Speaker 1: Second Sight by Alan Edward Nourse. Note the following excerpts
Speaker 1: from Amy Ballentine's journal have never actually been written down
Speaker 1: at any time before. Her account of impressions and events
Speaker 1: has been kept in organized fashion in her mind for
Speaker 1: at least nine years. Even she is not certain when
Speaker 1: she started. But it must be understood that certain inaccuracies
Speaker 1: in transcription could not possibly have been avoided in the
Speaker 1: excerpting attempted here the editor. Tuesday, sixteen May. Lambertson got
Speaker 1: back from Boston about two this afternoon. He was tired.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever seen lambertsince so tired. It
Speaker 1: was more than just exhaustion too, maybe anger, frustration. I
Speaker 1: couldn't be sure. It seemed more like defeat than anything else.
Speaker 1: And he went straight from the copter to his office
Speaker 1: without even stopping off at the lab at all. It's
Speaker 1: good to have him back, though that I haven't had
Speaker 1: a nice enough rest with Lambertson gone. Dakin took over
Speaker 1: the reins for the week. But Dakin doesn't really count,
Speaker 1: poor man. It's such a temptation to twist him up
Speaker 1: and get him all confused that I didn't do any
Speaker 1: real work all week. With Lambertson back, I'll have to
Speaker 1: get down to the grind again. But I'm still glad
Speaker 1: he's here. I never thought i'd miss him so for
Speaker 1: such a short time away. But I wish he'd gotten
Speaker 1: a rest, if he ever rests. And I wish I
Speaker 1: knew why he went to Boston in the first place.
Speaker 1: Certainly he didn't want to go. I wanted to read
Speaker 1: him and find out, but I don't think I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to know yet. Lambertson didn't want to talk. He didn't
Speaker 1: even tell me he was back, even though he knew
Speaker 1: i'd catch him five miles down the road. I can
Speaker 1: do that now. With Lambertson, distance doesn't seem to make
Speaker 1: so much difference anymore if I just ignore it. So
Speaker 1: all I got was bits and snatches on the surface
Speaker 1: of his mind, something about me and doctor Custer and
Speaker 1: a nasty little man called Eron's or Baron's or something.
Speaker 1: I've heard him somewhere, but I can't pin it down
Speaker 1: right now. I'll have to dig that out later, I guess.
Speaker 1: But if he saw doctor Custer, why doesn't he tell
Speaker 1: me about it? Wednesday, seventeen May, it was Erin's that
Speaker 1: he saw in Boston, and now I'm sure that something's
Speaker 1: going wrong. I know that man. I remember him from
Speaker 1: a long time ago, back when I was still at Bairdsley,
Speaker 1: long before I came here to the Study Center. He
Speaker 1: was the consulting psychiatrist, and I don't think I could
Speaker 1: ever forget him even if I tried. That's why I
Speaker 1: am sure something very unpleasant is going on. Lambertson saw
Speaker 1: Doctor Custer too, but the director sent him to Boston
Speaker 1: because Aarons wanted to talk to him. I wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to know anything about it, but Lambertson came down to
Speaker 1: dinner last night. He wouldn't even look at me. The
Speaker 1: skunk I fixed him. I told him I was going
Speaker 1: to peak, and then I read him in a flash
Speaker 1: before he could shift his mind to Boston traffic or something.
Speaker 1: He knows I can't stand traffic. I only picked up
Speaker 1: a little, but it was enough. There was something very
Speaker 1: unpleasant that Eron's had said that I couldn't quite get.
Speaker 1: They were in his office. Lambertson had said, I don't
Speaker 1: think she's ready for it, and I'd never try to
Speaker 1: talk to her into it. At this point. Why can't
Speaker 1: you people, get it through your heads that she's a
Speaker 1: child and a human being, not some kind of laboratory animal.
