One important item continued to elude James Holden. The Educator couldnot be made to work in "tandem." In less technical terms, the Educatorwas strictly an individual device, a one-man-dog. The wave forms thatcould be recorded were as individual as fingerprints and pore-patternsand iris markings. James could record a series of ideas or a few pages ofinformation and play them back to himself. During the playback he couldthink in no other terms; he could not even correct, edit or improve thephrasing. It came back word for word with the faithful reproduction ofabsolute fidelity. Similarly, Martha could record a phase of informationand she, too, underwent the same repetition when her recording was playedback to her.
But if Martha's recording were played through to James, utter confusioncame. It was a whirling maze of colors and odors, sound, taste and touch.
It spoiled some of James Holden's hopes; he sought the way to mass-use,his plan was to employ a teacher to digest the information and then viathe Educator, impress the information upon many other brains each coupledto the machine. This would not work.
He made an extra headset late in June and they tried it, sittingside-by-side and still it did not work. With Martha doing the reading,she got the full benefit of the machine and James emerged with a whirlinghead full of riotous colors and other sensations. At one point he hopedthat they might learn some subject by sitting side-by-side and readingthe text in unison, but from this they received the information horriblymingled with equal intensity of sensory noise.
He did not abandon this hope completely. He merely put it aside as aproblem that he was not ready to study yet. He would re-open the questionwhen he knew more about the whole process. To know the whole processmeant studying many fields of knowledge and combining them into aresearch of his own.
And so James entered the summer months as he'd entered them before; Timand Janet Fisher took off one day and returned the next afternoon with agreat gay show of "bringing the children home for the summer."
Even in this day of multi-billion-dollar budgets and farm surpluses thatcost forty thousand dollars per hour for warehouse rental, twenty-fivehundred dollars is still a tidy sum to dangle before the eyes of anyindividual. This was the reward offered by Paul Brennan for anyinformation as to the whereabouts of James Quincy Holden.
If Paul Brennan could have been honest, the information he could havesupplied would have provided any of the better agencies with enoughlead-material to track James Holden down in a time short enough to makethe reward money worth the effort. Similarly, if James Holden'scompetence had been no greater than Brennan's scaled-down description,he could not have made his own way without being discovered.
Bound by his own guilt, Brennan could only fret. Everything includingtime, was running against him.
And as the years of James Holden's independence looked toward the sixth,Paul Brennan was willing to make a mental bet that the young man'seducation was deeper than ever.
He would have won. James was close to his dream of making his play for anappearance in court and pleading for the law to recognize his competenceto act as an adult. He abandoned all pretense; he no longer hid throughthe winter months, and he did not keep Martha under cover either. Theywent shopping with Mrs. Fisher now and then, and if any of the folks inShipmont wondered about them, the fact that the children were in the careand keeping of responsible adults and were oh-so-quick on the uptakestopped anybody who might have made a fast call to the truant officer.
Then in the spring of James Holden's twelfth year and the sixth ofhis freedom, he said to Tim Fisher. "How would you like to collecttwenty-five hundred dollars?"
Fisher grinned. "Who do you want killed?"
"Seriously."
"Who wouldn't?"
"All right, drop the word to Paul Brennan and collect the reward."
"Can you protect yourself?"
"I can quote Gladstone from one end to the other. I can cite every civilsuit regarding the majority or minority problem that has any importance.If I fail, I'll skin out of there in a hurry on the next train. But Ican't wait forever."
"What's the gimmick, James?"
"First, I am sick and tired of running and hiding, and I think I've gotenough to prove my point and establish my rights. Second, there is a bitof cupidity here; the reward money is being offered out of my owninheritance so I feel that I should have some say in where it should go.Third, the fact that I steer it into the hands of someone I'd prefer toget it tickles my sense of humor. The trapper trapped; the bopper bopped;the sapper hoist by his own petard."
"And--?"
"It isn't fair to Martha, either. So the sooner we get this whole affairsettled, the sooner we can start to move towards a reasonable way oflife."
"Okay, but how are we going to work it? I can't very well turn up bymyself, you know."
"Why not?"
"People would think I'm a heel."
"Let them think so. They'll change their opinion once the whole truth isknown." James smiled. "It'll also let you know who your true friendsare."
"Okay. Twenty-five hundred bucks and a chance at the last laugh soundsgood. I'll talk it over with Janet."
That night they buried Charles Maxwell, the Hermit of Martin's Hill.