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Ham Sandwich By: James H. Schmitz (1911-1981) |
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This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction June 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
HAM SANDWICH
It gets difficult to handle the
problem of a man who has a real talent
that you need badly and he cannot
use it if he knows it's honest!
by JAMES H. SCHMITZ
ILLUSTRATED BY LEO SUMMERS
There was no one standing or sitting around the tastefully furnished
entry hall of the Institute of Insight when Wallace Cavender walked
into it. He was almost half an hour late for the regular Sunday night
meeting of advanced students; and even Mavis Greenfield, Dr. Ormond's
secretary, who always stayed for a while at her desk in the hall to
sign in the stragglers, had disappeared. However, she had left the
attendance book lying open on the desk with a pen placed invitingly
beside it. Wallace Cavender dutifully entered his name in the book. The distant
deep voice of Dr. Aloys Ormond was dimly audible, coming from the
direction of the lecture room, and Cavender followed its faint
reverberations down a narrow corridor until he reached a closed door.
He eased the door open and slipped unobtrusively into the back of the
lecture room. As usual, most of the thirty odd advanced students present had seated
themselves on the right side of the room where they were somewhat
closer to the speaker. Cavender started towards the almost vacant rows
of chairs on the left, smiling apologetically at Dr. Ormond who, as
the door opened, had glanced up without interrupting his talk. Three
other faces turned towards Cavender from across the room. Reuben
Jeffries, a heavyset man with a thin fringe of black hair circling an
otherwise bald scalp, nodded soberly and looked away again. Mavis
Greenfield, a few rows further up, produced a smile and a reproachful
little headshake; during the coffee break she would carefully explain
to Cavender once more that students too tardy to take in Dr. Al's
introductory lecture missed the most valuable part of these meetings. From old Mrs. Folsom, in the front row on the right, Cavender's
belated arrival drew a more definite rebuke. She stared at him for
half a dozen seconds with a coldly severe frown, mouth puckered in
disapproval, before returning her attention to Dr. Ormond. Cavender sat down in the first chair he came to and let himself go
comfortably limp. He was dead tired, had even hesitated over coming to
the Institute of Insight tonight. But it wouldn't do to skip the
meeting. A number of his fellow students, notably Mrs. Folsom, already
regarded him as a black sheep; and if enough of them complained to Dr.
Ormond that Cavender's laxness threatened to retard the overall
advance of the group towards the goal of Total Insight, Ormond might
decide to exclude him from further study. At a guess, Cavender thought
cynically, it would have happened by now if the confidential report
the Institute had obtained on his financial status had been less
impressive. A healthy bank balance wasn't an absolute requirement for
membership, but it helped ... it helped! All but a handful of the
advanced students were in the upper income brackets. Cavender let his gaze shift unobtrusively about the group while some
almost automatic part of his mind began to pick up the thread of Dr.
Al's discourse. After a dozen or so sentences, he realized that the
evening's theme was the relationship between subjective and objective
reality, as understood in the light of Total Insight. It was a
well worn subject; Dr. Al repeated himself a great deal. Most of the
audience nevertheless was following his words with intent interest,
many taking notes and frowning in concentration. As Mavis Greenfield
liked to express it, quoting the doctor himself, the idea you didn't
pick up when it was first presented might come clear to you the fifth
or sixth time around... Continue reading book >>
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