Good God, no!
Even as a scientific experiment? Anglesey grinned. Has any esprojector operative ever poured on the juice and swamped the childs brain with his own thoughts? Come on, Cornelius, I wont snitch on you.
Well … its out of my line, you understand. The psionicist looked carefully away, found a bland meter face and screwed his eyes to that. I have, uh, heard something about … Well, yes, there were attempts made in some pathological cases to, uh, bull through… break down the patients delusions by sheer force
And it didnt work, said Anglesey. He laughed. It cant work, not even on a child, let alone an adult with a fully developed personality. Why, it took a decade of refinement, didnt it, before the machine was debugged to the point where a psychiatrist could even listen in without the normal variation between his pattern of thought and the patientswithout that variation setting up an interference scrambling the very thing he wanted to study. The machine has to
make automatic compensations for the differences between individuals. We stifi cant bridge the differences between species.
If someone else is willing to cooperate, you can very gently guide his thinking. And thats all. If you try to seize control of another brain, a brain with its own background of experience, its own ego, you risk your very sanity. The other brain will fight back instinctively. A fully developed, matured, hardened human personality is just too complex for outside control. It has too many resources, too much hell the subconscious can call to its defense if its integrity is threatened. Blazes, man, we cant even master our own minds, let alone anyone elses!
Angleseys cracked-voice tirade broke off. He sat brooding at the instrument panel, tapping the console of his mechanical mother.
Well? said Cornelius after a while.
He should not, perhaps, have spoken. But he found it hard to remain mute. There was too much silencehalf a billion miles of it, from here to the sun. If you closed your mouth five minutes at a time, the silence began creeping in like fog.
Well, gibed Anglesey. So our pseudojovian, Joe, has a physically adult brain. The only reason I can control him is that his brain has never been given a chance to develop its own ego. I am Joe. From the moment he was born into consciousness, I have been there. The psibeam sends me all his sense data and sends him back my motornerve impulses. Nevertheless, he has that excellent brain, and its cells are recording every trace of experience, even as yours and mine; his synapses have assumed the topography which is my personality pattern.
Anyone else, taking him over from me, would find it was like an attempt to oust me myself from my own brain. It couldnt be done. To be sure, he doubtless has only a rudimentary set of AngleseymemoriesI do not, for instance, repeat trigonometric theorems while controlling himbut he has enough to be, potentially, a distinct personality.
As a matter of fact, whenever he wakes up from sleeptheres usually a lag of a few minutes, while I sense the change through my normal psi faculties and get the amplifying helmet adjustedI have a bit of a struggle. I feel almost a … a resistance until Ive brought his mental currents completely into phase with mine. Merely dreaming has been enough of a different experience to – . . Anglesey didnt bother to finish the sentence.
I see, murmured Cornelius. Yes, its clear enough. In fact, its astonishing that you can have such total contact with a being of such alien metabolism.
I wont for much longer, said the esman sarcastically, unless you can correct whatever is burning out those K tubes. I dont have an unlimited supply of spares.
I have some working hypotheses, said Cornelius, but theres so little known about psibeam transmissionis the velocity infinite or merely very great, is the beam strength actually independent of distance? How about the possible effects of transmissionoh, through the degenerate matter in the Jovian core? Good Lord, a planet where water is a heavy mineral and hydrogen is a metal! What do we know?
Were supposed to find out, snapped Anglesey. Thats what this whole project is for. Knowledge. Bull! Almost, he spat on the floor. Apparently what little we have learned doesnt even get through to people. Hydrogen is still a gas where Joe lives. Hed have to dig down a few miles to reach the solid phase. And Im expected to make a scientific analysis of Jovian conditions!