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De-Idealizing
Relational Theory
The Relational Perspectives Book Series (RPBS) publishes books that grow out
of or contribute to the relational tradition in contemporary psychoanalysis. The
term relational psychoanalysis was first used by Greenberg and Mitchell1 to
bridge the traditions of interpersonal relations, as developed within interpersonal
psychoanalysis and object relations, as developed within contemporary British
theory. But, under the seminal work of the late Stephen A. Mitchell, the term
relational psychoanalysis grew and began to accrue to itself many other influences
and developments. Various tributaries—interpersonal psychoanalysis, object
relations theory, self psychology, empirical infancy research, and elements of
contemporary Freudian and Kleinian thought—flow into this tradition, which
understands relational configurations between self and others, both real and
fantasied, as the primary subject of psychoanalytic investigation.
We refer to the relational tradition, rather than to a relational school, to high-
light that we are identifying a trend, a tendency within contemporary psycho-
analysis, not a more formally organized or coherent school or system of beliefs.
Our use of the term relational signifies a dimension of theory and practice that
has become salient across the wide spectrum of contemporary psychoanalysis.
Now under the editorial supervision of Lewis Aron, Adrienne Harris, Steven
Kuchuck and Eyal Rozmarin, the Relational Perspectives Book Series originated
in 1990 under the editorial eye of the late Stephen A. Mitchell. Mitchell was the
most prolific and influential of the originators of the relational tradition. Committed
to dialogue among psychoanalysts, he abhorred the authoritarianism that dictated
adherence to a rigid set of beliefs or technical restrictions. He championed open
discussion, comparative and integrative approaches, and promoted new voices
across the generations.
Included in the Relational Perspectives Book Series are authors and works that
come from within the relational tradition, extend and develop that tradition, as
well as works that critique relational approaches or compare and contrast it with
alternative points of view. The series includes our most distinguished senior
psychoanalysts, along with younger contributors who bring fresh vision. A full
list of titles in this series is available at https://www.routledge.com/mentalhealth/
series/LEARPBS
1
Greenberg, J. & Mitchell, S. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University
De-Idealizing
Relational Theory
Edited by
Lewis Aron, Sue Grand,
and Joyce Slochower
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Lewis Aron, Sue Grand, and
Joyce Slochower; individual chapters, the contributors.
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Aron, Lewis, editor. | Grand, Sue, editor. | Slochower, Joyce
Anne, 1950– editor.
Title: De-idealizing relational theory : a critique from within / edited by
Lewis Aron, Sue Grand, and Joyce A. Slochower.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. |
Series: Relational perspectives book series | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060368 (print) | LCCN 2018002926 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781315113623 (Master) | ISBN 9781351625593 (Web PDF) |
ISBN 9781351625586 ( ePub) | ISBN 9781351625579 (Mobipocket/Kindle) |
ISBN 9781138080157 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138080164
(pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Object relations (Psychoanalysis) | Interpersonal relations. |
Psychoanalysis.
Classification: LCC BF175.5.O24 (ebook) | LCC BF175.5.O24 D42 2018
(print) | DDC 150.19/5—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/
2017060368
Author biographies ix
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction 1
LEWIS ARON, SUE GRAND, AND JOYCE SLOCHOWER
Index 235
Author biographies
Lewis Aron, Ph.D., ABPP is the director of the New York University
Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He has served
as president of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psy-
chological Association; founding president of the International Association
for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP); founding
president of the Division of Psychologist-Psychoanalysts of the New York
State Psychological Association. He is the cofounder and co-chair of the
Sándor Ferenczi Center at the New School for Social Research; professor,
Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel. He was one of the founders
of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and is the series co-editor of the Relational
Perspectives book series (Routledge). He is the editor and author of numer-
ous clinical and scholarly journal articles and books, including A Meeting
of Minds, and most recently, with Galit Atlas, Dramatic Dialogue: Contem-
porary Clinical Practice. He is widely known for his study/reading groups
in NYC and online.
