The giant nodded. "Da. Ena why gweres-vy." Good. Then you help me. "Bysy yu dheugh obery pandra my kewsel." You must do what I say.
The giant reached up and removed the flesh from his face. Beneath it he wore a second face, the mouth of which smiled redly, showing perfect teeth. His inner mouth. So he was not made of glass at all.
Kim thought about what the giant had said. It seemed too all inclusive. He shook his head. "Ny puptra." Not everything.
The giant nodded. This time the words came from his inner mouth. The other flesh hung loose about his chin. "Ny puptra. Mes moyha taclow." Not everything. But most things. "May ef gul styr." When it makes meaning.
He considered that. It did not commit him to much. "Da," he said softly.
"Flowr," said the giant, smiling again. Perfect. "Ena bysy yu dheugh gortheby onen tra a-dherak pup ken." Then you must answer me one thing before all else. "Pyu dysky why fatel nyvera?" Who teach you how to count?
ANDERSEN SAT behind his desk, studying T'ai Cho's report. It was the end of the first week of Assessment. Normally there would have been a further seventeen weeks of patient observation, but T'ai Cho had asked for matters to be expedited. Andersen had agreed readily. Only that morning he had spoken to the first secretary of one of the junior ministers and been told that his request for a referral hearing had been turned down. Which meant that the directive was final. Yet things were not all bad. He had been busy this last week.
He looked up and grunted. "Good," he said simply, then pushed the file aside. "I'll countersign my recommendation. The board sits tomorrow. I'll put it before them then."
T'ai Cho smiled and nodded his gratitude.
"Off the record," Andersen continued, leaning forward over the desktop, "how high do you rate his potential? You say here that you think he's a genius. That can mean many things. I want something I can sell. Something that will impress a top executive."
"It's all in there," said T'ai Cho, indicating the file. "He has an eidetic memory. Neat perfect recall. And the ability to comprehend and use complex concepts within moments of first encountering them. Add to that a profound, almost frightening grasp of mathematics and linguistics."
The Director nodded. "All excellent, T'ai Cho, but that's not quite what I mean. They can build machines that can do all that. What can he do that a machine can't?"
It was an odd thing to ask. The question had never arisen before. Hut then there had never been a candidate quite like Kim. He was already fluent in basic English and had assimilated the basics of algebra and logic as if they were chunks of meat to be swallowed down and digested.
The Director sat back and turned slightly in his chair, looking away from T'ai Cho. "Let me explain the situation. Then you might understand why I'm asking."
He glanced at the operative and smiled. "You're good at your job, T'ai Cho, and I respect your evaluation. But my viewpoint is different from yours. It has to be. I have to justify the continuation of this whole operation. I have to report to a board that reports back to the House itself. And the House is concerned with two things only. One—does the Recruitment Project make a profit? Two—is it recruiting the right material for the marketplace?"
He held up a hand, as if to counter some argument T'ai Cho was about to put forward. "Now I know that might sound harsh and unidealistic, but it's how things are."
T'ai Cho nodded but said nothing.
"Anyway, things are like this. At present I have firm approaches from five major companies. Three have signed contracts for auction options when the time comes. I expect the other two to sign shortly."
T'ai Cho's eyes widened with surprise. "An auction?"
Andersen raised one hand. "However. . . if he is what you say he is, then we could fund the whole of this program for a year, maybe more. That's if we can get the right deal. If we can get one of the big companies to sign an exclusive rights contract."
T'ai Cho shook his head, astonished now. An exclusive rights contract! Then the director wasn't talking of a normal sponsorship but about something huge. Something between two and five million yuan! No wonder he wanted something more than was in the report. But what could he, T'ai Cho, offer in that vein?
"I don't know—" he began, then stopped. There was something Kim could do that a machine couldn't. He could invent. He could take two things and make a third of them.
"Well?" said Andersen. "Say I'm head of SimFic. How would you convince me to hand over twenty million yuan in exchange for a small boy, genius or not?"
T'ai Cho swallowed. Twenty million yuan! He frowned, concentrating on the problem he had been set, "Well, he connects things . . . things we'd normally consider unconnected." He looked down, trying to capture in words just what it was that made Kim so special. "But it's more than that. Much more. He doesn't just learn and remember and calculate, he creates. New ideas. Wholly new ideas. He looks at things in ways we've never thought of looking at them before."
"Such as?"
T'ai Cho shrugged. It was so hard to define, to pinpoint, but he knew this was what made Kim so different. It wasn't just his ability to memorize or his quickness, it was something beyond those. And because it was happening all the time it was hard to extract and say "he does this." It was his very mode of thought. He was constantly inventive.
T'ai Cho laughed. "Do you know anything about astronomy?"
"A little." Andersen stared at him strangely. "Is this relevant, T'ai Cho?"
T'ai Cho nodded. "You know what a nova is?"
Andersen shrugged. "Refresh my memory."
"A nova is an old star that collapses into itself and in doing so explodes and throws out vast quantities of energy and light. Well, Kim's a kind of nova. I'm tempted to say a supernova. It's like there's some dense darkness at the very center of him,
sucking all knowledge down into itself then throwing it all back out as light. Brilliant, blinding light."
Andersen shook his head. "Old stars. ... Is there nothing more practical?"
T'ai Cho leaned forward, earnest now. "Why don't you bring him here, your head of SimFic? Show him the boy. Let him bring his own experts, make his own assessments—set his own tests. He'll be astonished, I guarantee you."
"Maybe," Andersen muttered, putting his hand up to his mouth. Then he repeated the word more strongly. "Maybe. You know, that's not so bad an idea after all."
T'AI CHO put his request in the next day, expecting it to be turned down out of hand. Within the hour, however, he had received notification, under the Director's hand, with full board approval. He was to be transferred from Assessment to S and I— Socialization and Indoctrination—for an eighteen-month tour of duty. And he was to be directly responsible for the new candidate, Kim Ward.
Normally personal involvement was frowned upon. It was seen as necessary to make a clean break between each section, but the Director had convinced the board that this was a special case. And they had agreed, recognizing the importance of nurturing the boy's abilities, though perhaps the thought of twenty million yuan—a figure mentioned unofficially and wholly off the record—had proved an additional incentive to break with tradition just this once. Thus it was that T'ai Cho took Kim up the five levels to Socialization and helped him settle into his new rooms.
AWEEK LATER T'ai Cho found himself at the lectern in a small hexagonal lecture room. The room was lit only at its center, and then by the dimmest of lamps. Three boys sat at a distance from each other, forming a triangle at the heart of which was the spiderish shape of a trivee. T'ai Cho stood in the shadows behind the smallest of the boys, operating the image control.