_Just about a year ago, two enthusiastic young men came to see me, and during the course of the visit announced that they were starting a campaign to make their living in science fiction--and also to become "names" in the best science fiction magazines. They planned to collaborate on some material, and write on their own as well, intending to make the grade both ways. _ _One of the pair was a well-known science fiction fan, who had appeared once or twice in the "pro mags, " as fans designate journals like this one. The other was Randall Garrett, who had previously sold a respectable number of stories to various magazines in the science fiction and fantasy field. _ _I shall not try to insult your intelligence by stating that I told them I knew they could do it; on the contrary, I larded doubt with sympathy. However, this story, and Robert A. Madle's "Inside Science Fiction" will show how wrong I was!_ SUITE MENTALE by Randall Garrett _Illustrated by EMSH_ OVERTURE--ADAGIO MISTERIOSO The neurosurgeon peeled the thin surgical gloves from his hands as thenurse blotted the perspiration from his forehead for the last time afterthe long, grueling hours. "They're waiting outside for you, Doctor, " she said quietly. The neurosurgeon nodded wordlessly. Behind him, three assistants werestill finishing up the operation, attending to the little finishingtouches that did not require the brilliant hand of the specialist. Suchthings as suturing up a scalp, and applying bandages. The nurse took the sterile mask--no longer sterile now--while the doctorwashed and dried his hands. "Where are they?" he asked finally. "Out in the hall, I suppose?" [Illustration] She nodded. "You'll probably have to push them out of the way to get outof Surgery. " * * * * * Her prediction was almost perfect. The group of men in conservativebusiness suits, wearing conservative ties, and holding conservative, soft, felt hats in their hands were standing just outside the door. Dr. Mallon glanced at the five of them, letting his eyes stop on the face ofthe tallest. "He may live, " the doctor said briefly. "You don't sound very optimistic, Dr. Mallon, " said the FBI man. Mallon shook his head. "Frankly, I'm not. He was shot laterally, justabove the right temple, with what looks to me like a . 357 magnum pistolslug. It's in there--" He gestured back toward the room he had justleft. "--you can have it, if you want. It passed completely through thebrain, lodging on the other side of the head, just inside the skull. What kept him alive, I'll never know, but I can guarantee that he mightas well be dead; it was a rather nasty way to lobotomize a man, but itwas effective, I can assure you. " The Federal agent frowned puzzledly. "Lobotomized? Like those operationsthey do on psychotics?" "Similar, " said Mallon. "But no psychotic was ever butchered up likethis; and what I had to do to him to save his life didn't helpanything. " The men looked at each other, then the big one said: "I'm sure you didthe best you could, Dr. Mallon. " The neurosurgeon rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead andlooked steadily into the eyes of the big man. "You wanted him alive, " he said slowly, "and I have a duty to save life. But frankly, I think we'll all eventually wish we had the common humandecency to let Paul Wendell die. Excuse me, gentlemen; I don't feelwell. " He turned abruptly and strode off down the hall. * * * * * One of the men in the conservative suits said: "Louis Pasteur livedthrough most of his life with only half a brain and he never even knewit, Frank; maybe--" "Yeah. Maybe, " said the big man. "But I don't know whether to hope hedoes or hope he doesn't. " He used his right thumbnail to pick a bit ofmicroscopic dust from beneath his left index finger, studying theoperation without actually seeing it. "Meanwhile, we've got to decidewhat to do about the rest of those screwballs. Wendell was the only saneone, and therefore the most dangerous--but the rest of them aren't whatyou'd call safe, either. " The others nodded in a chorus of silent agreement. NOCTURNE--TEMPO DI VALSE "Now what the hell's the matter with me?" thought Paul Wendell. He couldfeel nothing. Absolutely nothing: No taste, no sight, no hearing, noanything. "Am I breathing?" He couldn't feel any breathing. Nor, forthat matter, could he feel heat, nor cold, nor pain. "Am I dead? No. At least, I don't _feel_ dead. Who am I? What am I?" Noanswer. _Cogito, ergo sum. _ What did that mean? There