somewhere else, disassembles himself in a fraction of a second-poof!-and
reassembles him self at his destination. Of course, I’m also assuming
the remains intact even during the time the body is dispersed
disconnected atoms, because it would have to be the sheer power of the
mind that transports those billions of particles and keeps them together
like a shepherd collie herding she then welds them to one another again
in the right configurations at the far end.”
Though his weariness was sufficient to have resulted from an impossibly
complex and strenuous task like the one Bobby had just described, Frank
was unconvinced.
“Well, gee, I don’t know…. This isn’t something you go to school to
learn about doesn’t have a course in teleportation. So it’s…
Instinct? Even supposing I instinctively know how to break body down
into a stream of atomic particles and send it some where else, then put
it together again… how can any human mind, even the greatest genius
ever born, be powerful enough to keep track of those billions of
particles and get them all exactly as they belong? It’d take a hundred
geniuses, a thousand years, and I’m not even one. I’m no dummy, but I’m
no brighter than the average guy.”
“You’ve answered your own question,” Bobby said.
don’t need superhuman intelligence for this, ’cause teleportation isn’t
primarily a function of intelligence. It’s not instinct either. It’s
just… well, an ability programmed into your genetic makeup like
vision or hearing
or the sense of smell. Think of it this way. You look at things with
your eyes. Your eyes are composed of billions of separate points of
color and light and shade and texture, yet your eyes instantly order
those billions of bits of input into a coherent scene. You don’t have
to think about seeing. You just see, automatic. You understand what I
meant about magic? This is almost magical. With teleportation, there’s
probably a mechanism you have to pull-like wishing yourself to
elsewhere-but thereafter the process is pretty much automatic; the mind
makes it happen the way it makes instantaneous sense of all the data
coming in through your eyes.” Frank closed his eyes tight and
concentrated on wishing himself into the reception lounge. When he
opened his eyes and was still in the inner office, he said, “It doesn’t
work. It’s not that easy. I can’t do it at will.”
Hal said, “Bobby, are you saying all of us have this ability, and only
Frank has figured out how to use it?”
“No, no. This is probably a scrap of genetic material unique to Frank,
maybe even a talent that sprung from genetic damage-”
They were all silent, absorbing what Bobby had conjectured.
Outside, the layer of clouds was cracking, peeling, and the old blue
paint of the sky was showing through in more places every minute. But
the brightening day did not lift Frank’s spirits.
Finally Hal Yamataka indicated the pile of garments on the coffee table.
“How does all this explain the condition of those clothes?”
Bobby picked up the blue cotton sweater and held it so they could see
the khaki swatch on the back.
“Okay, let’s suppose the mind can automatically shepherd all the
molecules of its own body through the teleportation process without a
single error. It can also deal with other things Frank wants to take
with him, like his clothes-”
“And bags full of money,” Julie said.
“But why the bed railing?” Hal asked.
“No reason for him to want to take that with him.”
To Frank, Bobby said, “You can’t remember it now, but you clearly knew
what was happening while you were caught up in that series of
teleportations. You were trying to stop, you asked Hal to help you
stop, and you seized the railing to stop yourself, to anchor yourself to
the hospital room. You were concentrating on your grip on that railing,
so when you went, you took it with you. As for the clothes getting
scrambled the way they are… Maybe your mind concentrates first on
getting your body back together in the proper order because error-free
physical re-creation is crucial to your survival, but then sometimes you
might not have the energy left to do as good a job on secondary things