Sue Grand, Ph.D., is faculty and supervisor at the NYU Postdoctoral pro-
gram in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis; faculty, the trauma program
at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies; faculty, the Mitchell
Center for Relational Psychoanalysis, and fellow at the Institute for
Psychology and the Other. She is an associated editor of Psychoanalytic
Dialogues and Psychoanalysis Culture and Society. She is the author
of: The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical and Cultural Perspective and
The Hero in the Mirror: From Fear to Fortitude. She is the co-editor, with
Jill Salberg of The Wounds of History: Repair and Resilience in the
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x Author biographies
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders for their
permission to reprint selections of this book. The publishers would be
grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged
and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of
this book.
Chapter 1 first published as Slochower, J. (2017), Going Too Far: Rela-
tional Heroines and Relational Excess. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 27:3,
pp. 282–299. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis LLC.
Chapter 5 first published as Stern, S. (2002), Identification, repetition, and
psychological growth: An expansion of relational theory. Psychoanalytic
Psychology, 19:4, pp. 732–734. Reprinted by permission of American
Psychological Association.
Chapter 6 first published as Seligman, S. (2014), Paying Attention and
Feeling Puzzled: The Analytic Mindset as an Agent of Therapeutic Change.
Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 24:6, pp. 648–662. Reprinted by permission of
Taylor & Francis LLC.
Chapter 7 first published as Corbett, K. (2014), The Analyst’s Private
Space: Spontaneity, Ritual, Psychotherapeutic Action, and Self-Care.
Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 24:6, pp. 637–647. Reprinted by permission of
Taylor & Francis LLC.
Chapter 9 first published as Cooper, S.H. (2014), The Things We Carry:
Finding/Creating the Object and the Analyst’s Self-Reflective Participation.
xiv Acknowledgements
that we ask of ourselves clinically. Rather than saying that the other’s
reading of relational theory is wrong or distorted or a misrepresentation,
we are interested in querying how our theory lends itself to such a
characterization; in what way does our writing invite such a reading? How
have we participated in conveying such an understanding to our critics?
And when we greet internal dissension and difference, we might ask
ourselves: “How is this dissension illuminating our blind-spot? How is
this difference highlighting new areas of growth?”
Relational theory embraces critique as the venue for growth. However,
despite a theoretical perspective that ought to welcome self-critique,
relational analysts are no more open or receptive to critique than those
from other psychoanalytic schools. We are not any less defensive or rigid
about our own ideas. Our perspectival emphasis notwithstanding, we have
not readily engaged in, or even considered, self-critique. We have not
engaged with the perceptions or critiques of others. It is the theory that
is an improvement, not the character of the practitioner or the character of
our psychoanalytic ‘guild’.
The mission of this volume is to implement our own model of inquiry
by turning an eye on ourselves. In so doing, we hope to depart from our
field’s adversarial construction of difference. We are seeking a more
contructive cycle of inquiry and mutual dialogue. Rather than viewing
self-critique as antagonistic and destructive, our intention is to be creative,
respectful, and generative. Indeed, loving self-critique is essential to
psychoanalysis’ theoretical and clinical vitality. We aim to avoid further
suppression and schisms that foreclose dialogue and mutuality.
To our knowledge, no psychoanalytic position has yet explored itself
from the inside out. Here, we aim for a deepened understanding of our own
theoretical position—both its limits and its potential. This kind of critique
is not intended to represent a (partially defensive) justification or an
elaboration of the rightness of our own position, nor to engage the other as
an adversary or straw man.
We (Lewis Aron, Sue Grand, and Joyce Slochower) invited eminent
relational thinkers to engage in this kind of internal critique. Where are our
problems and limitations? How might we think about the critiques that
have been made of us by other theoretical orientations? Where and how
might we want to integrate the thinking of others? How might we want to
recall our theories of origin?
