"More or less. We were split into three" groups."
"Which group were you in?"
"I was in the fast one, sir, in most subjects."
"That's some help, but not much. You're in for a shock, son. We don't have classrooms and fixed courses. Except for laboratory work and group drills, you study alone. It's pleasant to sit in a class daydreaming while the teacher questions somebody else, but we haven't got time for that. There is too much ground to cover. Take the outer languages alone-have you ever studied under hypnosis?"
"Why, no, sir."
"We'll start you on it at once. When you leave here, go to the Psycho Instruction Department and ask for a first hypno in Beginning Venerian. What's the matter?"
"Well. . . . Sir, is it absolutely necessary to study under hypnosis?"
"Definitely. Everything that can possibly be studied under hypno you will have to learn that way in order to leave time for the really important subjects."
Matt nodded. "I see. Like astrogation."
"No, no, no! Not astrogation. A ten-year-old child could learn to pilot a spaceship if he had the talent for mathematics. That is kindergarten stuff, Dodson. The arts of space and warfare are the least part of your education. I know, from your tests, that you can soak up the math and physical sciences and technologies. Much more important is the world around you, the planets and their inhabitants-extraterrestrial biology, history, cultures, psychology, law and institutions, treaties and conventions, planetary ecologies, system ecology, interplanetary economics, applications of extraterritorialism, comparative religious customs, law of space, to mention a few."
Matt was looking bug-eyed. "My gosh! How long does it take to learn all those things?"
"You'll still be studying the day you retire. But even those subjects are not your education; they are simply raw materials. Your real job is to learn how to think-and that means you must study several other subjects: epistemology, scientific methodology, semantics, structures of languages, patterns of ethics and morals, varieties of logics, motivational psychology, and so on. This school is based on the idea that a man who can think correctly will automatically behave morally-or what we call 'morally. What is moral behavior for a Patrolman, Matt? You are called Matt, aren't you? By your friends?"
"Yes, sir. Moral behavior for a Patrolman ,. ."
"Yes, yes. Go on."
"Well, I guess it means to do your duty, live up to your oath, that sort of thing."
"Why should you?"
Matt kept quiet and looked stubborn.
"Why should you, when it may get you some messy way of dying? Never mind. Our prime purpose here is to see to it that you learn how your own mind works. If the result is a man who fits into the purposes of the Patrol because his own mind, when he knows how to use it, works that way-then fine! He is commissioned. If not, then we have to let him go."
Matt remained silent until Wong finally said, "What's eating on you, kid? Spill it."
"Well-look here, sir. I'm perfectly willing to work hard to get my commission. But you make it sound like some-\ thing beyond my control. First I have to study a lot of things I've never heard "of. Then, when it's all over, somebody decides my mind doesn't work right. It seems to me that what this job calls for is a superman."
"Like me." Wong chuckled and flexed his arms. "Maybe so, Matt, but there aren't any supermen, so well have to do the best we can with young squirts like you. Come, now, let's make up the list of spools you'll need."
It was a long list. Matt was surprised and pleased to find that some story spools had been included. He pointed to an item that puzzled him-An Introduction to Lunar Archeology. "I don't see why I should study that-the Patrol doesn't deal with Selenites; they've been dead for millions of years."
"Keeps your mind loosened up. I might just as well have stuck in modern French music. A Patrol officer shouldn't limit his horizons to just the things he is sure to need. Fm marking the items I want you to study first, then you beat it around to the library and draw out those spools, then over to Psycho for your first hypno. In about a week, when you've absorbed this first group, come back and see me."
"You mean you expect me to study all the spools I'm taking out today in one week?" Matt looked at the list in amazement.
"That's right. In your off hours, that is-you'll be busy with drills and lab a lot. Come back next week and we'll boost the dose. Now get going."
"But- Aye aye, sir!"
Matt located the Psycho Instruction Department and was presently ushered into a small room by a bored hypno technician wearing the uniform of the staff services of the Space Marines. "Stretch out in that chair," he was told. "Rest your head back. This is your first treatment?" Matt admitted that it was.
"You'll like it. Some guys come in here just for the rest- they already know more than they ought to. What course was it you said you wanted?"
"Beginning Venerian."
The technician spoke briefly to a pick-up located on his desk. "Funny thing-about a month ago an oldster was in here for a brush up in electronics. The library thought I said 'colonies' and now he's loaded up with a lot of medical knowledge he'll never use. Lemme have your left arm." The technician irradiated a patch on his forearm and injected the drug. "Now just lay back and follow the bouncing light. Take it easy . . . relax . . . relax . . . and . . . close . . . your ... eyes ... and ... relax ... you're ... getting-"
Someone was standing in front of him, holding a hypodermic pressure injector "That's all. You've had the antidote."
"Huh?" said Matt. "Wazzat?"
"Sit still a couple of minutes and then you can go."
"Didn't it take?"
"Didn't what take? I don't know what you were being exposed to; I just came on duty."
Matt went back to his room feeling rather depressed. He had been a little afraid of hypnosis, but to find that he apparently did not react to the method was worse yet. He wondered whether or not he could ever keep up with his studies if he were forced to study everything, outer languages as well, by conventional methods.
Nothing to do but to go back and see Lieutenant Wong about it-tomorrow, he decided.
Oscar was alone in the suite and was busy trying to place a hook in the wall of a common room. A framed picture was leaning against the chair on which he stood. "Hello, Oscar."
"Howdy, Matt." Oscar turned his head as he spoke; the drill he was using slipped and he skinned a knuckle. He started to curse in strange, lisping speech. "May maledictions pursue this nameless thing to the uttermost depths of world slime!"
Matt clucked disapprovingly. "Curb thy voice, thou impious fish."
Oscar looked up in amazement. "Matt-I didn't know you knew any Venerian."
Matt's mouth sagged open. He closed it, then opened it to speak "Well, I'll be a- Neither did II"
VII TO MAKE A SPACEMAN
THE SEHGEANT CROUCHED in the air, his feet drawn up. "At the count of one," he was saying, "take the ready position, with your feet about six inches from the steel. At the count of two, place your feet firmly against the steel and push off." He shoved against the steel wall and shot into the air, still talking, "Hold the count of four, turn on the count of five-" His body drew up into a ball and turned over a half turn, "-check your rotation-" His body extended again, "-and make contact on the count of seven-" His toes touched
the far wall, "-letting your legs collapse softly so that your momentum will be soaked up without rebound." He collapsed loosely, like an empty sack, and remained floating near the spot where he had landed.
The room was a cylinder fifty feet in diameter in the center of the ship. The entire room was mounted in rollers and was turned steadily in the direction opposite to the spin of the ship and with the same angular speed: thus it had no net spin. It could be entered only from the end, at the center of rotation.