(Easy now, easy. Don’t push. He had tried that trick before this and—) Mark was saying, “No, it isn’t. Not a bit. The expeditions that failed were different. That’s true.”
Sheffield kept his back turned. He waited.
Mark said, “The seventeen other expeditions that failed on planets that are now inhabited were all small exploring expeditions. In sixteen of the cases the cause of death was shipwreck of one sort or another and in the remaining case, Coma Minor that one was, the failure resulted from a surprise attack by indigenous life-forms, not intelligent, of course. I have the details on all of them—”
(Sheffield couldn’t forebear holding his breath. Mark could give the details on all of them. All the details. It was as easy for him to quote all the records on each expedition, word for word, as it was to say yes or no. And he might well choose to. A Mnemonic had no selectivity. It was one of the things that made ordinary companionship between Mnemonics and ordinary people impossible. Mnemonics were dreadful bores by the nature of things. Even Sheffield, who was trained and inured to listen to it all, and who had no intention of stopping Mark if he were really off on a talk-jab, sighed softly.)
“But what’s the use,” Mark continued, and Sheffield felt rescued from a horror. “They’re just not in the same class with the Junior expedition. That consisted of an actual settlement of seven hundred eighty-nine men, two hundred seven women and fifteen children under the age of thirteen. In the course of the next year, three hundred fifteen women, nine men and two children were added by immigration. The settlement survived almost two years and the cause of death isn’t known, except that from their report, it might be disease.
“Now that part is different. But Junior itself has nothing unusual about it, except, of course—”
Mark paused as though the information were too unimportant to bother with and Sheffield almost yelled. He forced himself to say calmly, “ That difference. Of course.”
Mark said, “We all know about that. It has two suns and the others only have one.”
The psychologist could have cried his disappointment. Nothing!
But what was the use. Belter luck next time. If you don’t have patience with a Mnemonic, you might as well not have a Mnemonic.