"Can anyone?" she replied quietly.
Wallach touched my arm. "You're making the standard, erroneous
assumption that a sense of perception will give its owner a
blueprint-clear grasp of the mechanical details of some machinery.
It doesn't. Perception, as I understand it, is not even similar to
eyesight."
"But--" I fumbled on--"surely there must be some common reference
there, even granting that perception isn't eyesight. So how does
perception work?"
"Tom, if you were blind from birth, I could tell you that I have
eyesight that permits me to see the details of things that you can
determine only by feeling them. This you might understand basically.
But you could never be made to understand the true definition of the
word 'picture' nor grasp the mental impression that is generated by
eyesight."
"Well," I persisted, "can he penetrate flesh?"
"Flesh?"
"Holly's heart has stopped," I said. "But it hasn't been removed. If
Harla can perceive through human flesh, he might be able to perceive
the large, single organ in the chest cavity near the spine."
Teresa said, "Harla's perception gives him a blurry, incomplete
impression." She looked at me. "It is something like a badly
out-of-focus, grossly under-exposed x-ray solid."
"X-ray solid?" I asked.
"It's the closest thing that you might be able to understand," she said
lamely.
I dropped it right there. Teresa had probably been groping in the dark
for some simile that would convey the nearest possible impression. I
felt that this was going to be the nearest that I would ever get to
understanding the sense of perception.
"Can't he get a clear view?"
"He has not the right."
"Right!" I exploded. "Why--"
Wallach held up his hand to stop me. "Don't make Teresa fumble for
words, Tom. Harla has not the right to invade the person of Holly
Carter. Therefore he can not get a clearer perception of her insides."
"Hell!" I roared. "Give Harla the right."
"No one has authority."
"Authority be dammed!" I bellowed angrily. "That girl's life is at
stake!"
* * * * *
Wallach nodded unhappily. "Were this a medical emergency, a surgeon
might close his eyes to the laws that require authorization to operate.
But even if he saved the patient's life, he is laying himself open to
a lawsuit. But this is different, Tom. As you may know, the ability of
any psi-person is measured by their welcome to the information. Thus
Teresa and Harla, both willing to communicate, are able."
"But can't Harla understand that the entire bunch of us are willing
that he should take a peek?"
"Confound it, Tom, it isn't a matter of our permission! It's a matter
of fact. It would ease things if Holly were married to one of us, but
even so it wouldn't be entirely clear. It has to do with the invasion
of privacy."
"Privacy? In this case the very idea is ridiculous."
"Maybe so," said Paul Wallach. "But I don't make the rules. They're
_natural_ laws. As immutable as the laws of gravity or the refraction
of light. And Tom, even if I were making the laws I might not change
things. Not even to save Holly Carter's life. Because, Tom, if
telepathy and perception were as free and unbounded as some of their
early proponents claimed, life would be a sheer, naked hell on earth."
"But what has privacy to do with it? This Harla isn't at all humanoid.
A cat can look at a king--"
"Sure, Tom. But how long would the cat be permitted to read the king's
mind?"
I grunted. "Has this Harla any mental block about examining the
outside?"
He looked at me thoughtfully. "You're thinking about a scar or some
sort of blemish?"
"Yes. Birthmark, maybe. No one is perfect."
"You know of any?"