{"id":749,"date":"2021-03-05T16:28:59","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T16:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=749"},"modified":"2021-03-16T13:30:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T13:30:12","slug":"what-the-left-hand-was-doing-by-randall-garrett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=749","title":{"rendered":"What the Left Hand Was Doing by Randall Garrett"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What the Left Hand Was Doing <\/em><\/strong>by Randall Garrett (Astounding<\/em>, February 1960) begins with the protagonist, Spencer Candron, arriving at The Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc.<\/em>, a front for a group of psi (mind-power) capable individuals. Once we eventually get beyond the over-padded beginning (which includes a description of the building, of Candron, and of the secretary and her role in keeping away the crazies) he finally receives a leisurely briefing about the Red Chinese abduction of a famous US physicist called Ch\u2019ien at an international conference in their country (his abductors have attempted to cover this up by murdering a double). Candron is told to rescue Ch\u2019ien before the Chinese uncover his interstellar drive secrets.
The story picks up pace when Candron flies over Chinese territory and arranges to have an aircraft door to fall off during the flight. He then jumps out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without a parachute, he had flung himself from the plane toward the earth below, and his only thought was his loathing, his repugnance, for that too, too solid ground beneath.
He didn\u2019t hate it. That would be deadly, for hate implies as much attraction as love\u2014the attraction of destruction. Fear, too, was out of the question; there must be no such relationship as that between the threatened and the threatener. Only loathing could save him. The earth beneath was utterly repulsive to him.
And he slowed.
His mind would not accept contact with the ground, and his body was forced to follow suit. He slowed.
Minutes later, he was drifting fifty feet above the surface, his altitude held steady by the emotional force of his mind. Not until then did he release the big suitcase he had been holding. He heard it thump as it hit, breaking open and scattering clothing around it.
In the distance, he could hear the faint moan of a siren. The Chinese radar had picked up two falling objects. And they would find two: one door and one suitcase, both of which could be accounted for by the \u201caccident.\u201d They would know that no parachute had opened; hence, if they found no body, they would be certain that no human being could have dropped from the plane.  p. 183 (The Year\u2019s Best SF #5<\/em>, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Not bad, and the next part of the story\u2014where he establishes himself in a hotel room in the city\u2014is interesting too. However, the piece falters when Candron later goes to the Security HQ in the middle of the city and makes full use of his psi powers: he holds onto the underside of a car with his fingertips as it goes through the checkpoint; levitates up an elevator shaft; impersonates a Chinese general in a phone call to the cell guards to organise his visit; and then goes down to see Ch\u2019ien. This is all too easily done, as is his rescue of the physicist, which (spoiler) sees him knock the scientist unconscious with an uppercut, set off a smoke bomb, and then teleport them both back to his room in the city. There, he carries Ch\u2019ien to the roof of the hotel, and levitates himself and the physicist out to sea where they eventually meet a submarine (this latter event happens when he\u2019s getting a bit tired, something we find out after a two page lecture about the limits of the human mind and psionic abilities).
The last couple of pages of the story have a Senator and a couple of other men debrief Candron at the institute, and one of the questions they ask him is why he kept knocking the physicist unconscious throughout the flight to the sub. Candron replies with some typical Campbellian blather about psionics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would ruin him,\u201d Candron broke in, before the senator could speak. \u201cIf he saw, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that levitation and teleportation were possible, he would have accepted his own senses as usable data on definite phenomena. But, limited as he is by his scientific outlook, he would have tried to evolve a scientific theory to explain what he saw. What else could a scientist do?\u201d
Senator Kerotski nodded, and his nod said, \u201cI see. He would have diverted his attention from the field of the interstellar drive to the field of psionics. And he would have wasted years trying to explain an inherently nonlogical area of knowledge by logical means.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d Candron said. \u201cWe would have set him off on a wild goose chase, trying to solve the problems of psionics by the scientific, the logical method. We would have presented him with an unsolvable problem.\u201d
Taggert patted his knees. \u201cWe would have given him a problem that he could not solve with the methodology at hand. It would be as though we had proved to an ancient Greek philosopher that the cube could be doubled, and then allowed him to waste his life trying to do it with a straightedge and compass.\u201d
\u201cWe know Ch\u2019ien\u2019s psychological pattern,\u201d Candron continued. \u201cHe\u2019s not capable of admitting that there is any other thought pattern than the logical. He would try to solve the problems of psionics by logical methods, and would waste the rest of his life trying to do the impossible.\u201d  pp. 202-203 (The Year\u2019s Best SF #5<\/em>, edited by Judith Merril, 1961)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I think this sort of thing is what was meant by \u201cpushing Campbell\u2019s buttons\u201d (i.e. pandering to the editor of Astounding<\/em> magazine, John W. Campbell, and his sometimes whacky ideas).
I eventually lost patience with this story as I\u2019m not a fan of work that (a) uses lazy SF ideas and terminology (\u201cpsi\u201d) or (b) is obviously padded with word-rate generating material (e.g. endless description and lectures). But most of all I don\u2019t like (c) stories (and movies\u2014I\u2019m looking at you Wonder Woman<\/em>) where the superhero protagonists can seemingly do anything they want and are never in any sort of jeopardy.
If none of this applies to you, this may be an entertaining enough piece as it\u2019s readable enough.
* (Mediocre). 10,900 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What the Left Hand Was Doing by Randall Garrett (Astounding, February 1960) begins with the protagonist, Spencer Candron, arriving at The Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc., a front for a group of psi (mind-power) capable individuals. Once we eventually get beyond the over-padded beginning (which includes a description of the building, of Candron, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[21,161,226,7,225],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-randall-garrett","tag-21","tag-161","tag-astounding","tag-novelette","tag-randall-garrett"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}