Bypass To Otherness

by Henry Kuttner

  "I did," Shane put in. "My girls-"

  "Trace it back," Burkhalter said. "I did." The dozen minds reached out on the higher frequency, the children's wavelength, and something jerked away from them, startled and apprehensive.

  "He's the one," Shane nodded.

  They did not need to speak. They went out of the Pagan Tavern in a compact, ominous group, and crossed the street to the general store. The door was locked. Two of the men burst it open with their shoulders. They went through the dark store and into a back room where a man was standing-beside an overturned chair. His bald skull gleamed in an overhead light. His mouth worked impotently.

  His thought pleaded with them-was driven back by an implacable deadly wall.

  Burkhalter took out his dagger. Other slivers of steel glittered for a little whileAnd were quenched.

  Venner's scream had long since stopped, but his dying thought of agony lingered within Burkhalter's mind as he walked homeward. The wigless Baldy had not been insane, no. But he had been paranoidal. What he had tried to conceal, at the last, was quite shocking. A tremendous, tyrannical egotism, and a furious hatred of nontelepaths. A feeling of self-justification that was, perhaps, insane. And-we are the Future! The Baldies! God made us to rule lesser men!

  Burkhalter sucked in his breath, shivering. The mutation had not been entirely successful. One group had adjusted, the Baldies who wore wigs and had become fitted to their environment. One group had been insane, and could be discounted; they were in asylums.

  But the middle group were merely paranoid. They were not insane, and they were not sane. They wore no wigs.

  Like Venner.

  And Venner had sought disciples. His attempt had been foredoomed to failure, but he had been one man.

  One Baldy-paranoid.

  There were others, many others.

  Ahead, nestled into the dark hillside, was the pale blotch that marked Burkhalter's home. He sent his thought ahead, and it touched Ethel's and paused very briefly to reassure her.

  Then it thrust on, and went into the sleeping mind of a little boy who, confused and miserable, had finally cried himself to sleep. There were only dreams in that mind now, a little discolored, a little stained, but they could be cleansed. And would be.

  ABSALOM

  At dusk Joel Locke came home from the university where he held the chair of psychonamics. He came quietly into the house, by a side door, and stood listening, a tall, tight-lipped man of forty with a faintly sardonic mouth and cool gray eyes. He could hear the precipitron humming. That meant that Abigail Schuler, the housekeeper, was busy with her duties. Locke smiled slightly and turned toward a panel in the wall that opened at his approach.

  The small elevator took him noiselessly upstairs.

  There, he moved with curious stealth. He went directly to a door at the end of the hall and paused before it, his head bent, his eyes unfocused. He heard nothing. Presently he opened the door and stepped into the room.

  Instantly the feeling of unsureness jolted back, freezing him where he stood. He made no sign, though his mouth tightened. He forced himself to remain quiet as he glanced around.

  It could have been the room of a normal twenty-year-old, not a boy of eight. Tennis racquets were heaped in a disorderly fashion against a pile of book records. The thiaminizer was turned on, and Locke automatically clicked the switch over. Abruptly he turned. The televisor screen was blank, yet he could have sworn that eyes had been watching him from it.

  This wasn't the first time it had happened.

  After a while Locke turned again and squatted to examine the book reels. He picked out one labeled BRIAFF ON ENTROPIC LOGIC and turned the cylinder over in his hands, scowling. Then he replaced it and went out of the room, with a last, considering look at the televisor.

  Downstairs Abigail Schuler was fingering the Mastermaid switchboard. Her prim mouth was as tight as the severe bun of gray-shot hair at the back of her neck.

  "Good evening," Locke said. "Where's Absalom?"

  "Out playing, Brother Locke," the housekeeper said formally. "You're home early. I haven't finished the living room yet."

  'Well, turn on the ions and let 'em play," Locke said. "It won't take long. I've got some papers to correct, anyway."

  He started out, but Abigail coughed significantly.

  "Well?"

  "He's looking peaked."

  "Then outdoor exercise is what he needs," Locke said shortly. "I'm going to send him to a summer camp."

