It could have been the room of a normal twenty-year-olçl, not a boy of eight. Tennis racquets were heaped in a disorderly fashion against a pile of book records. The thiaminizer was turned on, and Locke automatically clicked the switch over. Abruptly he turned. The televisor screen was blank, yet he could have sworn that eyes had been watching him from it.
This wasn’t the first time it had happened.
After a while Locke turned again and squatted to examine the book reels. He picked out one labeled BRIAFF ON ENTROPIC LOGIC and turned the cylinder over in his hands, scowling. Then he replaced it and went out of the room, with a last, considering look at the televisor.
Downstairs Abigail Schuler was fingering the Mastermaid switch. board. Her prim mouth was as tight as the severe bun of gray-shot hair at the back of her neck.
“Good evening,” Locke said. “Where’s Absalom?”
“Out playing, Brother Locke,” the housekeeper said formally. “You’re home early. I haven’t finished the living room yet.”
“Well, turn on the ions and let ’em play,” Locke said. “It won’t take long. I’ve got some papers to correct, anyway.”
He started out, but Abigail coughed significantly.
“Well?”
“He’s looking peaked.”
“Then outdoor exercise is what he needs,” Locke said shortly. “I’m going to send him to a summer camp.”
“Brother Locke,” Abigail said, “I don’t see why you don’t let him go to Baja California. He’s set his heart on it. You let him study all the hard subjects he wanted before. Now you put your foot down. It’s none of my affair, but I can tell he’s pining.”
“He’d pine worse if I said yes. I’ve my reasons for not wanting him to study entropic logic. Do you know what it involves?”
“I don’t-you know I don’t. I’m not an educated woman Brother Locke. But Absalom is bright as a button.”
Locke made an impatient gesture.
“You have a genius for understatement,” he said. “Bright as a button!” Then he shrugged and moved to the window, looking down at the play court below where his eight-year-old son played handball.
Absalom did not look up. He seemed engrossed in his game. But Locke, watching. felt a cool, stealthy terror steal through his mind, and behind his back his hands clenched together.
A boy who looked ten, whose maturity level was twenty, and yet who was still a child of eight. Not easy to handle. There were many parents just now with the same problem-something was happening to the graph curve that charts the percentage of child geniuses born in recent times. Something had begun to stir lazily far back in the brains of the coming generations and a new species, of a sort, was coming slowly into being. Locke knew that well. In his own time he, too, had been a child genius.
Other parents might meet the problem in other ways, he thought stubbornly. Not himself. He knew what was best for Absalom. Other parents might send their genius children to one of the crèches where they could develop among their own kind. Not Locke.
“Absalom’s place is here,” he said aloud. “With me, where I can—” He caught the housekeeper’s eye and shrugged again, irritably, going back to the conversation that had broken off. “Of course he’s bright.
But not bright enough yet to go to Baja California and study entropic logic. Entropic logic! It’s too advanced for the boy. Even you ought to realize that. It isn’t like a lollypop you can hand the kid-first making sure there’s castor oil in the bathroom closet. Absalom’s immature. It would actually be dangerous to send him to the Baja California University now to study with men three times his age. It would involve mental strain he isn’t fit for yet. I don’t want him turned into a psychopath.” Abigail’s prim mouth pursed up sourly.
“You let him take calculus.”
“Oh, leave me alone.”. Locke glanced down again at the small boy on the play court. “I think,” he said slowly, “that it’s time for another rapport with Absalom.”
The housekeeper looked at him sharply, opened her thin lips to speak, and then closed them with an almost audible snap of disapproval. She didn’t understand entirely, of course, how a rapport worked or what it accomplished. She only knew that in these days there were ways in which it was possible to enforce hypnosis, to pry open a mind willy-nilly and search it for contraband thoughts. She shook her head, lips pressed tight.
“Don’t try to interfere in things you don’t understand,” Locke said. “I tell you, I know what’s best for Absalom. He’s in the same place I was thirty-odd years ago. Who could know better? Call him in, will you? I’ll be in my study.”
Abigail watched his retreating back, a pucker between her brows. It was hard to know what was best. The mores of the day demanded rigid good conduct, but sometimes a person had trouble deciding in her own mind what was the right thing to do. In the old days, now, after the atomic wars, when license ran riot and anybody could do anything he pleased, life must have been easier. Nowadays, in the ‘violent backswing to a Puritan culture, you were expected to think twice and search your soul before you did a doubtful thing.
Well, Abigail had no choice this time. She clicked over the wall microphone and spoke into it.
“Absalom?”
“Yes, Sister Schuler?”
“Come in. Your father wants you.”
In his study Locke stood quiet for a moment, considering. Then he reached for the house microphone.
“Sister Schuler, I’m using the televisor. Ask Absalom to wait.”
He sat down before his private visor. His hands moved deftly.
“Get me Dr. Ryan, the Wyoming Quizkid Crèche. Joel Locke calling.”
Idly as he waited he reached out to take an old-fashioned cloth-bound book from a shelf of antique curiosa. He read: But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, As soon as ye hear the sound of the trumpet, then ye shall say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron…
“Brother Locke?” the televisor asked.
The face of a white-haired, pleasant-featured man showed on the screen. Locke replaced the book and raised his hand in greeting.
“Dr. Ryan. I’m sorry to keep bothering you.”
“That’s all right,” Ryan said. “I’ve plenty of time. I’m supposed to be supervisor at the Crèche, but the kids are running it to suit themselves.” He chuckled. “How’s Absalom?”
“There’s a limit,” Locke said sourly. “I’ve given the kid his head, outlined a broad curriculum, and now he wants to study entropic logic. There are only two universities that handle the subject, and the nearest’s in Baja California.”
“He could commute by copter, couldn’t he?” Ryan asked, but Locke grunted disapproval.
“Take too long. Besides, one of the requirements is inboarding, under a strict regime. The discipline, mental and physical, is supposed to be necessary in order to master entropic logic. Which is spinach. I got the rudiments at home, though I had to use the tn-disney to visualize it.”
Ryan laughed.
“The kids here are taking it up. Uh-are you sure you understood it?”
“Enough, yeah. Enough to realize it’s nothing for a kid to study until his horizons have expanded.”
“We’re having no trouble with it,” the doctor said. “Don’t forget that Absalom’s a genius, not an ordinary youngster.”
“I know. I know my responsibility, too. A normal home environment has to be maintained to give Absalom some sense of security-which is one reason I don’t want the boy to live in Baja California just now. I want to be able to protect him.”
“We’ve disagreed on that point before. All the quizkids are pretty self-sufficient, Locke.”
“Absalom’s a genius, and a child. Therefore he’s lacking in a sense of proportion. There are more dangers for him to avoid. I think it’s a grave mistake to give the quizkids their heads and let them do what they like. I refused to send Absalom to a Crèche for an excellent reason. Putting all the boy geniuses in a batch and letting them fight it out. Completely artificial environment.”