Speaker 1: That's been the trouble all along. Everybody's been so eager
Speaker 1: to grab, and nobody's given her a wretched thing. In return,
Speaker 1: Erin's was smooth, very sad, and reproachful. I got a
Speaker 1: clear picture of him, short, balding, mean little eyes and
Speaker 1: a smug, self righteous little face. Michael. After all, she's
Speaker 1: twenty three years old. She's certainly out of diapers by now,
Speaker 1: but she's only had two years of training aimed at
Speaker 1: teaching her anything. Well, there's no reason that that should stop,
Speaker 1: is there be reasonable Michael. We certainly agree that you've
Speaker 1: done a wonderful job with the girl, and not sure
Speaker 1: you're sensitive about others working with her, but when you
Speaker 1: consider that public taxes are footing the bill, I'm sensitive
Speaker 1: about others exploiting her. That's all I tell you. I
Speaker 1: won't push her, and I wouldn't let her come up
Speaker 1: here even if she agreed to do it. She shouldn't
Speaker 1: be tempered with for another year or two at least.
Speaker 1: Lambertson was angry and bitter. Now three days later he
Speaker 1: was still angry, and you're certain that your concern is
Speaker 1: entirely professional. Whatever Erin's meant, it wasn't nice. Lambertson caught it,
Speaker 1: and oh my chart slapping down on the table, door, slamming,
Speaker 1: swearing for mild patient Lambertson, can you imagine? And then
Speaker 1: later no more anger, just discussed and defeat. That was
Speaker 1: what hit me when he came back yesterday. He couldn't
Speaker 1: hide it, no matter how he tried. Well, no wonder
Speaker 1: he was tired. I remember Erin's all right, He wasn't
Speaker 1: so interested in me back in those days, wild one,
Speaker 1: he called me. We haven't the time or the people
Speaker 1: to handle anything like this in a public institution. We
Speaker 1: have to handle her the way we'd handle any other defective.
Speaker 1: She may be a plus defective instead of a minus defective,
Speaker 1: but she's as crippled as if she were deaf and blind.
Speaker 1: Good Old Aaron's. That was years ago, when I was
Speaker 1: barely thirteen, before doctor Custer got interested in and started opthelmoscoping
Speaker 1: and testing me, before I had ever heard of Lambertson
Speaker 1: or the Study Center, for that matter, before anybody had
Speaker 1: done anything but feed me and treat me like some
Speaker 1: kind of peculiar animal or something. Well, I'm glad it
Speaker 1: was Lambertson that went to Boston and not me, for
Speaker 1: Aaron's sake. And if Aarons tries to come down here
Speaker 1: to work with me, he's going to be wasting his
Speaker 1: time because I'll lead him all around Robin Hood's barn
Speaker 1: and get him so confused he'll wish he'd stayed home.
Speaker 1: But I can't help but wonder just the same, Am
Speaker 1: I a cripple? Like Aaron said? Does being SI high
Speaker 1: mean that? I don't think so? What does Lambertson think?
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I try to read Lambertson, I'm the one
Speaker 1: that gets confused. I wish I could tell what he
Speaker 1: really thinks. Wednesday night, I asked Lambertson tonight what doctor
Speaker 1: Custer had said he wants to see you next week.
Speaker 1: He told me, but Amy, he didn't make any promises.
Speaker 1: He wasn't even hopeful. But his letter, he said the
Speaker 1: study showed that there wasn't any anatomical defect. Lambertson leaned
Speaker 1: back and lit his pipe, shaking his head at me.
Speaker 1: He's aged ten years this past week. Everybody thinks so
Speaker 1: he's lost weight and he looks as if he hasn't
Speaker 1: slept at all. Custer's afraid that it isn't a question
Speaker 1: of anatomy amy. But what is it then, For heaven's sake,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know. He says it's not very scientific. But
Speaker 1: it may just be that what you don't use, you lose.
Speaker 1: Oh but that's silly. I chewed my lip, granted, but
Speaker 1: he thinks that there's a chance. Of course there's a chance,
Speaker 1: and you know he'll do everything he can. It's just
Speaker 1: that neither of us wants you to get your hopes up.
