Mack Reynolds: Ability Quotient

Alshuler said, “It’s going to have its work cut out refreshing me in anything more advanced than high school solid geometry. That’s as far as I got and that was a long time ago.”

“It takes everything step by step, you won’t have any difficulty,” the other said with satisfaction.

“Kay. Great. But when I get to that next step, after geometry, I’m going to stumble over it and fall flat on my kisser.”

“We’ll see. Now, this button speeds things up as you go along.”

“Where’s the one that slows things down?” Bert growled.

Marsh ignored him. “If you have questions, simply speak into the screen. Go at whatever pace you wish. When you weary, take one of the green pills. Any questions?”

Bert looked at him. “Any questions? I have so damn many questions I can’t even think of the first one.”

The professor-doctor was returning things to his briefcase very briskly. “All right, ask them tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning. I assume you know how to utilize the auto-kitchen and so forth. I hope you find your quarters satisfactory, Mr. Alshuler.”

Bert looked after him as the plump little man trotted off to the living room and evidently the front door.

He turned back to the auto-teacher. It was obviously spanking new. He rubbed his right palm over his mouth. He supposed that he should check out the rest of the apartment, locate his bedroom and possibly do a bit of unpacking, but he was increasingly intrigued.

He sat down before the screen and activated it. A book was there. The title: Refresher in Mathematics from Elementary Arithmetic Through Infinitesimal Calculus . He grunted contempt of that and pressed the button that turned pages.

A voice said, “Chapter One. Elementary Arithmetic. Addition.”

Bert said, “We don’t have to start quite that elementary. I can add.”

The voice, an even, firm, cultured voice but with still a mechanical something in its tone, said, “It is best to review each chapter in turn, taking the examination at the end of each before proceeding to the next. Your stylus for marking the examinations is to your right hand.”

“Kay, all right,” Bert grumbled.

When they said elementary arithmetic, they evidently meant elementary arithmetic. They started out with one plus one equals two. Unconsciously, Bert flicked the switch to speed things up. They went through addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in short order and before he knew it he was into elementary algebra. It had been a long time since he had done any algebra. He was surprised how well it came back to him. Once again, he was able to speed up the lesson. The pages flicked past. Once or twice in each chapter, and particularly at the tests, the screen voice brought him up. Once or twice, he asked questions on his own. The book, he realized, was very well down. Each step was absolutely clear to him before he went on to the next. It was a flow. He never hesitated. Trigonometry he had never studied before and was astonished to find how easily he went through it, amazed that he found himself speeding up the lessons still once again.

It came as a shock when he reached the end of the hook.

He sat back in his chair and stared, put down the stylus with which he had been marking the tests.

A voice, a different voice, said, “You have been credited with Math One.”

Bert Alshuler blinked. It came to him, almost like a slap in the face, that he had completed a course meant to take a semester. He staggered to his feet, went over to the table on which Professor Marsh had left the two bottles and picked up the brown one and stared at it.

He looked at his watch and stared again. It was lunch time. It had been about two hours since Marsh had left. Then he scowled and shook the wrist chronometer. Something was wrong with it. The second hand was going very slowly.

He went over to the massive mahogany desk, set in one corner, leaned over it and dialed the time on the phone screen. The time was exactly the same as his own wrist chronometer proclaimed. He looked at the watch again, uncomprehendingly. The second hand was still going at approximately one quarter or less what he would have thought normal speed.

Without thinking, he returned to the table and took up the green bottle. He opened it, shook out a pill and took it. There was still some water in the glass Professor Marsh had brought him earlier. He finished it, to wash down the pill. He felt as though in a daze. Nothing made sense. And then he realized that he felt ravenously hungry. For the first time he explored the apartment.

The balance of the suite lived up to the promise of the living room and study. It was luxurious and done in a taste that could only be thought of in terms of tomorrow.

There was a dining room, a large one, but the auto-kitchen also had a table with a serving unit and he wound up there, sitting down and flicking the switch for the lunch menu. Then something came to him. He looked at the watch again. The second hand was speeding around the face at normal rate.

“The green pills turn it off,” he muttered wonderingly.

He gave his order into the screen, realizing all over again that he had an appetite greater than he could remember for years. He was ravenous.

He had assumed that the steak would be from the whale herds, but it wasn’t. It was beef. Who could afford beef these days? He ate two of them, a monstrous amount of potatoes, a king-size salad and a huge dish of ice cream and strawberries.

Lunch over, he pushed the dishes and utensils onto the table’s center and pressed the button that would return them to the kitchens in the bowels of the basement floors of the building.

He made his way back to the study and stared at the auto-teacher accusingly for a long moment, his hands jammed into his jacket pockets. Then he shook his head and went over to the table and got himself one of the brown pills. Something came to him and he put the pill down and returned to the auto-teacher and sat down before the screen.

He activated it and said, “What’s next?”

A voice said, “Have you taken your stimulant?”

Bert said, “No. I’d like to take a crack at this without it.”

“Please take your stimulant.”

How in the hell can you argue with a computer’s robot voice? He glared at the screen for a moment but then got to his feet and went back for the pill.

“The brown one turns you on,” he growled. “I feel like Alice In Wonderland.” He began to take the pill but then thought of something. He returned to the student’s chair and sank back into it and activated the screen again. “Kay. Let’s go,” he said.

“Have you taken your stimulant?”

“Yes.”

“The next subject will be Anthropology One, Elementary Ethnology.”

Bert groaned. He had a very vague idea of what anthropology was but didn’t even know the definition of ethnology.

A book appeared on the screen. Elementary Ethnology.

The screen said, “Ethnology, the branch of anthropology which utilizes the data furnished by ethnography, the recording of living cultures, and archeology, to analyze and compare the various cultures of mankind. In short, social anthropology which evolves broader generalizations based partly on the findings of the other social sciences.”

Inwardly, Bert groaned again but flicked his button to turn to Chapter One, page one.

Shortly, the voice said, “You have not taken your stimulant.”

He looked at the screen in disgust. “How did you know?”

“Please take your stimulant.”

Bert got to his feet and went back to where he had left the brown pill. “How could you brazen out a lie to a damn computer?”

He took the pill and returned to the student’s chair and slumped down into it. “Kay,” he said. “So I’ve taken the stimulant.”