“I do study hard,” fumed Eron.
No use arguing. Scogil materialized a wall screen and began to pop algorithms into its controller via fam command. How might he introduce psychohistory to this too-bright child without calling it that? Certainly he couldn’t reveal his Smythosian connection. He skipped his prepared lesson, no longer inhibited by the Murek Kapor persona who never did anything dangerous. He decided to build an impromptu lesson around the Ganderian ritual that, in effect, placed a blaster in Eron’s hidden holster every morning.
Symbols began to trace onto the screen. “That mess is an Esfo-Naifin Quandary-Chain. What would you do with it?” “How would I know? I’ve never seen it before!”
“Hey, stay calm. This is not a test of what you know. I’m just probing to see how your mind works, if it works at all.” “Is this one of your traps?” asked Eron warily.
“No. Just think. You’ve seen dynamic equations before. What’s going on here?”
Eron did not like this kind of open-ended test. Defensively he turned to comedy and began to flap his elbows. “Cluck, cluck. I see bird tracks!”
“Sure. But what do they say about the bird?”
Eron pondered for a long time while Scogil made not the slightest sound. Finally: “I don’t know. You want me to guess? Along the time line it’s got to generate a self-stabilizing run. But I don’t know what the symbols mean. You’ve got to give me definitions before you give me equations. You told me that.”
Hiranimus refused to utter a word of comment.
Eron couldn’t stand the silence and strained for something more to say. “If you had a handle on the red parameter, you could tweak it into an unstable bloom up the time line.” Scogil was impressed. “Why the red parameter?”
“Your Esfo-Naifin Whatchamacallit isn’t sensitive to the other params—and don’t try to trick me! It is sensitive to the red, isn’t it?” He didn’t seem convinced and wanted confirmation. “I’m not familiar with crazy notations!”
“Quit telling me how stupid you are. You’re right. Now what could you use it for?”
Eron shook his head. “Space only knows. My fam’s lookup tables don’t even list Esfo-Naifin Whatchamacallits by name or form!”
Hiranimus, manipulating the screen through his fam, filled in some initial conditions and expanded the projected expression. “What’s that a description of?”
“How should I know? I’m only a twelve-year-old kid with pokey quantronics zived to my spinal.”
“Not so pokey.” He became the tutor again. “It’s a description of the arms-carrying customs of Agander. It’s a description of that little blaster there in your shoulder holster.” Eron looked down at his kick as if he had never seen it before. “You’re sewing eyelids to my cheek. You can’t describe customs with mathematics'” He was contemplating his mentor with disdain.
“And what in the Galaxy do you think psychohistory is all about?”
Eron glanced back in astonishment at the wall with its luminescent curlicues. He stared fixedly at the Esfo-Naifin Quandary-Chain, obviously computing with all fam and wetware resources. Then he grinned mischievously as his first answer came to him. “It’s wrong,” he said.
“Explain.”
“Backtracking gives a source-point only two thousand five hundred years ago. That’s wrong! We’ve always carried blasters.”
“So says the fine poetry of Ganderian mythology, but if you want to become a passable psychohistorian, you’ll have to be more careful with your history than a Ganderian troubadour. Two and a half millennia puts you back in the 124th century.” Scogil replaced the equation with an Imperial History Skeleton—12,338 GE was the date of the sack of Splendid Wisdom. “Early 124th puts you thirty or forty years before the final collapse. The First Empire is disintegrating. We’re in the Interregnum. That's when Ganderians first began to carry small arms. Not a trace of them in the whole of Ganderian records before that—and Ganderian history predates the Empire by about 165 centuries. A psychohistorian doesn’t believe myths; he investigates them.” The Esfo-Naifin Quandary-Chain reappeared. “The question is why did such a habit as yours persist long after the need for personal arms?”
“To defend ourselves!”
“Great Plasma Tongues of Space, against what? I’m a far-man. Who trusts a farman? Yet I could attack, unarmed, an octad of hostile Ganderians and not have to worry about their blasters. Using a blaster is taboo on Agander.”
“No it’s not! I know how to use one! I’m fast and accurate!” “Yes. Nevertheless, you’ve never used one to kill a man and neither has your father—or anyone else you know.”
“I could ”
“That’s the myth. But look at the equation. The temporal stability of the weapon-carrying ritual is strong, has been strong over millennia, but that very stability demands nonuse. Widespread employment of small arms would produce a bloom—see the red parameter again.” Scogil gave his student time to verify his statement. “I repeat, why did such a habit persist long after the need for personal arms? It takes energy to maintain such a habit—you’ve got to buy the weapon; you’ve got to keep it in working order, you’ve got to learn how to use it and keep your skill up to par. You’ve got to wear the damn thing all the time. But you can’t blast. What’s the utility?”
Eron was confused. “To defend myself!” he repeated with exasperation.
“No. The utility of the little kick sitting in your holster is to maintain the illusion that there is an enemy out there who must be kept at bay. A blaster is ineffective against an illusion—to try to use one against an illusion would only reveal one’s impotence. A Ganderian can't use a weapon without proving to himself that he is defenseless, and the only reason he carries a weapon is to prove to himself that he isn't defenseless. It’s called a ridge, something you can't use but have to own to feel secure. The old battleships carried planet-busters but I never heard of one being used.”
“You’re not making much sense,” complained the boy.
‘Take out your blaster and point it.” A part of Scogil made sure that his body was now more than a meter distant from the “toy.”
“No.” Eron was uncomfortably defiant.
“That’s an order!”
Eron slowly removed the tiny blaster from its shoulder holster and pointed it, the safety on, careful not to aim at his mentor. “This is silly.”
“All right. Now tell me who the enemy is?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“In your mind’s eye. It’s in your bones; every Ganderian can see the enemy standing in front of him. Let your imagination do the work for you.”
“An outsider?”
“Who might that outsider be?”
“The Second Empire?”
“The Second Empire is real time. You’re targeting an illusion. What’s the kick ready to take out?”
“I’ve got a bead on your cruddy wall!” exclaimed Eron angrily.
“Have you ever noticed that Ganderian stories, no matter how modem, are always retellings of the old mythology? Who is the enemy in the myths?”
Eron lowered his blaster. Carefully he slipped it back into the discreet holster that was part of his jacket. ‘The First Empire. The viceroys. The soldiers. The Emperor. That was a long time ago.”
“The vitality of those myths suggests strongly that Agan-der never recovered from the trauma of being conquered by the First Empire. When you wakedream, do you ever pop off Imperial Marines as they drop from the sky in the funny armor they wore in that bygone era?”