Measure for a Loner | Page 2

Madison was a rather irritating man. Likable but
irritating. He's too good looking in an unassuming masculine way to
dress so neatly--it makes him look like a mannequin. That polite way of
his of using small words slowly and distinctly proves that he loves his
fellow man--even if his fellow always does have less brains or authority
than Madison himself. That belief would be forgivable in him if it
wasn't so often true.
Madison folded himself into the canary yellow client's chair at my
direction, and took a leather-bound pocket secretary from inside his
almost-too-snug jacket.
"Dr. Thorn," he said expansively, "we need you to help us locate an
atavism."
I flicked professional smile No. Three at him lightly.
"I'm a historical psychologist," I told him. "That sounds in my line.
Which of your ancestors are you interested in having me analyze?"
"I used the word 'atavism' to mean a reversion to the primitive."
I made a pencil mark on my desk pad. I could make notes as well as he
could read them.
"Yes, I see," I murmured. "We don't use the term that way. Perhaps you
don't understand my work. It's been an honest way to make a living for
a few generations but it's so specialized it might sound foolish to
someone outside the psychological industry. I psychoanalyze historical
figures for history books (of course), and scholars, interested

descendants, what all, and that's all I do."
"All you have done," Madison admitted, "but your government is
certain that you can do this new work for them--in fact, that you are one
of the few men prepared to locate this esoteric--that is, this odd
aberration since I understand you often have to deal with it in analyzing
the past. Doctor, we want you to find us a lonely man."
I laid my chrome yellow pencil down carefully beside the
cream-colored pad.
"History is full of loneliness--most of the so-called great men were
rather neurotic--but I thought, Madison, that introspection was pretty
much of a thing of the, well, past."
The government representative inhaled deeply and steepled his
manicured fingers.
"Our system of childhood psycho-conditioning succeeds in burying
loneliness in the subconscious so completely that even the records can't
reveal if it was ever present."
* * * * *
I cleared my throat in order to stall, to think.
"I'm not acquainted with contemporary psychology, Madison. This
comes as news to me. You mean people aren't really well-adjusted
today, that they have just been conditioned to act as if they were?"
He nodded. "Yes, that's it. It's ironic. Now we need a lonely man and
we can't find him."
"To pilot the interstellar spaceship?"
"For the Evening Star, yes," Madison agreed.
I picked up my pencil and held it between my two index fingers. I
couldn't think of a damned thing to say.

"The whole problem," Madison was saying, "goes back to the early
days of space travel. Men were confined in a small area facing infinite
space for measureless periods in freefall. Men cracked--and ships, they
cracked up. But as space travel advanced ships got larger, carried more
people, more ties and reminders of human civilization. Pilots became
more normal."
I made myself look up at the earnest young man.
"But now," I said, "now you want me to find you an abnormal pilot
who is used to being alone, who can stand it, maybe even like it?"
"Right."
I constructed a genuine smile for him for the first time.
"Madison, do you really think I can find your man when evidently all
the government agencies have failed?"
The government representative pocketed his notebook deftly and then
spread his hands clumsily for an instant.
"At least, Doctor," he said, "you may know it if you do find him."
* * * * *
It was a lonely job to find a lonely man, General, and maybe it was a
crooked job to walk a crooked mile to find a crooked man.
I had to do it alone. No one else had enough experience in primitive
psychology to recognize the phenomenon of loneliness, even as
Madison had said.
The working conditions suited me. I had to think by myself but I had a
comfortable staff to carry out my ideas. I liked my new office and the
executive apartment the government supplied me. I had authority and
respect and I had security. The government assured me they would find
further use for my services after I found them their man. I knew this
was to keep me from dragging my tracks. But nevertheless I got right

down to work.
I found Gordon Meyverik exactly five weeks from the day Madison
first visited me in my old office.
"Of course, I planned the whole thing, Dr. Thorn," Gordon said crisply.
I knew