“Yeah, the makerspace on level fifteen is great for robotics,” Emily said, “You can try to test your skills you practiced in Foundation for All in the real world. Just remem-”
There was a chirping sound and suddenly a holographic display appeared in front of her in mid air, cutting her off mid sentence. The display showed a video feed of the two guards standing at the door, looking rather agitated.
She sighed and looked up to Sean. “That’s it I guess. I’ve already copied your Foundation of All world onto this drive. You can say that it’s what you came here for. I’ve had it ready for days just in case you came back for it.”
She pulled a small black rectangle roughly the size of her palm from her pocket and handed it over to him. He inspected it for a moment before slipping it into his pocket.
They stood and made their way towards the door, the holographic video of the guards following along. The two of them were visibly impatient and discussing something with each other as they stood outside the doors.
Sean looked over as he saw Emily turn to him. “They probably won’t let you see me again for a long time,” she said, “I’ll likely be told to leave the station at least within the next week or so. I’ve left some instructions behind in your base in Foundation for All. If you ever want to contact me and meet up again… just build that transmitter and leave a message. Just…”
Emily hesitated as they both kept walking towards the outer door, “...give this place a chance,” She finished, “Besides them all hating me, this place is rather wonderful. Spend a few decades or centuries here at least in the lap of luxury to get used to your new lifespan. Find your own feet with your new life. Don’t feel bad if you change your mind about contacting me again after all that time. I’ll understand. Even if you waited for ten thousand years I wouldn’t consider that a long time to wait for you to contact me.”
“I won’t,” Sean reassured her before hesitating, “But I’ll give this place a real shot. I guess decades or centuries would really be nothing to you, huh?”
Emily smiled a little, “They really aren’t. But they’re long for you.”
They reached the doors and the two guards had swelled to five in the time they had walked over. One of them was fingering his weapon and arguing with the others as he waved his weapon at the door as if to blast it before one of his companions talked him down.
They stopped walking and faced each other fully, “So, I guess this is goodbye,” Emily said with a forcefully light tone.
“For now,” Sean corrected.
“For now,” She agreed after a moment.
A moment of silence where they ignored the upset guards outside.
“Good luck on your new life, Sean,” Emily said before stepping forward and wrapping him in a hug. He was shocked for a moment before he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her back. After a second she released him and stepped back.
She waved her hand and the door opened before he could say anything else. The security team piled into the room, only to pause when they saw the two of them standing there watching them.
“I’m fine,” Sean said, “Got what I needed. Thanks for the concern though,” he finished with a little sarcasm.
The leader cleared his throat and nodded, “I apologize.” He glanced at Emily before looking back to Sean, “You were taking a while and we only worried for your safety… in this place. We’re glad to see you’re fine.”
“Yes, you have your things Sean,” Emily said in a haughty tone, “As I said best of luck on Immortus Station.”
Sean suppressed his annoyance at the man’s words and simply silently nodded back. Under the gazes of the security team he turned back to Emily, realizing what she was doing. She was pretending she didn’t care to stop him from getting in trouble with them. But screw that. Her eyes widened and she shook her head as he opened his mouth. He couldn’t have his last interaction with her for decades or centuries end like this.
“Thank you for everything, Emily,” Sean said, “I’d be happy to travel the stars again with you someday. Best of luck to you too.”
“Well, I…” Emily blinked and composed herself and adopted her more haughty tone from before, “Thank you. One can only hope. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” Sean replied before turning and walking to the observing security team listening to their exchange. They enveloped him like some kind of protective detail and hurriedly rushed him away. Behind him, Sean got one last look of Emily watching them leave. She waved her hand and the metal door shut with a clunk, obscuring his view of her.
After that, Sean stopped dragging his feet and let himself be pushed back into Immortus station proper, where Samir stood there smiling.
“Sean. I’m glad you’re alright,” the slimy man said as the two guards from before resumed their posts from before as the door behind them from the station sealed shut. The rest of the group nodded at Samir and rapidly dispersed, walking off together into the distance with some purpose. Returning to their other duties presumably.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Sean asked idly as he met Samir’s gaze. Seeing something in Sean’s look, Samir reluctantly nodded, “I suppose you’re right. I see you don’t believe us when we tell you what she’s really like. I apologize if I was… overeager in explaining her faults. I did not want her to be able to deceive you. Oh, but I see your annoyance. Understandable, I suppose…”
Sean looked away.
