Isaac Asimov - Potential

Nadine Triomph checked the long list of symbols for-what was it?-the tenth time. She did not think she could get anything out of it that Multivac had not, but it was only human to try.

She passed it over to Basil Seversky. “It's completely different, Basil,” she said.

“You can see that at a glance,” said Basil, gloomily.

“Well, don't drag. That's good. So far the only gene combinations that Multivac has dredged up seem to have been minor variations on a theme. Now this one is different.”

Basil put his hands into the pockets of his lab jacket and leaned his chair back against the wall. He felt the line of his hips absently and noted it was gaining a certain softness. He was getting pudgy all over, he thought, and didn't like it.

He said, “Multivac doesn't tell us anything we don't tell it first. We don't really know that the basic requirements for telepathy are valid, do we?”

Nadine felt defensive. It was Basil who had worked out the neurological requirements, but it was she who had prepared the program by which Multivac scanned the potential gene structures to see which might produce those requirements.

She said, “If we have two rather different sets of genetic patterns, as we now have, we can work out-or try to work out-the common factors, and this could give us a lead as to the validity.”

“In theory-but we'll be working in theory forever. If Multivac works at its present speed for the remaining lifetime of the sun as a main-sequence star, it will not have gone through a duodecillionth of all the possible structural variations of the genes that might exist, let alone the possible modifications introduced by their order on the chromosomes.”

“We might get lucky.” They had held the same conversation-upbeat versus downbeat-a dozen times, with minor variations in detail.

“Lucky? The word hasn't been invented to describe the kind of impossible luck we would need. And if we do pick out a million different genetic patterns with potential for telepathy, we then have to ask what the odds are that someone now alive will have such a gene pattern, or anything near it.”

“We can modify,” said Nadine.

“Oh? Have you come across an existing human genetic pattern which can be modified by known procedures into something Multivac says will produce telepathy?”

“The procedures will improve in the future and if we keep Multivac working and keep on registering all human genetic patterns at birth-”

“- And ,” Basil continued sing-song, “if the Planetary Genetic Council continues to support the program adequately, and if we continue to get the time-sharing we need on Multivac, and if-”

It was at that point that Multivac interrupted with one more item and all a dazed Basil could say afterward was, “I don't believe it.”

It seemed that Multivac's routine scanning of registered genetic patterns of living human beings had turned up one that matched the new pattern it had worked out as possessing telepathic potential-and the match was virtually exact.

Basil said, “I don't believe it.”

Nadine, who had always been forced into unreasoning faith by Basil's consistent pessimism, said, sunnily. “Here he is, just the same. Male. Aged 15. Name Roland Washman. Only child. Plainview, Iowa. American Region, actually.”

Basil studied Roland's genetic pattern, as delivered by Multivac, and compared it with the pattern worked out by Multivac from theoretical considerations. He muttered, again, “I don't believe it.”

“It's there before you.”

“Do you know the odds against this?”

“It's there before you. The Universe is billions of years old and there's been time for a great many unbelievable coincidences to happen.”

“Not this unbelievable.” Basil pulled himself together. “Iowa was included in one of the areas we scanned for telepathic presence and nothing ever showed up. Of course, the pattern only shows the potential for telepathy-”

It was Basil's plan to approach indirectly. However much the Planetary Genetic Council might post the possibility of telepathy as one of the goal-patterns to be searched for, along with musical genius, variable-gravitational endurance, cancer resistance, mathematical intuition, and several hundred other items, it remained that telepathy had an ingrained unpopularity.

However exciting the thought of “reading minds” might seem in the abstract, there was always an uneasy resistance to the thought of having one's mind read. Thought was the unassailable bastion of privacy, and it would not be surrendered without a struggle. Any controvertible claim to have discovered telepathy would, therefore, be surely controverted.

Basil, therefore, overrode Nadine's willingness to move straight to the point and to interview the young man directly, by making that very point.

“Oh, yes,” he grumbled, “and we will let our eagerness lure us into announcing we have found a telepath so that the PGC will put half a dozen authorities on his track in order to disprove the claim and ruin our scientific careers. Let's find out all we can about him first .”

The disappointed Nadine consoled herself with the obvious fact that in a computerized society, every human being left tracks of all kinds from the moment of conception, and that it could all be recovered without much trouble, and even quickly.

“Umm,” said Basil, “not very bright in school.”

“It could be a good sign,” said Nadine. “Telepathic ability would surely take up a sizable fraction of the higher functioning of the brain and leave little over for abstract thought. That might explain why telepathy had not evolved more noticeably in the human species. The disadvantages of low intelligence would be contra-survival.”

“He's not exactly an idiot savante . Dull-normal.”

“Which might be exactly right.”

“Rather withdrawn. Doesn't make friends easily. Rather a loner.”

Nadine said, excitedly. “ Exactly right. Any early evidence of telepathic ability would frighten, upset, and antagonize people. A youngster lacking judgement would innocently expose the motives of others in his group and be beaten up for his pains. Naturally, he would withdraw into himself.”

Data was gathered for a long time, thereafter, and Basil said, finally. “Nothing! There's nothing known about him; no reports, not one, that indicates anything that can be twisted into a sign of telepathy. There's not even any comment to the effect that he's ‘peculiar.’ He's almost disregarded.”

“ Absolutely right. The reaction of others forced him, early on, to hide all telepathic ability, and that same telepathic ability guided his behavior so as to avoid all unfavorable notice. It's remarkable how it fits.”

Basil stared at her with disfavor. “You can twist anything into supporting your romantic view of this. Look! He's fifteen and that's too old. Let's suppose he was born with a certain amount of telepathic ability and that he learned early not to display it. Surely the talent would have atrophied and be entirely gone by now. That has to be so for if he remained a full telepath, he couldn't possibly have avoided displaying it now and then, and that would have attracted attention.”

“No, Basil. At school, he's by himself and does as little work as possible-”

“He's not scapegoated, as he would be if he were a telepathic little wise-guy.”

“I told you! He knows when he would be and avoids it. Summers he works as a gardener's assistant and, again, doesn't encounter the public.”

“He encounters the gardener, and yet he keeps the job. It's his third summer there right now, and if he were a telepath, the gardener would get rid of him. No, it's close-but no cigar. It's too late. What we need is a new-born child with that same genetic pattern. Then we might have something- maybe .”