was somethingquite definitely wrong, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. Ideasseemed to come from nowhere; fragments of concepts that seemed to haveno referents. What did that mean? What is a referent? A concept? He felthe knew intuitively what they meant, but what use they were he didn'tknow. There was something wrong, and he had to find out what it was. And hehad to find out through the only method of investigation left open tohim. So he thought about it. SONATA--ALLEGRO CON BRIO The President of the United States finished reading the sheaf of papersbefore him, laid them neatly to one side, and looked up at the big manseated across the desk from him. "Is this everything, Frank?" he asked. "That's everything, Mr. President; everything we know. We've got eightmen locked up in St. Elizabeth's, all of them absolutely psychotic, andone human vegetable named Paul Wendell. We can't get anything out ofthem. " The President leaned back in his chair. "I really can't quite understandit. Extra-sensory perception--why should it drive men insane? Wendell'spapers don't say enough. He claims it can be mathematically workedout--that he _did_ work it out--but we don't have any proof of that. " The man named Frank scowled. "Wasn't that demonstration of his proofenough?" A small, graying, intelligent-faced man who had been sitting silently, listening to the conversation, spoke at last. "Mr. President, I'm afraidI still don't completely understand the problem. If we could go over it, and get it straightened out--" He left the sentence hanging expectantly. "Certainly. This Paul Wendell is a--well, he called himself a psionicmathematician. Actually, he had quite a respectable reputation in themathematical field. He did very important work in cybernetic theory, buthe dropped it several years ago--said that the human mind couldn't beworked at from a mechanistic angle. He studied various branches ofpsychology, and eventually dropped them all. He built several of thosequeer psionic machines--gold detectors, and something he called a hexer. He's done a lot of different things, evidently. " "Sounds like he was unable to make up his mind, " said the small man. * * * * * The President shook his head firmly. "Not at all. He did new, creativework in every one of the fields he touched. He was considered somethingof a mystic, but not a crackpot, or a screwball. "But, anyhow, the point is that he evidently found what he'd beenlooking for for years. He asked for an appointment with me; I okayed therequest because of his reputation. He would only tell me that he'dstumbled across something that was vital to national defense and thefuture of mankind; but I felt that, in view of the work he had done, hewas entitled to a hearing. " "And he proved to you, beyond any doubt, that he had this power?" thesmall man asked. Frank shifted his big body uneasily in his chair. "He certainly did, Mr. Secretary. " The President nodded. "I know it might not sound too impressive whenheard second-hand, but Paul Wendell could tell me more of what was goingon in the world than our Central Intelligence agents have been able todig up in twenty years. And he claimed he could teach the trick toanyone. "I told him I'd think it over. Naturally, my first step was to make surethat he was followed twenty-four hours a day. A man with informationlike that simply could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. " ThePresident scowled, as though angry with himself. "I'm sorry to say thatI didn't realize the full potentialities of what he had said for severaldays--not until I got Frank's first report. " * * * * * "You could hardly be expected to, Mr. President, " Frank said. "Afterall, something like that is pretty heady stuff. " "I think I follow you, " said the Secretary. "You found he was alreadyteaching this trick to others. " The President glanced at the FBI man. Frank said: "That's right; he washolding meetings--classes, I suppose you'd call them--twice a week. There were eight men who came regularly. " "That's when I gave the order to have them all picked up. Can youimagine what would happen if _everybody_ could be taught to use thisability? Or even a small minority?" "They'd rule the world, " said the Secretary softly. The President shrugged that off. "That's a small item, really. The pointis that _nothing_ would be hidden from _anyone_. "The way we play the Game of Life today is similar to playing poker. Wekeep a straight face and play the cards tight to