Language capable doctor
Perhaps none of these are weapons, Lieberman said. Elroy Laboratories charge too much for their synthlifes, Tropez said. We are building up as fast as we can. Besides, the Magdalenian people are the real attraction— thats what the crowds come to see. We’ve got ten of them now; they cost money.” May 15—Dr. Strauss is very angry at me for not having written any progress reports in two weeks. Hes justified because the lab is now paying me a regular salary. I told him I was too busy thinking and reading. When I pointed out that writing was such a slow process that it made me impatient with my poor handwriting, he suggested that I learn to type. It’s much easier to write now because I can type nearly seventy-five words a minute. Dr. Strauss continually reminds me of the need to speak and write simply so that people will be able to understand me. Questions? Drawing, faces, letters, motions. Chess? I do, yes... I told you in no uncertain terms that neither she nor I was behind the alleged attack on Amity Wellman— Did he look like a little old gnome? In British s-f nowadays, all roads lead eventually to Mike Moorcocks Ladbroke Grove flat-and-office, where a hot argument on the virtues of the Ontological Approach or a stiff debate on the Metaphysics of Time may—at any hour of the day or night—compete with (what I am assured is) a connoisseur’s collection of rock n’ roll (full-volume, of course), or with Moorcock’s own excellent blues guitar— while one of the young literary protégés of the household pecks out the end to a rent-payer story on the typewriter in the living room, and three-year-old Sophie struggles to open the concealed Victorian lock of the latest strongbox or escritoire Daddy has brought home from a walk down the Portobello Road. I can tell you, it like to broke our hearts the way Clarissa May done us. Ifn I told LeRoy once, I told him a thousand times, no good would ever come of her messin’ with that Cuddard boy. His daddy is trashy. Ever so often they take him in for drunk and put him on the county road gang sixtyor ninety days, and that Stubbins child he married, she’s next door to feeble-witted. But children get to a certain size and know everything and turn their backs on you like an enemy. You write this up nice and in it put the message her momma and daddy want her home bad, and maybe she’ll see itand come on in. You know what the Good Book says about sharper’n a sarpent’s tooth. I pray to the good Lord they had the sense to drive that fool car up to Georgia and get married up at least. Him nineteen and her seventeen. The young ones are going clean out of hand these times. One night racing through this county the way they do, showing off, that Cuddard boy is going to kill hisself and my child, too. INVESTIGATING THE BIDWELL ENDEAVORS She lumbered to her feet.Lets look again. Everywhere. They’d surely be able to locate the house. Does that mean there are large juicy bites? Wrixton half-turned, drawing his arm back as if he intended to take a swing at Quincannon— a serious error in judgment had he gone through with it. But he didnt. His anger faded as quickly as it had appeared; his shoulders drooping again, he leaned heavily against the beveled edge of the bar. Why? Perfectly, Doctor. "Lilas picked it. Its short forchandelle', French for 'candle'. Lilas was French, you know. Lilas Blanc. White lilac. And Shan was our little candle. The wallpaper in the nursery was designed with a candle print. The lights above her crib were artificial candles. We painted fluorescent candles inside her crib. She would pat them every night before I tucked her in." Historic Man, guided by the recorded increment of wonders noted (resolved or unsolved), harnessed the energies of wind and water, grouped with his kin to raise up walls of stone, to stop the enemy before the battle; lived longer and more leisurely; learned to think in abstractions; devised mental tools—logic, morality, philosophy; made new tools with which to peer through at the macro-and micro-cosmic realms of the gods and devils. He saw the magnificent orderliness of the universe; banished wonder and base superstition together; rejoiced, and proclaimed the Age of Reason. She understood—what? That he was not as other men, born in places with familiar names, speaking familiar speech, doing things in customary ways? All this she knew already. The humming told her where he came from and how; it was no more comprehensible and relevant afterward than before. Another planet, another star, another galaxy—what were these concepts to Nan Maxill, the disciplinary problem of Henryton Union High, who had read novels in her science class? His name, as near as she could translate the hum, was Ash; what did it matter if he was born on Alpha Centauri, Mars, or an unnamed earth a billion light-years off? Its still a good custom, she said. Believe it or not, I’m trying to preserve it.”.
