Changing Planes

This did not quite satisfy the homescreen audience, or the maverick scientists who had questioned the theory of asom-nism, or even the government which was supporting Dr. Mr. Prof. Uy Tug’s program in hopes of a generation of geniuses who would bring Nuum to its knees and confirm Hy Brisal as the supermost superpower in the world. After a good deal of time and pressure and committee meetings, a Committee of Scientific Investigation charged with making a disinterested report was forced upon the fiercely resistant Dr. Mr. Prof. Uy Tug and his staff.

The investigators found many of the parents of the Super-smarts pathetically eager to talk to them, begging for advice, help, treatment for their children. One after another, these loving and desperate mothers and fathers said the same words: “They’re sleepwalking.”

One young mother, uneducated but observant, set her little boy down in front of a mirror and told the investigator to watch him. “Mi Min,” she said to the child, “look, Mi Min, who’s that in the mirror? Who’s thai, honey? That little boy, what’s he doing?” But the child “did not relate in any way to the image,” as the investigator wrote. “He showed no interest in it. He never looked into the eyes of the mirror image. Later I noticed that though his glance sometimes crossed mine at random, he did not look into my eyes, nor could I look into his. I found this curiously disquieting.”

The same investigator was also disturbed by the fact that none of the children pointed at anything or followed the direction of a pointing finger. “Animals and young infants,” he wrote, “look at the finger rather than at the direction pointed at, and do not point themselves. Pointing as a meaningful and understood gesture is a normal spontaneous development occurring in an infant’s first year.”

The Supersmarts obeyed direct, simple orders, erratically. If told, “Go to the kitchen,” or “Sit down,” they often did so. If asked “Are you hungry?,” a child might or might not go to the kitchen or to the table to receive food. When hurt, none of the children would run to an adult crying about the “owie.” They just crouched down, whimpering or silent. A father said, “It’s like he doesn’t know it happened to him, like something happened but he doesn’t know it happened to him.” He added proudly, “He’s tough. A real soldier. Never asks for help.”

Spoken endearments seemed to mean nothing to the children, though if offered a physical embrace they might nuzzle or cuddle up to the speaker. Sometimes a child would say or hum endearments—”Nice nice nice,” “Mama soft, mama soft”—but not in response to loving words from the parent. They responded to their names, and most of them if asked their name would say it, though some did not. The parents reported that they increasingly seemed to “just talk to themselves” or “just don’t listen” and that their use of pronouns was often arbitrary—“you” for “I,” or “me” for “them.” All their speech seemed to be increasingly spontaneous not responsive, random not purposive.

After over a year of patient and intensive study and discussion, the investigators published their report. Its language was very cautious. They put a good deal of emphasis on the case of Ra Gna, who had continued to sleep up to an hour a night and even occasionally to doze off in the daytime, and was thus considered, in terms of the experiment, a failure. Ra Gna’s difference from the other Supersmarts was vividly and unguardedly described by one of the investigators to a homescreen reporter: “She’s a sweet kid, dreamy. They’re all dreamy. She wanders off, I mean her mind does; talking to her is kind of like talking to the dog, you know? She sort of listens, but most of it’s just noise to her. But sometimes she sort of shivers like somebody waking up, and then she’s there, and she knows it. None of the other kids ever do. They aren’t there. They aren’t anywhere.”

The conclusion of the investigators was that “permanent wakefulness appears to prevent the brain from achieving full consciousness.”

The media screamed with gusto for a month about Zombie Tots—the Waking Brain-Dead—Programmed Autism—Infant Sacrifice on Altar of Science—”Why Won’t They Let Me Sleep, Mommy?”—and then lost interest.

The government’s interest was kept alive for twelve more years by the unflagging persuasion of Dr. Mr. Prof. Uy Tug, who had firm allies in one of the Supreme Pinnacular’s most valued advisers and several influential generals of the army. Then, abruptly and without public notice, funding for the project was withdrawn.

Many of the supervising scientists had left the compound already. Dr. Mr. Prof. Uy Tug suffered a heart attack and died. The distraught parents of the Supersmarts—who had been forced to stay in the compound all these years, well fed and clothed of course and with access to all modern conveniences except communicative devices—got out and yelled for help.