, all eight
of us remember it well. It was based on faulty
premises and incomplete, of course, but in its own way
(20:20):
it was workable enough. We have something much better now.
The old man shook his head slowly. I failed. Then.
Such an idea is as fatal to society as we
know it as a virus plague. I tried to keep
you men quarantined, but I failed. After all those years
of insanity, now the chess game begins. The poker game
(20:41):
is over. It's worse than that, Camberton said, chuckling softly.
Or actually it's much better. I don't understand. Explain it
to me. I'm an old man, and I may not
live to see my world collapse. I hope I don't,
Camberton said, I'll try to explain in word, Senator, therein adequate,
but a fuller explanation will come later, and he launched
(21:04):
into the story of the two decade search of Paul Wendell,
Coda Andantino telepathy time travel. After three hours of listening,
the ex President was still not sure he understood. Think
of it this way, Camberton said, think of the mind
at any given instant as being surrounded by a shield,
(21:26):
a shield of privacy, a shield which you yourself have erected,
though unconsciously. It's a perfect insulator against telepathic prying by others.
You feel you have to have it in order to
retain your privacy, your sense of identity. Even but here's
the kicker. Even though no one else can get in,
you can't get out. You can call this shield self consciousness.
(21:48):
Perhaps shame is a better word. Everyone has it to
some degree. No telepathic thought can break through it. Occasionally,
some people will relax it for a fraction of a second,
but the instant they receive something, the barrier goes up again. Then,
how is telepathy possible? How can you go through it?
The senator looked puzzled as he thoughtfully tamped tobacco into
his friar. You don't go through it, you go around it. Now,
(22:14):
wait a minute, that sounds like some of those fourth
dimension stories I've read. I recall that when I was younger,
I read a murder mystery, something about a morgue, I
think it. At any rate, the murder was committed inside
a locked room. No one could possibly have gotten in
or out. One of the characters suggested that the murderer
traveled through the fourth dimension in order to get at
(22:35):
the victim. He didn't go through the walls, he went
around them. The Senator puffed a match flame into the
bowl of his pipe, his eyes on the younger man.
Is that what you're driving at exactly? Agreed Pemberton. The
fourth dimension time you must go back in time to
an instant when that wall did not exist. An infant
has no shame, no modesty, no shield against the world.
(22:58):
You must travel back down your own four dimensional tube
of memory in order to get outside it. And to
do that you have to know your own mind completely,
and you must be sure you know it. For only
if you know your own mind can you communicate with
another mind, because at the instant of contact you become
that person. You must enter his own memory at the
(23:18):
beginning and go up the hypertube. You will have all
his memories, his hopes, his fears, his sense of identity.
Unless you know, beyond any trace of doubt, who you are,
the result is insanity. The senator puffed his pipe for
a moment, then shook his head. It sounds like oriental
mysticism to me. If you can travel in time, you'd
(23:40):
be able to change the past. Not at all. Camberton said,
that's like saying that if you read a book, the
author's words will change time. Isn't like that. Look suppose
you had a long trough filled with super cooled water.
At one end, you drop in a piece of ice.
Immediately the water begins to freeze. The crystallization front moves
(24:00):
toward the other end of the trough. Behind that front
there is ice, frozen, immovable, unchangeable. Ahead of it, there
is water, fluid, mobile, changeable. The instant we call the
present is like that crystallization front. The past is unchangeable,
the future is flexible. But they both exist. I see,
(24:21):
at least I think I do, and you cannot do
all this, not yet, said Camberton, not completely. My mind
isn't as strong as Wendell's, nor as capable. I'm not
the shall we say, the superman he is. Perhaps I
never will be, But I'm learning. I'm learning. After all,
it took Paul twenty years to do the trick under
(24:42):
the most favorable circumstances imaginable. I see. The Senator smoked
his pipe in silence for a long time. Camberton lit
a cigarette and said nothing. After a time, the Senator
took the briar from his mouth and began to tap
the bowl gently on the heel of his palm. Mister Camberton,
why do you tell me all this? I still have
(25:04):
influence with the Senate. The present president is a protegee
of mine. It wouldn't be too difficult to get you
men put away again. I have no desire to see
our society ruined, our world destroyed. Why do you tell me?
Camberton smiled apologetically. I am afraid you might find it
a little difficult to put us away again, sir, but
(25:26):
that's not the point. You see, we need you. We
have no desire to destroy our present culture until we've
designed a better one to replace it. You are one
of the greatest living statesmen, Senator. You have a wealth
of knowledge and ability that can never be replaced, knowledge
and ability that will help us to design a culture
and a civilization that will be as far above this
(25:46):
one as this one is above the wolf pack. We
want you to come in with us, help us. We
want you to be one of us. I I am
an old man, mister Camberton. I will be dead before
this civilization falls. How can I help build a new one?
And how could I, at my age be expected to
learn this technique? Paul Wendell says you can. He says
(26:08):
you have one of the strongest minds now existing. The
Senator put his pipe in his jacket pocket. You know, Camberton,
you keep referring to Wendell in the present tense. I
thought you said he was dead again. Camberton gave him
the odd smile. I didn't say that, Senator. I said
they buried his body. That's quite a different thing, you see,
(26:29):
Before the poor useless hulk that held his blasted brain died,
Paul gave the aid of us his memories. He gave
us himself. The mind is not the brain, Senator, we
don't know what it is yet, but we do know
what it isn't. Paul's poor damaged brain is dead, but
his memories, his thought processes, the very essence of all
that was Paul Wendell is still very much with us.
(26:51):
Do you begin to see now why we want you
to come in with us? There are nine of us now,
but we need the tenth. You will you come? I
A ah, I'll have to think it over, the old
statesman said, in a voice that had a faint quaver.
I'll have to think it over. But they both knew
what his answer would be, and of sweet ment heal
(27:17):
by Randall Garrett
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