"I didn't know he had a new one," said Castor.
"Oh, sure. Five weeks ago. Do you think he's always this way? Would I be working for him if he was?" She shook her head, glancing distastefully at the screen. Perhaps, Castor thought, the computer was beating her. Suddenly she threw the cursor rod down on her desk and asked, "Have you eaten?"
"What?"
"Eaten breakfast," she explained. "You know? In the mouth? Chew? Swallow? No? Then pull up a chair and we'll order some soup and rice from the faculty club."
Actually, the woman seemed to want to be friendly! She called in the order and, waiting for it to be delivered, put her feet up on the desk to regard Castor appraisingly. "So, young man. You think you would like to work for the professor?"
Castor nodded.
"But you don't know if you can stand his craziness, is that right? Yes, well, do not worry too much. Now his whole personality is out of balance. They all start fighting among themselves when a new one is added—it is terrible! But it ends." She looked up as the messenger from the faculty club came in and instructed him in where to lay out the dishes. "Eat," she ordered Castor. "You may ask questions of me while you eat, if you wish."
Castor was caught with chopsticks halfway to his mouth. He watched the woman nimbly alternating soup and rice while he formulated his questions. "Well—what is it like for him to have all those people in his head? Is it like split personality?"
"No, not at all. Split personality—or as Professor Fung's colleagues describe it, 'multiple personality disorder,' is a psychological thing. It is trauma, usually from early childhood damage, that in some way causes a retreat from reality. Manyface is very real. So are all of his voices."
Castor scooped rice into his mouth, dampened it with a porcelain spoonful of soup. He managed to say, "But how?"
"How do they operate within his head? Let me see. There was a psychologist named Hilary Roberts who published work many, many years ago—when there really was an America, even. I will give you his example, by asking you a question. What are we doing now?"
"Why—" Castor swallowed, to be able to say, "Talking?"
"Exactly. Now, young Pettyman, how did you know that was what we were doing?"
"Why—" Castor swallowed again. This time it was not to clear his throat of food, but to assist in thought. "I guess I thought about it?" he offered.
"Right. So, while we were 'talking,' you were also 'thinking' of 'talking.' You are now probably 'thinking' of 'thinking' of talking. That second thinking is what Roberts (and I) call 'meta-thinking.' But, look at this, Petty-man! Now we are 'thinking' about 'meta-thinking'! What does that mean we are doing?"
"Wow! Meta-meta-thinking?"
"Precisely." The secretary grinned, crushing the empty disposable cups that had once held her rice and soup. She tossed them neatly into a disposal basket. "You can go on doing that forever, Pettyman. You can do it through infinity."
"Wow!"
"More than that! You cannot tell which thinking is the 'ultimate' thinking, because there is none, it being infinite. You cannot even tell which kind of thinking is at the bottom—is the 'real' thinking—because infinity is a closed loop."
Castor was frowning, trying to find a way of applying this airy-fairy metaphysics—this meta-thinking!—to the reality of his life. "Do you mean that Manyface is infinite?" he demanded.
"Not infinite, no. But a closed loop, Pettyman. There isn't any 'real' Manyface any more. They are all real."
Following her example, Castor picked up his own empty containers and disposed of them. He reached for the remains of the rice, but the secretary was ahead of him, scooping out the last little bit to eat. "How do you know so much about it?" he asked.
She gave him a disliking look. "Because I am a secretary, you mean? Even a secretary has a brain, Pettyman. Also, how do you think I got this job? I was Professor Fung's research assistant before I was his secretary. Then, for a time, it was proposed that I be his wife. Then he found companionship inside his skull and no longer needed a wife... but I remained his secretary." She balled up the last of the containers and pitched it after the others. "Well, Pettyman, how would you like to amuse yourself till the professor comes? With his screen? To follow these spacecraft that fascinate you so?"
"Don't they you?"
She shrugged. "Outer space is less interesting to me than inner space, but yes, it is interesting, I admit, that there is talk of radio signals that have not been decoded."
"Radio signals!" And mystery ones at that! Castor felt the sudden pull of the screen, but the secretary smiled.
"A great mystery, yes," she conceded. "But perhaps not a very interesting one, since most likely it is only that the decoding algorithms have been forgotten."
By the time Castor established, regretfully, that the secretary had been right, it was mid-afternoon. The first he knew of the arrival of Fung Bohsien was a gabble of voices from the outer office. Manyface was talking in tongues again—at least four of his personalities contributing their share to the dialogue. He was also being followed by a group of citizens, some young, some old; some students, one or two obviously senior executives of one kind or another. What they had in common, Castor realized, was that every one of them seemed to want something from Manyface. Manyface was not merely a curious physiological preparation. He was indeed a high party cadre. And thus, Castor perceived, able to grant boons or withhold them.
Castor moved out of the way as the whole procession entered Fung Bohsien's office. He was studying the old man, for in addition to checking out the disappointing news from space, he had spent his waiting time at Many-face's screen in looking up the physiology of Manyface.
The brain is in some ways the most delicate of the body's organs and in some ways the sturdiest. What anatomists call "the blood-brain barrier" is a mighty shield against the outlaw cells and organisms that circulate through the rest of the body. Cancer of the brain rarely metastasizes to the torso. Cancer of any other part rarely invades the brain. Immunologically speaking, the brain is exempted from most of the body's threats. Of all the secret corners of the human frame, it may be the very least likely to reject an implant.
And yet what a wonder it was that Manyface's huge buff-watermelon head should hold eleven minds! It became obvious to Castor that each of the occupants of Manyface's head had his own personal identity—or hers; that sometimes one did the speaking, sometimes another, depending on the subject on which they were addressed. Or depending on the consensual will of the majority within Fung's head. Or depending on which shouted loudest.
When the clients and hangers-on had been sent away, Manyface sat down at his desk and, for a moment, examined Castor silently. Castor prepared himself for the babble of competing voices that he had heard before. Surprisingly, when Manyface spoke it was with only one voice—the one Castor supposed to be his own. "So, Pettyman Castor," he said, "do you want the job?"
"To be your houseboy? Cook your meals, clean your house? I do not know if I can do that well. I have no training in these skills, apart from my compulsory help-out duties as a teen-ager."
Manyface's mouth spoke, but this time with a different accent. "He means yes," it said. "Get it over with. Let's get out of here."