His mood began to lighten, and he repeated over and over to himself that he would soon be out of here. What was it the guide, their advisor and friendly antagonist, had said? “Now, gentlemen, good luck on this simple, though very basic, little formality. And may your disposition be as sweet in a few hours as it is right now.”
For anyone with a brain in his head, surely that comment ought to have been enough. But it hadn’t been enough. Still, better late than never.
He looked intensely at the shiny conical “key,” sunk in its hole.
“Soon,” thought Roberts, looking at it, “I’ll be out of here. I’ll be out of here, thanks to my good friend, the key.”
When he could actually feel flickerings of affection for the miserable device, as if it were a pet dog, he knelt, worked his fingers under it, and straightened.
The cone came up out of its hole as if made of balsa wood.
Roberts, now genuinely feeling friendly toward the thing, his mood actually cheerful, wasted no time going straight up the hill to the gate, and sliding the now-light key into its nearby cone-shaped recess in the concrete apron. He moved the cone around until the various studs, holes, plates and slots lined up, then he shoved it home, and reached down to turn it.
There was an instant of blankness, as when a man reaches for a tool he has laid down, and someone else has meanwhile walked off with it.
The cone, eighteen to twenty inches long, fit in the recess, about eighteen inches deep, to leave nothing exposed but its shiny curving surface. This surface offered no bump, hole, edge, or grip of any kind, and was mirror-smooth.
Roberts had expected the edge to project slightly, like the rim of a wheel. He stood looking down at this curving mirror, framed in its brass ring bearing the words:
“INSERT KEY AND TURN TO OPEN GATE.”
“Turn key.” How?
He crouched, and the key favored him with a distorted view of himself. He put both hands flat on the slick curved surface, pressed, and tried to turn it.
The key didn’t move. His hands slipped.
He sat back.
Now, he had to turn this thing, and to turn it, he had to get some kind of grip on it.
But there was nothing there to grip.
Staring at it, he made two or three more tries to figure it out, and the thing threw him each time, like some kind of mental judo champ.
He gave that up, and turned around, facing down the sloping hill, where he at least wouldn’t have to look at his distorted reflection.
Down the hill, all the dents at the bottom of the slope were obvious now, plain messages that the weight of the key could vary.
Roberts looked up.
Could he turn it by some similar process?
He crouched by the key, and now he willed it to turn.
Time after time, he imagined that the mirror-smooth surface rotated.
The gate, however, didn’t move a fraction of an inch, but remained blandly reflected, along with his own distorted image, in the shining surface of the key.
He tried emotion on it. He hated it, beamed friendship at it, commanded, pleaded, believed, saw it turn— Dizzy and beginning to question his own sanity, he sat down again, facing down the slope so as to get the thing out of his sight.
There had to be some other way to figure this out.
Let’s see now. After all, this was a test. It followed that, contrary to what might otherwise be the case, there should be some rhyme or reason to it.
A good part of the problem was therefore to figure out the viewpoint of the tester.
Now, the Interstellar Patrol might be tricky, devious, or brutally direct, but it wasn’t stupid. And this problem would almost certainly bear the characteristic mark of its maker.
Now, why did the Patrol give this test? It was a part of basic training. It must be to drive home some important point. What was it the guide had said? —”A quality may be indispensable, but insufficient by itself. And the necessary additional quality may be its apparent opposite.”
Now, what had he been shown but that mental attitude was important?
What would be the natural remainder of the test?
In actual life, particularly in tight spots, was mental attitude important?
Yes.
Was it enough?
No.
What else did it take?
The physical part of the problem had to be dealt with.
Now, the physical part of this problem was that slick featureless mirror-smooth surface. How to grip what offered no hold? Well, it was often necessary to grip or turn some ordinary slippery surface. How? By gripping it tighter. And what did that mean? —By exerting greater pressure.
Roberts turned around incredulously, to look at the evidence of how thoroughly he had been sent down the wrong track by mental indirection.
There was the shiny surface in the concrete apron. Right beside it, reflected in the surface, was the locked gate with its strong horizontal bars.
Roberts went to the gate, stood on his hands, his feet up against the bars of the gate, walked his hands to the edges of the shiny key, locked his elbows, and straightened his knees. He could feel the heavy pressure in his joints, and now he twisted clockwise—no result—then counterclockwise. Under his hands, the shiny surface smoothly turned.
The gate began to slide.
He dropped to his feet, saw the gate slide wide-open, and stepped through.
That “little formality” was over.
Now, there stretched before him a path through open woods, doubtless leading to the final test.
And abruptly, Roberts could feel his viewpoint change.
Inevitably, a new member of the Interstellar Patrol, seeking some ground for confidence that he could handle his job, would look back to his training in the hope that, having handled training as tough as that, he could therefore handle the job, too.
Roberts started down the path.
Anyone in his right senses would hope for as speedy and simple an end to this grind as possible. But that wasn’t what he hoped for.
As he headed down the path, Roberts had one fervent wish for this last problem:
Let it be tough!
TEST ULTIMATE
Vaughan Roberts, his muscles tired and sore, stood in the clearing with the other recruits, waiting for the last test to begin. Roberts leaned into the wind that had sprung up, and that made the branches of the trees lift and sway, hiding and then uncovering the dazzling sun. The shifting shadow and glare made it hard to see the guide who had led them almost to the end of the training course, and who now spoke to them from a low platform of logs at the edge of the clearing.
“Just one final test, gentlemen,” the guide was saying, “and then your training will be over, and you will be full members of the Interstellar Patrol.
“There isn’t much to this final exercise, but you must carry it out successfully to pass the course, so you might be interested in a few brief comments.
“To survive, and successfully do his duty, a member of the Interstellar Patrol must make the right use of courage. This quality is so important the final test will emphasize the proper use of courage.
“Now, this is not a complicated test. But it has its points, gentlemen, as I think you will agree after it is over.
“The problem is simply to climb a rock face twenty-five feet in height, onto the ledge at the top. The climb is not difficult, but to get to this rock face, you must first cross a wide, shallow pool. It is a pretty pool, at first glance. But it is stocked with carnivorous fish.
“Remember, gentlemen, this is a test in the proper use of courage. You may not enjoy it, but you must do the best you can to succeed, whatever that may involve.
“To avoid too high a loss rate, the test will be given by simulator. You will experience a highly realistic illusion, that, to your senses, will be the same as if it were real.
“As an aid in learning, a special guide will be assigned to each one of you in this final test.”
* * *
Roberts abruptly found himself standing in the quiet shade of tall trees, on a stony slope that slanted gradually down to a wide, shallow pool of sparkling, splashing water. Directly across the pool was a narrow border of marsh, rising to a steep forested hill farther back. To Roberts’ left, across the length of the pool, was a gray rock face, down which a rivulet of water trickled onto a wide rock shelf, whence it flowed quietly into the pool.
For an instant, the scene seemed pleasant. Then Roberts realized that the sparkle and splash were caused by sleek steel-gray forms that burst up out of the water to snap, and then splatter and splash the surface. The ceaseless flash and snap, and the splatter and splash as the carnivorous fish fell back, now made the pool look to him like a kind of seething hellish cauldron.