Samir clapped his hands, “Ah, but I must apologize again,” He said, “She will be gone within a few days I’m sure. There is no need for me to stir up controversy so crassly like this. After living here for a few centuries and talking to the people here you’ll see the truth. Say, I noticed your interest in our pools when I was giving your tour. I assume you don’t know how to swim given your history?”
Sean shook his head.
“Well, I know a particularly good swim instructor that can teach you. She’s rather excellent, and taught me how to do it back in the day. I came from a small community much the same as yours growing up. What do you say we go there, and we put all of this tension behind us? Start over.”
Sean paused and considered it for a second as Samir stared at him. Then, slowly, he nodded back. He would take the peace offering for what it was. He would give this place a chance, just like he’d promised. And he should be polite to Samir if nothing else given how much he had been seeing of the man recently.
“Then let’s go, my friend,” Samir said, “To the pool! I’m sure you’ll learn in no time.”
— — —
The pool was interesting. Sean was dressed in some swimming trunks they had given him and left his things at a locker. Samir had left after introducing Sean to his instructor. She was polite but remained mostly silent as they made their way to the edge of the water towards the deep end. The very deep end, as in over a hundred feet deep as far as he could tell. The body of water in the place was absolutely massive, and Sean leaned over the edge to stare into it. The two of them had the whole side of the pool to themselves for as long as they wanted.
The station was so large that they had multiple sets of each facility all with slightly different quirks and differences. Which meant it wasn’t that hard to reserve any individual place for any length of time without anyone else wanting the space enough to contest it.
Suddenly, Sean felt a heavy impact on the base of his spine and a feminine grunt behind him and before he knew it he was thrown forward into the water from where he had been leaning over the edge to look into the pool. He immediately started panicking and flailed around unsure of what he had to do as he hit the water with a splash. The instructor stood at the edge of the pool and watched him flail impassively with pursed lips and a critical eye, still lowering her leg from where she had kicked him at full force into the water.
Sean would like to say that he figured it out, how to swim in time… but he did not. He slipped under the water as his flailing proved ineffective in keeping him above the water or even moving any closer towards the nearby wall. He sank downward and before he could stop himself took a deep breath of the water around him. He took another quick panicked breath as he realized what he had done…
Only to feel like an idiot. His lungs slightly burned again and his lungs felt oddly heavy as his chest moved in and out. But he was an immortal, he didn’t need to breathe. He relaxed and kept sinking down, trying to remember the brief advice the instructor had given him before shoving him into the water.
He brought his fingers so they were bunched together and swiped his arms. Hmmm. That did work better. He was still sinking, now about halfway to the bottom and there was a slight pressure on his skull as he sank. He looked up through the water as he heard a distorted splash above him. There was the instructor swimming downwards with powerful strokes, making her way towards him in her one piece bathing suit.
Sean kept trying to make his way back upward, but only managed to slow himself from sinking faster.
Before the instructor reached him, his bare feet gently hit the bottom of the pool. His chest rose and fell slowly as he looked around the blue tinged landscape for a moment. So much water...
The instructor landed in front of him, slowly floating down in front of him with her hair in a braid floating freely behind her head with a mind of its own like some kind of exotic snake as it waved in the currents of the water.
She met Sean’s gaze and when she saw he was paying attention lightly pushed off the bottom and slowly demonstrated her swimming stroke. She rose fifteen or so feet in the water as Sean watched her before stopping and sinking back to the bottom.
She watched him expectantly and after a second of awkwardness, Sean realized what she wanted. He jumped up and tried to mimic what she’d done. A clumsy job, and while he did rise a bit he could tell that he was wasting a lot of energy doing so.
She watched him from the bottom as he struggled at it for a few minutes before giving up and floating back to the bottom.
As soon as his feet hit the bottom again, she swam forward so she was only inches away from him. He flinched, but her look of focus as she grabbed his arm helped him recover quickly. She grabbed his hands and manipulated his fingers, poking and prodding them until they were curled into the proper shape. She swam under his armpit without any regard for his personal space and then twisted around so she floated directly behind him.
