And the lights dimmed, with the exception of the faint pearly luster of the ceiling that made them two ghostly faces in the dark. Gillbret laughed lightly at Biron's exclamation.
"Just one of the tricks of my visisonor. It's keyed to the mind like personal capsules are. Do you know what I mean?"
"No, I don't, if you want a plain answer."
"Well," he said, "look at it this way. The electric field of your brain cells sets up an induced one in the instrument. Mathematically, it's fairly simple, but as far as I know, no one has ever jammed all the necessary circuits into a box this size before. Usually, it takes a five-story generating plant to do it. It works the other way too. I can close circuits here and impress them directly upon your brain, so that you'll see and hear without any intervention of eyes and ears. Watch!"
There was nothing to watch, at first. And then something fuzzy scratched faintly at the corner of Biron's eyes. It became a faint blue-violet ball hovering in mid-air. It followed him as he turned away, remained unchanged when he closed his eyes. And a clear, musical tone accompanied it, was part of it, was it.
It was growing and expanding and Biron became disturbingly aware that it existed inside his skull. It wasn't really a color, but rather a colored sound, though without noise. It was tactile, yet without feeling.
It spun and took on an iridescence while the musical tone rose in pitch till it hovered above him like falling silk. Then it exploded so that gouts of color splattered at him in touches that burned momentarily and left no pain.
Bubbles of rain-drenched green rose again with a quiet, soft moaning. Biron thrust at them in confusion and became aware that he could not see his hands nor feel them move. There was nothing, only the little bubbles filling his mind to the exclusion of all else.
He cried out soundlessly and the fantasy ceased. Gillbret was standing before him once again in a lighted room, laughing. Biron felt an acute dizziness and wiped shakily at a chilled, moist forehead. He sat down abruptly.
"What happened?" he demanded, in as stiff a tone as he could manage.
Gillbret said, "I don't know. I stayed out of it. You don't understand? It was something your brain had lacked previous experience with. Your brain was sensing directly and it had no method of interpretation for such a phenomenon. So as long as you concentrated Qn the sensation, your brain could only attempt, futilely, to force the effect into the old, familiar pathways. It attempts separately and simultaneously to interpret it as sight and sound and touch. Were you conscious of an odor, by the way? Sometimes it seemed to me that I smelled the stuff. With dogs I imagine the sensation would be forced almost entirely into odor. I'd like to try it on animals someday.
"On the other hand, if you ignore it, make no attack upon it, it fades away. It's what I do, when I want to observe its effects on others, and it isn't difficult."
He placed a little veined hand upon the instrument, fingering the knobs aimlessly. "Sometimes I think that if one could really study this thing, one could compose symphonies in a new medium; do things one could never do with simple sound or sight. I lack the capacit,y for it, I'm afraid."
Biron said abruptly, "I'd like to ask you a question."
"By all means."
"Why don't you put your scientific ability to worth-while use instead of-"
"Wasting it on useless toys? I don't know. It may not be entirely useless. This is against the law, you know."
"What is?"
"The visisonor. Also my spy devices. If the Tyranni knew, it could easily mean a death sentence."
"Surely, you're joking."
"Not at all. It is obvious that you were brought up on a cattle ranch. The young people cannot remember what it was like in the old days, I see." Suddenly his head was to one side and his eyes were narrowed to slits. He asked, "Are you opposed to Tyrannian rule? Speak freely. I tell you frankly that I am. I tell you also that your father was."
Biron said calmly, "Yes, I am."
"Why?"
"They are strangers, outlanders. What right have they to rule in Nephelos or in Rhodia?"
"Have you always thought that?" Biron did not answer.
Gillbret sniffed. "In other words, you decided they were strangers and outlanders only after they executed your father, which, after all, was their simple right. Oh, look, don't fire up. Consider it reasonably. Believe me, I'm on your side. But think! Your father was Rancher. What rights did his herdsmen have? If one of them had stolen cattle for his own use or to sell to others, what would have been his punishment? Imprisonment as a thief. If he had plotted the death of your father, for whatever reason, for perhaps a worthy reason in his own eyes, what would have been the result? Execution, undoubtedly. And what right has your father to make laws and visit punishment upon his fellow human beings? H e was their Tyranni.
"Your father, in his own eyes and in mine, was a patriot. But what of that? To the Tyranni, he was a traitor, and they removed him. Can you ignore the necessity of self-defense? The Hinriads have been a bloody lot in their time. Read your history, young man. All governments kill as part of the nature of things.,
"So find a better reason to hate the Tyranni. Don't think it is enough to replace one set of rulers by another; that the simple change brings freedom."
Biron pounded a fist into his cupped palm. "All this objective philosophy is fine. It is very soothing to the man who lives apart. But what if it had been your father who was murdered?"
"Well, wasn't it? My father was Director before Hinrik, and he was killed. Oh, not outright, but subtly. They broke his spirit, as they are breaking Hinrik's now. They wouldn't have me as Director when my father died; I was just a little too unpredictable. Hinrik was tall, handsome, and, above all, pliant. Yet not pliant enough, apparently. They hound him continuously, grind him into a pitiful puppet, make sure he cannot even itch without permission. You've seen him. He's deteriorating by the month now. His continual state of fear is pathetically psychopathic. But that-all that-is not why I want to destroy Tyrannian rule."