Read Ebook: Bramble Bush by Nourse Alan Edward Orban Paul Illustrator

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Ebook has 102 lines and 8016 words, and 3 pages

He opened a door and walked into the room with the children. The fluorescent screen continued to flicker as the children ran to Lessing. He inspected the block tower they were building, and stooped down to talk to them, his lips moving soundlessly behind the observation wall. The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he was proposing. He walked to the table and tapped the bottom block in the tower with his thumb.

The tower quivered, and the screen blazed out with green light, but the tower stood. Carefully Lessing jogged all the foundation blocks out of place until the tower hung in midair, clearly unsupported. The children watched it closely, and the foundation blocks inched still further out of place....

Then, quite casually, Lessing lifted off his monitor. The children continued staring at the tower as the screen gave three or four violent bursts of green fire and went dark.

The block tower fell with a crash.

Moments later Lessing was back in the observation room, leaving the children busily putting the tower back together. There was a little smile on his lips as he saw Melrose's face. "Perhaps you're beginning to see what I'm driving at," he said slowly.

"Yes," said Melrose. "I think I'm beginning to see." He scratched his jaw. "You think that it's adult psi-contact that drives the child's potential underground--that somehow adult contact acts like a damper, a sort of colossal candle-snuffer."

"That's what I think," said Lessing.

"How do you know those children didn't make you take off your monitor?"

Lessing blinked. "Why should they?"

"Maybe they enjoy the crash when the blocks fall down."

"But that wouldn't make any difference, would it? The blocks still fall down."

Melrose paced down the narrow room. "This is very good," he said suddenly, his voice earnest. "You have fine facilities here, good workers. And in spite of my flippancy, Dr. Lessing, I have never imagined for a moment that you were not an acute observer and a careful, highly imaginative worker. But suppose I told you, in perfect faith, that we have data that flatly contradicts everything you've told me today. Reproducible data, utterly incompatable with yours. What would you say to that?"

"I'd say you were wrong," said Lessing. "You couldn't have such data. According to the things I am certain are true, what you're saying is sheer nonsense."

"And you'd express that opinion in a professional meeting?"

"I would."

Lessing and Dorffman rode back to the Hoffman Center in grim silence. At first Lessing pretended to work; finally he snapped off the tape recorder in disgust and stared out the shuttle-car window. Melrose had gone on to Idlewild to catch a jet back to Chicago. It was a relief to see him go, Lessing thought, and tried to force the thin, angry man firmly out of his mind. But somehow Melrose wouldn't force.

"Stop worrying about it," Dorffman urged. "He's a crackpot. He's crawled way out on a limb, and now he's afraid your theory is going to cut it off under him. Well, that's his worry, not yours." Dorffman's face was intense. "Scientifically, you're on unshakeable ground. Every great researcher has people like Melrose sniping at him. You just have to throw them off and keep going."

Lessing shook his head. "Maybe. But this field of work is different from any other, Jack. It doesn't follow the rules. Maybe scientific grounds aren't right at all, in this case."

Dorffman snorted. "Surely there's nothing wrong with theorizing--"

"He wasn't objecting to the theory. He's afraid of what happens after the theory."

"So it seems. But why?"

"Have you ever considered what makes a man an Authority?"

"He knows more about his field than anybody else does."

"But why shouldn't he?"

"Do we?"

"Of course we do! Look at our work! Look at what we've seen on the Farm."

"Yes, I know." Lessing's voice was weary. "But first I think we'd better look at Tommy Gilman, and the quicker we look, the better--"

A nurse greeted them as they stepped off the elevator. "We called you at the Farm, but you'd already left. The boy--" She broke off helplessly. "He's sick, Doctor. He's sicker than we ever imagined."

"What happened?"

"Nothing exactly--happened. I don't quite know how to describe it." She hurried them down the corridor and opened a door into a large children's playroom. "See what you think."

The boy sat stolidly in the corner of the room. He looked up as they came in, but there was no flicker of recognition or pleasure on his pale face. The monitor helmet was still on his head. He just sat there, gripping a toy fire engine tightly in his hands.

Lessing crossed the room swiftly. "Tommy," he said.

The boy didn't even look at him. He stared stupidly at the fire engine.

"Tommy!" Lessing reached out for the toy. The boy drew back in terror, clutching it to his chest. "Go away," he choked. "Go away, go away--" When Lessing persisted the boy bent over swiftly and bit him hard on the hand.

Lessing sat down on the table. "Tommy, listen to me." His voice was gentle. "I won't try to take it again. I promise."

"Go away."

"Do you know who I am?"

Tommy's eyes shifted haltingly to Lessing's face. He nodded. "Go away."

"Why are you afraid, Tommy?"

"I hurt. My head hurts. I hurt all over. Go away."

"Why do you hurt?"

"I--can't get it--off," the boy said.

The boy blinked in amazement, and pulled the grey helmet from his head. Lessing felt the familiar prickly feeling run down his scalp as the boy stared at him. He could feel deep in his own mind the cold chill of terror radiating from the boy. Then, suddenly, it began to fade. A sense of warmth--peace and security and comfort--swept in as the fear faded from the boy's face.

The fire engine clattered to the floor.

They analyzed the tapes later, punching the data cards with greatest care, filing them through the machines for the basic processing and classification that all their data underwent. It was late that night when they had the report back in their hands.

"Of course," said Lessing. "According to the theory. The theory says that adult psi-contact is deadly to the growing child. It smothers their potential through repeated contact until it dries up completely. We've proved that, haven't we? Time after time. Everything goes according to the theory--except Tommy. But Tommy's psi-potential was drying up there on the Farm, until the distortion was threatening the balance of his mind. Then he made an adult contact, and we saw how he bloomed." Lessing sank down to his desk wearily. "What are we going to do, Jack? Formulate a separate theory for Tommy?"

"Of course not," said Dorffman. "The instruments were wrong. Somehow we misread the data--"

They sat silently for a while. Then Dorffman said: "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," said Lessing. "Maybe when we fell into this bramble bush we blinded ourselves with the urge to classify--to line everything up in neat rows like pins in a paper. Maybe we were so blind we missed the path altogether."

"But the book is due! The Conference speech--"

"Get a pad, get a pencil! We've got work to do. And when we finish, I think we'll send a carbon copy out Chicago way. Might even persuade that puppy out there to come here and work for me--"

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