She grabbed his elbow and wrist and started moving his arm. He relaxed his fingers unconsciously and she stopped and cuffed him on the back of the head and glared. He straightened up and returned his fingers to how they were before. She inspected his hand and fixed his posture, before floating to the side and doing the same for his other arm. She swam behind him and grabbed his wrist and elbow again and started moving them around. It was in the swimming stroke she had demonstrated. Sean understood and tried to match the motion with his free arm and she nodded approvingly when she noticed.
After a few minutes of this, she let go and swam around to get in front of him again. She pointed upwards and mimicked the motion they had been practicing.
Sean hopped upward and made the motions with his hands and felt himself moving gradually upwards as he went. He kept going upwards, and after a few seconds the instructor also kicked off and swam upward opposite him making sure to stay at the same height as him at all times. She even matched the cadence of his swimming strokes.
He noticed that his form was slightly different and adjusted his posture slightly, to her nod of approval. She pointed to her legs as they reached halfway to the surface and Sean looked down at them. He tried to mimic her form for that too, and they started moving upwards much faster.
They breached the surface and the woman gestured to the edge of the pool. They swam over there and pulled themselves up over the stone lip onto solid ground, out of the water.
Sean opened his mouth to say something, but only let out a wet burble as water spilled out from between his lips.
The instructor laughed silently, water jetting from her mouth as her chest heaved, her face breaking from the professionalism from before into mirth.
Sean put a hand to his face and kept trying to talk in confusion only to expel more water. She only laughed harder, the stream of water coming from her beginning to sputter and give way to wheezes of air.
Sean took a deep breath and exhaled sharply and sure enough water jetted out of his mouth again. It was the water in his lungs! It must be clogging things up and stopping himself from speaking normally. The instructor had finished clearing her lungs with water and was now down to light chuckles as she watched Sean struggle with a few more sharp breaths to clear out the last of the water.
“Herrrrrllllllloooo?” Sean burbled, now somewhat understandable despite still spraying out a bit of water as he spoke.
“Hello,” she replied, her face returning to a professional mask despite a slight smirk remaining on her lips, “Samir told me about how new you are to the station, that you’ve never swam before. Sorry about shoving you in there. But it's important to understand that you aren’t human anymore. You have to remember that no matter what you do, drowning is a thing of the past. You’ll learn much quicker now you know you can go in there and experiment as much as you want without any risk to yourself. Besides breathing in the water and experiencing the admittedly hilarious voice you make as you clear out the water from your lungs.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Wooorrrrd havvve,” Sean’s voice cleared from its watery burble as the last of the water seemed to leave his mouth, “Appreciated a warning first.”
“But then there would be no honest assessment of your abilities in a crisis,” she replied blandly, “Which was terrible. We have a lot of work to do, which is expected given this is your first time. Do you feel scared about going in the water again? I saw how tense you were leaning over the edge.”
Sean stared thoughtfully into the water. Well, she was right. His fear had vanished almost immediately after he had finally realized that he couldn’t drown even if he screwed something up.
“See?” She said lightly, “Scared the fear right out of you. But now that we’ve dealt with that we can get into the real swing of things. The swimming stroke we just started learning down there in the bottom is known as the frog stroke. That’s what we’ll be working on together until you start feeling more comfortable in the water and are ready for more.”
Sean looked at her in confusion. What was a frog? Noticing his expression she clarified,
“Frogs are an amphibian that make that same kind of motion as they swim. Look up some videos when you get home, you’ll understand what I mean when you see it yourself.”
Sean nodded.
“Great,” she continued, “So, whenever you’re ready we can go back in and keep practicing. This session is only a few days long, so we won’t be able to get everything now. I’m Brenda if you want to schedule another one past this.”
Sean blinked, “Days?” he said dumbly.
“I know, I can’t believe Samir scheduled such a short one,” Brenda agreed, “Most new learners spend at least a few weeks with me to get to a passable level. If you want to extend it longer I’m fine with that, my schedule’s mostly free for the next few months. If there’s something you have scheduled in a few days then we can take a break and come back to it after you’re done.”
“Sorry, I’m new to this. Are you saying that we will be spending multiple days doing this nonstop?”
