Garvin hesitated, then went to the door.
Captain Moklin glanced up and smiled. Across the room, the patient slept peacefully.
Garvin said in a low voice, “Does the major always use the same treatment?”
“No. It depends on the patient.”
That was helpful, thought Garvin sourly.
Moklin said, “Major Poffis looks to see what is wrong with the patient, then he fixes it. Down the corridor is one who is here because it is against his principles to obey orders. Major Poffis will break his arguments into little bits and pieces. He will make it all so clear that the prisoner will go out seeing the question in a new light. But most of these uncontrollables have a treatment more like this one here. Only, each treatment is different in the details, because the prisoners are different.”
Garvin nodded. He was still getting nowhere. At random, to keep the conversation going until he thought of a new approach, he said, “No wonder the major complained about the work-load.”
“Yes,” said Moklin, “the work-load is piling up, and the major hasn’t even an apprentice to help him.”
Garvin nodded sympathetically, then blinked, “Apprentice? You mean you teach psychotherapy by the apprentice system?”
“Not I,” said Moklin, block-headedly literal minded.
“No, no,” said Garvin, “I mean is that the Centran system for teaching psychotherapy?”
“The Centran system?” said Moklin blankly. “Why should we have only one system? Also, there are schools that teach it.”
“Yes, but you can’t have both!”
Moklin looked at him. “Why not?”
“Well, the results wouldn’t be uniform, for one thing.”
“So?”
Garvin looked blank. Here he was again. The Centrans, block-headed fellows, did some silly thing, and when Garvin tried to explain why it was silly, the reasons evaporated, and he was left with this foolish feeling.
“Well,” he said stubbornly, “obviously a man taught at a special school would know more than a mere apprentice. By the results not being uniform, I mean that the apprentice would be inferior.”
“Oh, you think so? With Major Poffis to teach, you think the apprentice would be laggardly in his efforts?”
“Well, no, I can see the major would keep him working, but—after all, there are a lot of things to be taught. At a school, there would be special teacher for each subject.”
Moklin nodded agreeably. “And this special teacher will have a class with many in it, and split his efforts among the class.”
“All right,” said Garvin angrily, “if this apprentice system works, why do the students go to school instead of apprenticing themselves to the major?”
“Because,” said Moklin promptly, “they are afraid to apprentice themselves to the major. Once they apprentice themselves to him, he will not let them go until they are almost as good at cures as he is, and he is one of the best there is. It will be nothing but work, work, study, practice, practice, and the major will see through excuses, punish laziness, stimulate earnest hard work, and judge with merciless accuracy. And we have been unable to find any students who are anxious to go through this.”
Garvin thought it over. “But at the end, his apprentice will be almost as good at it as he is?”
“Oh, yes. Major Poffis will see to that.”
“H’m.” Garvin paused to consider. He was totally fed up with floundering around. Among other kinds of patients, Rolling Hills Rest and Rehabilitation Center, where Garvin worked, got a good number of uncontrollables. The frustration in dealing with them was terrific. “Ah,” said Garvin, “is there any limitation—on age, race and so on—would the major take a—ah—an Earthman, past the usual student age—”
“With this work-load,” said Moklin, “the major would take anyone, provided the apprentice was in earnest, and, of course, showed some promise.”
“How many apprentices can the major take at once?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never known him to take more than three at one time.”
Garvin thought hard. He would like to have a record of cures like the major’s. On the other hand, he certainly did not want the major’s undiluted attention focused on him alone. It followed that he would need to interest someone else. How about Hardison? After that second strangling attempt, Hardison had sworn that he had always wanted to be a corporation lawyer, and the director had practically turned himself inside out to keep Hardison from quitting, right on the spot, and heading for law school.
Then there was Hergeswalther. His brief sojourn in fantasy-land had given him a new outlook. Who among the staff hadn’t heard him muttering, “I could go nuts myself, any time. Any time.” What wouldn’t Hergeswalther do to get a better grip on sanity?
Here are two additional prospective apprentices, if Garvin could only sell them on the idea. He glanced at Moklin.
“How much do apprentices get paid?”
