Inventing new somesthetic receptors that way!”
Paul swallowed with difficulty.
“What did you say?” he gasped.
Seevers inspected him serenely.
“So you’re a non-hyper, are you?
Yes, indeed, I can smell that you are. Vile, really. Can’t understand why sensible hypers would want to paw you.
But then, I’ve insured myself against such foolishness.”
He said it so casually that Paul blinked before he caught the full impact of it.
“Y-y-you’ve done what?”
“What I said.
When I first caught it, I simply sat down with a velvet-tipped stylus and located the spots on my hands that gave rise to pleasurable sensations.
Then I burned them out with an electric needle.
There aren’t many of them, really—one or two points per square centimeter.”
He tugged off his gloves and exhibited pick-marked palms to prove it.
“I didn’t want to be bothered with such silly urges.
Waste of time, chasing nonhypers, for me it is.
I never learned what it’s like, so I’ve never missed it.”
He turned his hands over and stared at them.
“Stubborn little critters keep growing new ones, and I keep burning them out.”
Paul leaped to his feet.
“Are you trying to tell me that the plague causes new nerve cells to grow?”
Seevers looked up coldly.
“Ah, yes.
You came here to be illooominated, as the padre put it.
If you wish to be de-idiotized, please stop shouting.
Otherwise, I’ll ask you to leave.”
Paul, who had felt like leaving a moment ago, now sub-sided quickly.
“I’m sorry,” he snapped, then softened his tone to repeat: “I’m sorry.” Seevers took a deep breath, stretched his short meaty arms in an unexpected yawn, then relaxed and grinned.
“Sit down, sit down, m’boy.
I’ll tell you what you want to know, if you really want to know anything.
Do you?”
“Of course!”
“You don’t!
You just want to know how you—whatever your name is—will be affected by events.
You don’t care about understanding for its own sake.
Few people do.
That’s why we’re in this mess. The padre now, he cares about understanding events—but not for their own sake.
He cares, but for his flock’s sake and for his God’s sake—which is, I must admit, a better attitude than that of the common herd, whose only interest is in their own safety.
But if people would just want to understand events for the understanding’s sake, we wouldn’t be in such a pickle.”
Paul watched the professor’s bright eyes and took the lecture quietly.
“And so, before I illuminate you, I want to make an impossible request.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I ask you to be completely objective,” Seevers continued, rubbing the bridge of his nose and covering his eyes with his hand. “I want you to forget you ever heard of neuroderm while you listen to me.
Rid yourself of all preconceptions, especially those connected with fear.
Pretend these are purely hypothetical events that I’m going to discuss.”
He took his hands down from his eyes and grinned sheepishly.
“It always embarrasses me to ask for that kind of cooperation when I know damn well I’ll never get it.”
“I’ll try to be objective, sir.”
“Bah!”
Seevers slid down to sit on his spine, and hooked the base of his skull over the back of the chair.