For a brief time the prison sphere that held Lanny and Juan Pendillo was suspended above the teeming tiers of skyport streets. Enough time, Lanny guessed, for the enemy to question Tak Laleen and to reach some decision based upon what she had to tell them. Abruptly the capsule was hauled down. Lanny and his father were dumped into barred cells buried somewhere in the bowels of the city.
"What will they do with us?" Lanny asked.
From the adjoining cell his father answered placidly, "It depends on Tak Laleen's statement—and how much of it they believe."
"Will they condemn us to readjustment?"
"Undoubtedly, unless you solve our problem first—and these bars seem thoroughly solid to me."
Lanny drew in his breath sharply, suddenly afraid. "What's it like, father—the readjustment?"
"No one knows, really. A machine tears your mind apart and puts it together again—differently."
Lanny shivered as he remembered the half-dozen readjustment cases he had seen in the Santa Barbara treaty area—living shells, with all initiative and individuality drained from their souls. He moved to the barred door of his cell. For a split-second of panic he seized the bars and futilely tried to pry them apart. Slowly edging into his consciousness came a vague awareness of the structural pattern of the energy units in the metal. It was the same extension of his integrated community of cells which he had with his hunting club. His panic vanished; he felt a little ashamed because he had been afraid. It would be no problem to escape.
He held the bars and allowed his mind to feel through the pattern of energy organization. The metal was very different from any of the familiar substances Lanny knew, but far less complex because the arrangement was so rigidly disciplined. There were two things that Lanny might do. He could fit the energy units of his own body past the space intervals of the metal—in effect, passing through the metal barrier. But that would be slow and exacting work. It would require a considerable concentration to move the specialized cells of his body across the metal maze. The second method was easier. As he extended his cerebral integration into the metal, he could rearrange the energy unit pattern. The bars should fragment and fall apart.
Lanny was amazed how rapidly the change took place. Before he could adjust the pattern of more than half a dozen energy units, a chain reaction began. Lanny found he had to absorb an enormous flow of superfluous energy to prevent an explosion.
As soon as he crossed into the corridor, watching photo-electric cells sent an alarm pulsing into the guard room on the tier above. The metal-walled corridor throbbed with the deafening cry of a siren.
Lanny darted toward his father's cell. "Hold the metal and make it over with your mind—just as we integrate with our clubs. It's the same principal, father."
Pendillo shrugged. "I can't, Lanny. I don't know how."
Lanny had no time to weigh the significance of what his father said for the scream of the siren stopped and a guard appeared at the head of the corridor. The guard wrapped himself hastily in the shell of a force-field capsule. He fired his energy gun. The knife of flame arched through the corridor and struck Lanny's face. His body reacted instinctively, absorbing and storing part of the charge and re-constructing the rest so that it became a harmless combination of inert gasses.
But as the blinding flame splashed bright in Lanny's eyes—the way it had once before, when he murdered old Barlow—Lanny's mind faced the traumatic shock of remembering. Lanny had murdered Barlow—he knew that, now—murdered him with a blaze of energy which he had stored when he brushed against the force-field capsule surrounding Tak Laleen.
It was not the fact of murder that had clamped the strait-jacket of forgetfulness on Lanny's mind and allowed him to think Tak Laleen had killed Barlow. He had known, for one split-second, the full maturity of the education Pendillo had given his sons. Known it too soon, with too little preparation. Now he understood why he had felt ashamed, why he'd retreated deliberately from the truth: because he had killed Barlow to resolve an old argument, not to be rid of a traitor. The method of murder had, ironically, given him the answer to Barlow's poison of despair; but because the two had happened simultaneously, the emotional shock of one had affected the other.
The bursting charge of energy washed away his absurdly exaggerated sense of guilt. He achieved the mature integration he had lost before; his mind was whole again. The integration was nothing new—merely a restatement of what Pendillo had taught him, what all the treaty area teachers taught the new children. The mind of man could control the energy structure of matter. Pendillo called that rationality. But matter and energy were synonymous. The teachers had implied that without teaching it directly. A mind that could heal a body wound was also able to control the energy blast from an enemy gun.