our chest. But whatwould happen if everyone could see everyone else's cards? It would ceaseto be a game of strategy, and become a game of pure chance. * * * * * "We'd have to start playing Life another way. It would be like chess, where you can see the opponent's every move. But in all human historythere has never been a social analogue for chess. That's why PaulWendell and his group had to be stopped--for a while at least. " "But what could you have done with them?" asked the Secretary. "Imprisonthem summarily? Have them shot? What _would_ you have done?" The President's face became graver than ever. "I had not yet made thatdecision. Thank Heaven, it has been taken out of my hands. " "One of his own men shot him?" "That's right, " said the big FBI man. "We went into his apartment aninstant too late. We found eight madmen and a near-corpse. We're notsure what happened, and we're not sure we want to know. Anything thatcan drive eight reasonably stable men off the deep end in less than anhour is nothing to meddle around with. " "I wonder what went wrong?" asked the Secretary of no one in particular. SCHERZO--PRESTO Paul Wendell, too, was wondering what went wrong. Slowly, over a period of immeasurable time, memory seeped back into him. Bits of memory, here and there, crept in from nowhere, sometimes to belost again, sometimes to remain. Once he found himself mentally hummingan odd, rather funeral tune: _Now, though you'd have said that the head was dead, For its owner dead was he, It stood on its neck with a smile well-bred, And bowed three times to me. It was none of your impudent, off-hand nods. . . . _ Wendell stopped and wondered what the devil seemed so important aboutthe song. Slowly, slowly, memory returned. When he suddenly realized, with crashing finality, where he was and whathad happened to him, Paul Wendell went violently insane. Or he wouldhave, if he could have become violent. MARCHE FUNEBRE--LENTO "Open your mouth, Paul, " said the pretty nurse. The hulking mass ofnot-quite-human gazed at her with vacuous eyes and opened its mouth. Dexterously, she spooned a mouthful of baby food into it. "Now swallowit, Paul. That's it. Now another. " "In pretty bad shape, isn't he?" Nurse Peters turned to look at the man who had walked up behind her. Itwas Dr. Benwick, the new interne. "He's worthless to himself and anyone else, " she said. "It's a shame, too; he'd be rather nice looking if there were any personality behindthat face. " She shoveled another spoonful of mashed asparagus into thegaping mouth. "Now swallow it, Paul. " "How long has he been here?" Benwick asked, eyeing the scars that showedthrough the dark hair on the patient's head. "Nearly six years, " Miss Peters said. "Hmmh! But they outlawed lobotomies back in the sixties. " "Open your mouth, Paul. " Then, to Benwick: "This was an accident. Bulletin the head. You can see the scar on the other side of his head. " * * * * * The doctor moved around to look at the left temple. "Doesn't leave muchof a human being, does it?" "It doesn't even leave much of an animal, " Miss Peters said. "He'salive, but that's the best you can say for him. (Now swallow, Paul. That's it. ) Even an ameba can find food for itself. " "Yeah. Even a single cell is better off than he is. Chop out a man'sforebrain and he's nothing. It's a case of the whole being _less_ thanthe sum of its parts. " "I'm glad they outlawed the operation on mental patients, " Miss Peterssaid, with a note of disgust in her voice. Dr. Benwick said: "It's worse than it looks. Do you know why theanti-lobotomists managed to get the bill passed?" "Let's drink some milk now, Paul. No, Doctor; I was only a little girlat that time. " "It was a matter of electro-encephalographic records. They showed thatthere was electrical activity in the prefrontal lobes even after thenerves had been severed, which could mean a lot of things; but the A-Lsupporters said that it indicated that the forebrain was still capableof thinking. " Miss Peters looked a little ill. "Why--that's _horrible_! I wish you'dnever told me. " She looked at the lump of vegetablized human sittingplacidly at the table. "Do you suppose he's actually _thinking_, somewhere, deep inside?" "Oh, I doubt it, " Benwick said hastily. "There's probably no realself-awareness, none at all. There couldn't be. " "I suppose not, " Miss Peters said, "but it's not pleasant to think of. " "That's why they outlawed it, " said Benwick. RONDO--ANDANTE MA NON POCO Insanity