“Not much as apprentices, beyond room and board,” said Moklin, adding at once, “But they get very high pay when they have acquired their skill.”
“H’m,” said Garvin, “that’s very interesting.”
In his mind, he was saying to Hardison and Hergeswalther, “It’s a tremendously exciting idea to me, from a scientific viewpoint. Here was a method that works, that turns out cures like clockwork, and it’s never really been scientifically analyzed.”
“Yes,” he could hear Hardison say, “But, for God’s sake, Garv, to apprentice ourselves to this Centran witch doctor—”
“I know, I know. But that’s the only way to really get his methods. We could write a book afterward, detailing the underlying scientific elements of the cures.”
“Hey, we could, couldn’t we?” Hardison had always wanted to write a book.
Hergeswalther said uneasily, “And, meanwhile, what do we eat?”
“Well, we get room and board, and I guess not much more. But afterward we’ve got the ability. And then they really pay. Believe me, there’s plenty of business there. The patients are piling up fast. And we could cure them.”
“Yes,” said Hardison, with a smile. “That would be a change, wouldn’t it? If our treatment would work.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“Just think, Walt,” said Hardison, “we could call the book, Elements of Centran Psychotherapy.”
Hergeswalther’s lips repeated the title, and he added softly, “By Hergeswalther, Hardison and Garvin.”
“Yes,” murmured Hardison, half-aloud. “By Hardison, Hergeswalther and Garvin.”
Garvin came out of his fantasy. Actually, he told himself, the book should be “By Garvin, Hardison and Hergeswalther.” Any fool could tell that it sounded better that way. Not that that argument would get anywhere with the other two. Let’s see now: A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i . . . Of course! It was alphabetical! Garvin could rest his case solidly on that argument.
Beaming, Garvin got his coat and turned to thank Moklin for a very pleasant visit.
Moklin said, “I am sorry, Dr. Garvin, that you must go now. Shall I say good-by to the major for you?”
Garvin shook his head.
“Don’t bother,” said Garvin. “I’ll be back!”
Afterword by Eric Flint
Pandora’s Legions has a complicated history.
The Pandora “cycle” began with the publication in the September 1956 issue of Astounding magazine of a novelette entitled “Pandora’s Planet.” (That novelette is included in this volume as “Part I.”) In the years which followed, Christopher Anvil pursued two separate lines of development from that original story.
In one line, following the career of the Centran character Horsip who stars in “Pandora’s Planet,” he expanded the original novelette into a novel with the same title—Pandora’s Planet, first published in 1972. The novelette “Pandora’s Planet” constitutes the first seven chapters of that novel.
Periodically, in the course of that novel, references are made to the adventures of a human character named John Towers—but the adventures themselves remain entirely offstage. Towers’ part of the story was recounted instead in a series of stories published in Astounding/Analog during the 1960s: “Pandora’s Envoy” (April 1961), “The Toughest Opponent” (August 1962) and “Trap” (March 1969). The first was a short story, the later two were both novellas.
In addition, in June 1966, the short story “Sweet Reason” also appeared in If Science Fiction. Although it is placed in the same setting as the other Pandora stories, “Sweet Reason” is not directly part of the Horsip/Towers cycle.
When I set out to edit this volume, I re-read all the Pandora’s stories for the first time in many years. As a teenager, Christopher Anvil had been—along with James H. Schmitz—one of my favorite authors appearing regularly in Astounding and Analog. But in the intervening years, I had forgotten how closely connected the series of Towers stories were to the novel version of Pandora’s Planet.
I was a bit mystified, in fact. Why hadn’t those stories been included in the novel? The Horsip and Towers stories fit together perfectly! And the end result of combining them would be a single story which was (in my opinion, anyway) better than either “branch” of the story published separately.
When I put that question to Christopher Anvil, his explanation reminded me how much the world of SF publishing has changed over the decades. My own fiction has all been published beginning in the mid-90s (a short story in 1993 and my first novel, Mother of Demons, in 1997). Like most full-time professional SF writers nowadays, I’m a novelist who (as a rule) only writes shorter pieces on invitation for anthologies. Anvil, on the other hand—like almost all professional SF writers of earlier generations—made his living primarily from short form fiction.