"What will they do with us?" Lanny asked.
From the adjoining cell his father answered placidly, "It depends on Tak Laleen's statement—and how much of it they believe."
"Will they condemn us to readjustment?"
"Undoubtedly, unless you solve our problem first—and these bars seem thoroughly solid to me."
Lanny drew in his breath sharply, suddenly afraid. "What's it like, father—the readjustment?"
"No one knows, really. A machine tears your mind apart and puts it together again—differently."
Lanny shivered as he remembered the half-dozen readjustment cases he had seen in the Santa Barbara treaty area—living shells, with all initiative and individuality drained from their souls. He moved to the barred door of his cell. For a split-second of panic he seized the bars and futilely tried to pry them apart. Slowly edging into his consciousness came a vague awareness of the structural pattern of the energy units in the metal. It was the same extension of his integrated community of cells which he had with his hunting club. His panic vanished; he felt a little ashamed because he had been afraid. It would be no problem to escape.
He held the bars and allowed his mind to feel through the pattern of energy organization. The metal was very different from any of the familiar substances Lanny knew, but far less complex because the arrangement was so rigidly disciplined. There were two things that Lanny might do. He could fit the energy units of his own body past the space intervals of the metal—in effect, passing through the metal barrier. But that would be slow and exacting work. It would require a considerable concentration to move the specialized cells of his body across the metal maze. The second method was easier. As he extended his cerebral integration into the metal, he could rearrange the energy unit pattern. The bars should fragment and fall apart.
Lanny was amazed how rapidly the change took place. Before he could adjust the pattern of more than half a dozen energy units, a chain reaction began. Lanny found he had to absorb an enormous flow of superfluous energy to prevent an explosion.
As soon as he crossed into the corridor, watching photo-electric cells sent an alarm pulsing into the guard room on the tier above. The metal-walled corridor throbbed with the deafening cry of a siren.
Lanny darted toward his father's cell. "Hold the metal and make it over with your mind—just as we integrate with our clubs. It's the same principal, father."
Pendillo shrugged. "I can't, Lanny. I don't know how."
Lanny had no time to weigh the significance of what his father said for the scream of the siren stopped and a guard appeared at the head of the corridor. The guard wrapped himself hastily in the shell of a force-field capsule. He fired his energy gun. The knife of flame arched through the corridor and struck Lanny's face. His body reacted instinctively, absorbing and storing part of the charge and re-constructing the rest so that it became a harmless combination of inert gasses.
But as the blinding flame splashed bright in Lanny's eyes—the way it had once before, when he murdered old Barlow—Lanny's mind faced the traumatic shock of remembering. Lanny had murdered Barlow—he knew that, now—murdered him with a blaze of energy which he had stored when he brushed against the force-field capsule surrounding Tak Laleen.
It was not the fact of murder that had clamped the strait-jacket of forgetfulness on Lanny's mind and allowed him to think Tak Laleen had killed Barlow. He had known, for one split-second, the full maturity of the education Pendillo had given his sons. Known it too soon, with too little preparation. Now he understood why he had felt ashamed, why he'd retreated deliberately from the truth: because he had killed Barlow to resolve an old argument, not to be rid of a traitor. The method of murder had, ironically, given him the answer to Barlow's poison of despair; but because the two had happened simultaneously, the emotional shock of one had affected the other.
The bursting charge of energy washed away his absurdly exaggerated sense of guilt. He achieved the mature integration he had lost before; his mind was whole again. The integration was nothing new—merely a restatement of what Pendillo had taught him, what all the treaty area teachers taught the new children. The mind of man could control the energy structure of matter. Pendillo called that rationality. But matter and energy were synonymous. The teachers had implied that without teaching it directly. A mind that could heal a body wound was also able to control the energy blast from an enemy gun.
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