is a retreat from reality, an escape within the mind from thereality outside the mind. But what if there is no detectable realityoutside the mind? What is there to escape from? Suicide--death in anyform--is an escape from life. But if death does not come, and can not beself-inflicted, what then? And when the pressure of nothingness becomes too great to bear, itbecomes necessary to escape; a man under great enough pressure will takethe easy way out. But if there is no easy way? Why, then a man must takethe hard way. For Paul Wendell, there was no escape from his dark, senseless Gehennaby way of death, and even insanity offered no retreat; insanity initself is senseless, and senselessness was what he was trying to flee. The only insanity possible was the psychosis of regression, a fleeinginto the past, into the crystallized, unchanging world of memory. So Paul Wendell explored his past, every year, every hour, every secondof it, searching to recall and savor every bit of sensation he had everexperienced. He tasted and smelled and touched and heard and analyzedeach of them minutely. He searched through his own subjective thoughtprocesses, analyzing, checking and correlating them. _Know thyself. _ Time and time again, Wendell retreated from his ownmemories in confusion, or shame, or fear. But there was no retreat fromhimself, and eventually he had to go back and look again. He had plenty of time--all the time in the world. How can subjectivetime be measured when there is no objective reality? * * * * * Eventually, there came the time when there was nothing left to look at;nothing left to see; nothing to check and remember; nothing that he hadnot gone over in every detail. Again, boredom began to creep in. It wasnot the boredom of nothingness, but the boredom of the familiar. Imagination? What could he imagine, except combinations and permutationsof his own memories? He didn't know--perhaps there might be more to itthan that. So he exercised his imagination. With a wealth of material to draw upon, he would build himself worlds where he could move around, walk, talk, and make love, eat, drink and feel the caress of sunshine and wind. It was while he was engaged in this project that he touched anothermind. He touched it, fused for a blinding second, and bounced away. Heran gibbering up and down the corridors of his own memory, mentallyreeling from the shock of--_identification_! * * * * * Who was he? Paul Wendell? Yes, he knew with incontrovertible certaintythat he was Paul Wendell. But he also knew, with almost equal certainty, that he was Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. He was living--hadlived--in the latter half of the nineteenth century. But he knew nothingof the Captain other than the certainty of identity; nothing else ofthat blinding mind-touch remained. Again he scoured his memory--Paul Wendell's memory--checking andrechecking the area just before that semi-fatal bullet had crashedthrough his brain. And finally, at long last, he knew with certainty where his calculationshad gone astray. He knew positively why eight men had gone insane. Then he went again in search of other minds, and this time he knew hewould not bounce. QUASI UNA FANTASIA POCO ANDANTE PIANISSIMO An old man sat quietly in his lawnchair, puffing contentedly on anexpensive briar pipe and making corrections with a fountain pen on athick sheaf of typewritten manuscript. Around him stretched an expanseof green lawn, dotted here and there with squat cycads that looked likeovergrown pineapples; in the distance, screening the big house from theroad, stood a row of stately palms, their fronds stirring lightly in thefaint, warm California breeze. The old man raised his head as a car pulled into the curving driveway. The warm hum of the turboelectric engine stopped, and a man climbed outof the vehicle. He walked with easy strides across the grass to wherethe elderly gentleman sat. He was lithe, of indeterminate age, but witha look of great determination. There was something in his face that madethe old man vaguely uneasy--not with fear but with a sense of deeprespect. "What can I do for you, sir?" "I have some news for you, Mr. President, " the younger one said. The old man smiled wryly. "I haven't been President for fourteen years. Most people call me 'Senator' or just plain 'Mister'. " * * * * * The younger man smiled back. "Very well, Senator. My name is Camberton, James Camberton. I brought some information that may possibly relieveyour