He didn’t laugh. It wasn’t funny. Anything you can’t understand is something to worry about...especially the simple things. Sometimes you can leap to the obvious conclusion and be hopelessly wrong. The history of science is the history of people belatedly realizing the obvious and still being wrong.
We lagged so far behind the others that by the time we got back to the ship there was no queue for the safety lock. The lock took two at a time, and we were able to go through together. Another advantage in being slow was that the burden of answering what’s-it-like? questions posed by Linda and Pete Rolving fell principally on other shoulders. Even so, we didn’t entirely get away with it, because Linda wanted specialist impressions as well as general ones, and Conrad and I were the natural ones to provide them. Between us, we went over most of the ground we’d covered in our earlier conversation.
I finally got to my bunk feeling utterly weary, but with my mind still in a high gear. I lay back on the sleeping bag trying to slow things down inside my head. I was just about easing back when there was a knock at the door. It was Mariel. I’m afraid that my tone as I asked her what she wanted was mildly hostile.
“I thought you ought to know,” she said. “Those people in the village. They really meant it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“They’re honest people. They aren’t hostile. They put on a show—but it wasn’t really false.”
I hadn’t got up from the bunk. I let my head rest on the pillow while I stared at her for a few moments.
“You mean that you can tell when people are lying?” I said finally.
“Usually,” she replied.
“And they weren’t. They really were pleased to see us. They really think that everything here is going well. Unlike the people in Kilner’s colonies.”
“That’s right.”
“Why tell me? I’m just the rat-catcher. Nathan’s the contact man.”
“You seemed worried...as if you weren’t sure of them.
“And you thought you’d take the weight off my mind?”
“Yes.” I could see that the bluntness of my comments was wounding her. She was holding the door ajar, and her fingers were moving slightly as she gripped it. I felt contrite, but I couldn’t disguise the uneasiness which was constricting my voice. I hadn’t known that her talent extended to being a lie detector. I didn’t really know how far her talent extended at all, or what it consisted of. The vague notion that she might, to some extent, be able to read the thoughts behind my words was disturbing.
“I’m sorry,” I said, a little more kindly. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Do you know why they’re so big?” she asked hesitantly.
“No,” I replied, wondering whether she was asking because she didn’t know or because she did.
“Neither do they,” she told me. “They didn’t realize...it’s normal with them...they didn’t know that they were different from the original colonists...” She searched for more words, but failed to find them. She had the gift of tongues...but it was the gift of understanding, not of speaking.
“Didn’t they, now?” I said, sitting up, and feeling my mind get back into gear. I looked at her carefully. She had nothing more to say of her own accord, and was waiting rather anxiously for questions. She pulled the door open a little further, ready to go.
“How can you tell when people are lying?” I asked gently.
She shrugged slightly. “Reflexes,” she said. “Most people can’t control the little physical signs which go with their thoughts. Your pupils dilate when you look at people you like, the muscles in your face change when you react inside your head to things which happen. I...just decode the signals. I don’t know how...it’s not really conscious. But I’ve been tested. That’s how I do it. I have to see people, close to...I can’t read minds.”
I wondered what she could read from my face. I knew she knew I was wondering. Even if she couldn’t get inside my head, there was still cause for uneasiness. Who can tell when his pupils are dilating?
“If they don’t realize it’s happened,” I reasoned, aloud, “then it must have happened over several generations, and uniformly throughout the population.” I looked at her for confirmation. She said nothing, and if there were signs in her face, I couldn’t read them. But then logic wasn’t her department. What she wanted was some acknowledgment of the fact that she’d been right to tell me—and some apology for the fact that I hadn’t been ready to listen.
“You’re right,” I said. “It is important. Next time, I’ll...well, I just didn’t realize. Thanks.”
Without so much as a smile, she disappeared. I looked back at the words, and tried to sort out what thoughts had mingled with them as I’d spoken. I knew what I’d said...but what had I said to her?
I lay back again, and for the second time I tried to unwind.
But I couldn’t get to sleep. I turned over and over and over, knowing that I was tired, but my thoughts just wouldn’t die away. They clouded over, but they remained loud, made themselves heard. Trying to exclude sensory impressions merely left my mind awash with ideas, memories, half-formed sentences. My attention leaped from point to point in bizarre sequences controlled by the imagistic logic of the mind, often devoid of all apparent reason.
Hours passed before consciousness slowly and reluctantly yielded its grip upon me.
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