The Gist Hunter (16 page)

Yet even as I said it I felt a contrary vote from deeper inside me. I then confessed to Torsten what I had told no one else. "I am able to do these mental tricks with the aid of some other part of me, one that is lodged in the more remote regions of my psyche. I cannot assert control over it, though it yields remarkable results if I offer acceptance and collaboration."

"I wonder if I have such a part?" Torsten said.

"If you do, it might be best to leave it undisturbed."

My being able to hit a pinking target while blindfolded was but the latest manifestation of the odd capabilities my "other part" had demonstrated since childhood. During my adolescence I tried to understand or at least delineate the peculiarities I had discovered in myself, but my efforts met with frustration and at last I gave up.

Grown to young manhood I found myself—that is, the part of me that lived in the front parlors of my mind—no better than most of my peers at using formal logic to analyze situations and work through syllogisms to a rational conclusion. In the numeric disciplines my studies at the Institute were teaching me how to apply higher-level consistencies, the recondite procedures which underlay the mathematics of chaos, and I was making adequate progress.

Yet, beyond the normal development of my intellect, there was always the sense that another person lived, for the most part unobtrusively, in the back of my mind. If I kept a problem only in my familiar front parlors I could worry at it for days and still be baffled. But if I took the conundrum down the rearmost corridors of my consciousness and left it at the edge of darkness, in time—it might be moments, or hours, but rarely more than a day—a fully formed answer would appear.

I had found that stilling my thoughts through an elementary variant of the Lho-tso exercises aided the process and I had become so adept at the business of what I called "applying insight" that it was now almost automatic. Faced with a puzzle that did not yield an easy or obvious solution, I need close my eyes for no more than a moment or two to know intuitively that the man down the backstairs—so I thought of him—was hard at work.

I did not resent sharing my inner spaces with this anonymous prodigy, though I had not yet come to include him in my private definition of "me." It was like having a brother who was reliable yet eccentric.

The next time we met at the practice field, Torsten had just returned from a visit to The Hutch, his father's estate near the hamlet of Binch, at the landward end of the long fingerlike peninsula that is tipped by the city of Olkney, which surrounds the Institute's hallowed grounds. My friend's normally blithe disposition was clouded and there was a grim set to the corners of his mouth.

I needed no exceptional insight to say, "Something is wrong."

He confirmed my impression. He told me that when he got to his father's house he found it had acquired an additional resident. A man had arrived one day, declared himself to be Jabbi Gloond, an old acquaintance of the master, and had moved in.

"What is the problem?" I asked.

"They do not act as if they are on good terms. Gloond struts about as if he were the proprietor, commanding, 'Bring me this,' and 'Fetch me more,' while my father remains as still as a small creature that has fallen under a predator's eye."

"What does your father say about this?"

"Nothing. He has never been the most forthcoming of parents. I've always believed it was because he was absent for the years of my infancy. We are on civil terms but not close, a relationship that has always suited us both. When I try to question him about Gloond, he makes abstracted motions with his hands and changes the subject."

"Hmm," I said.

"Have you an insight?"

"It would be premature to say," I said. But I accepted his invitation to accompany him down to Binch at the next hiatus.

In the meantime, I decided to assemble as much information as I could about Jabbi Gloond and Gresh Olabian, Torsten's father. Oddly enough, my friend could be of little aid in this endeavor.

"We do not talk much," he said. "The old man has always kept to himself and sometimes does not come out of his chamber for days at a time. I know that he made a small fortune on Bain, a remote planet in the Back of Beyond. He mined for gems, mainly blue-fires and shatterlights."

"And this Gloond dates from those times?"

"So it would seem."

Back in my room, I consulted the Institute's integrator. There was almost no information on Gloond; he hailed from Orkham County, a rigorously bucolic district on Bain's southern continent that had been settled centuries before by devotees of the Palmadyan Cult, who disdained all mechanical and artificial contrivances more complex than hand tools and unpowered conveyances. Whatever records Orkham County may have kept had never been made part of the connectivity matrix that extended across Old Earth and out to all the major human settled worlds along The Spray. About all that was known about Jabbi Gloond was that he had alighted at the Olkney spaceport some weeks before, having worked his passage from Bain on a tramp freighter.

