“How long will that be?”
“I shall attempt, Chester, to impart the equivalent of a twenty-year course of development in a single year.”
“A year! But . . . ”
“I know; you’re concerned for your imaginary playmates.”
“I told you . . . ”
Norgo turned as a laden tray was placed before him. “Let me know your decision, Chester.”
“If I do it—you’ll let me back on my rug?”
Norgo nodded, sniffing a dish appreciatively.
“Of all the underhanded, unethical, unwarranted piracy I’ve ever encountered, this is undoubtedly the most unbelievable,” Chester said bitterly.
Norgo blinked. “You mean you’re refusing?”
“When do I start?”
6
Chester and Norgo clambered down from the open cockpits of the heli in which they had flown out from the Center. Chester looked around at the sweep of meadow, the wooded hills, and a low white building that covered a quarter acre near the crest of the slope. Cut in the white stone above the entry were the words: IS NOT IS NOT NOT IS
Norgo led the way across the grass and into an airy hall where mosaics stood out in brilliant color against white walls.
“Ah, here’s Kuve now,” Norgo said.
A tall young man with pale blond hair and a square jaw approached through an open archway. He greeted Norgo, studied Chester appraisingly.
“So this is to be my subject,” he said, circling Chester. “Remove your shirt, please.”
“Right now? I thought I’d have time to unpack, take a shower, stroll around, look over the campus, and then maybe have coffee, get acquainted with the other students, discuss the curriculum, plan a schedule . . . ”
Kuve broke in. “There will be no opportunity for coffee or strolls. Your schedule has been planned in advance. You will become acquainted with the plan as necessary.”
Chester slowly pulled off his shirt. “It sounds like a strange sort of school. How often will I be able to get back to town?”
“The trousers, please,” Kuve said.
“Right here in the lobby?”
Kuve looked at him, surprised. “It is comfortably warm, is it not?”
“Sure, but—”
“Tell me,” Kuve said interestedly, “are you under the impression that you are in some way unique?”
“I’m perfectly normal!”
Kuve looked Chester over carefully. “You’re going to make a fascinating project,” he said approvingly. “Norgo wasn’t exaggerating. Almost complete atrophy of the musculature, obvious limited articulation, minimal lung capacity, poor skin tone, barely sub-parthenogenic posture . . . ”
“Well, I’m sorry if I don’t come up to your expectations.”
“Oh, you do indeed. You even exceed them. But don’t be concerned. I’ve worked out a complete developmental scheme for you.”
“That’s fast work. It hasn’t been three hours since I volunteered.”
“Oh, I started on it a month ago, when Norgo told me you’d be volunteering.”
* * *
Chester trailed Kuve along a wide corridor to a small room lined with wall cabinets. Kuve pointed to one. “You will find garments there. Please put them on.”
Chester squeezed into a pair of trunks, laced on sandals, and stood. “Is this all I get? I feel like the New Year.”
A shapely young woman in a white kilt entered the room. She smiled at Chester, took a case of instruments from a cabinet, and reached for his hand. “I’m Mina. I’m going to trim your nails back and apply a growth-retarding agent,” she said cheerfully. “Hold still now.”
“What’s this for?”
“Excessively long hair and nails would be a painful nuisance in some of the training,” said Kuve. “Now, Chester, I want to ask you something: What is pain?”
“It’s . . . umm . . . uh . . . a feeling that comes from damage to the body.”
“Nearly right, Chester. Pain is based on fear of damage to the body.”
Kuve went to a wall shelf, brought back a small metal article and held it up.
“This is a manual shaving device, once in daily use. This sharp-edged blade was drawn over the skin of the face, cutting the hairs.”
“I’m glad I live in modern times.”
“Under optimum conditions, the process of removing a single day’s growth of facial hair with this instrument occasioned a pain level of .2 agons. Under merely average conditions, however, the level quickly rose to .5 agons, roughly equivalent to the sensation produced by a second-degree burn.”
“It’s amazing what people will put up with,” Chester said.
“Are your feet perfectly comfortable, Chester?”
“Certainly. Why shouldn’t they be?”
