Sense from Thought Divide | Page 9

had made up his mind to take
charge of this antigrav operation, and he wouldn't let one bogus seance
stop him more than momentarily.
If it weren't so close to direct interference with my department, I'd have
been delighted to sit on the side lines and watch him try to command
psi effects to happen. That would be like commanding some random
copper wire and metallic cores to start generating electricity.
For once I could have overlooked the interference with my department
if I didn't know, from past experience, that I'd be blamed for the
consequent failure. That's a cute little trick of top executives, generally.
They get into something they don't understand, really louse it up, then,
because it is your department, you are the one who failed. Ordinarily I
liked my job, but if this sort of thing went too far--
But more than saving my job, I had the feeling that if I were allowed to
go along, carefully and experimentally, I just might discover a few of
the laws about psi. There was the tantalizing feeling that I was on the
verge of knowing at least something.
The Pentagon people had been right. The Swami was an obvious phony
of the baldest fakery, yet he had something. He had something, but how
was I to get hold of it? Just what kind of turns with what around what
did you make to generate a psi force? It took two thousand years for
man to move from the concept that amber was a stone with a soul to the
concept of static electricity. Was there any chance I could find some
shortcuts in reducing the laws governing psi? The one bright spot of my
morning was that Auerbach hadn't denied seeing the evidence of the
cylinders pointing North.
It turned out to be the only bright spot. I had no more than got to my
office and sorted out the routine urgencies which had to be handled
immediately from those which could be put off a little longer, when
Sara announced the lieutenant and the Swami. So I put everything else
off, and told her to send them right in.

The Swami was in an incoherent rage. The lieutenant was contracting
his eyebrows in a scowl and clenching his fists in frustration. In a voice,
soaring into the falsetto, the Swami demanded that he be sent back to
Brooklyn where he was appreciated. The lieutenant had orders to stay
with the Swami, but he didn't have any orders about returning either to
Brooklyn or the Pentagon. I managed, at last, to get the lieutenant
seated in a straight chair, but the Swami couldn't stay still long enough.
He stalked up and down the room, swirling his slightly odorous black
cloak on the turns. Gradually the story came out.
* * * * *
Old Stone Face, a strong advocate of Do It Now, hadn't wasted any
time. From his home he had called the Swami at his hotel and
commanded him to report to the general manager's office at once.
Apparently they both got there about the same time, and Henry had
waded right in.
Apparently Henry, too, had spent a restless night. He accused the
Swami of inefficiency, bungling, fraud, deliberate insubordination, and
a few other assorted faults for having made a fool out of us all at the
seance. He'd as much as commanded the Swami to cut out all this
shilly-shallying and get down to the business of activating antigrav
cylinders, or else. He hadn't been specific about what the "or else"
would entail.
It was up to me to pick up the pieces, if I could.
"Now I'm sure he really didn't mean--" I began to pour oil on the
troubled waters. "With your deep insight, Swami--The fate of great
martyrs throughout the ages--" Gradually the ego-building phrases
calmed him down. He grew willing to listen, if for no more than the
anticipation of hearing more of them.
He settled down into the crying chair at last, and I could see his valence
shifting from outraged anger to a vast and noble forgiveness. This
much was not difficult. To get him to coöperate, consciously and
enthusiastically, well that might not be so easy.

Each trade has its own special techniques. The analytical chemist has a
series of routines he tries when he wishes to reduce an unknown
compound to its constituents. To the chemically uneducated, this may
appear to be a fumbling, hit or miss, kind of procedure. The personnel
man, too, has his series of techniques. It may appear to be no more than
random, pointless conversation.
I first tried the routine process of reasoning. I didn't expect it to work; it
seldom does, but it can't be eliminated until it has been tested.