Speaker 1: It wasn't much, but it was something. Lambertson looked so beat.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the heart to ask him what Eron's wanted,
Speaker 1: even though I know he'd like to get it off
Speaker 1: his chest. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I spent the
Speaker 1: day with Charlie Dakin in the lab and did a
Speaker 1: little work for a change. I've been disgustingly lazy, and
Speaker 1: poor Charley thinks it's all his fault. Charlie reads like
Speaker 1: a twenty point type ninety percent of the time, and
Speaker 1: I'm afraid he knows it. I can tell just exactly
Speaker 1: when he stops paying attention to business and starts paying
Speaker 1: attention to me, and then all of a sudden he
Speaker 1: realizes I'm reading him, and it flusters him for the
Speaker 1: rest of the day. I wonder, why does he really
Speaker 1: think I'm shocked or surprised or insulted? Poor Charlie. I
Speaker 1: guess I must be good enough looking. I can read
Speaker 1: it from almost every fellow that comes near me. I
Speaker 1: wonder why, I mean, why me and not Marjorie over
Speaker 1: in the main office. She's a sweet girl, but she
Speaker 1: never gets a second look from the guys. There must
Speaker 1: be some fine differential point I'm missing somewhere, but I
Speaker 1: don't think I'll ever understand it. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: press Lambertson, but I hope he opens up tomorrow. He's
Speaker 1: got me scared silly by now. He has a lot
Speaker 1: of authority around here, but other people are paying the bills,
Speaker 1: and when he's frightened about something, it can't help but
Speaker 1: frighten me. Thursday, eighteen May, we went back to reaction
Speaker 1: testing in the lab with Lambertson today. That study is
Speaker 1: almost finished, as much as anything I work on as
Speaker 1: ever finished, which isn't very much. The test had two
Speaker 1: goals to clock my stimulus response pattern in comparison to normals,
Speaker 1: and to find out just exactly when I pick up
Speaker 1: any given thought signal from the person I'm reading. It
Speaker 1: isn't a matter of developing speed. I'm already so fast
Speaker 1: to respond that it doesn't mean too much from anybody
Speaker 1: else's standpoint, and I certainly don't need any training there.
Speaker 1: But where along the line do I pick up a
Speaker 1: thought impulse? Do I catch it at its inception? Do
Speaker 1: I pick up the thought formulation or just the final
Speaker 1: crystallized pattern. Lambertson thinks I'm with it right from the start,
Speaker 1: and that some training in those lines would be worth
Speaker 1: my time. Of course, we didn't find out, not even
Speaker 1: with the ingenious little random firing device that Dakin designed
Speaker 1: for the study. With this gadget, neither Lambertson nor I
Speaker 1: know what impulse the box is going to throw at him.
Speaker 1: He just throws a switch and it starts coming. He
Speaker 1: catches it, reacts, I catch it from him and react,
Speaker 1: and we compare reaction times. This afternoon, it had us
Speaker 1: driving up a hill and sent a ten ton truck
Speaker 1: rolling down on us, out of control. I had my
Speaker 1: flasher on two seconds before Lambertson did, of course, but
Speaker 1: our reaction times are standardized, so when we corrected for
Speaker 1: my extra speed, we knew that I must have caught
Speaker 1: the impulse about zero point zero seven seconds after he did. Crude,
Speaker 1: of course, but not nearly fast enough. And we can't
Speaker 1: re produce on a stable basis. Lambertson says, that's as
Speaker 1: close as we can get without cortical probes. And that's
Speaker 1: where I put my foot down. I may have a
Speaker 1: gold mine in this head of mine, but nobody is
Speaker 1: going to put burholes through my skull in order to
Speaker 1: tap it. Not for a while. Yet. That's unfair, of course,
Speaker 1: because it sounds as if Lambertson were trying to force
Speaker 1: me into something, and he isn't. I've read him about that,
Speaker 1: and I know he wouldn't allow it. Let's learn everything
Speaker 1: else we can learn without it first, he says. Later,
Speaker 1: if you want to go along with it, maybe, but
Speaker 1: right now you're not competent to decide for yourself. He
Speaker 1: may be right, but why not? Why does he keep
Speaker 1: acting as if I'm a child? Am I really? With
Speaker 1: everything and I mean everything coming into my mind for
Speaker 1: the past twenty three years, haven't I learned enough to
Speaker 1: make decisions for myself. Lambertson says, of course everything has
Speaker 1: been coming in. It's just that I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with it all. But somewhere along the line,
Speaker 1: I have to reach a maturation point of some kind.