mind--or, again, it may not. " "You sound ominous, Mr. Camberton. I hope you'll remember that I've beenretired from the political field for nearly five years. What is thisshattering news?" "Paul Wendell's body was buried yesterday. " The Senator looked blank for a second, then recognition came into hisface. "Wendell, eh? After all this time. Poor chap; he'd have beenbetter off if he'd died twenty years ago. " Then he paused and looked up. "But just who are you, Mr. Camberton? And what makes you think I wouldbe particularly interested in Paul Wendell?" "Mr. Wendell wants to tell you that he is very grateful to you forhaving saved his life, Senator. If it hadn't been for your orders, hewould have been left to die. " The Senator felt strangely calm, although he knew he should feel shock. "That's ridiculous, sir! Mr. Wendell's brain was hopelessly damaged; henever recovered his sanity or control of his body. I know; I used todrop over to see him occasionally, until I finally realized that I wasonly making myself feel worse and doing him no good. " [Illustration] "Yes, sir. And Mr. Wendell wants you to know how much he appreciatedthose visits. " * * * * * The Senator grew red. "What the devil are you talking about? I just saidthat Wendell couldn't talk. How could he have said anything to you? Whatdo you know about this?" "I never said he _spoke_ to me, Senator; he didn't. And as to what Iknow of this affair, evidently you don't remember my name. JamesCamberton. " The Senator frowned. "The name is familiar, but--" Then his eyes wentwide. "Camberton! You were one of the eight men who--Why, _you're theman who shot Wendell_!" Camberton pulled up an empty lawnchair and sat down. "That's right, Senator; but there's nothing to be afraid of. Would you like to hearabout it?" "I suppose I must. " The old man's voice was so low that it was scarcelyaudible. "Tell me--were the other seven released, too? Have--have youall regained your sanity? Do you remember--" He stopped. "Do we remember the extra-sensory perception formula? Yes, we do; alleight of us remember it well. It was based on faulty premises, andincomplete, of course; but in its own way it was workable enough. Wehave something much better now. " The old man shook his head slowly. "I failed, then. Such an idea is asfatal to society as we know it as a virus plague. I tried to keep youmen quarantined, but I failed. After all those years of insanity, nowthe chess game begins; the poker game is over. " "It's worse than that, " Camberton said, chuckling softly. "Or, actually, it's much better. " "I don't understand; explain it to me. I'm an old man, and I may notlive to see my world collapse. I hope I don't. " Camberton said: "I'll try to explain in words, Senator. They'reinadequate, but a fuller explanation will come later. " And he launched into the story of the two-decade search of Paul Wendell. CODA--ANDANTINO "Telepathy? Time travel?" After three hours of listening, theex-President was still not sure he understood. "Think of it this way, " Camberton said. "Think of the mind at any giveninstant as being surrounded by a shield--a shield of privacy--a shieldwhich you, yourself have erected, though unconsciously. It's a perfectinsulator against telepathic prying by others. You feel you _have_ tohave it in order to retain your privacy--your sense of identity, even. But here's the kicker: even though no one else can get in, _you_ can'tget out! "You can call this shield 'self-consciousness'--perhaps _shame_ is abetter word. Everyone has it, to some degree; no telepathic thought canbreak through it. Occasionally, some people will relax it for a fractionof a second, but the instant they receive something, the barrier goes upagain. " "Then how is telepathy possible? How can you go through it?" The Senatorlooked puzzled as he thoughtfully tamped tobacco into his briar. "You don't go _through_ it; you go _around_ it. " * * * * * "Now wait a minute; that sounds like some of those fourth dimensionstories I've read. I recall that when I was younger, I read a murdermystery--something about a morgue, I think. At any rate, the murder wascommitted inside a locked room; no one could possibly have gotten in orout. One of the characters suggested that the murderer traveled throughthe fourth dimension in order to get at the victim. He didn't go throughthe walls; he went around them. " The Senator puffed a match flame intothe bowl of his pipe, his eyes on the younger man. "Is that what you'redriving