4 Lewis Aron, Sue Grand, and Joyce Slochower
Relational ideals
We embrace our therapeutic vision for good reason. Whatever its particulars,
ideas about what psychoanalysis can do sustain us across the therapeutic
long haul. They affirm fantasies/beliefs about our therapeutic capacity and
generative potential. Countering a range of anxieties about who we are—
and aren’t—they support and steady us when the going gets rough.
We relationalists may be theoretically diverse, but we share an implicit
and relatively distinct professional ideal. It first coalesced around a new
perspective on analytic process as inevitably intersubjective. We empha-
sized the therapeutic potential inherent in mutually unpacking and working
through what’s enacted. Moving away from more authoritarian models
and toward asymmetrical egalitarianism, we underscored the uncertainty
accompanying this clinical point of entry (Aron, 1991). Moderating our
power and omniscience, we affirmed our patient’s capacity to see us, to
function as an adult in the analytic context. We rejected sharply tilted
authoritative clinical models lodged in beliefs about interpretive accuracy;
some of us also rejected the developmental tilt (Mitchell, 1984) embedded
in ideas of parental (analytic) repair.
In their stead, we turned toward what was unformulated and/or disso-
ciated. We addressed how shifting self-states shaped analytic process
for both patient and analyst. Unpacking these dynamics required mutual
exploration because we were implicated along with our patients. By
moving away from old analytic constrictions, we found new ways to be
and to use ourselves with considerable therapeutic effect (e.g. Aron, 1991,
1992; Benjamin, 1995; 1998; Bromberg, 1993; 1995; 1998; 2011; Davies,
2004; Davies & Frawley, 1994; Harris, 2009; Hoffman, 1991; 1998;
Mitchell,1984; 1988; 1991; 1993; D.B. Stern, 1992; 1997).
10 Joyce Slochower
Language: English
By NELSON S. BOND
"I'm not," I told him with quiet dignity, "and they aren't pink rhinos,
they're lavender lobsters, and anyway, I haven't had a drink for
months. Or maybe it's since yesterday? Anyhow, here's the grief."
And I gave him the wire.
He read it. Read it, your Aunt Nelly—he screamed it out loud.
"Uranus!" he bellowed. "This crate make that trip? They must be
stark, staring mad!"
"Them," I agreed, "or me. Flip a coin. What shall I do, Skipper? Tell
'em we can't do it? Tell 'em—?"
"No, wait a minute." Cap Hanson's brow looked like a freshly
ploughed field. I knew why. The Saturn is an old lugger. And by old,
I do mean ancient. It was built before the turn of the century, and
by all laws of logic and reason should have been taken off the
spaceways long ago, only that Cap Hanson and our screwball First
Mate, Lancelot Biggs, had demonstrated time and time again, and in
startlingly devious ways, that the old scow was still spaceworthy.
But if the Saturn were removed from active service, the chances
were ten to one that Hanson would be junked with her. Which was
Reason Numero Uno—and a damned good one—why the skipper
couldn't risk refusing this order.
"We'll go, Sparks," he said slowly. "We've got to. But I could wring
his scrawny neck, blast his jets!"
I didn't have to ask whom he meant. "Scrawny neck" would mean
only one inmate of our void-perambulating asylum. Lancelot Biggs.
Genius and crackpot, scarecrow and sage—and soon to become son-
in-law of the skipper.
I said, "But why blame Biggs for this, Skipper? Is it his fault if the
Home Office has gone squirrelly?"
"It is," grumbled Hanson savagely. "I never should have agreed to
let Diane marry him. He started this mess at my house. Colonel
Brophy and him was having dinner with me and Biggs told Brophy all
about that new 'velocity intensifier' he invented—"
I shuddered. "You mean the gadget which got us all bolixed up in
the negative universe? Till Hank Cleaver came from the past to get
us out?"
"That's it. Well, he told Brophy about it, bragged that it would make
the Saturn the fastest ship in the ether. And now," Hanson groaned,
"just because he shot off his big face, we've got to push this leaky
old tin-can to Uranus!"