Speaker 1: It scares me sometimes because I can't find an answer
Speaker 1: to it, and the answer might be perfectly horrible. I
Speaker 1: don't know where it may end. What's worse, I don't
Speaker 1: know what point it has reached right now. How much
Speaker 1: difference is there between my mind and Lambert Sin's. I'm
Speaker 1: sy hi and he isn't, granted, But is there more
Speaker 1: to it than that? People like Aaron's think so. They
Speaker 1: think it's a difference between human function and something else,
Speaker 1: And that scares me because it just isn't true. I'm
Speaker 1: as human as anybody else. But somehow it seems that
Speaker 1: I'm the one who has to prove it. I wonder
Speaker 1: if I ever will. That's why doctor Custer has to
Speaker 1: help me. Everything hangs on that. I'm to go up
Speaker 1: to Boston next week for final studies and testing. If
Speaker 1: doctor Custer can do something, what a difference that'll make.
Speaker 1: Maybe then I could get out of this whole frightening mess.
Speaker 1: Put it behind me and forget about it. With just
Speaker 1: the sigh alone. I don't think I ever can. Friday,
Speaker 1: nineteen May, Todayambertson broke down and told me what it
Speaker 1: was that Erin's had been proposing. It was worse than
Speaker 1: I thought it would be. The man had hit on
Speaker 1: the one thing that I'd been afraid of for so long.
Speaker 1: He wants you to work against normals, Lambertson said. He
Speaker 1: swallowed the latency hypothesis whole. He thinks that everybody must
Speaker 1: have a latent sigh potential, and that all that is
Speaker 1: needed to drag it into the open is a powerful
Speaker 1: stimulus from someone with full blown sigh powers. Well, I said,
Speaker 1: do you think so? Who knows? Lambertson slammed his pencil
Speaker 1: down on the desk angrily. No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: But what does that mean? Not a thing. It certainly
Speaker 1: doesn't mean. I'm right. Nobody knows the answer, not me,
Speaker 1: nor Erin's nor anybody. And Erin's wants to use you
Speaker 1: to find out. I nodded slowly. I see, so I'm
Speaker 1: to be used as a sort of refined electrical stimulator.
Speaker 1: I said, Well, I guess you know what you can tell.
Speaker 1: Erins He was silent and I couldn't read him. Then
Speaker 1: he looked up. Amy. I'm not sure we can tell
Speaker 1: him that I stared at him. You mean you think
Speaker 1: he could force me. He says you're a public charge
Speaker 1: that as long as you have to be supported and
Speaker 1: cared for, they have the right to use your faculties.
Speaker 1: And he's right on the first point. You are a
Speaker 1: public charge. You have to be sheltered and protected. If
Speaker 1: you wondered so much as a mile outside these walls,
Speaker 1: you'd never survive. And you know it. I sat stunned.
Speaker 1: But doctor Custer. Doctor Custer is trying to help, but
Speaker 1: he hasn't succeeded so far. If he can, then it
Speaker 1: would be a different story. But I can't stall much longer.
Speaker 1: Amy Aaron's has a powerful argument. You're sy Hi. You're
Speaker 1: the first full fledged, wide open, free wheeling sy Hi
Speaker 1: that's ever appeared in human history. The first others in
Speaker 1: the past have shown potential, maybe, but nothing they could
Speaker 1: ever learn to control. You've got control, You're fully developed.
Speaker 1: You're here, and you're the only one there is. Oh
Speaker 1: so I happened to be unlucky. I snapped my gen's
Speaker 1: got mixed up. That's not true, and you know it.
Speaker 1: Lambertson said, we know your chromosomes better than your face.
Speaker 1: They're the same as anyone else's. There's no gene difference,
Speaker 1: none at all. When you're gone, you'll be gone, and
Speaker 1: there's no reason to think that your children will have
Speaker 1: any more side potential than Charlie Dakin has. Something was
Speaker 1: building up in me that I couldn't control any longer.
Speaker 1: You think I should go with Errands, I said, dully,
Speaker 1: He hesitated. I'm afraid you're going to have to sooner
Speaker 1: or later. Erin's has some latence up in Boston. He's
Speaker 1: certain that they're latents. He's talked to the directors down here.
Speaker 1: He's convinced them that you could work with his people,
Speaker 1: draw them out. You could open the door to a
Speaker 1: whole new world for human beings. I lost my temper.
