Alan Edward Nourse

“ I can tell just exactly when he stops paying attention to business and starts paying attention to me, and then all of a sudden he realizes I'm reading him, and it flusters him for the rest of the day. ”

“ When you're gone, you'll be gone, and there's no reason to think that your children will have any more psi potential than Charlie Dakin has."
Something was building up in me then that I couldn't control any longer. "You think I should go along with Aarons," I said dully.
He hesitated. "I'm afraid you're going to have to, sooner or later. Aarons has some latents up in Boston. He's certain that they're latents. He's talked to the directors down here. He's convinced them that you could work with his people, draw them out. You could open the door to a whole new world for human beings." ”

“ I told him I was going to peek, and then I read him in a flash, before he could shift his mind to Boston traffic or something. (He knows I can't stand traffic.)
I only picked up a little, but it was enough. There was something very unpleasant that Aarons had said that I couldn't quite get. They were in his office. Lambertson had said, "I don't think she's ready for it, and I'd never try to talk her into it, at this point. Why can't you people get it through your heads that she's a child, and a human being, not some kind of laboratory animal? ”

“ Today Lambertson broke down and told me what it was that Aarons had been proposing. It was worse than I thought it would be. The man had hit on the one thing I'd been afraid of for so long.
"He wants you to work against normals," Lambertson said. "He's swallowed the latency hypothesis whole. He thinks that everybody must have a latent psi potential, and that all that is needed to drag it into the open is a powerful stimulus from someone with full-blown psi powers." ”

“ We stood by the water's edge in silence for a long time. Then Lambertson kissed me. It was the first time he had ever done that.
"We could go away," I whispered in his ear. "We could run out on Aarons and the Study Center and everyone, just go away somewhere."
He shook his head slowly. "Amy, don't."
"We could! I'll see Dr. Custer, and he'll tell me he can help, I know he will. I won't need the Study Center any more, or any other place, or anybody but you." ”

“ The dice were only reactors. Sensitive enough, two balsam cubes, tossed from a box with only gravity to work against. I showed her first, picked up her mind as the dice popped out, led her through it. Take one at a time, the red one first. Work on it, see? Now we try both. Once more—watch it! All right, now.
She sat frozen in the chair. She was trying; the sweat stood out on her forehead. Aarons sat tense, smoking, his fingers twitching as he watched the red and green cubes bounce on the white backdrop. Lambertson watched too, but his eyes were on the girl, not on the cubes. ”

“ We went back to reaction testing in the lab with Lambertson today. That study is almost finished, as much as anything I work on is ever finished, which isn't very much. This test had two goals: to clock my stimulus-response pattern in comparison to normals, and to find out just exactly when I pick up any given thought-signal from the person I'm reading. It isn't a matter of developing speed. ”

“ And you know he'll do everything he can. It's just that neither of us wants you to get your hopes up."
It wasn't much, but it was something. Lambertson looked so beat. I didn't have the heart to ask him what Aarons wanted, even though I know he'd like to get it off his chest. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
I spent the day with Charlie Dakin in the lab, and did a little work for a change. I've been disgustingly lazy, and poor Charlie thinks it's all his fault. Charlie reads like twenty-point type ninety per cent of the time, and I'm afraid he knows it. ”