I said consolingly, "Well, maybe everything will be all right, Skipper. I
admit Mr. Biggs is a bit of a whacky-pot, but he's pulled us out of
plenty of tough spots before. Like the time he thwarted Red Hake
and his pirate crew. And the time he beat the Slipstream—"
Hanson stared at me somberly.
"Nope, I guess you ain't. You couldn't have."
I said, "Which? Couldn't have what, sir?"
"You mustn't have seen Mr. Biggs on this shuttle."
It was the first time I had realized it, but he was right! And that was
funny, because Mr. Biggs and I were old buddies. We were
bunkmates once, even. I said, "Well, lift my gravs! Come to think of
it, I haven't? Why, Skipper? I guess maybe it's on account of he's
busy planning to get married so soon?"
Hanson made sounds like a man being garrotted.
"Marriage! Don't talk to me about marriage! Bert, what does
marriage do to a man?"
"Marriage," I replied promptly, "makes the mare go. Or, no—that's
money, isn't it? I give up, sir. What?"
"It's supposed," boiled Hanson, "to make him settle down. Only it
ain't. Not in Biggs' case. It's having just the opposite effect. Making
him flighty as a coot. Lancelot ain't been worth a tinker's dam on
this trip. He can't do a single thing right! Remember our take-off,
Sparks? From Long Island port? The one where we—"
"—lifted gravs two full minutes before schedule?" I finished. "Don't I
just! I almost did a swan dive through the aft bulkhead. Why? Did
he—?"
"Mmm-hmm! And he also plotted the course that took us nine
degrees off trajectory. And he heaved the ship into a Van-Maeden
spiral by signaling for a double-jet port blast in midspace. And he—"
Hanson paused, panting with wrath. "But why go on? The point is,
the very thought of marriage has ruined him. And we can't depend
on him to help us with this assignment. And Uranus is a long way
from here. A lo-o-oong way!"
I winced. I said, "Look, Skipper—must you say it thataway? With
icicles in your voice, I mean?"
Like I figured, Hanson was practically meat for the looney-bin by the
time we reached the bridge. He manhandled Biggs avidly and
propelled him to the plot-table. "Where've you been, Biggs?" he
demanded. "No, don't tell me now. Get going on them figgers. They
don't make sense to me, nowise! And when do we turn on that
thingamajigger of your'n? Bert, where'd you find him? Shut up, you
blabbermouth! Don't you know better than to talk when a space
officer is cogitating? Can I help, Biggs?"
The one-man wordstorm was deafening. But it didn't seem to phase
Biggs. He plunked himself down at the pilot's desk, scribbled for
awhile, and came up with an orbit chart for Second Mate Dick Todd,
seated at the control-board.
Then he heaved a volley of orders over the audio to Chief Engineer
Garrity, and that was that. He relaxed. The skipper said nervously,
"Is—is that all?"
"That's all, sir," said Biggs.
The Old Man looked dubious.
"I don't hear nothing unusual," he said.
"You will in a minute," said Biggs. "Ah! There it goes now!"
And darned if it didn't! One minute my ears hummed with the
familiar drone of the hypatomics, the next, a weird and piercing
whine rose in high, shrill crescendo, torturing our ear-drums for a
brief instant until it lost itself in an oblivion of super-sonic
inaudibility.
That was all. No moment of oppressive weight as if we were lifting
gravs at extra gees, no thunderous bellow of rockets, no anything.
The ship rode easily, freely. I must have looked disappointed. To
Biggs I said, "Too bad, sir."
"Eh, Sparks?"
"Too bad it didn't work," I said.
Biggs chuckled.
"But it did work, Sparks. We're now traveling at a speed in excess of
five hundred million miles per hour!"
Cap Hanson gulped and looked green. "F-five—?"
"That's right, sir. If you don't believe me take a peek through the
viewpanes."