Speaker 1: Then It wasn't just Eron's or Lambertson or Dakin or
Speaker 1: any of the others. It was all of them, dozens
Speaker 1: of them, compounded year upon year upon year. Now listen
Speaker 1: to me for a minute, I said, have any of
Speaker 1: you ever considered what I wanted in this thing? Ever?
Speaker 1: Have any of you given that one single thought, just once,
Speaker 1: one time when you were so sick of thinking great
Speaker 1: thoughts for humanity that you let another thought leak through.
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about what kind of a shuffle
Speaker 1: I've had since all this started? Well you'd better think
Speaker 1: about it right now. Amy. You know I don't want
Speaker 1: to push you. Listen to me, Lambertson. My folks got
Speaker 1: rid of me fast when they found out about me.
Speaker 1: Did you know that they hated me because I scared them?
Speaker 1: It didn't hurt me too much because I thought I
Speaker 1: knew why they hated me. I could understand it, and
Speaker 1: I went off to Bairdsley without even crying. They were
Speaker 1: going to come see me every week, but you know
Speaker 1: how often they managed to make it not once. After
Speaker 1: I was off their hands. And then at Bairdsley, Erin's
Speaker 1: examined me and decided that I was a crip. Well
Speaker 1: he didn't know anything about me then, but he thought
Speaker 1: SI was a defect. And that was as far as
Speaker 1: it went. I did what Eron's wanted me to do
Speaker 1: at Bairdsley, never what I wanted, just what they wanted,
Speaker 1: years and years of what they wanted, and then you
Speaker 1: came along, and I came to the study center and
Speaker 1: did what you wanted. It hurt him, and I knew it.
Speaker 1: I guess that was what I wanted, to hurt him
Speaker 1: and to hurt everybody. He was shaking his head, staring
Speaker 1: at me, Amy, be fair. I've tried, you know how hard.
Speaker 1: I've tried. Tried what to train me, yes, but why
Speaker 1: to give me better use of my sye faculties? Yes?
Speaker 1: But why did you do it for me? Is that
Speaker 1: really why you did it? Or was that just another
Speaker 1: phony front like all the rest of them, in order
Speaker 1: to use me, to make me a little more valuable
Speaker 1: to have around. He slat my face so hard it
Speaker 1: jolted me. I could feel the awful pain and hurt
Speaker 1: in his mind as he stared at me, and I
Speaker 1: sensed the stinging in his palm that matched the burning
Speaker 1: in my cheek. And then something fell away in his
Speaker 1: mind and I saw something I had never seen before.
Speaker 1: He loved me. That man. Incredible, isn't it? He loved
Speaker 1: me Me who couldn't call him anything but Lambertson, who
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine calling him Michael, to say nothing of Mike
Speaker 1: just Lambertson who did this, or Lambertson who thought that?
Speaker 1: But he could never tell me. He had decided that
Speaker 1: I was too helpless. I needed him too much. I
Speaker 1: needed love, but not the kind of love Lambertson wanted
Speaker 1: to give. So that kind of love had to be hidden, concealed, suppressed.
Speaker 1: I needed the deepest imaginable understanding. But it had to
Speaker 1: be utterly unselfish understanding. Anything else would be taking advantage
Speaker 1: of me. So a barrier had to be built, a
Speaker 1: barrier that I should never penetrate, and that he should
Speaker 1: never be tempted to break down. Lambertson had done that
Speaker 1: for me. It was all there, suddenly, so overwhelming it
Speaker 1: made me gasp from the impact. I wanted to throw
Speaker 1: my arms around him. Instead, I sat down in the chair,
Speaker 1: shaking my head helplessly. I hated myself then. I had
Speaker 1: hated myself before, but never like this. If I could
Speaker 1: only go somewhere, I said, some place where nobody knew me,
Speaker 1: where I could just live by myself for a while
Speaker 1: and shut the doors, shut out the thoughts and pretend
Speaker 1: for a while, just pretend that I'm perfectly normal. I
Speaker 1: wish you could Lambertson said, but you can't, you know that,
Speaker 1: not unless custerra can really help. We sat there for
Speaker 1: a while. Then I said, let Errands come down, let
Speaker 1: him bring anybody he wants with him. I'll do what
Speaker 1: he wants until I see Custer. That hurt, too, but
Speaker 1: it was different. That hurt both of us together, not
Speaker 1: separately any more, And somehow it didn't hurt so much
Speaker 1: that way. Monday, twenty two May, Erin's drove down from
Speaker 1: Boston this morning with a girl named Mary Bolton, and
Speaker 1: we went to work. I think I'm beginning to understand
Speaker 1: how a dog can tell when someone wants to kick
Speaker 1: him and doesn't quite dare. I could feel the back
Speaker 1: of my neck prickle when that man walked into the
Speaker 1: conference room. I was hoping he might have changed since
Speaker 1: the last time I saw him. He hadn't, but I had.
