Rhoda really went to pieces for a while after that letter but, oddly
enough, all recriminations soon stopped. She began going into the city
every day and after each visit seemed a little calmer for having done
so.
* * *
Finally Connor could no longer remain silent about it. But by now all
conversations had to be broached by tactful beating around the bush so
he began by saying he had decided to take a lower level job in the
metropolis.
Rhoda was not surprised. "I know. A good idea but I think you should
wait a while longer and do something else first."
That made him suspicious. "Are you developing a new kind of unblockable
ESP? How'd you know?"
"No," she laughed. "Some day we will maybe and people will use it better
this time. But right now I'm just going by what I see. You've been
studying Max and I knew you were bound to get restless." She became
thoughtful. "What you really want to know, though, is what I've been
doing in the city. Well, at first I did very little. I kept ending up in
theatres where we Suspendeds can go. That gave a little relief. But
since Ted's letter it's been different. I finally got up the courage to
see Dr. Newbridge."
"Newbridge!"
"Connor, he's a great man. You should see him too."
"My mind may have smaller scope outside the System but what's left of it
isn't cracking, Rhoda." Working himself into a spasm of righteous rage,
he stalked out into the garden and tried to convince himself he was
calmly studying the rose bushes' growth. But Sheila and Tony Williams
came down the lane that skirted the garden and, as their eyes moved
haughtily past him, his rage shifted its focus. He came back into the
house and remained in sullen silence.
Rhoda went on as if there had been no interruption. "I still say Dr.
Newbridge is a great man. He dropped out of the System of his own free
will and that certainly took courage!"
"He willingly gave up his advantages and privileges?"
"Yes. And he's explained why to me. He felt it was destroying every
Subscriber's ability to think and that it could not last. Some day we
would be without anything to do our thinking and he wanted out."
Connor sat down and stared thoughtfully out the window. Max had just
lumbered into the garden and, having unscrewed one hand to replace it
with a flexible spade, was starting on the evening schedule for turning
over the soil at the base of the plants. He would go methodically down
one flower bed, then up the next one, until all had been worked over,
then would start all over again unless ordered to stop. "Are we to end
up the same way?" Connor shuddered. He slapped his knee. "All right,
I'll go with you tomorrow. I've got to see what he's like--a man who'd
voluntarily surrender ninety percent of his powers!"
* * * * *
The next morning they rode into the city together and went to the Harker
Building. It was in an area dense with non-telepaths each one showing
that telltale cleft of anxiety in his forehead but briskly going about
his business as if anxiety were actually a liveable quality. Newbridge
had the same look but there was a nonetheless reassuring ease to the way
he greeted them. He was tall and white-haired and his face frequently
assumed an abstracted look as if his mind were reaching far away.
"You've come here," he said, "for two reasons. The first is
dissatisfaction with your life. More precisely, you're dissatisfied with
your attitude toward life but you wouldn't be willing to put it that
way, not yet. Secondly, you want to know why anyone would willingly
leave the System."