The wind's twelve quarters - vol 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

autistic.'
    'No,
he's intolerable!'
    'Well,
you see,' said Mannon, gazing mildly at the saliva-flecks on Porlock's
mustache, 'the normal defensive-aggressive reaction between strangers meeting -
let's say you and Mr Osden just for example - is something you're scarcely
aware of; habit, manners, inattention get you past it; you've learned to ignore
it, to the point where you might even deny it exists. However, Mr Osden, being an
empath, feels it. Feels his feelings, and yours, and is hard put to say which
is which. Let's say that there's a normal element of hostility towards any
stranger in your emotional reaction to him when you meet him, plus a
spontaneous dislike of his looks, or clothes, or handshake - it doesn't matter
what. He feels that dislike. As his autistic defense has been unlearned, he
resorts to an aggressive-defense mechanism, a response in kind to the
aggression which you have unwittingly projected onto him.' Mannon went on for
quite a long time.
    'Nothing
gives a man the right to be such a bastard,' Porlock said.
    'He
can't tune us out?' asked Harfex, the Biologist, another Hainishman.
    'It's
like hearing,' said Olleroo, Assistant Hard Scientist, stooping over to paint
her toenails with fluorescent lacquer. 'No eyelids on your ears. No Off switch
on empathy. He hears our feelings whether he wants to or not.'
    'Does
he know what we're thinking?' asked
Eskwana, the Engineer, looking round at the others in real dread.
    'No,'
Porlock snapped. 'Empathy's not telepathy! Nobody's got telepathy.'
    'Yet,'
said Mannon, with his little smile. 'Just before I left Hain there was a most
interesting report in from one of the recently rediscovered worlds, a hilfer
named Rocannon reporting what appears to be a teachable telepathic technique
existent among a mutated hominid race; I only saw a synopsis in the HILF
Bulletin, but—' He went on. The others had learned that they could talk while
Mannon went on talking; he did not seem to mind, nor even to miss much of what
they said,
    'Then
why does he hate us?' Eskwana said.
    'Nobody
hates you, Ander honey,' said Olleroo, daubing Eskwana's left thumbnail with
fluorescent pink. The engineer flushed and smiled vaguely.
    'He
acts as if he hated us,' said Haito, the Coordinator. She was a
delicate-looking woman of pure Asian descent, with a surprising voice, husky,
deep, and soft, like a young bullfrog. 'Why, if he suffers from our hostility,
does he increase it by constant attacks and insults? I can't say I think much
of Dr Hammergeld's cure, really, Mannon; autism might be preferable
    She
stopped. Osden had come into the main cabin.
    He
looked flayed. His skin was unnaturally white and thin, showing the channels of
his blood like a faded road map in red and blue. His Adam's apple, the muscles
that circled his mouth, the bones and ligaments of his wrists and hands, all
stood out distinctly as if displayed for an anatomy lesson. His hair was pale
rust, like long-dried blood. He had eyebrows and lashes, but they were visible
only in certain lights; what one saw was the bones of the eye sockets, the
veining of the lids, and the colorless eyes. They were not red eyes, for he was
not really an albino, but they were not blue or grey; colors had cancelled out
in Osden's eyes, leaving a cold water-like clarity, infinitely penetrable. He
never looked directly at one. His face lacked expression, like an anatomical
drawing, or a skinned face.
    'I
agree,' he said in a high, harsh tenor, 'that even autistic withdrawal might be
preferable to the smog of cheap secondhand emotions with which you people
surround me. What are you sweating hate for now, Porlock? Can't stand the sight
of me? Go practice some auto-eroticism the way you were doing last night, it
improves your vibes. Who the devil moved my tapes, here? Don't touch my things,
any of you. I won't have it.'
    'Osden,'
said Asnanifoil in his large slow voice, 'why are you such a
bastard?'
    Ander
Eskwana cowered and put his hands in front of his