Alas, All Thinking
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.
