Blink. "I beg your pardon, sir?"
"Son, sit down and listen for thirty seconds. It doesn't matter how Ah feel about this joyride. Nobody's listenin' to my opinion. Ah think you're a damn fool' and Ah think this is a waste of valuable time. But the Science Section has given this a triple-A priority, so like Ah said, it doesn't matter what Ah think.
"But-" he continued, "you are still under mah command-and Ah am responsible for your life. So, if nothin' else, Ah want to know that you're sure about what you're doin'. Ah don't have to be sure, but you do. Ah've found that a little bit of certainty makes a lot of difference in the results you produce."
"Yes, sir."
"It looks to me like you're actually willin' to put your life and your career on the line. Ah'm impressed, Lieutenant. With that kind of intention, you just might have a chance of comin' back. But-" he added, "Ah still wouldn't start any trilogies."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." I felt like I should be looking for the Dormouse and the March Hare. "Uh-would you like to hear about my plan? I'm very well prepared."
He shook his head. "No. Ah'm going to trust you."
"But I really think you should."
"Lieutenant, don't press your luck. It might be a very stupid plan. And then Ah'd have to reconsider mah decision. No. Ah think Ah'll bet on your certainty more than your intelligence. And Ah will trust Colonel Tirelli's faith in you. Have a nice trip."
He stood up and reached across the desk to shake my hand. I had to stand up again to grab it. "Uh, thank you, sir."
"Oh, one more thing. It might be some small comfort to know. If you get killed, you'll be automatically promoted one rank. It'll be a consolation for your family."
"Uh, thanks. What about if I live?"
"We'll talk about it when you get back. Now, get the hell out of here. Ah have some real work to do." He sat down again and I left, shaking my head and marveling.
FIFTY
FLETCHER SPENT most of a week training me.
On the morning of the first day, she showed me how to listen. "It's about listening with your whole soul-" she began.
"You have to listen so completely," I said, "-that you become the person you're listening to."
She looked at me surprised. "Who told you that?"
"A telepath."
"Well, he/she was right."
On the afternoon of the first day, she defined bullshit:
"You use that word all the time, James-but you don't even know what it means. `Bullshit' is a colloquialism. We use it to mean that something is inaccurate. A lie is bullshit. An excuse is bullshit. A justification, a rationalization, a reason, an explanation. All bullshit. Anything you use to excuse yourself from being responsible.
"From this moment on, any time you are inaccurate, any time you let bullshit fall from your mouth, I will bust your chops. You got that?"
On the morning of the second day, she showed me how to listen even deeper than before.
"Close your eyes and actually look at how you're feeling. Look at your emotions. Look at what your body is doing. Look at the memories that come floating up to the top. Pick an incident from your memory, or make one up. Look at the incident-and notice what your machinery is doing. Notice how you feel. Notice what your body is doing. Notice what memories are connected-"
We did that all morning.
On the afternoon of the second day, we talked about righteousness:
"Do you know that most people, when they tell you something, they're really just second-guessing. They're trying to figure it out afterward, explain it or justify it-and ultimately, prove themselves right. Listen, that kind of right is the enemy. When you try to be right like that, you add inaccuracy. The specific word is righteousness.
"You can't make yourself right without making the other person wrong-that automatically makes him your enemy. It doesn't give him room to do anything else. You can't go out into that circle being right about being human. You can't take your pain and grief and rage into that circle. The bunnies want to communicate, not have a shrieking match with the monkeys at the waterhole.
"You cannot have enemies in that circle, James-only partners-"
On the morning of the third day, she showed me how to center my sense of myself.
"Did your telepathic friend tell you about identity?" I nodded.
"Then you know that you are not what you think. You are the person who hears the thoughts. The question is whether or not you're really listening.
"Do you know there are three levels of listening? First, you hear the sound. Second, you hear the meaning. And third, you hear the meaning under the meaning. You can't be `centered' unless you're listening on all three levels-"
"This is starting to get confusing-"
"I know. A lot of it comes from the telepathy training, and more of it comes from the Mode training. I know it's a break in your reality-the reality that you've made up for yourself. You can't get out of that reality, James; all you can do is learn how it works. That's the point here. All of this information comes from looking at how people experience things and how they react to them. Call it the technology of living. You've been running your machinery without an instruction book-"
On the afternoon of the third day, we talked about concepts: "Your name for this object is `chair.' This is not a chair. This is a collection of molecules, a focus for your attention. This is a thing that you use for the purpose of chair, but the chairness of it exists only in your mind. It's a concept.
"This object is a chair only to the extent that it matches that concept. If you were cold enough, this would not be a chair any more. It would be firewood-well, not this chair, but you know what I mean. Do you follow this? See, you think the connections you've made between your concepts and the physical universe have meaning. They don't-only in your head. If you believe the world is flat, does that make it flat? No, of course not.
"Now I'll ask a hard question. If you believe the world is round, does that make it round? Take your time. Right-what you believe is irrelevant. The Earth is an oblate spheroid; and it doesn't care what you believe. You don't get a vote on the physical universe. It is what it is, regardless of your opinion about how it should or shouldn't be. The only thing you have any control over is what you're going to do about it-"
On the morning of the fourth day, we talked about creation: "Creation is not making something up out of nothing. You can't create in the physical universe-the best you can do is reorganize its molecules. No, real creation happens in here-" She reached over and tapped my head.
"Creation is the act of discrimination. You separate this from that and you have created a space between them. Creation is also the act of connection. You connect this to that and you have created a new entity or a new relationship. Creation is the act of drawing a line. You use the line to connect or separate or enclose; but you're the one who drew the line in the first place.
"The question is, what do you want to create? What kind of line do you want to draw? Do you want to draw a circle around humans and bunnydogs? Do you want to draw a line between humans and worms? How are you going to make it up? You need to be clear about the circle you're creating before you walk into it."
And in the afternoon of the fourth day, we created. "Are you ready for the last lesson, James?"
"Yes."
"It's bad news."
"I can handle it."
"All right. This is it. You're a monkey."
"Huh?"
"I'll get you a mirror. Your umpty-great-grandmomma and umpty-great-grandpoppa swung naked in the trees and lived on bananas and coconuts. You're their umpty-great-grandson. You live in a house, but you still like bananas and coconuts. And if we took away your clothes, you could climb back up into the trees and nobody would ever know the difference. Are you getting this?"