“You have callus tissue on both feet, as well as deformities caused by constricting footwear.”
“Well, melon-slicers may not be the most—”
“In order to have produced these conditions, you must have endured pain on the order of .5 agons continuously, for months and years. Yet probably you seldom noticed it.”
“Why notice it? There was nothing I could do about it.”
“Exactly. Pain is not an absolute; it is a state of mind, which you can learn to disregard.”
Kuve reached out, pinched the skin on Chester’s thigh. “You can see that I’m merely pressing with very moderate force. You are in no danger of injury.”
“Is that a promise?” said Chester nervously.
“Now close your eyes. Concentrate on the sensation of undergoing an amputation of the leg—without anesthetic. The knife slicing through the flesh, the saw attacking the living bone . . . ”
Chester squirmed in the chair. “Hey, that hurts! You’re bearing down too hard!”
Kuve released his grip. “I squeezed no harder, Chester. The association of the idea of injury intensified the sensation. You paid no attention whatever to Mina when she applied a measured stimulus of .4 agons to the exposed cuticle of your finger while I held your attention. You accepted the twinges of a manicure as normal and non-injurious.”
Chester rubbed his thigh. “The leg still hurts. I’ll have a bruise tomorrow.”
“You may.” Kuve nodded. “The control of the mind over bodily functions is extensive.”
Mina finished, flashed a smile at Chester and left the room.
“Let’s move along to the gymnasium.” Kuve led the way along a corridor to a larger room, high-ceilinged and fitted with gymnastic equipment. He turned to Chester. “What is fear?”
“It’s . . . uh . . . the feeling you get when you’re in danger.”
“It is the feeling that arises when you are unsure of your own capability to meet a situation.”
“You’re wrong on that one, Kuve. If a Bengal tiger walked in here I’d be scared, even if I knew exactly how incapable I was.”
“Look around you; what would you actually do if a wild beast did in fact enter this room?”
“Well, I’d run.”
“Where?”
Chester studied the room. “It wouldn’t do any good to start off down the hall; there’s no door to stop whatever was chasing me. I think I’d take that rope there.” He pointed to a knotted fifty-foot cable suspended from among high rafters.
“An excellent decision.”
“But I doubt if I could climb it.”
“So you are unsure of your capabilities.” Kuve smiled. “But try, Chester.”
Chester went to the rope, looked at it doubtfully. Kuve muttered into a wrist communicator. Chester grasped the rope, wrapped his legs around it, wriggled up six feet.
“This is . . . the best I can . . . do,” Chester puffed. He slid back to the floor.
There was a sound like water gurgling down a drain. Chester turned quickly. An immense tan mountain lion paced toward him, yellow eyes alight, a growl rumbling from its throat. With a yell Chester leaped for the rope, swarmed halfway to the distant rafters, and clung, looking down. Kuve patted the sleek head of the animal; it yawned, nuzzling his leg affectionately.
“You see? You were capable of more than you imagined,” Kuve called matter-of-factly.
“Where did that thing come from?” Chester called.
“He’s a harmless pet. When you mentioned a tiger, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make an object lesson.”
Chester slid down the rope slowly, eyes on the cat. Back on the floor, he edged behind Kuve, who slapped the animal’s flank. The animal padded away.
“If I called him back, you wouldn’t panic now, because you know he’s harmless. And if a really wild animal were released here, you’d know what to do—and that you were capable of doing it. You could watch the Bengal tiger you mentioned quite calmly and take to the rope only if necessary.”
“Maybe—but don’t try me. That cost me some skin.”
“Did you notice that—at the time?”
“All I was thinking about was that man-eater.”
“The fear and pain reactions are useful to the unthinking organism. But you have a reasoning mind, Chester. You could dispense with the automatic-response syndromes.”
“It’s better to be a live coward—”
“But you might be a dead coward, when mastery of fear could have saved you. Look down, Chester.”
Chester glanced at the floor. As he watched, the milky white surface cleared to transparency, all but a narrow ribbon on which he stood, scarcely four inches wide, spanning a yawning abyss below his feet set with jagged black rocks. Kuve stood by unconcernedly, apparently suspended in mid-air.