“Try to keep me from it!”
“But at that, we shouldn’t be too surprised,” Samms went on, thoughtfully. “Just beginning to scratch the surface as we are, we should expect to encounter peculiar, baffling—even completely inexplicable things. Facts, situations, events, and beings for which our one-system experience could not possibly have prepared us. In fact, we already have. If, ten years ago, anyone had told you that such a race as the Rigellians existed, what would you have thought? One ship went there, you know—once. One hour in any Rigellian city—one minute in a Rigellian automobile—drives a Tellurian insane.”
“I see your point.” Kinnison nodded. “Probably I would have ordered a mental examination. And the Palainians are even worse. People—if you can call them that who live on Pluto and like it! Entities so alien that nobody, as far as I know, understands them. But you don’t have to go even that far from home to locate a job of unscrewing the inscrutable. Who, what, and why—and for how long—was Gray Roger? And, not far behind him, is this young Bergenholm of yours. And by the way, you never did give me the lowdown on how come it was the ‘Bergenholm’, and not the ‘Rodebush-Cleveland’, that made trans-galactic commerce possible and caused nine-tenths of our headaches. As I get the story, Bergenholm wasn’t—isn’t—even an engineer.”
“Didn’t I? Thought I did. He wasn’t, and isn’t. Well, the original Rodebush-Cleveland free drive was a killer,, you know . . “
“How I know!” Kinnison exclaimed, feelingly.
“They beat their brains out and ate their hearts out for months, without getting it any better. Then, one day, this kid Bergenholm ambles into their shop—big, awkward, stumbling over his own feet. He gazes innocently at the thing for a couple of minutes, then says:
“ ‘Why don’t you use uranium instead of iron and rewind it so it will put out a wave-form like this, with humps here, and here; instead of there, and there?’ and he draws a couple of free-hand, but really beautiful curves.
“’Why should we?’ they squawk at him.
“’Because it will work that way,’ he says, and ambles out as unconcernedly as he came in. Can’t—or won’t—say another word.
“Well in sheer desperation, they tried it—and it WORKED! And nobody has ever had a minute’s trouble with a Bergenholm since. That’s why Rodebush and Cleveland both insisted on the name.”
“I see; and it points up what I just said. But if he’s such a mental giant, why isn’t he getting results with his own problem, the meteor? Or is he?”
“No . . . or at least he wasn’t as of last night. But there’s a note on my pad that he wants to see me sometime today – suppose we have him come in now?”
“Fine! I’d like to talk to him, if it’s O.K. with you and with him.”
The young scientist was called in, and was introduced to the Commissioner.
“Go ahead, Doctor Bergenholm,” Samms suggested then. “You may talk to both of us, just as freely as though you and I were alone.”
“I have, as you already know, been called psychic,” Bergenholm began, abruptly. “It is said that I dream dreams, see visions, hear voices, and so on. That I operate on hunches. That I am a genius. Now I very definitely am not a genius—unless my understanding of the meaning of that word is different from that of the rest of mankind.”
Bergenholm paused. Samms and Kinnison looked at each other. The latter broke the short silence.
“The Councillor and I have just been discussing the fact that there are a great many things we do not know; that with the extension of our activities into new fields, the occurrence of the impossible has become almost a commonplace. We are able, I believe, to listen with open minds to anything you have to say.”
“Very well. But first, please know that I am a scientist. As such, I am trained to observe; to think calmly, clearly, and analytically; to test every hypothesis. I do not believe at all in the so-called supernatural. This universe did not come into being, it does not continue to be, except by the operation of natural and immutable laws. And I mean immutable, gentlemen. Everything that has ever happened, that is happening now, or that ever is to happen, was, is, and will be statistically connected with its predecessor event and with its successor event. If I did not believe that implicitly, I would lose all faith in the scientific method. For if one single ‘supernatural’ event or thing had ever occurred or existed it would have constituted an entirely unpredictable event and would have initiated a series—a succession—of such events; a state of things which no scientist will or can believe possible in an orderly universe.
“At the same time, I recognize the fact that I myself have done things—caused events to occur, if you prefer—that I cannot explain to you or to any other human being in any symbology known to our science; and it is about an even more inexplicable—call it ‘hunch’ if you like—that I asked to have a talk with you today.”
“But you are arguing in circles,” Samms protested. “Or are you trying to set up a paradox?”
“Neither. I am merely clearing the way for a somewhat startling thing I am to say later on. You know, of course, that any situation with which a mind is unable to cope; a really serious dilemma which it cannot resolve; will destroy that mind-frustration, escape from reality, and so on. You also will realize that I must have become cognizant of my own peculiarities long before anyone else did or could?”
“Ah. I see. Yes, of course.” Samms, intensely interested, leaned forward. “Yet your present personality is adequately, splendidly integrated. How could you possibly have overcome—reconciled—a situation so full of conflict?”
“You are, I think, familiar with my parentage?” Samms, keen as he was, did not consider it noteworthy that the big Norwegian answered his question only by. asking one of his own.
“Yes . . . oh, I’m beginning to see . . . but Commissioner Kinnison has not had access to your dossier. Go ahead.”
“My father is Dr. Hjalmar Bergenholm. My mother, before her marriage, was Dr. Olga Bjornson. Both were, and are, nuclear physicists—very good ones. Pioneers, they have been called. They worked, and are still working, in the newest, outermost fringes of the field.”
“Oh!” Kinnison exclaimed..”A mutant? Born with second sight—or whatever it is?”
“Not second sight, as history describes the phenomenon, . no. The records do not show that any such faculty was ever demonstrated to the satisfaction of any competent scientific investigator. What I have is something else. Whether or not it will breed true is an interesting topic of speculation, but one having nothing to do with the problem now in hand. To return to the subject, I resolved my dilemma long since. There is, I am absolutely certain, a science of the mind which is as definite, as positive, as immutable of law, as is the science of the physical. While I will make no attempt to prove it to you, I know that such a science exists, and that I was born with the ability to perceive at least some elements of it.
“Now to the matter of the meteor of ‘the Patrol. That emblem was and is purely physical. The pirates have just as able scientists as we have. What physical science can devise and synthesize, physical science can analyze and duplicate. There is a point, however, beyond which physical science cannot go. It can neither analyze nor imitate the tangible products of that which I have so loosely called the science of the mind.
“I know, Councillor Samms, what the Triplanetary Service needs; something vastly more than its meteor. I also know that the need will become greater and greater as the sphere of action of the Patrol expands. Without a really efficient symbol, the Solarian Patrol will be hampered even more than the Triplanetary Service; and its logical extension into the Space Patrol, or whatever that larger organization may be called, will be definitely impossible. We need something which will identify any representative of Civilization, positively and unmistakably, wherever he may be. It must be impossible of duplication, or even of imitation, to which end it must kill any unauthorized entity who attempts imposture. It must operate as a telepath between its owner and any other living intelligence,, of however high or low degree, so that mental communication, so much clearer and faster than physical, will be possible without the laborious learning of language; or between us and such peoples as those of Rigel Four or of Palain Seven, both of whom we know to be of high intelligence and who must already be conversant with telepathy.”
“Are you or have you been, reading my mind?” Samms asked quietly.