"I could show you how to heal yourself, Tak Laleen."
"Ever since I came here I've been learning, Lanny. But it does no good unless I'm willing to learn first. My mind is tied down by everything I already know. I can put my two and two together as often as I like, and I still come up with four. Any other answer is insanity1."
Twice, as they walked through the streets, Pendillo took a turn which led toward one of the enemy chapels3. Lanny swiftly guided the missionary4 in another direction. The third time they came upon the Chapel2 of the Triangle suddenly, and before he could pull Tak Laleen back she broke free and fled toward the glowing Triangle, crying for help in her native tongue.
Lanny sprinted5 after her. Tak Laleen beat with her fists on the metal door. From the air above them came the high whine6 of a materializing force-field. Capsules swung down upon them. The missionary was swallowed within the church. Lanny and his father were enveloped7 in a single bubble.
It rose on an automatic beam and arched toward the skyport. In panic Lanny glanced down through the opalescent8 field at the settlement rolling by beneath them, and the choppy water of the bay, turned scarlet9 by the setting sun. Pendillo leaned calmly against the curved wall of their prison.
"She betrayed us!" Lanny cried.
"I expected her to, my son."
"You—you knew this would happen?"
"A teacher must sometimes contrive10 a unique—and possibly painful—learning situation. It's one of the risks of our profession."
"Why, father? She'll tell the Almost-men about the attack on the skyport; she'll tell them—"
Pendillo tapped the curved wall of force. "We're in a tight spot, Lanny. It's up to you to get us out—without a gun and without any of the enemy machines. All you have to work with are your brains and what we've taught you for the past twenty years. I think you can count on some help from Gill later on. He'll have to attack the skyport tonight, without working out all his fine plans for seizing the arsenal11. And Gill won't have any guns, either."
"So you and Endhart planned this."
"That's why I insisted on keeping Tak Laleen alive. I thought we might need her as—as a catalyst12. The vote of the resistance council rushed things a little, but on the whole I think it worked out quite satisfactorily. Your education is finished, Lanny—for all of you who are the new breed. Now start applying what we think you know."
For a brief time the prison sphere that held Lanny and Juan Pendillo was suspended above the teeming13 tiers of skyport streets. Enough time, Lanny guessed, for the enemy to question Tak Laleen and to reach some decision based upon what she had to tell them. Abruptly14 the capsule was hauled down. Lanny and his father were dumped into barred cells buried somewhere in the bowels15 of the city.
"What will they do with us?" Lanny asked.
From the adjoining cell his father answered placidly16, "It depends on Tak Laleen's statement—and how much of it they believe."
Lanny drew in his breath sharply, suddenly afraid. "What's it like, father—the readjustment?"
"No one knows, really. A machine tears your mind apart and puts it together again—differently."
Lanny shivered as he remembered the half-dozen readjustment cases he had seen in the Santa Barbara treaty area—living shells, with all initiative and individuality drained from their souls. He moved to the barred door of his cell. For a split-second of panic he seized the bars and futilely20 tried to pry21 them apart. Slowly edging into his consciousness came a vague awareness22 of the structural23 pattern of the energy units in the metal. It was the same extension of his integrated community of cells which he had with his hunting club. His panic vanished; he felt a little ashamed because he had been afraid. It would be no problem to escape.
He held the bars and allowed his mind to feel through the pattern of energy organization. The metal was very different from any of the familiar substances Lanny knew, but far less complex because the arrangement was so rigidly24 disciplined. There were two things that Lanny might do. He could fit the energy units of his own body past the space intervals25 of the metal—in effect, passing through the metal barrier. But that would be slow and exacting26 work. It would require a considerable concentration to move the specialized27 cells of his body across the metal maze28. The second method was easier. As he extended his cerebral29 integration30 into the metal, he could rearrange the energy unit pattern. The bars should fragment and fall apart.
Lanny was amazed how rapidly the change took place. Before he could adjust the pattern of more than half a dozen energy units, a chain reaction began. Lanny found he had to absorb an enormous flow of superfluous31 energy to prevent an explosion.