Speaker 1: I wasn't afraid of him any more, just awfully tired
Speaker 1: of him after he'd been here about ten minutes. Oh
Speaker 1: but that girl, I wonder what sort of story he'd
Speaker 1: told her. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, and
Speaker 1: she was terrorized. At first I thought it was Erin's.
Speaker 1: She was afraid of but that wasn't so it was me.
Speaker 1: It took us all morning just to get around that.
Speaker 1: The poor girl could hardly make herself talk. She was
Speaker 1: shaking all over when they arrived. We took a walk
Speaker 1: around the grounds alone, and I read her bit by bit,
Speaker 1: A feeler here, a planted suggestion there, just getting her.
Speaker 1: I used to the idea and trying to reassure her.
Speaker 1: After a while, she was smiling. She thought the lagoon
Speaker 1: was lovely, and by the time we got back to
Speaker 1: the main building, she was laughing, talking about herself, beginning
Speaker 1: to relax. Then I gave her a full blast quickly,
Speaker 1: only a moment or two. Don't be afraid. I hate him, yes,
Speaker 1: but I won't hurt you for anything. Let me come in,
Speaker 1: don't fight me. We've got to work as a team.
Speaker 1: It shook her. She turned white and almost passed out
Speaker 1: for a moment. Then she nodded slowly. I see, she said,
Speaker 1: it feels as if it's way inside, deep inside. That's right,
Speaker 1: it won't hurt I promise. She nodded again. Let's go
Speaker 1: back now, I think I'm ready to try. We went
Speaker 1: to work. I was as blind as she was at first.
Speaker 1: There was nothing there at first, not even a flicker
Speaker 1: of brightness. Then probing deeper, something responded only a hint,
Speaker 1: a suggestion of something deep and hidden. But where what
Speaker 1: was her strength? Where was she weak? I couldn't tell.
Speaker 1: We started on dice, crude, of course, but as good
Speaker 1: a tool as any. Dice are no good for measuring anything.
Speaker 1: But that was why I was there. I was the
Speaker 1: measuring instrument. The dice were only reactors sensitive enough two
Speaker 1: balsam cubes tossed from a box with only gravity to
Speaker 1: work against. I showed her first, picked up her mind
Speaker 1: as the dice popped out. Let her through it. Take
Speaker 1: one at a time, the red one first, work on it.
Speaker 1: See now we try both once more? Watch it all right? Now?
Speaker 1: She sat frozen in the chair. She was trying. The
Speaker 1: sweat stood out on her forehead. Aaron sat tense, smoking,
Speaker 1: his fingers twitching as he watched the red and green
Speaker 1: cubes bounce on the white backdrop. Lamberton watched too, but
Speaker 1: his eyes were on the girl, not the cubes. It
Speaker 1: was hard work. Bit by bit, she began to grab
Speaker 1: whatever I had felt in her mind seemed to leap up.
Speaker 1: I probed her, amplifying it, trying to draw it out.
Speaker 1: It was like wading through knee deep mud, sticky, sluggish, resisting.
Speaker 1: I could feel her excitement growing, and bit by bit
Speaker 1: I released my grip, easing her out, baiting her. All right,
Speaker 1: I said, that's enough. She turned to me, wide eyed,
Speaker 1: A I did it. Erin's was on his feet, breathing heavily.
Speaker 1: It worked. It worked, not very well, but it's there.
Speaker 1: All she needs is time and help and patience. But
Speaker 1: it worked. Lambertson, do you know what that means? It
Speaker 1: means that I was right. It means others can have
Speaker 1: it just like she has it. He rubbed his hands together.
