Charles Sheffield - The Mind Pool

But when the treatment began and Chan writhed in the padded seat, Leah could not ignore Tatty’s own anguish and misery. Tatty was suffering. And when Leah saw the bedroom and nursery that Tatty had made for Chan, she was finally won over. They were so thoughtfully done, and they showed so much evidence of love and caring.

Leah remembered Horus very well from her brief stay before she went off to begin her training. It had been horrible: gloomy, dirty and depressing, more like a detention barracks than any place to bring a child (and Chan was a child, in spite of his physical age and adult appearance).

Now Horus, or at least this part of it, was transformed.

“How did you possibly manage all this?” Leah had followed Tatty through room after room, elegantly decorated and furnished and designed to take advantage of the natural and manmade features of the interior of Horus.

Tatty laughed. She hadn’t done any of this to show off to other people, but it was wonderful to have someone else appreciate her efforts. Chan was indifferent, and Kubo Flammarion seemed more at home with the old dirt and mess.

“I got tired of living in a pit. Nobody could tell me how long I might be here, and all the old excavation and service robots were around because nobody thought it was worthwhile to haul them away. I taught myself how to re-program them.”

“But it must have taken ages.”

“It took time, but I had plenty of that. Then I set them to work, first to clear out the trash and then to make this place livable. I hooked one of them in with a synthesizer, and it produced pretty good carpets and wall hangings. Once I started, I guess I got a bit compulsive. Poor old Kubo.” Tatty smiled, at one of her rare pleasant memories of Horus. “He came out here a couple of weeks ago, and I wouldn’t even let him into Chan’s quarters until he’d taken a bath and had his uniform cleaned. He did it, but he didn’t like it. And Chan made it worse. ‘Kubo change,’ he said. ‘Not stink now — except hat.’ Then he stole it.”

“That same old hat — covered in grease and dandruff?”

“That’s the one. Kubo hadn’t bothered to clean that when he cleaned his uniform. I suppose he thought we’d never notice. But Chan noticed, and he threw it into the garbage disposal. Kubo was devastated. He said, ‘Princess, that hat has been with me all over the solar system. It’s like a part of me.’ But I said to him, ‘Not any more, Captain Flammarion. When even Chan objects to it, it’s time for a new one’ — and Chan did object. He is improving, isn’t he?” Tatty looked to Leah for encouragement. “I always wonder if I’m imagining a change, because I’ve been wishing for it so hard. But you can see it, too, can’t you? Isn’t he a bit smarter?”

“He certainly is. Look at him.”

Chan had carefully and slowly assembled the complete stack of rings. Now he was just as painstakingly taking them off again. The women watched until he had finished, then applauded. Next Chan picked up a set of red Elastic blocks. They were of complex individual shapes, but they could fit together to make a perfect cube. He fiddled with them for a while, then hurled them in frustration across the room.

“That’s still too hard for him,” said Leah.

“No need to apologize for him to me.”

“I wasn’t. I was just thinking, he is progressing but it’s terribly slow. At this rate it will take years.”

“That’s what scared me,” said Tatty. “But Kubo Flammarion says it’s not at all linear. If it really works you expect to see very little progress at first. Then everything comes in one big rush, maybe in a single session on the Stimulator.”

“How much improvement does Flammarion expect?”

“He says he has no idea. He doesn’t know when it might happen, or how far Chan will go. Do you know what was wrong with his brain in the first place?”

“Down in the Gallimaufries? Nobody there could afford any tests. People said Chan was a dummy, and left it at that.”

“He could finish up still slow. Or he could be average, or even super-smart. But Kubo says the chances of that are pretty small. All we can do is wait and see.” Tatty stared in at Chan through the one-way panel. “But that s all just theory, and I try not to think about it. There are more important things to worry about — like his dinner.”

“Can I help you feed him?’

“Sure. But there’s not much need to help him any more. He’s a bit messy, but he’s no worse than Captain Flammarion. You should have seen the two of them, last time Kubo was here. It was disgusting.”

“At least I can help cook. I know Chan’s favorites.”

“You can teach them to me. And I want to hear more about your training program. If things work out, Chan will be doing one, too.”

“I’ll bore you to death with it. It’s strange, when Bozzie sold us and we had to leave Earth, I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen. I hated the idea of space, and I was terrified at the thought of a training program. Now I’m in the middle of it — and I love it]

“I thought you were almost done.”

“No, we’ve just finished the first phase. That’s why I was allowed a short break. But I have to leave Horns the day after tomorrow, and head farther out. I’ll be meeting the alien partners, and we’ll see how we fit as a real team.”

Scary.

“Not as much as I thought. I already met a Tinker. It wasn’t as weird as people say. Ours even made jokes — in standard Solar! And none of us has been able to make any headway at all with their language. It doesn’t seem to have verbs or nouns or adjectives or anything — -just buzzing sounds. And according to the Tinker, the language of the Angels is a lot harder for humans than Tinkertalk.”

“So how are you supposed to talk to each other?”

“We’ll probably have to rely on computers to translate what the Angels say. But they can all understand us. It’s disturbing. During our training, the human instructors told me that we are the smartest species. But I’m beginning to have an awful lot of doubts.”

“I know what you mean. If I’m so smart, how come I’m here?” Chan’s performance with the rings had put both women in a good mood. They went on chatting happily as they left the nursery area for the kitchen. Chan remained sitting on the floor of the playroom. For a couple of minutes after they had gone he stayed there, not moving. Then he stood, ran rapidly to the door, and hurried up the narrow ramp that led to the one-way mirror. He made sure that no one was standing behind it and hurried back to the playroom.

First he set out to pick up all the plastic blocks that he had thrown across the room. Next he went to the smiling photograph of Esro Mondrian, pinned to the wall by Tatty among the drawings of plants, animals, people, and planets. Chan took Mondrian’s picture, frowned at it, and carried it back to the middle of the playroom. He propped it up in front of him. All the blocks were carefully laid before it.

At last Chan was ready. He scanned the blocks, picked up four of them, and quickly and economically fitted them together. He reached for four more, then another pair. In less than thirty seconds he had assembled the whole cube. He stared at it for a few moments, then just as quickly took it apart again and laid the pieces on the carpeted floor.

Finally Chan lifted his eyes, and stared at Mondrian’s picture. He smiled. It was, as nearly as he could make it, a perfect copy of the smile on the face of Esro Mondrian.

Four hundred kilometers away, that face was not smiling. It was beaded with perspiration. Mondrian lay in darkness on a hard couch, breathing hard and loudly through clenched teeth.