‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said Blake.
‘You thought your Brownie was another hallucination?’
‘Yes, I did. I expected him to go away all the time, to simply vanish from my sight. But he didn’t. He sat there eating and wiping the crumbs off his whiskers and telling me where to place the flies. Over there, he’d say, there’s a big one over there just between that swirl of water and the bank. And there would be. He seemed to know where the fish were.’
‘He was paying you back for the lunch. He was giving you good luck.’
‘You think he actually did know where the fish were? I know, it seemed to me it did, but…’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ said Daniels. ‘As I told you, we don’t know too much about the Brownies. They probably have abilities we lack. Knowing where to find the fish might be one of them.’ He glanced sharply at Blake. ‘You’d never heard about the Brownies? The real ones, I mean.’
‘No, I never had.’
‘I think that gives us a good time peg,’ said Daniels, ‘If you had been here, on Earth, at that time, you would have heard about it.’
‘Maybe I did, but don’t remember.’
‘I don’t think so. The incident, to judge from the writings at the time, made a great public impression. It’s something that you would have recalled if you’d ever heard of it. It would have made a deep impression on your mind.’
‘We have other time pegs,’ said Blake. ‘This get-up that we wear is new to me. Robes and shorts and sandals. I can recall that I wore some sort of trousers and a jerkin. And the ships. The gravity grids are new to me. I can remember that we used nuclear power…’
‘We still do.’
‘Nuclear power alone in my day. Now it is an auxiliary force to build up greater velocity, but the real power comes from the control and manipulation of gravitational forces.’
‘There are a number of other things that are new to you, too,’ said Daniels. ‘The houses…’
‘They almost drove me crazy to start with,’ Blake said. ‘But I’m relieved about that Brownie. It subtracts one potential incident from my situation.’
‘These hallucinations. You don’t think they are, of course. You told me yesterday.’
‘I can’t see how they can be,’ said Blake. ‘I remember everything that happens up to a certain point, then there is a blank and finally I’m myself again. I can’t remember a thing that happened during that blank period, although there is abundant evidence that something did transpire. And there is a definite period of time to account for it.’
‘The second one,’ said Daniels, ‘happened while you slept.’
‘True. But the Room observed certain phenomena, which transpired over a definite period of time.’
‘What kind of house do you have?’
‘A Norman-Gilson B258.’
‘One of the newer and better models.’ Daniels told him. ‘Beautifully instrumented and computerized. Practically foolproof. Not much that could go wrong with one of them.’
‘I don’t think anything did go wrong,’ said Blake. ‘I think the Room told the truth. I think something was happening in that room. When I woke up I was on the floor…’
‘But with no idea of what had happened, not until the Room told you. No idea as to why these things happen?’
‘None at all. I had hoped you might have some idea.’
‘Not, actually,’ said Daniels. ‘No real idea, that is. There are two things about you – how do I say this?’- well, that are confusing. Your physical condition, for one thing. You look like a man of thirty, perhaps the middle thirties. There are some lines in your face. You have the appearance of maturity. And yet your body is the body of a youth. There is no breakdown, no sign that breakdown is beginning. You’re a perfect physical specimen. And if you’re that, why the facial appearance of thirty?’
‘And the other thing? You said there were two.’
‘The other? Well, your electro-encephalogram shows up a strange pattern. The main brain pattern is there and recognizable. But there is something else as well. Almost – and I hesitate to say this – but almost as if another, or other brain patterns were transposed on your own. Rather feeble brain patterns, subsidiary patterns probably would be the way to say it, showing up, but not too strongly.’
‘What are you trying to say, doctor? That there is something wrong mentally? Which would explain the hallucinations, of course. Which might mean there really are hallucinations.’
Daniels shook his head. ‘No, not that. But strange. Nothing to indicate any malfunction. Nothing that would indicate any brain deterioration. Your mind, apparently, is as healthy and as normal as your body. But almost as if you had more than one brain. Although we know, of course, that you have only one. The X-rays show that very clearly.’
‘You’re sure that I am human?’
‘Your body says you are. Why do you ask?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Blake. ‘You found me out in space. I came from space…’
‘I see,’ said Daniels. ‘But forget about it. There is no shred of evidence that you’re anything but human. The overwhelming evidence is that you are.’
‘And now what? I go back home and wait for more of these. . .’
‘Not right away,’ said Daniels. ‘We’d like you to stay with us for a while. A few more days. If you are willing.’
‘More tests?’
‘Well, perhaps. I’d like to talk with some of my colleagues, let some of them look at you. They may have something to offer. Mostly, I guess I’d like you to stay for some further observation.’
‘In case there is another hallucination?’
‘Something like that,’ said Daniels.
‘This brain business bothers me,’ said Blake. ‘More than one, you say…’
‘No. Just a suggestion of the encephalogram. I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘OK,’ said Blake. ‘I won’t.’
But what was it that Brownie had asked? How many of you are there? I could have sworn, when I first looked at you, that there was more than one of you.
‘Doctor, about this Brownie…’
‘What about the Brownie?’
‘Nothing, I guess,’ said Blake. ‘Nothing that’s important.’
10
Excerpt from proceedings of senatorial inquiry (regional, Washington, North America) into the proposal for a programme of biological engineering as the basis for a colonizing policy on other solar systems.
MR PETER DOTY, committee counsel: Your name is Austin Lukas?
DR LUKAS: Yes, sir. I reside in Tenafly. New Jersey and am employed at Biologics, Inc. in New York City-Manhattan.
MR DOTY: You head up the research department of that company, do you not?
DR LUKAS: I am the chief of one of the research programmes.
MR DOTY: And this programme deals with bioengineering?
DR LUKAS: Yes sir, it does. At the moment we are especially concerned with the problem of developing an all-purpose agricultural animal.
MR DOTY: Would you please explain.
DR LUKAS: Gladly. Our hope is to be able to develop an animal which will provide several different types of meat, that will give milk, provide wool or hair or fur, perhaps all three. It would replace, we would hope, the many specialized animals which man has used in his animal husbandry since the Neolithic Revolution.
SENATOR STONE: And I take it, Dr Lukas, that you have some indications your research may result in some practical success.
DR LUKAS: Indeed we do. I might say that we have the basic problems licked. We actually have a herd of these animals. What we are trying for now are certain refinements. We have as our goal the development of a single animal which will replace all the other farm animals, supplying everything they now supply.
SENATOR STONE: And in this you also have some hope of success?
DR LUKAS: We are very much encouraged.
SENATOR STONE: And what do you call this animal that you have now, may I ask?
DR LUKAS: We have no name for it, senator. We haven’t even bothered to try to think of one.
SENATOR STONE: It wouldn’t be a cow, would it?
DR LUKAS: No, not entirely. It would have some bovine aspects, naturally.
SENATOR STONE: Nor a pig? Nor sheep?
DR LUKAS: No, neither of those. Not entirely, of course. But with some characteristics of both.
SENATOR HORTON: I think that there is no need to go through these long preliminaries. What my distinguished colleague wants to ask you is whether this creature you are developing is something entirely new in the way of life – a synthetic life, let’s say – or whether it still can claim some relationship to present and natural forms?
DR LUKAS: That, senator, is an extremely difficult question to answer. One could say, in all truthfulness, that the present and natural forms of life have been retained and used as patterns, but that what we have is essentially a new kind of animal.