Speaker 1: We can arrange a full time lab for it and
Speaker 1: work on three or four lateance simultaneously. It's a wide
Speaker 1: open door, Michael. Can't you see what it means? Lambertson
Speaker 1: nodded and gave me a long look. Yes, I think
Speaker 1: I do. I'll start arrangements tomorrow. Not tomorrow. You'll have
Speaker 1: to wait until next week. Why because Amy would prefer
Speaker 1: to wait. That's why. Erons looked at him and then
Speaker 1: at me peevishly. Finally, he shrugged. If you insist, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it next week, I said, I was so
Speaker 1: tired I could hardly look up at him. I stood
Speaker 1: up and smiled at my girl, poor kid, I thought,
Speaker 1: so excited and eager about it now, and not one
Speaker 1: idea in the world of what she was walking into.
Speaker 1: Certainly Erin's would never be able to tell her Later,
Speaker 1: when they were gone, Lambertson and I walked down towards
Speaker 1: the lagoon. It was a lovely, cool evening. The ducks
Speaker 1: were down at the water's edge. Every year there was
Speaker 1: a mother duck herding a line of ducklings down the
Speaker 1: shore and into the water. They never seemed to go
Speaker 1: where she wanted them to, and she would fuss and chatter,
Speaker 1: waddling back time and again to prod the reluctant ones
Speaker 1: out into the pool. We stood by the water's edge
Speaker 1: in silence for a long time. Then Lambertson kissed me.
Speaker 1: It was the first time he had ever done that.
Speaker 1: We could go away, I whispered in his ear. We
Speaker 1: could run out on Eron's in the study center, and
Speaker 1: everyone just go away somewhere. He shook his head slowly. Amy,
Speaker 1: don't we could. I'll see doctor Custer and he'll tell
Speaker 1: me he can help. I know he will I won't
Speaker 1: need the study center anymore, or any other place or
Speaker 1: anybody but you. He didn't answer, and I knew there
Speaker 1: wasn't anything he could answer. Not then Friday, twenty six May,
Speaker 1: yesterday we went to Boston to see doctor Custer. And
Speaker 1: now it looks as if it's all over. Now even
Speaker 1: I can't pretend that there's anything more to be done.
Speaker 1: Next week, Erin's will come down and I'll go to
Speaker 1: work with him, just the way he has it planned.
Speaker 1: He thinks we have three years a work ahead of
Speaker 1: us before anything can published, before he can really be
Speaker 1: sure we have brought a latent into full use of
Speaker 1: his side potential. Maybe so, I don't know. Maybe in
Speaker 1: three years I'll find some way to make myself care
Speaker 1: one way or the other. But I'll do it anyway
Speaker 1: because there's nothing else to do. There was no anatomical defect.
Speaker 1: Doctor Custer was right about that. The eyes are perfect,
Speaker 1: beautiful gray eyes, he says, and the optic nerves and
Speaker 1: auditory nerves are perfectly functional. The defect isn't there. It's deeper,
Speaker 1: too deep to ever change it. What you no longer use,
Speaker 1: you lose, was what he said, apologizing because he couldn't
Speaker 1: explain it any better. It's like a price tag. Perhaps
Speaker 1: long ago, before I knew anything at all, the sigh
Speaker 1: was so strong it started compensating, bringing in more and
Speaker 1: more from other minds, such a wealth of rich, clear
Speaker 1: interpreted visual and auditory impressions that there was never any
Speaker 1: need for my own. And because of that, certain hookups
Speaker 1: never got hooked up. That's only a theory, of course,
Speaker 1: but there isn't any other way to explain it. But
Speaker 1: am I wrong to hate it more than anything else
Speaker 1: in the world. I want to see Lambertson, see him
Speaker 1: smile and light his pipe, hear him laugh. I want
Speaker 1: to know what color really is, what music really sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm filtered through somebody else's ears. I want to
Speaker 1: see a sunset, just once, just once. I want to
Speaker 1: see that mother duck take her ducklings down to the water,
Speaker 1: but I never will. Instead, I see and hear things
Speaker 1: nobody else can. And the fact that I am stone
Speaker 1: blind and stone deaf shouldn't make any difference. After all,
Speaker 1: I've always been that way. Maybe next week I'll ask
Speaker 1: Erons what he thinks about it. It should be interesting
Speaker 1: to hear what he says. End of Second Sight by
Speaker 1: Edward Allen Nourse