"You're going to have to get used to the idea you're not dealing with Harkins in this. Take the point of view, this is somebody you've never seen before. Somebody you have to figure out from scratch." "Mm. I suppose so. Okay, why the change?" "Well--" Colin hesitated. "First of all, this--blindness is purely a functional block of some kind. There's nothing organically wrong with his vision." "I'm still not sure I go along with your blind-deaf idea," the General said dubiously. "I'm virtually certain, after seeing the film strip again. Your Colonel Harkins behaves exactly like a man being molested by something he can't see." "For the sake of argument, then...." Banning nodded. "All right. Presupposing he does not want to see human beings--for whatever reason--there are several mechanisms he could use." "He didn't even have to come back," Banning pointed out. "That's one of the mechanisms. But he _did_ come back. Why? Problem one, for the future. Mechanism two: Catalepsy. Suspension of _all_ sensation and consciousness." "Obviously not the case." "Right. Mechanism three," Colin went on, ticking the points off on his fingers, "_partial_ disorientation. Loss of perception of a single class of objects, human beings." "Even that isn't entirely true," Banning said. "He _felt_ people." "That's right. And I think this is our opening wedge. Of the possible means of avoidance I named, partial disorientation is the _least_ successful of all. It involves too many contradictions. He was disturbed by the microphones, for example. Why? Because they are meaningful only in a context of human beings. Communication. He would have to do some fancy twisting to avoid the notion of human beings. The same goes for any other human artifact. Somehow, in order to make the world 'reasonable' in his own terms, he has to explain the existence of these things, without admitting the existence of people who made and use them." "Impossible." "Very nearly. It means that some facet of his personality must be continually making decisions about what can be recognized and what cannot. His censoring mechanism is in a constant scramble to prevent certain data from reaching his conscious mind. It has to justify and explain away _all_ data which would eventually point to the existence of human beings." "What the hell does he think _he_ is?" Banning asked angrily. "I have no idea. Maybe that's problem two for the future. At any rate, as you pointed out, this is an impossible job. It must be infinitely more difficult now that he's on Earth, where there are so many more things to explain away. This is going to set up a terrific strain inside. It may break him." "What would do that to a man?" "I don't know that, either," Colin admitted. "Our first problem now is to get him out of the ship. And to do that, we have to contact him." "This is why you changed to 'please reply'? What good is it going to do if he can't hear it, anyway?"