Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [68]
Novi brought her hand down on the table, palm flat. "I will be scowler. I not be farmwoman."
"What if I cannot make you a scholar?"
"Then I be nothing and I wait to die. I be nothing in life if I be not a scowler."
For a moment there was the impulse to search her mind and find out the extent of her motivation. But it would be wrong to do so. A Speaker did not amuse one's self by rummaging through the helpless minds of others. There was a code to the science and technique of mental control--mentalics--as to other professions. Or there should be. (He was suddenly regretful he had struck out at the proctor.)
He said, "Why not be a farmwoman, Novi?" With a little manipulation, he could make her content with that and manipulate some Hamish lout into being happy to marry her--and she to marry him. It would do no harm. It would be a kindness. --But it was against the law and thus unthinkable.
She said, "I not be. A farmer is a clod. He works with earth-lumps, and he becomes earth-lump. If I be farmwoman, I be earth-lump, too. I will be timeless to read and write, and I will forget. My head," she put her hand to her temple, "will grow sour and stale. No! A scowler be different. Thoughtful!" (She meant by the word, Gendibal noted, "intelligent" rather than "considerate.")
"A scowler," she said, "live with books and with--with--I forget what they be name-said." She made a gesture as though she were making some sort of vague manipulations that would have meant nothing to Gendibal--if he did not have her mind radiations to guide him.
"Microfilms," he said. "How do you know about microfilms?"
"In books, I read of many things," she said proudly.
Gendibal could no longer fight off the desire to know more. This was an unusual Hamisher; he had never heard of one like this. The Hamish were never recruited, but if Novi were younger, say ten years old--
What a waste! He would not disturb her; he would not disturb her in the least, but of what use was it to be a Speaker if one could not observe unusual minds and learn from them?
He said, "Novi, I want you to sit there for a moment. Be very quiet. Do not say anything. Do not think of saying anything. Just think of falling asleep. Do you understand?"
Her fright returned at once, "Why must I do this, Master?"
"Because I wish to think how you might become a scholar."
After all, no matter what she had read, there was no possible way in which she could know what being a "scholar" truly meant. It was therefore necessary to find out what she thought a scholar was.
Very carefully and with infinite delicacy he probed her mind; sensing without actually touching--like placing one's hand on a polished metal surface without leaving fingerprints. To her a scholar was someone who always read books. She had not the slightest idea of why one read books. For herself to be a scholar--the picture in her mind was that of doing the labor she knew--fetching, carrying, cooking, cleaning, following orders--but on the University grounds where books were available and where she would have time to read them and, very vaguely, "to become learned." What it amounted to was that she wanted to be a servant--his servant.
Gendibal frowned. A Hamishwoman servant--and one who was plain, graceless, uneducated, barely literate. Unthinkable.
He would simply have to divert her. There would have to be some way of adjusting her desires to make her content to be a farmwoman, some way that would leave no mark, some way about which even Delarmi could not complain.
--Or had she been sent by Delarmi? Was all this a complicated plan to lure him into tampering with a Hamish mind, so that he might be caught and impeached?
Ridiculous. He was in danger of growing paranoid. Somewhere in the simple tendrils of her uncomplicated mind, a trickle of mental current needed to be diverted. It would only take a tiny push.
It was against the letter of the law, but it would do no harm and no one would ever