“Sure,” she said, “You have somewhere else to be? We Immortals don’t get physically tired, but we can take little breaks if you get too mentally overwhelmed with what I’m teaching you. It's not that bad for swimming though, most of it is physical anyway and your body can keep up literally forever. You’re the client, no one is keeping you here. I get paid the same if you leave now or in a few days. But I thought you’d want to get your money’s, well Samir’s money, worth.”
Sean hesitated for a moment before reviewing why he was acting so shocked. He had spent at least that long in Foundation of All without sleeping right? How was this any different? If anything he should be grateful that Brenda would be giving such close instruction for so long. That couldn’t be easy for her to pull off. And it was true, he really didn’t have anything else he had to do. Emily would be leaving soon, and Sean knew that he wouldn’t be able to see her again before she left given the blatant hostility everyone had towards her here.
He may as well go with the flow. He looked up to Brenda, “I guess you’re right,” Sean said, “Still getting used to… all of this. So, what’s next?”
Brenda slipped forward into the water and swam out deeper into the pool while keeping her head above the water.
“Next we’ll teach you to tread water so you don’t have to sink to the bottom anymore. Just keep calm and copy the motions I’m making now, kicking with your legs and pushing up with your arms.”
Sean watched her for a bit as she made the motions slowly to demonstrate.
“Got it?” she asked and he nodded.
“I think so,” he replied.
“Then come in,” she said, “Put it into practice.”
Sean sat on the edge and carefully slipped into the water and sloppily mimicked her, kicking his legs hard and circling his arms.
“Good,” Brenda said, “Keep doing that. Try to keep your legs more parallel with each other as you kick. Next we’ll…”
The next few days were a blur for Sean as Brenda taught him how to swim. Just when he thought they were done, she moved on to something completely new.
----------------------------------------
Sean and Brenda stood on top of a diving board, high above the water. Very high. They had taken an elevator to get all the way up here. It was Sean’s fourth session. Emily had left with her ship a few weeks ago, and besides spending some time taking a break and briefly sleeping in his new room, he had been spending most of his time at Immortus Station here learning to swim under Brenda’s critical eye.
Sean edged towards the edge of the diving board and leaned over the edge to look down. Seeing his nervousness, Brenda rolled her eyes. She still remained professional and concise as she taught him, but in the moments in between she had become more casual and relaxed.
“It’s the same as the water in the beginning. It’s all in your mind,” Brenda said, “Nothing you do. I repeat. Nothing… will manage to kill you. Ever. Your brain just doesn’t know it yet and is telling you to be careful when it smells danger. But you don’t have to be so afraid of a fall like this, just ignore its warnings.”
Sean looked up from where he had been holding the railing in a death grip after taking a step back off of the diving board itself.
“Nothing?” he said skeptically, “That can’t be right. I get we regenerate fast, but what about space? What about throwing someone in the sun or a black hole?”
Brenda looked at him surprised, “What? You really don’t know? No one explained things to you properly?”
Sean shook his head, “I get we’re powerful and live forever or whatever. But there must be some way to kill us, right? Some special chemical or… something.”
“No,” Brenda said flatly, “There has never been a recorded case of an Immortal dying in our millions of years of recorded history. By any method. And trust me, many people have tried, Immortals included. We’re in this for the long haul. All of us, the good and bad. That’s part of the problem really.”
“But… What if a laser destroyed someone in an instant? Like, just destroy every cell in our bodies before we start regenerating?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Brenda said, “Your body will sprout back from nothing from wherever you disappeared from. You think that being able to endlessly regenerate any missing limbs and creating matter from nowhere matches the laws of physics? The magic bullshit just does it anyway no matter what we have to say about how impossible it should be. The Shadow and the Immortality it gives is literally beyond all of our understanding in every way even after all of this time.”
“But… but what about throwing someone in a star?” Sean asked, “Surely they wouldn’t survive and at least they would stay in there forever if they can’t actually die?”
Brenda nodded and sat down cross legged on the metal platform, leaning her back against the railing behind her.
“True,” she said thoughtfully, “That was actually a punishment used for particularly terrible criminals back in the beginning of recorded history. But it isn’t used anymore for one simple reason. It doesn’t work. Immortals always end up escaping eventually, and in a way that people don’t realize they’ve escaped until they start causing more chaos again. Only prisons actively maintained by people are even moderately successful at containing the bad eggs.”