I moved to the fore-wall, slid back the metal slide that covered the
quartzite viewpane. Space lay before us—but what space! Not the
dark, velvety pall, brightly agleam with an infinitude of starry jewels,
that all spacemen know. This was a blotched, striped crazy-quilt of
color! Crimson, ochre, emerald—all the hues of the rainbow, of the
Aurora. It was beautiful in a mad, fantastic way; there was a faery,
magic loveliness to that swift-streaming space that fascinated and at
the same time chilled me with dread.
Hanson's eyes bulged, and his voice was fearful.
"We—we've done it again, Biggs! Busted clean out of our universe
into something else!"
"No, sir. This is our universe. But we are seeing it as no man has
ever seen it before. Our speed is so great that we are seeing the
'landmarks' of space with a distorted viewpoint. Our relationship—or
I should say relativity—is no longer to Earth, or any of its sister
planets, but to the Greater Constant, the fundamental motion of the
universe itself.
"Thus, at one and the same time, we see the planets as they are
and as they were; they are no longer mere points in space, they are
streaks of color." And he grinned. "The stars, too. Pretty, aren't
they?"
Cap Hanson made weak motions at the viewpane.
"Close it, Sparks! It's giving me the meemies! So if you're right,
Biggs—then what? How do we know when we get to Uranus, or near
it? If it's just a streak of color?"
"You must reconcile yourself to an entirely new system of
astrogation. Up to this time, pilots have just jetted along until they
found their goal, then set course for a landing. But with the V-I unit
in operation, we 'fly blind' and set our course by strict, mathematical
figuring. I have given Mr. Todd a plot-chart. Four days hence when I
cut out the V-I unit and return to normal operation on the hypos, we
will find Uranus immediately beneath us. And now, if you'll excuse
me—"
"Wait a minute!" said the skipper. "Suppose we was to meet up with
something in space? Like a rogue asteroid?"
Biggs shrugged.
"That hazard is neither heightened nor decreased," he said. "Our
monitor-beams will still shunt off the smaller ones. As for the larger
—well, you know as well as I that we have never yet found a
method of overcoming that danger. It is one of the chances we take
when we don space blues. As far as I'm concerned, I'd just as soon
not see it coming as to watch it grow larger and larger in the
perilens—"
Well, he was right there. So since Hanson was fresh out of
questions, Biggs hoisted hips back to his quarters. My guess is that
he went back to billy-dooing with Diane's picture. What's yours?
Because Biggs had turned, suddenly, and raced from the room! Fled,
still clutching the space-chart. Fled, and not a word of advice, regret
or hope. And with him went our last dwindling hope of salvation.
Dick Todd's voice was thin.
"Maybe he has an idea, sir?"
Hanson grasped at the thought as a drowning man.
"That's it, Todd. He'll pull us out of this. He's never failed us in the
past—"
But even this wishful expression was doomed to swift contradiction.
For at that moment the bridge audio flashed, and the voice of a
sailor clacked from somewhere below.
"Captain Hanson, sir? There—there's trouble down here! Lieutenant
Biggs has violated regulations, sir! He knocked down two men and
forced his way into the auxiliary lifeboat! He—he's locked the door,
sir. What shall we do?"
In the moment of silence that followed, I saw something I hope I
shall never be forced to look upon again. I saw a proud man wilt
before my eyes; I saw a strong man age ten years in as many
seconds.
The man was Captain Hanson. The strength sloughed from his
shoulders; pain burned deep furrows in his eyes; I could barely hear
the whisper that crept from his lips.
"A coward!" he husked. "The man my daughter loves—a coward!"
And there was nothing I could say to refute the accusation. Lancelot
Biggs' action had branded him more damningly than any mere
words. A crisis had come—and it had found him wanting. He had
deserted his comrades, his ship, and had fled to a lifeboat. Perhaps
even now he was getting ready to cast off.
In a swift burst of comprehension, I thought I could understand the
reason for this last, unreasonable defection. Lancelot Biggs had met
difficulties before and without flinching.