I then asked the Institute's integrator about Gresh Olabian and uncovered a richer vein of information. Olabian was orphaned at an early age but had overcome his handicaps; taking a certificate in the building and operating of mines he had gone out to The Spray to make his fortune, leaving behind an infant son. No female parent was mentioned, though that was not unusual. In such cases one did not inquire.

Gresh Olabian had worked for a number of mining consortia on various worlds, until he had acquired enough savings to undertake his own venture: a mining operation in Orkham County, delving for blue-fires and shatterlights.

The gems never occurred in surface deposits, I learned from the integrator. Because they were a temporary offshoot of vulcanism on Bain and similar worlds, they must be dug for in profound strata that were often unstable. The preferred methodology was to bore in deep and quickly, using shielded mass converters, retrieve the gems and be out before the disturbed rock violently rearranged itself. Yet that sort of machinery was forbidden to cross the Orkham County border.

"How did he develop the mine?" I asked.

"Olabian used ingenuity," said the integrator. "He assembled a work force from several planets: Gryulls did the digging; a trio of footed worms from Ek hauled away the broken rock, guided by their symbiotic handlers; members of a modified human species known as Halebs operated the chemical works that separated the pure blue-fires from the matrix; there was even a transmuting Shishisha to insinuate itself into the thinnest crevices, seeking out the best gems and thus avoiding unnecessary excavating."

There were, of course, no images from the Olabian diggings, but I could imagine the scene: the heavy-shouldered Gryulls punching their way deep into Bain's rocky meat, the long, armored multipedes with rocks heaped on their backs and their Ek wranglers seated just aft of the cranial sensorium, licking their fingers then stroking the worms' feathery antennae with a unique saliva whose chemistry soothed the beasts' testy natures, the Shishisha assuming a flowing granular form that would let it fluidly slip into cracks.

It conjured up a remarkable set of mental images, made even more extraordinary when I considered the fact that none of the species Olabian had assembled were noted for leaving their homeworlds. Even the Halebs preferred to remain in their own habitats, finding not enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of worlds hospitable to unmodified humans. The integrator could offer no explanation, only conjectures.

"They did not publicly discuss their motives, therefore there is no record in the primary sources. Perhaps Olabian was a singularly persuasive recruiter, perhaps he promised rewards that overcame his workers' homesickness, perhaps he hired those who had been banished from their homeworlds, offering them shares in the venture which would have let them live large in exile.

"In any case," the integrator continued, "his plans came amiss. Shortly after the mine began production, disaster struck: a tunnel collapsed, entombing all except Olabian himself, who happened to be at the surface expediting a shipment of gems to market. He quite reasonably abandoned the venture, coming back to Old Earth with only enough profit to purchase a small estate. To The Hutch he brought his son, and there they dwelt quietly until the boy was sent off to school."

I then examined Olabian's history since his return to Old Earth but found nothing of note. He had become a recluse, living alone in the manor. Torsten went earlier than most boys to a residential school, though that was not in itself an uncommon circumstance. I, myself, had gained most of my education in such places, my father having declared in my seventh year that I had become insufferable—I had corrected him once too often on some trifling matter.

I applied insight to the data and felt a faint tickle at the back of my mind, but nothing concrete emerged. I decided it would be best to take a closer look at the situation that had caused Torsten to worry. In the meantime, I tasked the Institute's integrator with amassing, from secondary and tertiary sources, all the information it could glean about the events in Orkham County.

"That may take some time," it said. "Several hours at least, perhaps even days. It will require an open inquiry on a number of worlds and there is no guarantee that persons who have the information—supposing they even exist—will be inclined to respond."

"Nevertheless," I said, and sent the integrator about its work.

