“We hadn’t expected to have to do it that way. We helped to see to it that the new constitution was liberal and-we thought-workable. But the new Republic turned out to be an even poorer thing than the old. The evil ethic of communism had corrupted, even after the form was gone. We held off. Now we know that we must hold off until we can revise the whole society.”
“Kettle Belly,” Joe said slowly, “you speak as if you had been on the spot. How old are you?”
“I’ll tell you when you are the age I am now. A man has lived long enough when he no longer longs to live. I ain’t there yet. Joe, I must have your answer, or this must be continued in our next.”
“You had it at the beginning-but, see here. Kettle Belly, there is one job I want promised to me.”
“Which is?”
“I want to kill Mrs. Keithley.”
“Keep your pants on. When you’re trained, and if she’s still alive then, you’ll be used for that purpose — ”
“Thanks!”
” — provided you are the proper tool for it.” Baldwin turned toward the mike, called out, “Gail!” and added one word in the strange tongue.
Gail showed up promptly. “Joe,” said Baldwin, “when this young lady gets through with you, you will be able to sing, whistle, chew gum, play chess, hold your breath, and fly a kite simultaneously-and all this while riding a bicycle under water. Take him, sis, he’s all yours.”
Gail rubbed her hands. “Oh, boy!”
“First we must teach you to see and to hear, then to remember, then to speak, and then to think.”
Joe looked at her. “What’s this I’m doing with my mouth at this moment?”
“It’s not talking, it’s a sort of grunting. Furthermore English is not structurally suited to thinking. Shut up and listen.”
In their underground classroom Gail had available several types of apparatus to record and manipulate light and sound. She commenced throwing groups of figures on a screen, in flashes. “What was it, Joe?”
“Nine-six-oh-seven-two-That was as far as I got.”
“It was up there a full thousandth of a second. Why did you get only the left hand side of the group?”
“That’s all the farther I had read.”
“Look at all of it. Don’t make an effort of will; just look at it.” She flashed another number.
Joe’s memory was naturally good; his intelligence was high-just how high he did not yet know. Un — convinced that the drill was useful, he relaxed and played along. Soon he was beginning to grasp a nine-digit array as a single gestalt; Gail reduced the flash time.
“What is this magic lantern gimmick?” he inquired.
“It’s a Renshaw tachistoscope. Back to work.”
Around World War II Dr. Samuel Renshaw at the Ohio State University was proving that most people are about one-fifth efficient in using their capacities to see, hear, taste, feel and remember. His research was swallowed in the morass of communist pseudoscience that obtained after World War III, but, after his death, his findings were preserved underground. Gail did not expose Gilead to the odd language he had heard until he had been rather thoroughly Renshawed.
However, from the time of his interview with Baldwin the other persons at the ranch used it in his presence — Sometimes someone-usually Ma Carver — would translate, sometimes not. He was flattered to feel accepted, but gravelled to know that it was at the lowest cadetship. He was a child among adults.
Gail started teaching him to hear by speaking to him single words from the odd language, requiring him to repeat them back. “No, Joe. Watch.’ This time when she spoke the word it appeared on the screen in sound analysis, by a means basically like one long used to show the deaf-and-dumb their speech mistakes.
“Now you try it.”
He did, the two arrays hung side by side. “How’s that, teacher?” he said triumphantly.
“Terrible, by several decimal places. You held the final guttural too long — ” She pointed. ” — the middle vowel was formed with your tongue too high and you pitched it too low and you failed to let the pitch rise. And six other things. You couldn’t possibly have been understood. I heard what you said, but it was gibberish. Try again. And don’t call me ‘teacher.'”