The Space Sieve Page 9

  Part of the reason that people such as David seek, sometimes desperately, to retreat from the world is because of the way people in your world treat beings like David. You would think that for anybody to simply want to be left alone from time to time would be no great request, but this is something that your world views with great disdain and contempt, and sometimes, even anger.

  For you see, the vast majority of your kind are what you call “extroverts.” (I say the majority of you are extroverts, but it turns out that a majority of the more intelligent of your kind are introverts.) And what the majority – extroverts – seek more than anything else is the clatter and din of constant companionship. You will recall many instances in your own experience where extroverts will sit around talking about absolutely nothing, while an introvert like David will be off, alone or in the company of a single friend, doing something interesting – such as when David was learning how to use the Machine upstairs in his room. Often, extroverts will go on for hours, talking incessantly about subjects noteworthy only for their supreme inanity, while if there were an introvert present, he would have had to leave the room before too long to be able to retain his sanity. And for this, the introvert would be viewed with concern and suspicion, and even hostility.

  A more vexing feature of extroverts, and one that is currently unknown to your science, is the fact that extroverts need introverts. They need them the way a mosquito needs an animal from which to suck blood. Extroverts take great interest in introverts, and it is from introverts that they draw much of their emotional energy. It is for this reason that extroverts cannot leave introverts alone – they must talk to them, or at least talk about them. A room full of extroverts will eventually have to find an introvert to prey upon, in order to be able to feel “recharged.”

  If you want to do an interesting experiment sometime, fill a room with nothing but extroverts. Let them clatter for an hour or two. Then, as they are nearing the point of exhaustion, send another extrovert into the room. It will make little difference.

  Then send in an introvert. The extroverts will descend upon the introvert, as David’s grandfather might say, “Like a barnyard full of chickens setting upon a June bug.” The extroverts will try desperately to interact with the introvert to the largest degree possible, all the while destroying the object of their attention. Again, as his grandfather would say, “Like a pack of dogs playing with a frog.”

  Let us not blame extroverts in one sense, for like the chickens and the dogs, they are simply acting upon instinct. They only know that the introvert has something they need.

  But on the other hand, human extroverts have something that chickens do not, which is the capacity for empathy and reason. Unlike the chickens, extroverts could see the damage they are doing to the introvert, and stop. But in most cases this does not happen. For if one is a chicken, what other purpose is there for a June bug, than to be eaten by a chicken? And if one is an extrovert, what other purpose is there for an introvert than to supply the extrovert with what he needs?

  And yet, in spite of their need, extroverts typically feel contempt for introverts, as many of your kind has contempt for things that are different. And perhaps most remarkable of all is that extroverts spend a considerable amount of their time trying to find ways to turn introverts into extroverts. You may have noticed that which is common often seeks to turn that which is unusual into that which is also common. (This is what many of your human governments and construction companies seek to do, for instance.)

  Failing to affect the change in the introvert (as they must fail, for an introvert cannot be changed into an extrovert) they seek to heap disdain upon the introvert. Indeed, introverts are often among the most mistreated groups in your human societies.

  Let me hasten here to observe however, that extroverts are not bad people, per se. On the contrary, they are often very good. But being so dominant, they often overrun introverts, whether deliberately or unwittingly.

  Because of all these reason, most of which he was unaware, the danger was that David might have one day left your society never to return, finding entirely within himself, amplified by the inconceivable power of the Device, all that he could ever want or need.

  Ultimately however, he felt the characteristic desire of many creatures – that being a yearning to share these experiences – to be able to show them to someone else. (And after all, I am not so different. I wrote this book to share these experiences, didn’t I?)

  He decided to call his part-cousin and friend, Chip, over for a visit. Indeed, it was David’s intent to take Chip to visit one of the more odd and strangely-poignant places that David had ever visited.

  In the end, it would have been better had David simply taken Chip to go flying with him. In any case, the place David chose to take Chip was one he had already given a name.

  He called it, “The Graveyard of the Gods.”