If a disembodied voice can sound shamefaced, Urei's did. "All right, so
I lied; but you annoyed me with your stubbornness."
"Ah. Thalamic reactions."
"I've been in bad company," Urei defended. "What I wanted from you was
the assurance that the people of the Eastern Alliance were essentially
the same as the humans I've met. I had to know if their reactions to
my manipulations would be similar, before I acted. Most of the stuff
I've been able to read about them led me to believe they were entirely
different. If so, I couldn't be sure of results."
"They're similar, of course," Benton said. "They differ only in that
they have been indoctrinated to believe a lot of things which aren't
so. So have we, for that matter--to a different degree and on different
subjects. But essentially we're the same species of animal and react
alike to stimuli. But you didn't get that information from me, eh?"
"No. I relied on abstract reasoning and got the right answer. It's
tricky business, though. I might have precipitated things, instead of
preventing them. Ordinarily I could have obtained that information from
a human brain, if it knew the right answer, by guiding the subject's
thought into the right channel. I can't read thoughts that aren't
there, you know. That's the trouble I had with you; about the only
control I had over you was confined to your motor centers. I could make
you turn a page or select the wrong key, but I couldn't keep you from
knowing about it. In fact it was the very trouble I had with you which
made me doubt that humans were as alike as I had assumed. And also what
made me decide that I needed you to keep me straight in my relations
with humans in general.
"I reason from facts alone, you know. And from the facts at hand I
have decided that your bargain is going to consist of demanding the
knowledge necessary for you to make a sub-cosmic energy converter, in
return for your help in making me understand the obscure psychology of
humans and their incomprehensible motivations." There was a protracted
mental shudder here. "And I suppose you'll keep that up as long as you
live. O.K. But you can expect an argument every time."
Benton went back into the control room with a smile that raised that
quizzical eyebrow on Dr. Albie's now serene face. The good doctor
couldn't know that his assistant's mind was as far from the recent
world-shaking news as it was from the business of the new control
circuits. His eyebrow went up another thirty-second of an inch when
Benton, apparently musing, said: "A mind is inviolate so long as it
refuses to broadcast. I refuse to broadcast. Q.E.D."