Alienist
Page 22
“Except for Folla and his companions,” the Master said. “And they only in part—from their own, different set of spaces. The spaces we enter in dreams seem inviolate.”
“Probably a good thing, too,” I said. “There’s enough trouble in all this, as it is.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
And then the Comity put the lid on.
It was basically a Dichtung decision, I think: don’t worry all us people. Just shut up about the whole thing, and there’ll be no panic, and nothing will happen.
But it might. Yes, the Josephson junction worked, and Folla blinked right out of sight, on his way to—we finally picked a good spot—M33 in Andromeda, which makes the Magellanic Clouds look like back-fence neighbors. And Dube seems to have got the idea; there have been no reports of him, or of any other alien, since.
But there might be. We found a solution, but it isn’t going o last forever. People have got to know, Mirella says, and she’s right. So here’s the report. Now it’s in the open, complete with a way to handle the aliens, while we learn more—if we need to, and sooner or later we’ll need to.
Mirella thinks people will want to know how the Playtime Wispies thing came out, too. Well, why not?—though, as the Master says, it wasn’t much. It seems if you make the little clasps and such just tough enough to manage so they take more than seventy seconds to pop free, the thefts stop. The Master had popped one in nine point two seconds, while I watched, after all—and, whoever was lifting the things, seventy seconds is apparently too damn much work for the end result.
And what the Hell, if you get impatient while unclasping a set of your own or your rosebud’s, they do tear without much difficulty.
The Master was at work on something else—he didn’t say, and I very carefully didn’t ask—when he saw us off. The cane was gone, and he was walking normally, which didn’t seem to improve his general mood any.
“You will be celebrating on Earth itself,” he said. “I have not visited there in many years, Gerald—after all, what use has Earth for an old and helpless blind man? But I bear them no grudge; if you should happen on any distant friends of mine, wish them well for me. And do try to keep in touch; mine is a lonely and a solitary life, and I should enjoy hearing of your travels.” I said I would. Now and then, in fact, I really do.
Hilda was there too, and Euglane. Euglane shook hands all around, and hurried away before we left—he was back with a full patient load.
Hilda got me off to one side for a minute. “He’ll be fine,” she said to me, in a tiny whisper. “I’m getting around fairly well now, Gerald—and I’ll see to his comfort. He’s a wonderful man.”
I didn’t argue the point.
Later, when we were both belted in and waiting for the word from Launch Control, Mirella said: “You know, she’ll be good for him.”
“You heard?” I said. I’d been sure even the Master couldn’t have heard Hilda’s whisper.
“Jerry,” she said, “I got lots of talents. I am on indefinite leave now, so you will have a chance to find out about some of them.”
“I’ll watch for them,” I said. “Wherever the Hell we go.”
“For this one,” she said, “it’s simple. I read lips.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Once again, there are a few things to be said.
There exist, here and now, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and fifty or sixty other categories; as there exist, here and now, neuro psychologists and neuropsychiatrists of a variety of sorts. I am told that, ca. 2300 A. D., on Ravenal and elsewhere, this plethora of categories has been more or less rationalized; and “psychiatrist” and “neuropsychologist” are used as descriptive of these professions there and then. A full description of the borderlines among categories here and now, and of the various duties of various sorts of professionals in any such category, would take, and has taken, several volumes, and I didn’t (and don’t) feel the details important to add in to this particular report of Knave’s. Those interested can find the current books easily enough.
Anyone interested in the notion of objects as information, and translation from one point to another in zero time and without occupying intervening points, cannot do better than see Information Mechanics, by Dr. Frederick W. Kantor (John Wiley & Sons). It will provide any reader with (that overused phrase) a new paradigm for physics. You won’t find Josephson junctions there, but they’re quite real, and a library search will turn them up for you.
Jeff Harris should again be thanked; so should the E. U. Deli on Orwell Street, Potts Point, Sydney, where much of this one was recollected, or dreamed up, or cobbled together. Thanks are also most affectionately due to the redoubtable Laura Davis, who inspired me to sit down and write Josephson Junction one day, for purposes wholly different from its use here.