  "Brother Locke," Abigail said, "I don't see why you don't let him go to Baja California. He's set his heart on it. You let him study all the hard subjects he wanted before. Now you put your foot down. It's none of my affair, but I can tell he's pining."

  "He'd pine worse if I said yes. I've my reasons for not wanting him to study entropic logic. Do you know what it involves?"

  "I don't-you know I don't. I'm not an educated woman Brother Locke. But Absalom is bright as a button."

  Locke made an impatient gesture.

  "You have a genius for understatement," he said. "Bright as a button!" Then he shrugged and moved to the window, looking down at the play court below where his eight-year-old son played handball. Absalom did not look up. He seemed engrossed in his game. But Locke, watching. felt a cool, stealthy terror steal through his mind, and behind his back his hands clenched together.

  A boy who looked ten, whose maturity level was twenty, and yet who was still a child of eight. Not easy to handle. There were many parents just now with the same problem-something was happening to the graph curve that charts the percentage of child geniuses born in recent times. Something had begun to stir lazily far back in the brains of the coming generations and a new species, of a sort, was coming slowly into being. Locke knew that well. In his own time he, too, had been a child genius.

  Other parents might meet the problem in other ways, he thought stubbornly. Not himself. He knew what was best for Absalom. Other parents might send their genius children to one of the crèches where they could develop among their own kind. Not Locke.

  "Absalom's place is here," he said aloud. 'With me, where I can-" He caught the housekeeper's eye and shrugged again, irritably, going back to the conversation that had broken off. "Of course he's bright. But not bright enough yet to go to Baja California and study entropic logic. Entropic logic! It's too advanced for the boy. Even you ought to realize that. It isn't like a lollypop you can hand the kid-first making sure there's castor oil in the bathroom closet. Absalom's immature. It would actually be dangerous to send him to the Baja California University now to study with men three times his age. It would involve mental strain he isn't fit for yet. I don't want him turned into a psychopath." Abigail's prim mouth pursed up sourly.

  "You let him take calculus."

  "Oh, leave me alone." Locke glanced down again at the small boy on the play court. "I think," he said slowly, "that it's time for another rapport with Absalom."

  The housekeeper looked at him sharply, opened her thin lips to speak, and then closed them with an almost audible snap of disapproval. She didn't understand entirely, of course, how a rapport worked or what it accomplished. She only knew that in these days there were ways in which it was possible to enforce hypnosis, to pry open a mind willynilly and search it for contraband thoughts. She shook her head, lips pressed tight.

  "Don't try to interfere in things you don't understand," Locke said. "I tell you, I know what's best for Absalom. He's in the same place I was thirty-odd years ago. Who could know better? Call him in, will you? I'll be in my study."

  Abigail watched his retreating back, a pucker between her brows. It was hard to know what was best. The mores of the day demanded rigid good conduct, but sometimes a person had trouble deciding in her own mind what was the right thing to do. In the old days, now, after the atomic wars, when license ran riot and anybody could do anything he pleased, life must have been easier. Nowadays, in the violent backswing to a Puritan culture, you were expected to think twice and
search your soul before you did a doubtful thing.

  Well, Abigail had no choice this time. She clicked over the wall microphone and spoke into it. "Absalom?"

  "Yes, Sister Schuler?"

  "Come in. Your father wants you."

  In his study Locke stood quiet for a moment, considering. Then he reached for the house microphone.

  "Sister Schuler, I'm using the televisor. Ask Absalom to wait."

  He sat down before his private visor. His hands moved deftly.

  "Get me Dr. Ryan, the Wyoming Quizkid Crèche. Joel Locke calling."

  Idly as he waited he reached out to take an old-fashioned cloth-bound book from a shelf of antique curiosa. He read:

  But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, As soon as ye hear the sound of the trumpet, then ye shall say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron. . .

  "Brother Locke?" the televisor asked.

  The face of a white-haired, pleasant-featured man showed on the screen. Locke replaced the book and raised his hand in greeting.

  "Dr. Ryan. I'm sorry to keep bothering you."

