“Huhnnuhhn?” The tone implied a question.
Gosseyn did not attempt an exact translation. In the moments that followed its utterance he, first, made an extra-brain photograph of a location of the floor a dozen feet away; and simultaneously, recalled his mental photograph of Gorrold.
As he did so, there was a sound and a gasp. It came from the business executive he had seen so briefly—was it the day before?—who was lying on the floor across the room.
Gosseyn replaced the receiver, and said in his calmest voice, “The difficulties we find in our dealings with other people is that they have an overall simplistic idea in their heads about how things are. To such people the world is a series of fixed mental pictures. They look at what we call a chair, and they think of it as exactly that—no more, no less.”
His self-control was evidently catching. Because Enin, after one startled look at the writhing body on the floor, seemed to recover. He said in a challenging tone, “Well, isn’t it? Chairs are for sitting down in.” The boy was shrugging. “I’m beginning to think maybe I’m on their side.”
“Each chair is different from all other chairs,” Gosseyn explained. “Even in a factory, where they make a single style of chair by the thousands, the grain of the wood—as one example—is different in each. But that’s a superficial aspect of what we’re talking about in General Semantics. What’s important for the mind is that we should at all times be essentially aware that any object is a complex structure in terms of physics and chemistry. In this instance, we have given the structure the name, ‘chair’, and we generally use it for what you said. But I’ve also seen it used for holding open a door. What it’s called is okay. But we should be aware of the underlying particles, atoms, molecules, energy flows, etc.” He smiled. “Got that?”
There was no immediate answer from his Imperial Majesty of the Dzan. Gosseyn grew aware that Dan Lyttle also had a faint smile on his face. The younger man glanced at him, and then, without a word, walked over to where Gorrold was climbing to his feet.
The sturdily built business executive seemed to be uncertain. Finally: “Where the hell is my jacket?” he asked in a sullen tone.
For Gosseyn, it was a moment of mild surprise. He hadn’t noticed in a meaningful way that the man had arrived coatless. Vaguely, the awareness had been there at the back of his mind. But he had had—he realized—so many other things going on in the observational side of his brain that, in fact, the automatic truth of the extrabrain had not transferred its meaning.
Belatedly, he recalled that originally he had transmitted Gorrold to the icy mountainside, and had then transmitted the jacket to the same location as an act of kindness—not really wanting the man to suffer any more cold than was minimally necessary.
Presumably, the coat was now lying on the floor beside the phone in the observatory off there in South America.
Under the circumstances, it was no greater problem for the extra-brain to transfer the coat than the man. And so, bare moments later, Gosseyn warily walked past Gorrold and Dan. Reached down. Picked up the jacket. And handed it to the owner.
There was silence as the chunky man put on the coat. His fifty-ish face reflected a whole series of inner reactions. Then, as he completed the act of dressing—
“I have to admit—” began Gorrold.
… Hopeful beginning, thought Gosseyn—
“—that,” continued the man, “however you’re doing what has been happening to me—”
The words seemed to indicate that caution was moving in behind all the basic outrage and anger.
“—maybe I’d better think things over before I do anything further!” With those words, the super-executive completed his thought.
For Gosseyn, it was undoubtedly the best outcome he could hope for. For the time being.
He saw that Dan Lyttle had walked over, and was opening the corridor door. And then he waited while the older man walked over to it, through it and, turning, moved off out of the line of sight.
Gosseyn was prepared to deduce that the man would leave the building as swiftly as possible; but Enin trotted over to the door, and peered around it. The boy presently reported, “He’s heading for the main door.”
Then: “He’s gone.”
During the half-minute involved, Gosseyn had closed his eyes, and transmitted President Blayney’s four guards one by one to a street location the earliest Gosseyn had once used.
Enin was coming back into the room. He asked, “Going to do anything about those other guys who called?”
Gosseyn drew a deep breath. “No,” he said.
A strange thought had come—strange for him. It was time to take a break; that was the feeling. There had to be a pause to the ceaseless driving existence in which this Gosseyn body had been involved since that first moment of awakening inside the capsule aboard the Dzan battleship.
True, he had slept in Dan Lyttle’s little house. But though a sleep of exhaustion had its place, and its own necessity, that was not what he needed.
A break.
He said, “Listen Enin! listen, Dan! President Blayney put a billfold with money in every one of the suits he sent over for me. So Jet’s leave right now, and go to the nearest restaurant, and eat. And talk.”
… The restaurant had one of those dimly lighted interiors; but there was a video game room, from which Enin had to be rescued twice; both times he came dutifully when Gosseyn went over and reported that food had arrived. Each time he ate his share, and then departed at speed.
In between, as Gosseyn and Dan Lyttle each ate a sandwich and salad, the subject of conversation was Dan Lyttle himself.
Gosseyn’s first question: “Why, after your training in General Semantics was accepted by the Games Machine as being adequate, didn’t you go to Venus?”
The younger man’s answer was, in view of the subject matter, obviously straightforward: “As you know,
I’m a night clerk at a good hotel. Despite the advanced state of computer technology for such places, they still need human beings; and I got the job at a time when work was temporarily scarce. I immediately discovered that it removed me from the normal condition of a human being.
“Working all night, and sleeping eight hours some time during the following day quickly ended the few associations I had formed when I first came to the City of the Games Machine from the east coast. I thought about that, and, after taking two different young ladies out during my days off—separately, of course—I decided I could not subject a normal young woman to a marriage with me. Now, General Semantics, as you know, and as I discovered later, merely provides guide lines in the direction of survival within the frame of any life situation.
“Before I ever took my GS training, there was a woman who had seen me late one night when she visited an out-of-town friend who was staying at the hotel. Naturally, I found this out only later. But what happened: she checked in one night, and called me at three A.M., and asked me to come up to her room and make love to her. Well, I was a young fellow; I still hadn’t made any decisions about things like that. It turned out that her husband had died; and she had resolved to be his wife forever, and never marry again. But she saw me and called me, and I went up. And thereafter, once a month, she would pray for her husband’s forgiveness, and check into the hotel, and call me.”
“As I said, I started getting involved in that situation before I took my training in General Semantics. And, when I later discussed this relationship with the Games Machine, apparently human sexual activity was something it could not evaluate. Believe it or not, after it discovered that I was awake all night, the Games Machine occasionally phoned me in the wee hours, and talked to me.”