"Other things?"
The technician looked wildly about, as if seeking some escape.
"A high chair," said Young.
"And a crib.
And a woolly dog.
And buttons."
"Buttons?" asked the technician.
"What are buttons?"
"I'll explain it all to you," Young told him airily.
"It all is very simple."
It seemed, when Andrew Young came into the room, that Riggs and Stanford had been expecting him, had known that he was coming and had been waiting for him.
He wasted no time on preliminaries or formalities.
They know, he told himself.
They know, or they have guessed.
They would be watching me.
Ever since I brought in my petition, they have been watching me, wondering what I would be thinking, trying to puzzle out what I might do next.
They know every move I've made, they know about the toys and the furniture and all the other things.
And I don't need to tell them what I plan to do.
"I need some help," he said, and they nodded soberly, as if they had guessed he needed help.
"I want to build a house," he explained.
"A big house.
Much larger than the usual house." Riggs said,
"We'll draw the plans for you.
Do anything else that you—"
"A house," Young went on, "about four or five times as big as the ordinary house. Four or five times normal scale, I mean.
Doors twenty-five to thirty feet high and everything else in proportion."
"Neighbors or privacy?" asked Stanford.
"Privacy," said Young.
"We'll take care of it," promised Riggs.
"Leave the matter of the house to us."
Young stood for a long moment, looking at the two of them. Then he said,
"I thank you, gentlemen.
I thank you for your helpfulness and your understanding. But most of all I thank you for not asking any questions."
He turned slowly and walked out of the room and they sat in silence for minutes after he was gone.
Finally, Stanford offered a deduction: "It will have to be a place that a boy would like.
Woods to run in and a little stream to fish in and a field where he can fly his kites. What else could it be?"
"He's been out ordering children's furniture and toys," Riggs agreed.
"Stuff from five thousand years ago.
The kind of things he used when he was a child.
But scaled to adult size."
"Now," said Stanford, "he wants a house built to the same proportions.
A house that will make him think or help him believe that he is a child.
But will it work, Riggs?
His body will not change.
He cannot make it change.
It will only be in his mind."
"Illusion," declared Riggs.
"The illusion of bigness in relation to himself.
To a child, creeping on the floor, a door is twenty-five to thirty feet high, relatively. Of course the child doesn't know that. But Andrew Young does.
I don't see how he'll overcome that."