  "That's all right," Ryan said. "I've plenty of time. I'm supposed to be supervisor at the Crèche, but the kids are running it to suit themselves." He chuckled. "How's Absalom?"

  "There's a limit," Locke said sourly. "I've given the kid his head, outlined a broad curriculum, and now he wants to study entropic logic. There are only two universities that handle the subject, and the nearest's in Baja California."

  "He could commute by copter, couldn't he?" Ryan asked, but Locke grunted disapproval.

  "Take too long. Besides, one of the requirements is inboarding, under a strict regime. The discipline, mental and physical, is supposed to be necessary in order to master entropic logic. Which is spinach. I got the rudiments at home, though I had to use the tri-disney to visualize it."

  Ryan laughed.

  "The kids here are taking it up. Uh-are you sure you understood it?"

  "Enough, yeah. Enough to realize it's nothing for a kid to study until his horizons have expanded."

  "We're having no trouble with it," the doctor said. "Don't forget that Absalom's a genius, not an ordinary youngster."

  "I know. I know my responsibility, too. A normal home environment has to be maintained to give Absalom some sense of security-which is one reason I don't want the boy to live in Baja California just now. I want to be able to protect him."

  "We've disagreed on that point before. All the quizkids are pretty self-sufficient, Locke."

  "Absalom's a genius, and a child. Therefore he's lacking in a sense of proportion. There are more dangers for him to avoid. I think it's a grave mistake to give the quizkids their heads and let them do what they like. I refused to send Absalom to a Crèche for an excellent reason. Putting all the boy geniuses in a batch and letting them fight it out. Completely artificial environment."

  "I'm not arguing," Ryan said. "It's your business. Apparently you'll never admit that there's a sine curve of geniuses these days. A steady increase. In another generation-"

  "I was a child genius myself, but I got over it," Locke said irritably. "I had enough trouble with my father. He was a tyrant, and if I hadn't been lucky, he'd have managed to warp me psychologically way out of line. I adjusted, but I had trouble. I don't want Absalom to have that trouble. That's why I'm using psychonamics."

  "Narcosynthesis? Enforced hypnotism?"

  "It's not enforced," Locke snapped. "It's a valuable mental catharsis. Under hypnosis, he tells me everything that's on his mind, and I can help him."

  "I didn't know you were doing that," Ryan said slowly. "I'm not at all sure it's a good idea."

  "I don't tell you how to run your Crèche."

  "No. But the kids do. A lot of them are smarter than I am."

  "Immature intelligence is dangerous. A kid will skate on thin ice without making a test first. Don't think I'm holding Absalom back. I'm just running tests for him first. I make sure the ice will hold him. Entropic logic 1 can understand, but he can't, yet. So he'll have to wait on that."

  "Well?"

  Locke hesitated. "Uh-do you know if your boys have been communicating with Absalom?"

  "I don't know," Ryan said. "I don't interfere with their lives."

  "All right, I don't want them interfering with mine, or with Absalom's. I wish you'd find out if they're getting in touch with him."

  There was a long pause. Then Ryan said slowly:

  "I'll try. But if I were you, Brother Locke, I'd let Absalam go to Baja California if he wants to."

  "I know what I'm doing," Locke said, and broke the beam. His gaze went toward the Bible again.

  Entropic logic!

  Once the boy reached maturity, his somatic and physiological symptoms would settle toward the norm, but meanwhile the pendulum still swung wildly. Absalom needed strict control, for his own good.

  And, for some reason, the boy had been trying to evade the hypnotic rapports lately. There was something going on.

  Thoughts moved chaotically through Locke's mind. He forgot that Absalom was waiting for him, and remembered only when Abigail's voice, on the wall transmitter, announced the evening meal.

  At dinner Abigail Schuler sat like Atropos between father and son, ready to clip the conversation whenever it did not suit her. Locke felt the beginnings of a long-standing irritation at Abigail's attitude that she had to protect Absalom against his father. Perhaps conscious of that, Locke himself finally brought up the subject of Baja California.

