by Mark Clifton
operation, and he wouldn't let one bogusseance stop him more than momentarily.
If it weren't so close to direct interference with my department, I'dhave been delighted to sit on the side lines and watch him try tocommand psi effects to happen. That would be like commanding some randomcopper wire and metallic cores to start generating electricity.
For once I could have overlooked the interference with my department ifI didn't know, from past experience, that I'd be blamed for theconsequent failure. That's a cute little trick of top executives,generally. They get into something they don't understand, really louseit up, then, because it is your department, you are the one who failed.Ordinarily I liked my job, but if this sort of thing went too far--
But more than saving my job, I had the feeling that if I were allowed togo along, carefully and experimentally, I just might discover a few ofthe laws about psi. There was the tantalizing feeling that I was on theverge of knowing at least something.
The Pentagon people had been right. The Swami was an obvious phony ofthe baldest fakery, yet he had something. He had something, but how wasI to get hold of it? Just what kind of turns with what around what didyou make to generate a psi force? It took two thousand years for man tomove from the concept that amber was a stone with a soul to the conceptof static electricity. Was there any chance I could find some shortcutsin reducing the laws governing psi? The one bright spot of my morningwas that Auerbach hadn't denied seeing the evidence of the cylinderspointing North.
It turned out to be the only bright spot. I had no more than got to myoffice and sorted out the routine urgencies which had to be handledimmediately from those which could be put off a little longer, when Saraannounced the lieutenant and the Swami. So I put everything else off,and told her to send them right in.
The Swami was in an incoherent rage. The lieutenant was contracting hiseyebrows in a scowl and clenching his fists in frustration. In a voice,soaring into the falsetto, the Swami demanded that he be sent back toBrooklyn where he was appreciated. The lieutenant had orders to staywith the Swami, but he didn't have any orders about returning either toBrooklyn or the Pentagon. I managed, at last, to get the lieutenantseated in a straight chair, but the Swami couldn't stay still longenough. He stalked up and down the room, swirling his slightly odorousblack cloak on the turns. Gradually the story came out.
* * * * *
Old Stone Face, a strong advocate of Do It Now, hadn't wasted any time.From his home he had called the Swami at his hotel and commanded him toreport to the general manager's office at once. Apparently they both gotthere about the same time, and Henry had waded right in.
Apparently Henry, too, had spent a restless night. He accused the Swamiof inefficiency, bungling, fraud, deliberate insubordination, and a fewother assorted faults for having made a fool out of us all at theseance. He'd as much as commanded the Swami to cut out all thisshilly-shallying and get down to the business of activating antigravcylinders, or else. He hadn't been specific about what the "or else"would entail.
It was up to me to pick up the pieces, if I could.
"Now I'm sure he really didn't mean--" I began to pour oil on thetroubled waters. "With your deep insight, Swami--The fate of greatmartyrs throughout the ages--" Gradually the ego-building phrases calmedhim down. He grew willing to listen, if for no more than theanticipation of hearing more of them.
He settled down into the crying chair at last, and I could see hisvalence shifting from outraged anger to a vast and noble forgiveness.This much was not difficult. To get him to cooeperate, consciously andenthusiastically, well that might not be so easy.
Each trade has its own special techniques. The analytical chemist has aseries of routines he tries when he wishes to reduce an unknown compoundto its constituents. To the chemically uneducated, this may appear to bea fumbling, hit or miss, kind of procedure. The personnel man, too, hashis series of techniques. It may appear to be no more than random,pointless conversation.
I first tried the routine process of reasoning. I didn't expect it towork; it seldom does, but it can't be eliminated until it has beentested.
* * * * *
"You must understand," I said slowly, soothingly, "that our intentionsare constructive. We are simply trying to apply the scientific method tosomething which has, heretofore, been wrapped in mysticism."
The shocked freezing of his facial muscles told me that reasoning hadmissed its mark. It told me more.
"Science understands nothing, nothing at all!" he snapped, "Sciencetries to reduce everything to test tubes and formulae; but I am theinstrument of a mystery which man can never know."
"Well, now," I said reasonably. "Let us not be inconsistent. You saythis is something man was not meant to know; yet you, yourself, havedevoted your life to gaining a greater comprehension of it."
"I seek only to rise above my material self so that I might placemyself in harmony with the flowing symphony of Absolute Truth," helectured me sonorously. Oh well, his enrapturement with such terminologydiffered little from some of the sciences which tended to grow equallyesoteric. And maybe it meant something. Who was I to say that mine earsalone heard all the music being played?
It did mean one thing very specifically. There are two basic approachesto the meaning of life and the universe about us. Man can know: That isthe approach of science, its whole meaning. There are mysteries whichman was not meant to know: That is the other approach. There is noreconciling of the two on a reasoning basis. I represented the former. Iwasn't sure the Swami was a true representative of the latter, but atleast he had picked up the valence and the phrases.
I made a mental note that reasoning was an unworkable technique withthis compound. Henry, a past master at it, had already tried threats andabuse. That hadn't worked. I next tried one of the oldest forms in theteaching of man, a parable.
I told him of my old Aunt Dimity, who was passionately fond of Rummy,but considered all other card games sinful.
"Ah, how well she proves my point," the Swami countered. "There is aninner voice, a wisdom greater than the mortal mind to guide us--"
"Well now," I asked reasonably, "why would the inner voice say thatRummy was O.K., but Casino wasn't?" But it was obvious he liked thepoint he had made better than he had liked the one I failed to make.
So I tried the next technique. I tried an appeal for instruction. Oftenan opponent will come over to your side if you just confess, honestly,that he is a better man than you are, and you need his help. What wasthe road I must take to achieve the same understanding he had achieved?His eyes glittered at that, and a mercenary expression underlay the toneof his answer.
"First there is fasting, and breathing, and contemplating self," hemurmured mendaciously. "I would be unable to aid you until you gave mefull ascendancy over you, so that I might guide your every thought--"
I decided to try inspiration. In breaking down recalcitrant materials inthe laboratory of my personnel office, sometimes one method worked,sometimes another.
"Do you realize, Swami," I asked, "that the one great drawbackthroughout the ages to a full acceptance of psi is the lack of permanentevidence? It has always been evanescent, perishable. It always restssolely upon the word of witnesses. But if I could show you a film print,then you could not doubt the existence of photography, could you?"
I opened my lower desk drawer and pulled out a couple of the Auerbachcylinders which we had used the night before. I laid them on top of thedesk.
"These cylinders," I said, "act like the photographic film. They willrecord, in permanent form, the psi effects you command. At last, for allmankind the doubt will be stilled; man will at once know the truth; andyou will take your place among the immortals."
I thought it was pretty good, and that, with his overweening ego, itwould surely do the trick. But the Swami was staring at the cylindersfirst in fascination, then fear, then in horror. He jumped to his feet,without bothering to swirl his robe majestically, rushed over to thed
oor, fumbled with the knob as if he were in a burning room, managed toget the door open, and rushed outside. The lieutenant gave me a puzzledlook, and went after him.
* * * * *
I drew a deep breath, and exhaled it audibly. My testing procedureshadn't produced the results I'd expected, but the last one had revealedsomething else.
The Swami believed himself to be a fraud!
As long as he could razzle-dazzle with sonorous phrases, and depend uponcredulous old women to turn them into accurate predictions of things tocome, he was safe enough. But faced with something which would provedefinitely--
Well, what would he do now?
And then I noticed that both cylinders were pointing toward the door. Iwatched them, at first, not quite sure; then I grew
