“What happens now?” he said. A book had manifested itself on the screen before him: Elementary Interlingua, Volume I.
She came up with a small bottle, unscrewed the top and shook a pill into her hand. “Now you take your stimmy,” she told him.
“What’s a stimmy?”
“A mental stimulant. It effects both your IQ and your retentive abilities.”
There was a carafe of water and a glass on the desk. She poured him a drink and handed over glass and pill.
He shrugged and took it and washed it down. “How long does it take to work?” he said. “And how long will it continue to be effective?”
“A few minutes to work and it will last about an hour,” she told him. “If you want to continue to study after that time, you simply take another one.”
“Why doesn’t everybody take them all of the time?”
“You’ll see,” she said wryly. “Now this button here flips the pages for you. This one here will reverse pages if there is any reason for you to go back and check something. See how I press this to bring you to Page One, Chapter One?”
Tracy said grudgingly, “With gismos like this, I can see why you no longer have schools. I’d think that just about everybody would be cramming themselves with scores of subjects.”
She said lowly, “It’s as Jo said. Most people don’t give a damn. All they’re interested in is hedonism… having a good time.”
Something suddenly happened. He speed-read the first page and realized that he understood it completely. Then, for a moment he gaped. He darted a look at Betty Stein. Very very slowly, as though in a movie slow motion, she was walking toward the armchair. She slowly, slowly turned and seemingly took a full minute to seat herself.
She smiled and said, very very slowly, “If… you… have… finished… that… first… page… press… the… button.”
Now he could see why everybody didn’t take stimmies all of the time. The world, save for him, had slowed down, or he had sped up… or both. It would be no way to go through life. He pressed the page-flipping button and went back to work.
Chapter Three
About two hours later and when the effects of Tracy’s second stimmy were about worn off, Academician Stein came in. As usual, his expression was of worry, undoubtedly about his patient. Betty was still seated in her chair. The second time she had taken a stimmy herself, the better to answer questions of the new student in regard to such matters as pronunciation, although theoretically the autoteacher was giving him that.
The academician looked at Tracy and said, “
Tracy was already up to that one but not happy about his accent enough to answer in Interlingua. He said, “I suppose that I’m doing okay. This machine is the damnedest thing I’ve ever run into.”
Stein turned to his daughter. “
Tracy said, “Damn it. Let’s stick to English until I get a little further along.”
Betty said to her father, “He’s still on the first volume of Elementary Interlingua but he’s about half through.”
“In two hours? Excellent. Jo Edmonds was wrong. It will take quite a bit less than a week for him to learn adequate Interlingua.”
Betty raised and lowered one shapely shoulder. “Adequate for everyday usage, yes. But, as Tracy pointed out, he’s got to be able to communicate intelligently in socioeconomics and related subjects. He has to be able to assimilate the history that has transpired since his day.”
“Like hell I do,” Tracy said. “As soon as I can get along well enough for everyday living, I’m getting out of here. I don’t buy your scheme to overthrow Utopia.”
“There is no such thing as Utopia,” Stein said definitely. “It’s something man strives for, runs after, but he never gets it in his grasp. As soon as he reaches one milepost, there’s another. Right now, we’re bogged down. We’re not even trying to get to the next milepost.”
“It’s your problem, not mine,” Tracy told him stubbornly. “My age had another milepost to reach. You’ve now reached it. Where you go from here on in is your business. My business is through.”
The other said worriedly, “Tracy, I am afraid that you have overdone it. I suggest that you return to your room and stretch out for a time. I’ll give you a sedative, if you wish. Rest a couple of hours until lunch.”
“I’m not tired. I’d like to get on with this. The sooner I learn it, the better.”
Stein shook his head. “I’m your physician. Your strength will pick up quite rapidly from now on. But today, in particular, you’ve been under quite a bit of strain.”
“Okay.” Tracy leaned back in his chair. “In just a minute.” He looked at Betty and indicated the second screen on the desk. “You didn’t explain this.”
She said, “It’s a second screen, also connected to the Universal Data Banks. Sometimes when you’re studying you wish to consult another work at the same time. A reference book or something.”
He said, “Suppose I want to consult three or four books, at the same time? In my day, sometimes a student would litter his whole desk with a half dozen books, open to this page or that, and check and recheck this passage or that.”
Betty laughed. “Either of those screens will take four books at a time. I’ll show you how, on your next session.”
He indicated the books in the two bookshelves. “How about those? If you’ve got everything in the data banks, why should you need any books at all?”
Walter Stein chuckled ruefully. “I’m afraid that I’m a compulsive underliner and marginal marker and commentator on books. Those are some of my favorites, so I’ve had them printed up and have filled them with my notations. I have others scattered about the house.”
“So you can get books if you want them, eh?”
“Certainly,” the older man told him. “It’s no problem at all. Just dial the distribution center and they’ll have it done up for you.”
Tracy was surprised. “You mean they’d just print up one book? Just for you?”
“Why yes. It’s all automated, you know. It wouldn’t take more than half an hour for you to have it in your hands. But now, off with you. Into bed!”
Tracy came to his feet, realizing suddenly that the other was right. He was tired. He didn’t think he had ever gone through a period of his life in which he had assimilated so much that was new and strange to him as he had this morning.
He followed his host… if that was the term… and Betty into his bedroom-cum-hospital-room and kicked off his slippers and stretched out on the bed. Betty winked at him, and she and her father left. He still thought she looked like Paulette Goddard, though her hair was cut as short as Ingrid Bergman’s when she had the part of Maria in
But there was no nap. There had been too much thrown at him. He was too stirred up to even recapitulate it all. He fell into a semidoze of weariness, and some of it came back to him.
Dan Whiteley. Dan had been, Tracy supposed, his best friend, in a world in which Tracy Cogswell had not had a good many friends. He had never had the time to accumulate friends. Close comrades, yes, or rather close companions, members of the organization who would have died for him in the clutch, or he for them. He didn’t like the word
