"A house," Young went on, "about four or five times as big as the
ordinary house. Four or five times normal scale, I mean. Doors
twenty-five to thirty feet high and everything else in proportion."
"Neighbors or privacy?" asked Stanford.
"Privacy," said Young.
"We'll take care of it," promised Riggs. "Leave the matter of the house
to us."
Young stood for a long moment, looking at the two of them. Then he
said, "I thank you, gentlemen. I thank you for your helpfulness and
your understanding. But most of all I thank you for not asking any
questions."
He turned slowly and walked out of the room and they sat in silence for
minutes after he was gone.
Finally, Stanford offered a deduction: "It will have to be a place that
a boy would like. Woods to run in and a little stream to fish in and a
field where he can fly his kites. What else could it be?"
"He's been out ordering children's furniture and toys," Riggs agreed.
"Stuff from five thousand years ago. The kind of things he used when he
was a child. But scaled to adult size."
"Now," said Stanford, "he wants a house built to the same proportions.
A house that will make him think or help him believe that he is a
child. But will it work, Riggs? His body will not change. He cannot
make it change. It will only be in his mind."
"Illusion," declared Riggs. "The illusion of bigness in relation to
himself. To a child, creeping on the floor, a door is twenty-five to
thirty feet high, relatively. Of course the child doesn't know that.
But Andrew Young does. I don't see how he'll overcome that."
"At first," suggested Stanford, "he will know that it's illusion, but
after a time, isn't there a possibility that it will become reality so
far as he's concerned? That's why he needs our help. So that the house
will not be firmly planted in his memory as a thing that's merely out
of proportion ... so that it will slide from illusion into reality
without too great a strain."
"We must keep our mouths shut." Riggs nodded soberly. "There must be no
interference. It's a thing he must do himself ... entirely by himself.
Our help with the house must be the help of an unseen, silent agency.
Like brownies, I think the term was that he used, we must help and be
never seen. Intrusion by anyone would introduce a jarring note and
would destroy illusion and that is all he has to work on. Illusion pure
and simple."
"Others have tried," objected Stanford, pessimistic again. "Many
others. With gadgets and machines...."
"None has tried it," said Riggs, "with the power of mind alone. With
the sheer determination to wipe out five thousand years of memory."
"That will be his stumbling block," said Stanford. "The old, dead
memories are the things he has to beat. He has to get rid of them ...
not just bury them, but get rid of them for good and all, forever."
"He must do more than that," said Riggs. "He must replace his memories
with the outlook he had when he was a child. His mind must be washed
out, refreshed, wiped clean and shining and made new again ... ready to
live another five thousand years."
The two men sat and looked at one another and in each other's eyes they
saw a single thought--the day would come when they, too, each of them
alone, would face the problem Andrew Young faced.
"We must help," said Riggs, "in every way we can and we must keep watch
and we must be ready ... but Andrew Young cannot know that we are
helping or that we are watching him. We must anticipate the materials
and tools and the aids that he may need."
* * * * *
Stanford started to speak, then hesitated, as if seeking in his mind
for the proper words.
"Yes," said Riggs. "What is it?"
"Later on," Stanford managed to say, "much later on, toward the very
end, there is a certain factor that we must supply. The one thing that
he will need the most and the one thing that he cannot think about,
even in advance. All the rest can be stage setting and he can still
go on toward the time when it becomes reality. All the rest may be
make-believe, but one thing must come as genuine or the entire effort
will collapse in failure."
Riggs nodded. "Of course. That's something we'll have to work out
carefully."
"If we can," Stanford said.
* * * * *
The yellow button over here and the red one over there and the green
one doesn't fit, so I'll throw it on the floor and just for the fun of
it, I'll put the pink one in my mouth and someone will find me with
it and they'll raise a ruckus because they will be afraid that I will
swallow it.
And there's nothing, absolutely nothing, that I love better than a
full-blown ruckus. Especially if it is over me.
"Ug," said Andrew Young, and he swallowed the button.
He sat stiff and straight in the towering high chair and then, in
a fury, swept the oversized muffin tin and its freight of buttons
crashing to the floor.
For a second he felt like weeping in utter frustration and then a sense
of shame crept in on him.
Big baby, he said to himself.
Crazy to be sitting in an overgrown high chair, playing with buttons
and mouthing baby talk and trying to force a mind conditioned by five
thousand years of life into the channels of an infant's thoughts.
Carefully he disengaged the tray and slid it out, cautiously shinnied
down the twelve-foot-high chair.
The room engulfed him, the ceiling towering far above him.
The neighbors, he told himself, no doubt thought him crazy, although
none of them had said so. Come to think of it, he had not seen any of
his neighbors for a long spell now.
A suspicion came into his mind. Maybe they knew what he was doing,
maybe they were deliberately keeping out of his way in order not to
embarrass him.
That, of course, would be what they would do if they had realized
what he was about. But he had expected ... he had expected ... that
fellow, what's his name? ... at the commission, what's the name of
that commission, anyhow? Well, anyway, he'd expected a fellow whose
name he couldn't remember from a commission the name of which he could
not recall to come snooping around, wondering what he might be up to,
offering to help, spoiling the whole setup, everything he'd planned.
I can't remember, he complained to himself. I can't remember the name
of a man whose name I knew so short a time ago as yesterday. Nor the
name of a commission that I knew as well as I know my name. I'm getting
forgetful. I'm getting downright childish.
Childish?
Childish!
Childish and forgetful.
Good Lord, thought Andrew Young, that's just the way I want it.
On hands and knees he scrabbled about and picked up the buttons, put
them in his pocket. Then, with the muffin tin underneath his arm, he
shinnied up the high chair and, seating himself comfortably, sorted
out the buttons in the pan.
The green one over here in this compartment and the yellow one ...
oops, there she goes onto the floor. And the red one in with the blue
one and this one ... this one ... what's the color of this one? Color?
What's that?
What is what?