'The courses are free to all who can make use of them,' he said. 'We do expect, of course, that they make proper use of them and that they display some diligence in study.'
'You mean anyone at all can enroll?' I asked. 'And it don't cost anything?'
After the first disappointment, I was beginning to see the possibilities. With bona fide university educations for the taking, it would be possible to set up one of the sweetest rackets that anyone could ask for.
'There's one restriction,' the creature explained. 'We cannot, obviously, concern ourselves with individuals. The paperwork would get completely out of hand. We enroll cultures. You, as a representative of your culture?what is it you call yourselves?'
'The human race, originally of the planet Earth, now covering some half million cubic light-years. I'd have to see your chart…'
'That's not necessary at the moment. We would be quite happy to accept your application for the entrance of the human race.'
It took the wind out of me for a minute. I wasn't any representative of the human race. And if I could be, I wouldn't. This was my deal, not the human race's. But I couldn't let him know that, of course. He wouldn't have done business with me.
'Now not so fast,' I pleaded. 'There's a question or two I'd like to have you answer. What kind of courses do you offer? What kind of electives do you have?'
'First there is the basic course,' the creature said. 'It is more or less a familiarization course, a sort of orientation. It includes those subjects which we believe can be of the most use to the race in question. It is, quite naturally, tailored specifically for each student culture. After that, there is a wide field of electives, hundreds of thousands of them.'
'How about final exams and tests and things like that?' I wanted to know.
'Oh, surely,' said the creature. 'Such tests are conducted every?tell me about your time system.'
I told him the best I could and he seemed to understand.
'I'd say', he finally said, 'that about every thousand years of your time would come fairly close. It is a long- range programme and to conduct tests any oftener would put some strain upon our resources and might be of little value.'
That decided me. What happened a thousand years from now was no concern of mine.
I asked a few more questions to throw him off the track?just in case he might have been suspicious?about the history of the university and such.
I still can't believe it. It's hard to conceive of any race working a million years to set up a university aimed at the eventual education of an entire galaxy, travelling to all the planets to assemble data, compiling the records of countless cultures, correlating and classifying and sorting out that mass of information to set up the study courses. It was just too big for a man to grasp. For a while, he had me reeling on the ropes and faintly starry-eyed about the whole affair. But then I managed to snap back to normal.
'All right, Professor,' I said, 'you can sign us up. What am I supposed to do?'
'Not a thing,' he said. 'The recording of our discussion will supply the data. We'll outline the course of basic study and you then may take such electives as you wish.'
'If we can't haul it all in one trip, we can come back again?' I asked.
'Oh, definitely. I anticipate you may wish to send a fleet to carry all you need. We'll supply sufficient machines and as many copies of the study recordings as you think you will need.'
'It'll take a lot,' I said bluntly, figuring I'd start high and haggle my way down. 'An awful lot.'
'I am aware of that,' he told me. 'Education for an entire culture is no simple matter. But we are geared for it.'
So there we had it?all legal and airtight. We could get anything we wanted and as much as we wanted and we'd have a right to it. No one could say we stole it. Not even Doc could say that.
The creature explained to me the system of notation they used on the recording cylinders and how the courses would be boxed and numbered so they could be used in context. He promised to supply me with recordings of the electives so I could pick out what we wanted.
He was real happy about finding another customer and he proudly told me of all the others that they had and he held forth at length on the satisfaction that an educator feels at the opportunity to pass on the torch of knowledge. He had me feeling like a heel.
Then we were through and I was sitting in the seat again and the second creature was taking the helmet off my head. I got up and the first creature rose to his feet and faced me.
We couldn't talk any more than we could to start with. It was a weird feeling, to face a being you've just made a deal with and not be able to say a single word that he can understand. But he held out both his hands and I took them in mine and he gave my hands a friendly squeeze.
'Why don't you go ahead and kiss him?' asked Hutch. 'Me and the boys will look the other way.'
Ordinarily, I'd have slugged Hutch for a crack like that, but I didn't even get sore.
The second creature took the two sticks out of the machine and handed one to me. They'd gone in transparent, but they came out black.
'Let's get out of here,' I said.
We got out as fast as we could and still keep our dignity?if you could call it that.
Outside the silo, I got Hutch and Pancake and Frost together and told them what had happened. 'We got the universe by the tail,' I said, 'with a downhill pull.'
'What about Doc?' asked Frost.
'Don't you see? It's just the kind of deal that would appeal to him. We can let on we're noble and big-hearted and acting in good faith. All I need to do is get close enough to grab him.'
'He won't even listen to you,' said Pancake. 'He won't believe a word you say.'
'You guys stay right here,' I said. 'I'll handle Doc.'
I walked back across the stretch of ground between the building and the ship. There was no sign of Doc. I was all set to holler for him, then thought better of it. I took a chance and started up the ladder. I reached the port and there was still no sign of him.
I moved warily into the ship. I thought I knew what had become of him, but there was no need to take more chances than I had to.
I found him in his chair in the dispensary. He was stiffer than a goat. The gun lay on the floor. There were two empty bottles beside the chair.
I stood and looked at him and knew what had happened.
After I had left, he had got to thinking about the situation and had run into the problem of how he'd climb down off that limb and he had solved it the way he'd solved most of his problems all his life.
I got a blanket and covered him. Then I rummaged around and found another bottle. I uncorked it and put it beside the chair, where he could reach it easy. Then I picked up the gun and went to call the others in.
I lay in bed that night and thought about it and it was beautiful.
There were so many angles that a man didn't know quite where to start.
There was the university racket which, queerly enough, was entirely legitimate, except that the professor out in the silo never meant it to be sold.
And there was the quickie vacation deal, offering a year or two on an alien planet in six hours of actual time. All we'd need to do was pick a number of electives in geography or social science or whatever they might call it.
There could be an information bureau or a research agency, charging fancy prices to run down facts on any and all subjects.
Without a doubt, there'd be some on-the-spot historical recordings and with those in hand, we could retail adventure, perfectly safe adventure, to the stay-at-homes who might hanker for it.
I thought about that and a lot of other things which were not quite so sure, but at least probable and worth investigating, and I thought, too, about how the professors had finally arrived at what seemed to me a sure-fire effective medium for education.
You wanted to know about a thing, so you up and lived it; you learned it on the ground. You didn't read about it or hear about it or even see it in plain three-dimension?you experienced it. You walked the soil of the planet you wanted to know about; you lived with the beings that you wished to study; you saw as an eye-witness, and perhaps
