Fair and Warmer Part 1

Fair and Warmer.

by E. G. von Wald.

[Sidenote: _Tensor's melancholia threatened to disturb the entire citizenry, and that was most uncivil! So--if these peculiar aliens caused him this distress, by provoking his intellectual curiosity, the remedy was for him to investigate them to his complete satisfaction....

Thus, in this manner, did Tensor get well--and did he learn a bit too...._]

Tensor gazed helplessly at the fine mist sifting down from a hazy, violet sky. "I told you I was having these spells."

"But Great Oxy," the administrator sputtered, "can't you control yourself?"

"I can't help it, Ruut," Tensor replied. "I just feel sort of funny and--and--"

Ruut's hyperimage was chewing on its illusory lip. "Well, you've got to stop it. Do you understand? There'll be a lot of lichens and things growing all over the Prime's beautiful landscapes if this keeps up."

The administrator's concern amused Tensor and, as his mood lightened, the drizzle abated and the sky became clear again.

"I'm sorry," he apologized sincerely. "But I just seem to be having trouble lately. Ever since the aliens came."

"Oh, come now, son," Ruut chortled with a.s.sumed heartiness. "That's elementary somatics. Just get a grip on yourself."

"Yes sir."

"Perhaps you've been working, or exerting yourself in some other foolish way. Maybe you're tired and should take something."

The long, scrawny citizen gazed disconsolately at the beaut.i.tful violet sky, his face relaxed and soleful. He sighed and murmured, "Frankly, Ruut, I just don't seem to give a d.a.m.n anymore."

On the other side of the planet, Ruut gulped convulsively. His eyes bulged out with thoroughly uncivilized amazement.

"Get out of consciousness immediately," he ordered hoa.r.s.ely. "Take a nego shot, if necessary. Take one anyway. We can't take chances." The administrator's hyperimage, with calculated angry expression, glared sternly into Tensor's mind. "Did you understand me?"

"Yes sir," Tensor murmured. A vague unpleasantness began stirring in his stomach as he contemplated Ruut's thought. The administrator was absolutely right. Civilization simply could not tolerate an unhappy, uncooperative citizen. The general satisfaction of all was so clearly the responsibility of each individual, and one careless man could ruin it for everybody. Very much as he had been doing.

Obediently he nodded. Concealing his embarra.s.sment at the artificiality of the act, he permitted the hyperimage to watch while he administered the chemical.

"Good." Ruut became calm at once, now that he was certain he could command the situation. "I'll have the physician examine you before that wears off." He hesitated and said even more mildly. "I hope this is just a pa.s.sing thing, Tensor. You know I'll do everything I can for you, even teleporting to your focus. But you're a weather sensitive, and that's a pretty common cla.s.sification. And you know the Council."

Tensor indicated lazy a.s.sent. As the drug took hold, he slipped soothingly into unconsciousness, and the hyperimage flickered and vanished with his powers. His last emotion was one of a vague relief that he would not have to look at the low caste face of an administrator for a while.

He floated in his focus, idly and uninterestedly contemplating the deep violet far above. A few minutes before, he had been stirred to an elusive and incomprehensible wistfulness which had been, in some way, connected with the aliens. While waiting for the physician, he pondered the brief glimpse he had got of them before the Council clamped down its screen and privacy orders. Now, under the emotionless pseudoconsciousness of the nego, it seemed strange that he could have been interested in those futile and primitive beings. Practically nothing was known about them, because they could not communicate.

Tensor studied the question briefly. There was no answer available in the paucity of information, so he dismissed it without further interest.

Insufficient data. Therefore, insoluble problem. Therefore, forget about it.

He continued to stare at the sky, unconsciously and vacantly waiting.

He felt the itch. It was a slight stimulation of his medulary region, indicating somebody's desire to communicate with him. That, however, was impossible at the moment. The only faculties of significance remaining in his neutral somatic state were those which were absolutely necessary for civilized life--levitation to avoid being disturbed by gravity, the focus for personal privacy, the construction of food. Communication was not one of those, so the itch would just have to remain. Tensor contemplated an eternity with the medulary itch without the slightest concern.

Abruptly the itch stopped and Curl was there, looking exhausted, as was the polite fas.h.i.+on, since teleporting oneself was commonly regarded as tiring.

"You've taken nego," the physician murmured aloud, half accusingly.

"Yes sir," Tensor replied, using similar sound patterns. "Ruut ordered me to."

"What in Oxy for?"

"He did not like my att.i.tude."

The physician considered the information, and while he did so, Ruut popped into existence beside him, a most uncivilized look of worry on his face.

"How is he, Curl? What have you found out?"

"No need for excitement, my dear administrator," the physician replied evenly, politely avoiding comment on Ruut's crude, low caste self control. "I just got here. Thanks to your order to the young man to fill himself up with nego, he was unable to let me project a hyperimage."

"But the situation was dangerous. Did you examine him? Did he tell you what he said to me?"

Curl glanced at him, and then quickly sent probing thoughts at Tensor's mind and body. After a moment, he gave it up, shaking his head. "The nego won't let him communicate at all. I'll have to order him to administer an antidote to himself."

"No!" Ruut almost shouted. "It's dangerous." He rapidly gave an oral and somewhat horrified account of his earlier communication with Tensor.

"All right," the physician grudgingly admitted. "I'll try to do it superficially. But it's difficult. It's awfully hard to know what's going on in his body from just looking at it and listening to him talk."

He turned to Tensor. "How long have you been having these--er, spurious moods?"

"About six months."

"Are you having any other troubles?"

"No sir. It's just the simple things, like the weather, that seem to be affected."

"I see. Melancholia." Curl frowned thoughtfully. "These moods come unwillingly, is that it? And they don't go away entirely when you s.h.i.+ft your endocrine balance?"

"I'm not so sure about that endocrine s.h.i.+ft, sir," Tensor stated emotionlessly.

"You mean--" Curl stopped incredulously. He shook his head as he comprehended. "Great Iso Oxys!"

"What is it?" Ruut asked in a hushed voice.

"This is deeper than I thought, Ruut. You did very well to put him under nego. The man can't control his endocrine system properly."

"Well do something," Ruut demanded. "Don't just float there."

"All I can do," Curl said, raising his voice exactly one decibel to show his irritation, "is give advice. Obviously, in his condition, the man can't follow it."

Ruut gazed unhappily at his friend. He was in authority over Tensor, and therefore far inferior in native gifts. Now it seemed that Tensor was regressing in some obscure way to his own level, a tragic and uncivilized situation.