at?" "Exactly, " agreed Camberton. "The fourth dimension. Time. You must goback in time to an instant when that wall did not exist. An infant hasno shame, no modesty, no shield against the world. You must travel backdown your own four-dimensional tube of memory in order to get outsideit, and to do that, you have to know your own mind completely, and youmust be _sure_ you know it. "For only if you know your own mind can you communicate with anothermind. Because, at the 'instant' of contact, you _become_ that person;you must enter his own memory at the beginning and go _up_ thehyper-tube. You will have all his memories, his hopes, his fears, his_sense of identity_. Unless you know--beyond any trace of doubt--who_you_ are, the result is insanity. " * * * * * The Senator puffed his pipe for a moment, then shook his head. "Itsounds like Oriental mysticism to me. If you can travel in time, you'dbe able to change the past. " "Not at all, " Camberton said; "that's like saying that if you read abook, the author's words will change. "Time isn't like that. Look, suppose you had a long trough filled withsupercooled water. At one end, you drop in a piece of ice. Immediatelythe water begins to freeze; the crystallization front moves toward theother end of the trough. Behind that front, there is ice--frozen, immovable, unchangeable. Ahead of it there is water--fluid, mobile, changeable. "The instant we call 'the present' is like that crystallization front. The past is unchangeable; the future is flexible. But they both exist. " "I see--at least, I think I do. And you can do all this?" "Not yet, " said Camberton; "not completely. My mind isn't as strong asWendell's, nor as capable. I'm not the--shall we say--the superman heis; perhaps I never will be. But I'm learning--I'm learning. After all, it took Paul twenty years to do the trick under the most favorablecircumstances imaginable. " "I see. " The Senator smoked his pipe in silence for a long time. Camberton lit a cigaret and said nothing. After a time, the Senator tookthe briar from his mouth and began to tap the bowl gently on the heel ofhis palm. "Mr. Camberton, why do you tell me all this? I still haveinfluence with the Senate; the present President is a protégé of mine. It wouldn't be too difficult to get you men--ah--put away again. I haveno desire to see our society ruined, our world destroyed. Why do youtell me?" * * * * * Camberton smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid you might find it a littledifficult to put us away again, sir; but that's not the point. You see, we need you. We have no desire to destroy our present culture until wehave designed a better one to replace it. "You are one of the greatest living statesmen, Senator; you have awealth of knowledge and ability that can never be replaced; knowledgeand ability that will help us to design a culture and a civilizationthat will be as far above this one as this one is above the wolf pack. We want you to come in with us, help us; we want you to be one of us. " "I? I'm an old man, Mr. Camberton. I will be dead before thiscivilization falls; how can I help build a new one? And how could I, atmy age, be expected to learn this technique?" "Paul Wendell says you can. He says you have one of the strongest mindsnow existing. " The Senator put his pipe in his jacket pocket. "You know, Camberton, youkeep referring to Wendell in the present tense. I thought you said hewas dead. " Again Camberton gave him the odd smile. "I didn't say that, Senator; Isaid they buried his body. That's quite a different thing. You see, before the poor, useless hulk that held his blasted brain died, Paulgave the eight of us his memories; he gave us _himself_. The mind is notthe brain, Senator; we don't know what it _is_ yet, but we do know whatit _isn't_. Paul's poor, damaged brain is dead, but his memories, histhought processes, the very essence of all that was Paul Wendell isstill very much with us. "Do you begin to see now why we want you to come in with us? There arenine of us now, but we need the tenth--you. Will you come?" "I--I'll have to think it over, " the old statesman said in a voice thathad a faint quaver. "I'll have to think it over. " But they both knew what his answer would be. Transcriber's Note This etext was produced from _Future Science Fiction_ No. 30, 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyrighton this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errorshave been corrected without note.