Take all the time in the world, please, and think about what that might mean.
He touched the control stick, the sky-blue airplane lifted her nose to clear a lonely telephone wire, dropped back down over the hayfields. It feels faster today, flying 160 knots just forty feet above the ground, than it had felt going Mach 2, years ago, eight miles up. He accepted that; it was true.
Ever since Dee Hallock, why am I seeing suggestions everywhere?
And how would I do that; de-hypnotize myself? Slam my whole lifetime into reverse? If I've accepted, say, two or three twenty-billion suggestions that my world is just what it seems to be, what am I supposed to do now to change it?
Dying would do it. Seems to snap most people out of one trance right quick and into another. But if you . . .
. . . WIRES! screamed the copilot mind, LOOK OUT! WIRES!!
No need to scream; the pilot saw them ahead. There was all the time in the world to clear the power lines . . . the airplane lofted easily over, settled back down above the empty fields.
Much better, thank you, said the co-pilot. Careful you think about dying. Not just power lines, there's microwave towers around here, airplane-traps; remember it's not the towers that'll get you . . .
. . . it's the cables that brace the things. I know.
Stop thinking about dying, please, and look out for the wires. You want to fly low, you pay attention to the landscape, you help me out a little, here.
Jamie Forbes solved the problem with back-pressure on the control stick. In a minute the airplane cruised above the claws of most towers, slow-turning left to follow a river meandering southeast. The flying mind relaxed.
We never flew this way in the Air Force. When we lifted off some runway, we knew where we'd be landing, no matter how far away it might have been. There's no square on a military flight plan to check we'll decide along the way.
Not any more. Civilian flying, you take off and go, when the weather's nice. Think about landing, if you want, half an hour before you get there. Press on in the general direction; not many places in the country more than twenty minutes from a little airport.
His new higher mind didn't care for air-talk. Want to know how you can de-hypnotize yourself?
No, he thought.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jamie Forbes landed for fuel at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, its runway afloat on a vast emerald lawn, freshtrimmed. Nice people there, friendly to strangers as they most often are at little airports.
“Where you headed?”
“Florida.”
“Long flight.”
“Yes. I'm out of Seattle.”
A laugh. “Long flight!”
Some words about the weather, a quick history of Pine Bluff flying when he asked, fuel for the airplane, then start engine once more and away.
Level at a thousand feet, instruments looking good.
Want to know how you can de-hypnotize yourself?
I never want to speak to you again, he thought. He didn't mean that, decided to be careful of his suggestions from now on, even in fun. They're powerful stuff.
OK. After I've given my consent to truck along as a mortal for a few years, how can I de-hypnotize myself without un-mortalizing myself at the same time?
You don't.
I don't understand.
Of course you understand. You do just what you said, Jamie. You un-mortalize yourself!