As soon as he crossed into the corridor, watching photo-electric cells sent an alarm pulsing into the guard room on the tier above. The metal-walled corridor throbbed32 with the deafening33 cry of a siren.
Lanny darted34 toward his father's cell. "Hold the metal and make it over with your mind—just as we integrate with our clubs. It's the same principal, father."
Lanny had no time to weigh the significance of what his father said for the scream of the siren stopped and a guard appeared at the head of the corridor. The guard wrapped himself hastily in the shell of a force-field capsule. He fired his energy gun. The knife of flame arched through the corridor and struck Lanny's face. His body reacted instinctively36, absorbing and storing part of the charge and re-constructing the rest so that it became a harmless combination of inert37 gasses.
But as the blinding flame splashed bright in Lanny's eyes—the way it had once before, when he murdered old Barlow—Lanny's mind faced the traumatic shock of remembering. Lanny had murdered Barlow—he knew that, now—murdered him with a blaze of energy which he had stored when he brushed against the force-field capsule surrounding Tak Laleen.
It was not the fact of murder that had clamped the strait-jacket of forgetfulness on Lanny's mind and allowed him to think Tak Laleen had killed Barlow. He had known, for one split-second, the full maturity38 of the education Pendillo had given his sons. Known it too soon, with too little preparation. Now he understood why he had felt ashamed, why he'd retreated deliberately39 from the truth: because he had killed Barlow to resolve an old argument, not to be rid of a traitor40. The method of murder had, ironically, given him the answer to Barlow's poison of despair; but because the two had happened simultaneously41, the emotional shock of one had affected42 the other.
The bursting charge of energy washed away his absurdly exaggerated sense of guilt43. He achieved the mature integration he had lost before; his mind was whole again. The integration was nothing new—merely a restatement of what Pendillo had taught him, what all the treaty area teachers taught the new children. The mind of man could control the energy structure of matter. Pendillo called that rationality. But matter and energy were synonymous. The teachers had implied that without teaching it directly. A mind that could heal a body wound was also able to control the energy blast from an enemy gun.
From his father's cell Lanny heard a stifled44 groan45. He looked back. The bars of the cell had been twisted by the blast; Pendillo was badly hurt. His wounds seemed to be extensive, but Lanny was sure his father would heal himself quickly.
Lanny sprang at the guard. The Almost-man had enough courage to hold his ground, still sure of his impregnable machines. He was aiming his energy gun again when Lanny touched the opalescent capsule. That, too, was nothing now; Lanny had found his way into the new world. The field of force was simply energy in another form. Lanny could have reshaped the field, intensified46 it, or dissolved it as he chose.
He shattered the capsule, like a bubble of glass. He smashed the gun aside. The guard stood before him, stripped of his mechanical armor—a man, facing his enemy as a man.
As the guard turned to run, Lanny reached out for him leisurely47. Weakly the guard swung his fist at Lanny's face. Lanny laughed and slapped at the ineffectual, white hand. The guard howled and clutched the broken fingers against his mouth. Desperately48 he kicked at Lanny with his metal-soled boots. Lanny dodged49. The unexpected momentum50 sent the guard reeling and he had no efficient capsule to hold him up.
He sprawled51 on the metal floor close to his energy gun. He grasped for the weapon as Lanny leaped toward him. For one brief moment Lanny saw madness film his enemy's eyes. Then the guard began to scream. He thrust the muzzle52 of the energy gun against his own chest and pressed the firing stud.
Lanny turned away from the smoldering53 heap of charred54 flesh and went back to his father's cell. He disorganized the energy units of the tormented55 knot of metal bars and knelt beside Pendillo. Lanny was amazed that his father had made no effort to heal his wounds. Juan was bleeding profusely56; his eyes were glazed57 with pain. Lanny lifted Pendillo tenderly in his arms.
"Father! You must begin the healing—"
"I do not know how, Lanny."
"All men control their own body cells!"
"So you were taught, and what a man believes is true—for him."
Cautiously Lanny extended his energy integration into his father's body. It was something he had never done before with a living man. The weak disorganization of cells frightened him. Clearly Pendillo was telling the truth; he was incapable58 of ordering his own healing. Then how had he taught his sons so well, if he could not use the technique himself?
