Charles Wayland is tasked with discovering why his cold-hearted college buddy and all-around
genius (I.Q. 248) physicist Harlan T. Frick has abandoned everything technical for mundane
pursuits such as golfing, clothes, travel, fishing, night clubs, and so on—and the
explanation may have to do with either Humpty Dumpty or Frick’s trip to the future with an
average (but meditative) young woman named Pearl who is most curious about love.
I showed her New York. She’d say, “But why do the people hurry so? Is it really
necessary for all those automobiles to keep going and coming? Do the people like to live
in layers? If the United States is as big as you say it is, why do you build such high
buildings? What is your reason for having so few people rich, so many people poor?” It
was like that. And endless.