James H. Schmitz Trigger & Friends

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A Tale of Two Clocks
(the original title for
Legacy
) when it was published, almost 40 years ago. Nor do I care. Whoever it was,
they did a mediocre job. That's putting it bluntly, but honestly. It's
possible, of course, that the editor did spot this problem, brought it to
Schmitz's attention, and Schmitz just got stubborn about it. But given the
long history of the close working relationship between Schmitz and John
Campbell -- and the fact that you almost never see this mistake in the Schmitz
stories which Campbell edited -- I think that's unlikely. I can't prove it,
of course, but
I believe the editor just fell down on the job. And thereby did Schmitz a
disservice.
All right, let's move on. The second major area where I did some major
editing came in the following scenes. Again, I
suggest the reader scan the material first, then read my commentary, and then
(if you wish) go back and read it again.
The thing that had caught their attention was a quite simple process. It just
happened to be a process the Psychology
Service hadn't observed under those particular circumstances before.
"Here's what our investigators had the last time," Pilch said. "Lines and
lines of stuff, of course. But there's a simple
continuity which makes it clear. No need to go into details. As classes --
you've stepped now and then on things that squirmed or squashed. Bad smells.
Etcetera. How do you feel about plasmoids?"
Trigger wrinkled her nose. "I just think they're unpleasant things. All
except--"
Oops! She checked herself.
"--Repulsive," said Pilch. "It's quite all right about Repulsive. We've been
informed of that supersecret little item you're guarding. If we hadn't been
told, we'd know now, of course. Go ahead."
"Well, it's odd!" Trigger remarked thoughtfully. "I just said I thought
plasmoids were rather unpleasant. But that's the way I used to feel about
them. I don't feel that way now."
"Except again," said Pilch, "for that little monstrosity on the ship. If it
was a plasmoid. You rather suspect it was, don't you?"
Trigger nodded. "That would be pretty bad!"
"Very bad," said Pilch. "Plasmoids generally, you feel about them now as you
feel about potatoes... rocks... neutral things like that?"
"That's about it," Trigger said. She still looked puzzled.
"We'll go over what seems to have changed your attitude there in a minute or
so. Here's another thing--" Pilch paused a moment, then said, "Night before
last, about an hour after you'd gone to bed, you had a very light touch of the
same pattern of mental blankness you experienced on that plasmoid station."
"While I was asleep?" Trigger said, startled.
"That's right. Comparatively very light, very brief. Five or six minutes.
Dream activity, etcetera, smooths out. Some blocking on various sense lines.
Then, normal sleep until about five minutes before you woke up. At that point
there may have been another minute touch of the same pattern. Too brief to be
actually definable. A few seconds at most. The point is that this is a
continuing process."
She looked at Trigger a moment. "Not particularly alarmed, are you?"
"No," said Trigger. "It just seems very odd."
"Yes, I know."
***
Pilch was silent for some moments again, considering the wall-screen as if
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thinking about something connected with it.
"Well, we'll drop that for now," she said finally. "Let me tell you what's
been happening these months, starting with that first amnesia-covered blankout
on
Harvest Moon
. When you got the first Service check-up at Commissioner Tate's demand, there
was very little to go on. The amnesia didn't lift immediately -- not very
unusual. The blankout might be interesting because of the circumstances.
Otherwise the check showed you were in a good deal better than normal
condition. Outside of total therapy processes -- and I believe you know that's
a long haul -- there wasn't much to be done for you, and no particular reason
to do it. So an amnesia-resolving process was initiated and you were left
alone for a while.
"Actually something already was going on at the time, but it wasn't spotted
until your next check. What it's amounted to has been a relatively minor but
extremely precise and apparently purposeful therapy process. The very
interesting thing is that this orderly little process appears to have been
going on all by itself. And that just doesn't happen. You disturbed now?"
Trigger nodded. "A little. Mainly I'm wondering why somebody wants me to
not-dislike plasmoids."
"So am I wondering," said Pilch. "Somebody does, obviously. And a very slick
somebody it is. We'll find out by and by.
Incidentally, this particular part of the business has been concluded.
Apparently, our 'somebody' doesn't intend to make you wild for plasmoids. It's
enough that you don't dislike them."
Trigger smiled. "I can't see anyone making me wild for the things, whatever
they tried!"
Pilch nodded. "Could be done," she said. "Rather easily. You'd be bats, of
course. But that's very different from a simple neutralizing process like the
one we've been discussing... Now here's something else. You were pretty
unhappy about this business for a while. That wasn't 'somebody's' fault. That
was us.
"Your investigators could have interfered with the little therapy process in a
number of ways. That wouldn't have taught them a thing, so they didn't. But on
your third check they found something else. Again it wasn't in the least
obtrusive; in someone else they mightn't have given it a second look. But it
didn't fit at all with your major personality patterns. You wanted to stay
where you were."
"Stay where I was?"
"In the Manon System."
"Oh!" Trigger flushed a little. "Well--"
"I know. Let's go on a moment. We had this inharmonious inclination. So we
told Commissioner Tate to bring you to the Hub and keep you there, to see what
would happen. And on Maccadon, in just a few weeks, you'd begun working that
moderate inclination to be back in the Manon System up to a dandy first-rate
compulsion."
Trigger licked her lips. "I--"
"Sure," said Pilch. "You had to have a good sensible reason. You gave yourself
one."
"Well!"
"Oh, you were fond of that young man, all right. But that was the first time
you hadn't been able to stand a couple of months away from him. It was also [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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