But that was an old, a different, Biggs. Love had come into his life
now. Love, and a woman, and all the dreams that happy men dare
wish upon.
And these things, staunch and noble in themselves, had weakened
the moral fibre of Biggs. Weakened it to the point where, in the face
of danger, nothing was important except that he live to return to the
arms of his loved one.
These things I could understand. But I could not forgive them.
Because love or no love, fear or no fear, a spaceman has a tradition
to live up to. And Lancelot Biggs had tossed into the discard the very
tradition now upheld by Dick Todd as he said, quietly, "Shall I advise
the men, sir?"
And by Captain Hanson who said, "Yes, Todd. And—and order
Garrity to cut off Mr. Biggs' intensifier. We may die, but we can die
trying to escape. And a slower speed will give us more time—"
"Yes, sir," said Todd, and moved toward the audio. But he had barely
reached out his hand toward it when sharp speech rasped from its
black throat in remembered tones.
"Stop, Todd! Don't give that order, Skipper!"
It was the voice of Lancelot Biggs!
Captain Hanson had subdued his rage once. But now his face
crimsoned, his great hands clenched, and fury was a ponderable
vigor in his voice.
"You! Where are you, sir!"
"In the life-skiff," replied Biggs imperturbably.
Almost insolently, I thought. As if he knew he were speaking from
the only place of possible security in a doomed ship. "Todd, do as I
say and do it fast! There's no time to lose! Tell Chief Garrity to turn
the verniers of my V-I unit all the way to the red line on the extreme
right! Understand?"
Once again Hanson's roar interrupted.
"Come back here, you coward, and die with your fellow-officers like
the man you once pretended to be! What do you mean by skulking
in a hideaway, giving orders aboard my ship?"
"Shut up!" bellowed Biggs. And it was not just his audacity in
speaking thus to a space commander that shocked me, it was the
razor-edged intensity of his voice. "Todd—give that order
immediately! For God's sake, act! We've no time to lose!"
Todd's eyes sought mine. He knew, as well as I did, that the skipper
was too furious to give an intelligent command.
"That—that's the limiting velocity, Sparks!" Todd choked. "Biggs must
be insane. We'll be translated again into the negative universe. And
no way to get back—ever!"
I didn't have to answer. Biggs answered.
"I've taken care of that, Todd! Now, do as I say! Hurry, hurry!"
And—well, am I a fool? After all, Lancelot Biggs and I are old
buddies. Once we were bunkmates, even. There came back to me a
measure of the confidence I had once had in him. And I nodded to
Todd.
"Try it, Dick. We've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Give
the order."
He did. Chief Garrity must have been startled but he was too good a
spaceman to argue an order from the bridge. He said, succinctly,
"Aye, sirr!" And then—
I felt the rocking plunge. The moment of brief, incredible dizziness of
frightful speed being intensified to the limiting velocity of light. My
head whirled, but somehow I managed to turn, stare at that
ominous viewpane. And what I saw there brought a shocked cry
from my lips!
White—white—dazzling white—then grayness! No other scene than
dim and vacant void, gray, infinite, impenetrable. A glimpse of the
lost universe—the matrix negative wherein are flung such mad
things as attain a speed beyond that of the limiting velocity.
Then crackling across the room agonizedly, "We're clear, Todd? We're
through?"
And Todd replying dazedly, "I—I don't know what you mean."
"The chronometer, man! Has it touched 9.14?"
"Yes, sir. But—but we're slipping into the negative, Lanse! We've
escaped one death to find another!"
But there was infinite sadness to Lancelot Biggs' denial.
"No you're not, Todd. You're going back to your own universe—now.
When you feel the ship lurch, turn the V-I unit dial back to where it
was before. Ready? Now!"
And there came, inexplicably, a swift unsteadiness, a lurching halt of
the ship. At that instant Todd spoke to Garrity, Garrity obeyed, and—
We were once again traveling smoothly on our proper course. But
Jupiter—monstrous missile of solid, terrible death—was no longer
before us! It was behind us!