“How is that possible?” Sean demanded, “I mean the gravity, they’re sitting in plasma constantly…”
“Them being constantly dissolved is actually what helps them escape,” Brenda explained, “The little bits of bone that appear before being dissolved again can be easily pushed around. Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs are when the shifting plasma builds up in a star and then blasts outward. They naturally happen all the time in the stars. Given enough time, these few grams of the immortal bits eventually coincidentally drift into the area where one of these bursts happen and they are shot out of the star at high speed. Once they are ejected from the star in a random direction, potentially tens of thousands of years after they were put there, they can escape into the wider universe with no one able to know they’re even back and on the loose.
“But space?” Sean asked, still hunting for something. What she was saying just didn’t sit right with him, “Won’t they drift randomly around and be stuck there for millions of years? It doesn’t matter that they’re alive if they’re not able to make it to a planet right?”
“Nope,” Brenda denied, “Our mass is regenerated from nothing, remember? But that doesn’t mean that the blood or things leaving your body don’t affect you. Force equals mass times acceleration. If you contort yourself just right then it increases your thrust in a certain direction and you can pilot yourself around space sort of like a fucked up spaceship using your boiling blood as fuel for your ship’s thruster. Given long enough you can get fast enough to pilot pretty much anywhere you want in a given system. Even if you dropped someone in interstellar space it doesn’t usually take more than ten to twenty years for them to make their way to the nearest solar system and start signaling a clueless human for help or start building their own hyperdrive if things come to the worst case.”
Sean looked at his hands. Damn. That was fucked up.
“It’s not as painful as it sounds,” Brenda added, “Just boring. So, so boring.”
Sean looked up, “What? You’ve done it yourself?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, several times,” Brenda replied, “Only a short time ago my ship got boarded by pirates. Immortal ones, I mean. They left me in interstellar space so they could sell my shit and escape without me able to stop them in time. That was a few short centuries ago now, part of the reason I’m teaching you rather than out in the wider universe or indulging in the rampant hedonism of this place a little more. Bastards didn’t even need the money, they were just doing it for the thrill of the chase…”
“So you piloted… yourself? How long did it take? I mean…”
Brenda waved him off as he tried to rephrase his question in a more sympathetic way, “Oh, don’t you mind my feelings,” She said, “I’m older than most around here. About three hundred thousand at least. I stopped keeping track a while ago. I’m just taking a short break here to build up some funding at the moment before going out into the wider universe again. It took me about twenty years or so to make it back to civilization, about fifteen of it in interstellar space. Just point yourself at the brightest nearby star you can see and wait, that’s what they tell you…”
She seemed to remember something as she said that and snapped her fingers and pointed at him, “That’s it! I forgot they had classes for it in this place. Body piloting. Blood spaceship... Whatever they’re calling it now. You should take those classes after you’ve really settled into this place. My first time I had to figure it out for myself and it took more than a century for me to get back to civilization. Best to be prepared just in case.”
Sean nodded furiously. Shit, that’s what the Plaguebringer had been trying to do, hadn’t it? What if he had just been there floating in space alone while he kidnapped Emily after the ship got blown to pieces? How long would that have taken for him to figure that out even with the planet Enguli so close by for him to go back to? Emily really hadn’t been kidding about her ships being blown out from under her, had she… He also saw why she hadn’t brought it up. His thoughts raced with the horrible scenario as he sat there, and he didn’t see himself discussing it with others easily. Especially if it was something he had personally had to go through.
“Actually, I’ll prepare a full list of classes after we’re done with this session,” Brenda added, “There’s plenty of good survival courses here if you go looking for them. I’ll tell you what you should take so you’re prepared out there in the universe. Immortus Station likes to keep you newbies here fat and happy, so they don’t advertise them like they really should. It’s really a shame how unprepared some people are when they end up leaving this place…”
“Thanks, Brenda,” Sean said, “I appreciate it. I’d rather be prepared…”
Seeing his expression, Brenda spoke up, “Don’t you worry about it though! In my whole lifetime I’ve only had to do it a dozen or so times. It’s not something worth worrying about for you.”
Sean cleared his throat, “One more thing. What, ah. What about Black holes? People would just fall in and be trapped forever, right? No Coronal mass ejections could get you out of there…”
Brenda stared at him for a moment and then sighed.
