_One of the beautiful things about a delusion is that no
matter how mad someone gets at it ... he can't do it any
harm. Therefore a delusion can be a fine thing for prodding
angry belligerents...._
* * * * *
I remember some bad times, most of them back home on Excenus 23; the
worst was when Dad fell under the reaping machine but there was also
the one when I got lost twenty miles from home with a dud radio, at
the age of twelve; and the one when Uncle Charlie caught me practicing
emergency turns in a helicar round the main weather-maker; and the one
on Figuerra being chased by a cyber-crane; and the time when Dad
decided to send me to Earth to do my Education.
This time is bad in a different way, with no sharp edges but a kind of
a desolation.
Most people I know are feeling bad just now, because at Russett
College we finished our Final Examination five days ago and Results
are not due for a two weeks.
My friend B Laydon says this is yet another Test anyone still sane at
the end being proved tough enough to break a molar on; she says also
The worst part is in bed remembering all the things she could have
written and did not; The second worst is also in bed picturing how to
explain to her parents when they get back to Earth that _someone_ has
to come bottom and in a group as brilliant as Russett College Cultural
Engineering Class this is really no disgrace.
I am not worried that way so much, I cannot remember what I wrote
anyway and I can think of one or two people I am pretty sure will come
bottomer than me--or B either.
I would prefer to think it is just Finals cause me to feel miserable
but it is not.
In Psychology they taught us The mind has the faculty of concealing
any motive it is ashamed of, especially from itself; seems
unfortunately mine does not have this gadget supplied.
I never wanted to come to Earth. I was sent to Russett against my will
and counting the days till I could get back to Home, Father and
Excensus 23, but the sad truth is that now the longed-for moment is
nearly on top of me I do not want to go.
Dad's farm was a fine place to grow up, but now I had four years on
Earth the thought of going back there makes me feel like a
three-weeks' chicken got to get back in its shell.
B and I are on an island in the Pacific. Her parents are on Caratacus
researching on local art forms, so she and I came here to be miserable
in company and away from the rest.
It took me years on Earth to get used to all this water around, it
seemed unnatural and dangerous to have it all lying loose that way,
but now I shall miss even the Sea.
The reason we have this long suspense over Finals is that they will
not use Reading Machines to mark the papers for fear of cutting down
critical judgement; so each paper has to be read word by word by three
Examiners and there are forty-three of us and we wrote six papers
each.
What I think is I am sorry for the Examiners, but B says they were the
ones who set the papers and it serves them perfectly right.
I express surprise because D. J. M'Clare our Professor is one of them,
but B says He is one of the greatest men in the galaxy, of course, but
she gave up thinking him perfect _years_ ago.
One of the main attractions on this Island is swimming under water,
especially by moonlight. Dad sent me a fish-boat as a birthday present
two years back, but I never used it yet on account of my
above-mentioned attitude to water. Now I got this feeling of Carpe
Diem, make the most of Earth while I am on it because probably I shall
not pass this way again.
The fourth day on the Island it is full moon at ten o'clock, so I
pluck up courage to wriggle into the boat and go out under the Sea. B
says Fish parading in and out of reefs just remind her of Cultural
Engineering--crowd behavior--so she prefers to turn in early and find
out what nightmares her subconscious will throw up _this_ time.
The reefs by moonlight are everything they are supposed to be, why did
I not do this often when I had the chance? I stay till my oxygen is
nearly gone, then come out and sadly press the button that collapses
the boat into a thirty-pound package of plastic hoops and oxygen cans.
I sling it on my back and head for the chalet B and I hired among the
coconut trees.
* * * * *
I am crossing an open space maybe fifty yards from it when a Thing
drops on me out of the air.
I do not see the Thing because part of it covers my face, and the rest
is grabbed round my arms and my waist and my hips and whatever, I
cannot see and I cannot scream and I cannot find anything to kick. The
Thing is strong and rubbery and many-armed and warmish, and less than
a second after I first feel it I am being hauled up into the air.