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.

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  1. “Alas, All Thinking” by Harry Bates, Astounding, June 1935.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Harry Bates