“I am not nearly qualified enough to explain all of the physics of it to you. You want to wait, or do you want me to give you my butchered version first?”
Sean nodded, “Butchered version please? I’m still trying to understand how none of the Immortals could have never died or at least been imprisoned forever. Seems like Black holes would be sure to trap someone.”
Brenda cleared her throat and focused, her eyes glazing over as she seemed to struggle to remember something.
“So, the explanation is… Or at least the best as I can remember. Black holes have no interiors. The black sphere on the outside is like a 2d surface of pure… information? There’s nothing inside them, I remember that. Some weird space time contortions around the edge make it so it’s impossible? Anyway, whenever something hits a black hole, it sort of… smears outwards over its surface instead of falling inwards. We can’t… smear… so an Immortal falling into a black hole just sort of floats there laying flat on top of its surface and keeps regenerating endlessly. This builds energy below them where they touch the black hole’s surface. Don’t ask, I don’t know why. Something about asymmetry? I don’t know. After enough time, this energy can explode outwards and push them up away from the surface. Given enough repeats of this, enough energy is eventually built up that they escape the gravity of the black hole and fly off into space.”
Brenda thought over her words and cocked her head as if to mentally confirm what she’d said. Finally she nodded to herself,
“Yeah, that’s it. Something like that, please don’t ask me any specifics. Basically Immortals sit on the surface for a bit before eventually blasting off again. Not that it’s a pleasant process. Luckily no one I’ve personally known has ever had that happen to them. So you extra don’t have to worry about that one. Now, enough distracting me. We are going to practice your diving. The point of us talking about all of this, is that there is no need for you to fear this jump. Even if you landed on the ground head first, you’d be fine again after a minute at most. Get to it!”
Sean flinched and made his way to his feet and walked over to the diving board again. He looked down at the water far below.
“Hold yourself like this,” Brenda said as she brushed past him to stand on the very edge of the board fearlessly. She crossed her arms against her chest and tucked her head into her chest. She raised up slightly as she stood on her toes. “Point your toes when you hit the water to help break your impact. Even if you mess up, don’t panic. You’ll regenerate and the pain will quickly go away, and you won’t drown,” She finished.
She went back to flat feet and slipped by Sean’s side to stand behind him again.
“So, there you go,” Brenda said, “Just try it. There’s no reason to work yourself up about it. There’s literally no long term consequences for screwing it up.”
Sean took a few shaky breaths and felt Brenda’s eyes watching him. But she didn’t say anything and let him collect himself.
“Alright, here I go,” Sean said before taking a step and jumping off the platform before he could talk himself out of it. He quickly adopted the position Brenda had shown him as he fell through the air. The air whistled around him and his heart beat rapidly in his chest as the fall seemed to take ages as he approached the water at breakneck speeds.
Finally, Sean shut his eyes as he hit the water. His legs screamed in pain for a few seconds as the water rushed in around him and muffled the sounds. He flailed for a few seconds before relaxing as the pain in his legs went away. He felt at them even while still underwater and holding his breath. His legs looked completely unharmed… It still seemed hard to believe. Sean used the frog stroke he had learned earlier and reached the surface.
He looked up and saw Brenda looking over the edge of the board down at him. He paddled over to the wall and hauled himself out of the water and looked up. She waved at him from above and then disappeared for a moment.
Sean squinted to see if he could spot her, only for her to come flying off the edge of the board at full speed. Sean watched in shock as she flipped around mid air as she fell down like some kind of graceful bird flying through the air. Just before she hit the water she extended her body outward so she was diving head first into the water with her hands extended above her head.
She hit the pool and with only a small splash sank gracefully into the water in a furious mass of whitish bubbles rising behind her.
After a few moments she resurfaced and looked at where Sean sat.
“So, what do you say?” Brenda said, “How would you like to learn to do something like that?”
Sean glanced between her and the diving board far, far above them. About sixty feet high at least. Then he looked at the back to his hand that he flexed and turned around as he inspected it. If really there were no true consequences for failing, then maybe…
He looked back at Brenda and nodded.
“That sounds great,” he said.
“That’s the spirit!” Brenda said as she swam over, “Just needed to get over your irrational fear, is all. Now you can enjoy yourself without holding yourself back.”
Sean glanced back at the diving board again, “Yes,” he said, “That’s right. It is irrational…”