Hesitantly Lanny released into his father's body some of the energy he had stored. He wasn't sure what the effect would be, but it seemed to help. Pendillo tried to smile; his eyes became clearer.
"Thanks, Lanny. But you can't save me, my son. I've lost too much blood; I have too many internal injuries."
"But you could do it for yourself, Father." Lanny shook his head. "I don't understand why—"
"You wouldn't, Lanny. You're the new breed."
"You say that so often."
"In my time that might have meant a new species—supermen we created by genetics in a biological laboratory. But we've done more than that. You aren't freaks; you're our children in every sense of the word. We have made you men; we've taught you how to think."
"You deliberately made us as we are?"
"Every man who lived before your time was an Almost-man, Lanny. He had your same potential, but he hadn't learned how to use it."
"How are we different?"
Pendillo was seized with a sudden spasm59 of coughing; blood trickled60 from his lips. Once again Lanny released a shock wave of energy into his father's body, and Pendillo's strength was partially61 restored.
"I will tell you as much as I can," Pendillo promised, but his voice was no longer as clear as it had been. "I don't have much time left. The idea for our new breed of men began at the time of the invasion. Lanny, there wasn't much to choose from between our people and the enemy. Our cities were like theirs; we were enslaved by machines—by the technological62 bric-a-brac of our culture—as they are. Only our science was different. We had exploited the energy of coal and oil and water-power; we were beginning to accumulate a good deal of data about the basic atomic structure of matter.
"But we would have ridiculed64 any serious consideration of degravitation, or the magnetic energy of a field of force. These were the trappings of our escapist fiction, not of genuine science. We had a more or less closed field allowed to legitimate65 scientific research; any data beyond it was vigorously ignored.
"Then, from nowhere, we were invaded and utterly66 defeated by an alien people who used the precise laws of science we had scorned. Furthermore, we saw them ridicule63 our principles as semi-religious rituals of a savage67 culture. In the invasion less than a tenth of mankind survived. We were herded68 into the treaty areas, with no government and no real leadership. Some of us had been teachers before the war; the survivors69 looked to us to preserve the spirit and the ideals of man.
"We had to make a selective choice, Lanny. We had no books, no written records, no way to preserve the whole of the past. The teachers in all the treaty areas quickly established contact by courier. The lesson of the invasion had taught us a great deal. Men had been imprisoned70 by one scientific dogma, which had produced a mechanized and neurotic71 world. The Almost-men were trapped by another that had produced the same end result.
"So we had our first objective: to teach our children the supreme72 dignity, the magnificent godliness, of the rational mind. We didn't tell you what to think—which had been our mistake in the past—but simply the vital necessity of rational thought. We taught you that the mind was the integrating factor in the universe; everything else was chaos73, without objectivity or direction, until it was controlled by mind. After that, we jammed your brains with data from every field of knowledge that had ever been explored by man. That's why we interchanged couriers so frequently. In our world we had been specialists; we had to share the facts among ourselves so the new breed might have them all."
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1
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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4
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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5
sprinted
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| v.短距离疾跑( sprint的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
opalescent
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| adj.乳色的，乳白的 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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catalyst
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| n.催化剂，造成变化的人或事 | |
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teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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14
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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17
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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20
futilely
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| futile（无用的）的变形； 干 | |
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pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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22
awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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structural
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| adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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29
cerebral
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| adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的 | |
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integration
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| n.一体化，联合，结合 | |
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31
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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32
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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33
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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34
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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35
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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36
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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41
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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42
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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43
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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44
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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45
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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46
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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48
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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49
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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50
momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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51
sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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52
muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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53
smoldering
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| v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 ) | |
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54
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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55
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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56
profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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57
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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58
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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59
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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60
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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61
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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62
technological
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| adj.技术的；工艺的 | |
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63
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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64
ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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66
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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67
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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68
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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69
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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70
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
neurotic
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| adj.神经病的，神经过敏的；n.神经过敏者，神经病患者 | |
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72
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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73
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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