Softcore 89
Doberman Berke, a morgue attendant of intermediate stature, humbled through life in constant awe of the ubiquitous Anton Hejar. Where death stalked, there, too, walked Anton Hejar, hat pulled low, hand on stamp. "There is no comparison," said old Philoxenus, "— meaning no offense. Or no more than a little. On Camiroi, we practice Education. On Earth, they play a game, but they call it by the same name. That makes the confusion. Come. Well go to a school in session." "Self-contained," explained An. "The only thing needed to keep the whole thing going is light. Just about any frequency will do, except way up on the blue end. And the shell cuts that out." Brocks answering signal came. ME softcore 89 I woke up next morning in a fourposter. Frenchy, in a red silk nightdress and negligee was bending over me with a cup of coffee. I hauled myself up, noticing my blue silk pyjamas, and took the cup. Candron smiled back. He liked the woman, in spite of her semifanatic overeagerness, which made her every declarative sentence seem to end with an exclamation point. A white-smocked technician brought the machine over to him. It was mounted on three rubber-tired wheels and it resembled the small X-ray units used by dentists. In place of the cone at the head of the X-ray machine there was a long, incredibly tough needle. It had been made for them by the best surgical steel craftsmen in Prague. . . . And speaking of overspecialization, I have not yet made reference to The Categories. Mike wasnt listening to him. He was staring proudly at the mass of concrete bristling with nails and needles, and when he began talking it was with a strange gentleness— a kind of awe—in his voice, and again that expression of astonishment, almost of naïveté, passed over his features. Our loss? Yes... our great loss. Jim sounded bemused. Yes. Do you understand? During these periods when he was left alone, J. G. made a tremendous advance in his education. He learned to read. Once he had mastered the basic technique, he found that he was able to assimilate a great deal of information—an entire book, in fact—in a surprisingly short time. This was, no doubt, due to the fact that his small brain was so empty it offered no resistance to outside ideas. Of the number of books Quimble had lying about the laboratory, J. G. found that he enjoyed the ones on mathematics best; and, by the time Quimble announced that the Tests were completed, he had re-readPrincipia Mathematica four times with increasing pleasure. Go back, he repeated. MAKE A PRISON All Gogol said was: "She only does it for a joke, or to annoy me, because as a matter of fact she does not have such needs." In the presence of other people, that is to say of me, he generally made a point of treating her with a certain disdain..
