He began to set up the pieces, his face to the black wall.
IV
The primary function of personality is self-preservation, but personality itself is not a static but a dynamic thing. The basic factor in its development, is integration: each new situation calls forth a new adjustment which modifies or alters the personality in the process. The proper aim of personality, therefore, is not permanence and stability, but unification. The inability of a personality to adjust to or integrate a new situation, the resistance of the personality to unification, and its efforts to preserve its integrity are known popularly as insanity.
—Morgan Littlefield,
Notes on Psychology.
"Hoskins!"
Paresi grabbed the Captain's arm and spun him around roughly. "Captain Anderson! Cut it!" Very softly, he said, "Leave him alone. He's doing what he has to do."
Anderson stared over his shoulder at the little engineer. "Is he, now? Damn it, he's still under orders!"
"Got something for him to do?" asked the doctor cooly.
Anderson looked around, at the controls, out at the sleeping mountains. "I guess not. But I'd like to know he'd take an order when I have one."
"Leave him alone until you have an order. Hoskins is a very steady head, skipper. But just now he's on the outside edge. Don't push."