Romlar settled himself on the chair, glad it was the red-headed girl again who would interview him. He suspected that was how they did things—always gave you the same interviewer. And he didn't think of her as "just a girl" any more.
"Cold out there," she said, glancing up as she arranged her notebook. "Did you train outdoors this morning?"
"Yep."
"What did you do?"
Grinning he told her, including how he'd done his leg of the course. Mentally, psychically, he was far lighter than when she'd first seen him, much happier, far more confident.
She grinned back at him. "Marvelous," she said. "I love it!" Then she moved to another subject. "We got a lot taken care of in our first two sessions. Now at the end of our last one, I asked if you still thought of yourself as stupid. And you said—" She paused as if inviting him to finish for her.
"I said yeah, I guess I was, but it didn't bother me anymore."
"Right. How do you feel about that now?"
"The same. I know I'm not as smart as most of the other guys, but that's all right. I'm me. I do some things better than most of them."
"Good. So tell me a use for stupidity."
"Huh! Well— I can't think of any."
"Okay. Then imagine a use for stupidity."
"Imagine? Well, uhh— If you're stupid, you don't get asked to do some stuff."
"All right. Now give me something more specific than that."
"Uhh . . . Well— People don't ask you to figure stuff out. They know you can't do it very good."
"Good. Tell me something else you don't get asked to do if you're stupid."
"You— You don't get asked to do some things that are really important."
"Okay. Another."
"You don't . . ." He stopped, eyes suddenly blank, face expressionless, mouth slightly open, and sat like that for a long minute.
"Um-hm?" she nudged.
He'd begun visibly to sweat. "You don't get asked— You don't get asked to decide things that other people's lives depend on." He'd said it in an undertone, little more than a whisper.
"All right," she replied calmly. "What else don't you get asked to do?"
For a moment he trembled, vibrated might be a better word, then began to jerk, then rock back and forth, rotating from the hips in utter silence. She watched him quietly for a minute, not nudging him with what she saw. Instead she simply repeated the question: "What else don't you get asked to do?"
He croaked the words: "To lead."
And with that her serious work began. Per instructions, ordinarily she tried to keep sessions to about an hour, two at most. This time it took nearly three before she had him through all of it, alert again and in good spirits. Actually very good spirits. And ravenous! She wrote him a chit to give to the cook at the project's small dining room; the snack room wouldn't be adequate to his needs. After that he went to one of the nap rooms and slept for more than an hour, dreaming swift eventful dreams he couldn't afterward remember.
After the session, Lotta Alsnor went to a small office at the end of the hall, and knocked.
"Who is it?"
"Lotta."
Wellem Bosler was in charge of the project. Because of the shortage of fully qualified people, he'd selected the best of his advanced students, his and others', and had coached them intensively for a week before bringing them here. And because their experience was limited and some of the cases promised to be especially demanding, he'd come with them to supervise, and to bail them out when necessary. One of the things he did was call up and look over each session record before any further session was scheduled with that particular case. So far everything had gone remarkably well, and his operators had quickly gained confidence in their ability to do the job here.
Lotta was the second youngest, and the most gifted if not the most skilled.
"Come in, Lotta," Bosler said.
She did. "Wellem," she said, "I'd like you to check out the session I just gave Artus Romlar."
He called it up, and his eyebrows raised as he scanned. When he'd finished, he looked up at her with a grin. "Marvelous, Lotta. I'm proud of you. Talk about the unanticipated! If I'd had any misgivings about your readiness for this job, and I didn't, this would lay them to rest." He paused then before adding, "You need to get him back after supper, you know."
She nodded. "I thought—you might take him after supper. I'm afraid I might get in over my head."
"Ah. But I want you to take him, and if you do get in over your head, then I'll take over. Okay?"
She nodded. "If you think it's safe for him that way."
Wellem Bosler grinned. "Even if you screw up to the maximum, we'll have him in good shape before morning."
Then he outlined briefly the approach he wanted her to use.