As we saw that, Captain Hanson laughed aloud. And vast was the
joy of that laughter. Relief, happiness, sheer triumph. And apology.
And he cried:
"You've done it, son! Forgive me for doubting you. We're safe! I
don't know how, but—come on in, boy, and tell us all about it!"
But there came no answer. Only the echo of our own harsh
breathing, the dry scrape of our own feet shuffling restlessly. And
new terror loomed suddenly in the Old Man's eyes.
"Biggs!" he cried. "Lanse, my boy! Lanse!"
And then—
It was like the faintest, winnowed chaff of sound, breathing from far,
far away. A voice speaking. To us. A voice that said:
"—can't come back ... Skipper.... Sparks will understand. Tell him ...
mass-energy ... relationships. And tell ... Diane ... I love...."
That was all. And my brain reeled beneath the import of those
fading words. Suddenly I knew! I didn't need to hear Cap Hanson
screaming wild orders to the sailors on the aft deck below, nor to
hear their answer.
"He's not here, sir. He cast off the auxiliary a moment or so ago."
I knew!
Later, I told them. My explanation was short, for the solution was
simple. Simple, once you grant that a man can possess infinite
loyalty, infinite courage, in one lean and gangling frame.
"Biggs saw," I said, "that there was only one way to save us all from
death. Oh, he had blundered, yes, but we all blunder sometimes.
But not all of us pay the penalty as willingly, as bravely, as he did.
"Jupiter was upon us. Within minutes we would have crashed into
the greatest of the solar planets. Only Biggs saw a way out. And that
was—to make the speed of our ship exactly approximate the speed
of light at the moment of impact!"
Dick said, "But how—"
"He told us the answer. Mass-energy relationships. You know the
fundamental theory of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction. Objects
moving in space are contracted along their major axis in direct
proportion to their speed, with the limiting velocity, the speed of
light, as their ultimate limit. In other words, at the precise speed of
light, this ship existed in only a unilateral dimension!"
Hanson said, "You mean we—hurled over Jupiter?"
"No, sir. We went right through it! At that tremendous speed, our
dimension-extension was zero. Hence it did not affect, nor was it
affected in any way by, the bulk and mass of Jupiter.
"It's as though an exceedingly fine wire, moving at lightning speed,
were to be propelled through a cake of ice. Only in our case, the
'wire' was of zero dimension, and the cake of ice—Jupiter—did not
even recognize that it had been penetrated.
"But—" I shook my head. "But Mr. Biggs realized what this daring
scheme meant. It meant that in addition to our size being reduced
to the infinitesimal, our mass would be raised to the infinite—for that
is the corollary of the contraction theory.
"There had to be some way of getting us back to our normal shape
and size. The only possible method was by the forcible alteration of
our mass. And—Biggs adopted this method. He placed himself in the
life-skiff, gave the necessary orders from there. Then, after the
danger had been averted, he deliberately cast off from the Saturn,
tossed himself away from us, a living sacrifice to the mathematical
gods, that we might be safe."
Todd said, "Our mass, for a moment, was infinite—but when he,
however briefly, broke clear, it became less than infinite, giving us a
chance to cut the motors—"
"That's right."
Hanson's eyes were round and wild and fearful.
"But then—where is he! We've got to turn around right away. Find
him! We can't go back without—"
I shook my head.
"It's no use, Skipper. He may be in this universe, infinitely small,
traveling at infinite speed; he may be in some other universe
undreamed by man. He may be living, he may be dead. But
wherever he is—he is gone forever from the ken of man. Lancelot
Biggs is—dead. So far as man is concerned, he is dead."
Dick Todd said something then. His words were not clear. They were
choked, and he didn't finish the quotation. But I caught the first
part.
"'Greater love hath no man'," he said.
And the skipper coughed, and his eyes were red, and he turned
away like a broken, aged man.
"Amen," he said. "Amen!"
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