  "You've apparently been studying the entropic logic thesis." Absalom did not seem startled. "Are you convinced yet that it's too advanced for you?"

  "No, Dad," Absalom said. "I'm not convinced of that."

  "The rudiments of calculus might seem easy to a youngster. But when he got far enough into it . . . I went over that entropic logic, son, through the entire book, and it was difficult enough for me. And I've a mature mind."

  "I know you have. And I know I haven't, yet. But I still don't think it would be beyond me."

  "Here's the thing," Locke said. "You might develop psychotic symptoms if you studied that thing, and you might not be able to recognize them in time. If we could have a rapport every night, or every other night, while you were studying-"

  "But it's in Baja California!"

  "That's the trouble. If you want to wait for my Sabbatical, I can go there with you. Or one of the nearer universities may start the course. I don't want to be unreasonable. Logic should show you my motive."

  "It does," Absalom said. "That part's all right. The only difficulty's an intangible, isn't it? I mean, you think my mind couldn't assimilate entropic logic safely, and I'm convinced that it could."

  "Exactly," Locke said. "You've the advantage of knowing yourself better than I could know you. You're handicapped by immaturity, lack of a sense of proportion. And I've had the advantage of more experience."

  "Your own, though, Dad. How much would such values apply to me?"

  "You must let me be the judge of that, son."

  "Maybe," Absalom said. "I wish I'd gone to a quizkid crèche, though."

  "Aren't you happy here?" Abigail asked, hurt, and the boy gave her a quick, warm look of affection.

  "Sure I am, Abbie. You know that."

  "You'd be a lot less happy with dementia praecox," Locke said sardonically. "Entropic logic, for instance, presupposes a grasp of temporal variations being assumed for problems involving relativity."

  "Oh, that gives me a headache," Abigail said. "And if you're so worried about Absalom's overtraining his mind, you shouldn't talk to him like that." She pressed buttons and slid the cloisonné metal dishes into the compartment. "Coffee Brother Locke. . . milk, Absalom. . . and I'll take tea."

  Locke winked at his son, who merely looked solemn. Abigail rose with her teacup and headed toward the fireplace. Seizing the little hearth broom, she whisked away a few ashes, relaxed amid cushions,

  and warmed her skinny ankles by the wood fir
e. Locke patted back a yawn.

  "Until we settle this argument, son, matters must stand. Don't tackle that book on entropic logic again. Or anything else on the subject. Right?"

  There was no answer.

  "Right?" Locke insisted.

  "I'm not sure," Absalom said after a pause. "As a matter of fact, the book's already given me a few ideas."

  Looking across the table, Locke was struck by the incongruity of that incredibly developed mind in the childish body.

  "You're still young," he said. "A few days won't matter. Don't forget that legally I exercise control over you, though I'll never do that without your agreement that I'm acting justly."

  "Justice for you may not be justice for me," Absalom said, drawing designs on the tablecloth with his fingernail.

  Locke stood up and laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.

  "We'll discuss it again, until we've thrashed it out right. Now I've some papers to correct."

  He went out.

  "He's acting for the best, Absalom," Abigail said.

  "Of course he is, Abbie," the boy agreed. But he remained thoughtful.

  The next day Locke went through his classes in an absent-minded fashion and, at noon, he televised Dr. Ryan at the Wyoming Quizkid Crèche. Ryan seemed entirely too casual and noncommittal. He said he had asked the quizkids if they had been communicating with Absalom, and they had said no.

  "But they'll lie at the drop of a hat, of course, if they think it advisable," Ryan added, with inexplicable amusement.

  "What's so funny?" Locke inquired.

  "I don't know," Ryan said. "The way the kids tolerate me. I'm useful to them at times, but-originally I was supposed to be supervisor here. Now the boys supervise me."

  "Are you serious?"

  Ryan sobered.

  "I've a tremendous respect for the quizldds. And I think you're making a very grave mistake in the way you're handling your son. I was in your house once, a year ago. It's your house. Only one room belongs to Absalom. He can't leave any of his possessions around anywhere else. You're dominating him tremendously."