For some time I had been spending my free hours in the world of a gentle old merchant named Jacobs. I lived his life with him briefly, seeing his wife and children as he saw them, going with him to his store. His memories were good ones, filled with hard work and simple pleasures. One day, when I had left the computing tables to prepare for dinner, I sought the mind of Jacobs. He was crossing the street and as he turned his head, he saw the shining lights of an automobile just before it struck him. I withdrew from his mind in a shower of pain and darkness. "Oh, he is dead," my mind cried out to my vigil companions before I could smother the shock and emotion in it. They looked up at me, questioning. Then I exchanged with them more coolly, "My man Jacobs has been killed crossing the street."
Keven, the fuel technician, reached my mind first. "A pity, I lost a subject myself that way not long ago. It is a bad death for them, poor things. They might build overpasses, mightn't they? A pity."
It has never failed to unsettle me, the way my companions have come to accept the idea of death so easily. To me it is always a horror, unnatural and alien. You cannot quite see how it is, Novna, for you have never been in the mind of one who dies.
I withdrew for a little while to mourn my man Jacobs, for my sorrow was not to be shared with the others. It was while I sat thinking of the dead Jacobs that Gven approached hesitantly and sat near me.
"Is it possible," he asked, "that one can read the soul of an Earth man? Could I? Or perhaps that would not be permitted to me?"
His eagerness made me ashamed of the silence I had maintained between us. "It is certainly possible for you to try, though it cannot always be done. You need ask no one for permission."
The delight in his eyes made me forget Jacobs a little. "I may try anyone at all?"
"I advise you to search about a little. Don't seize on the first one you contact as a subject. You have less time than the rest of us for this sort of thing."
Gven thanked me shyly and went away. Later I saw him sitting at the open panels, looking down at the cloud-topped mountains and sandy valleys over which we circled. His face was still and pale as he concentrated.
The next day at dinner, Gven sat playing with his food, looking up at the rest of us frequently, as if his fear of our coldness were contending with his wish to open his mind to us. I was not the only one to notice his excitement, but the rest sat looking at their plates stonily. They liked Gven even less than they had at first, and preferred to ignore his presence altogether. At last I lifted my head defiantly and my thought streamed across the table into the mind of Gven with such energy and violence that the others raised their eyes from their food in quick surprise.
"It must be that you have found a subject. I should like to hear about it."
At once Gven let his thoughts explode in undisciplined profusion. The men drew back a little, shocked by the unfamiliar impact of another's passion on their minds.
"The very first mind I sought was that of a girl who calls herself Maria Dolores. Often her mind turns in upon itself and she reflects like this, 'Maria Dolores, you have behaved badly to your papa today. Now you must go and ask him to forgive you and give him a kiss.' In this way she scolds herself for small misdemeanors. Her world is composed of happy, innocent trivialities, though as her purity touches on them and causes them to glow briefly before they are left behind, it seems that there are no more divine and lovely things in existence than those in the world of my Maria Dolores."
Gven blushed and paused for a moment, then rushed on. "I sense that her father and mother have barricaded her from everyone else. They are strict with Maria Dolores and sometimes she wishes she could go out to dances as the other girls do. But she is not sad for long, and goes to gather flowers for the dinner table. She sets them in long silver dishes, that reflect the pink and red glow of the sunset slanting through the window. This pleases Maria Dolores and she stands watching for a long time."
Gven would have said more, but all at once Corven, the cultural researcher, interrupted, looking at me. "Noven, what have you brought upon us by your curiosity? We are being buried in an avalanche of poetic fancies."
After this, Gven sat silent, his face burning, and the rest of us began............