At Torsten's urging I took a hiatus from my studies and returned with him to The Hutch. We traveled by balloon-tram to Binch then descended to hire an aircar that carried us to the estate. I inspected the grounds from the air as we spiraled down and saw that they were well tended, although I noticed that all work was being carried out by self-guiding devices. When we alighted at the front doors, no servant came to admit us; instead, the who's-there mounted on a pillar of the portico notified the house integrator and the doors automatically swung open.

"Where is my father?" Torsten asked as soon as we had entered, and a voice from the air informed us that Gresh Olabian was sequestered in his chambers.

"Is he unwell?" my friend asked.

"He does not say. He has asked not to be disturbed."

I was intrigued. "Can you not deduce his condition from observation?" I said.

The integrator replied, "My percepts were removed from the private chambers shortly after the master's return from the stars."

"Indeed?" I said. I could not recall encountering anyone who shut himself away from his own integrator. It was an unusual state of affairs, almost unnatural. "Did he give a reason?"

"My father is of an intensely private disposition," Torsten said. "I used to try to engage him in discussions appropriate between a son and a father, but he would soon run out of things to say and would retire to his suite."

I would have pursued the issue further but at that moment a door to an adjacent room opened and another person entered the foyer. From the way Torsten stiffened, I knew this to be Jabbi Gloond.

He was an unprepossessing fellow, past his middle years, with a chin that descended too far toward his chest and a wandering forehead that ranged almost to the crown of his skull. Between them was a nose the shape and texture of some root vegetable. His eyes were large and moist and I suspected that his lower lip only made contact with its upper neighbor when he was speaking, being left the rest of the time to hang as loose as an untucked shirttail.

He offered Torsten a tepid greeting without stopping, and proceeded on toward the kitchens where I could hear his honking nasal voice instructing the integrator to prepare a plate of pickled mushrooms stuffed with spiced eggs.

I would admit to myself, though not to Torsten, that I had expected something else: a swaggering bravo, a coldly imperious enforcer, a sly sidler. "He does not seem the type to intimidate a master miner," I said.

"You would think so," my friend answered, "but my father clearly lost his verve on Bain. He was never quite himself again."

I was shown to a large, airy chamber on the second floor, across from Torsten's favorite room when he was at home. The elder Olabian's suite occupied one end of another wing, down a wide aisle that led off from the corridor where our accommodations were. I asked where Jabbi Gloond slept and was told that he had a small space on the ground floor where he could reach the kitchens with the fewest steps.

"He has an unending appetite for delicacies," Torsten said.

I had read that the residents of Orkham County, faithful to the strictures of the Palmadyan Cult, subsisted on rude fare. I was sure it was wholesome, but no doubt some found it tiresome over a lifetime.

I asked if Gloond had made any other demands. Torsten knew of none. "The fellow seems to desire no more than to sleep late in a soft bed, consume copious quantities of dainties and have his intimate needs seen to by the personal apparatus in his room."

"Palmadyans are not renowned for sophistication," I said. "For Jabbi Gloond, such a regime as he now follows may approximate paradise. He has made no demands for funds? No suggestions about redrawing a will?"

"Not so far. Comfort and opportunities for indolence seem to be his desired goals, and here he has achieved them."

I was puzzled. Jabbi Gloond seemed to be no more trouble than any house guest who slips and ducks every hint that his optimum departure date has passed. Yet Gresh Olabian was reportedly ill at ease. I closed my eyes to seek insight but received only vague impressions.

"Anything?" said Torsten, who had seen me perform before.

"Premature," I said, "though I hope you will not be offended if I speculate that Gloond causes your father discomfort because he knows something that your father would rather no one knew."

"That is an obvious line of inquiry," my friend agreed. "But when I ask the old man if there is something he wishes to tell me, he retires to his rooms without a word."

We took luncheon in the great refectory. The Hutch's integrator was a superior model and provided a fine repast. Torsten, his father and I sat at one end of the long, grand table, while Jabbi Gloond occupied the farthest extreme, trenchering his way through mounds of roast vegetables and succulent meats. A strong odor of spice and pungent herbs emanated from the loaded salvers that appeared before him and he wielded his cutlery with a clattering brio that prevented his hearing our muted conversation.