Aberrant: The Long March - Interview

[Courier]

Excerpts from Sara Gettle's Interview with Steve Courier in 1953.

Other people have writen about his companies, I'm going to write about the man. Steve comes in. He's aged. When we last met in the 1930's he looked like he was in his twenties. He still looks good, but he has lost his "baby face" and looks a lot closer to his age. There are lines of gray in his hair and the start of wrinkles in his face.

Sarah Gettel: How old are you?

Steve Courier: I'm not sure. My beginnings were very humble, I was poor and the records don't have a lot to say, I've looked. In 1923 I looked 21, so that means 1902 will have to serve as my birth date.

Sarah Gettel: So you don't know your birth date?

Steve Courier: Next Question Please.

{There's an uncomfortable moment and I look down at my notes.}

Sarah Gettel: I've seen reports you claimed to be a nova in the 20's and 30's, but now you don't?

Steve Courier: In the 20's and early 30's the rules for that sort of thing were looser. It seemed everyone was a nova. The true meaning wasn't well understood or defined until later. Then Murphy and McIntyre pin pointed the node and I had to stop saying I was a nova.

Sarah Gettel: Now, wait, if you aren't a nova, does that make you a psion?

Steve Courier: In my case it makes me just a man. I've never fully understood why fate has been so kind to me over the years, but hard work plays a much larger role than chance. True, I was at the right place at the right time, but someone had to be. The key is that ethical treatment and long term relationships are profitable.

Sarah Gettel: Ethical treatment? You've talked about that before. That's the secret to your success?

Steve Courier: In a word, yes, it is. Cheating someone, be it your wife, or your partner, or your friends, always does more for you right now. But right now soon becomes tomorrow, and if you want your friends to stay your friends you need to treat them fairly. I've worked with Andrew [Murphy] and other novas for decades, and I've always put long term results above short term profit.

Sarah Gettel: What about God?

Steve Courier: God lets us succeed, but he also lets us fail. That's the joy and heartbreak of free will, our victories and failures are our own.

Sarah Gettel: What's the hardest thing you've ever done?

Steve Courier: That would be the choices that needed to be made during the Caroline incident. Fortunately society and the law have caught up, now days I'd call in the Paragons, but this was before their foundation.

Sarah Gettel: How did you capture Caroline?

Steve Courier: Caroline made the same mistake lots of people make. She believed enhanced intelligence was important. I mean sure, it's useful, but Real Life isn't a chess game. Mega Smarts doesn't help with most things we do, and that's everything from talking a woman into bed, to selling used cars. But Caroline knew for a fact differently. So it was easy. She was thinking that her smarts would help, and given a very small amount of rope, she out smarted herself. That was how I captured her, and it was how I talked her into talking about herself.

Sarah Gettel: How specifically did you figure her out? What did she do wrong?

Steve laughs

Steve Courier: Oh, lots of things. It'd be easier to talk about what she did right. For starters her body English was all wrong. It was like looking at a 5 year old who had stolen some candy, she might as well had a big sign on her back saying "guilty". Also she was wearing the outfit of someone who should have been pushing a cart, and she didn't have one. And there was something about her shoes as well.

Sarah Gettel: Her shoes?

Steve Courier: Yes, she wasn't wearing them correctly or something. At the time it was another huge flag. When you come right down to it, all those enhanced smarts didn't help with acting, or women's fashion, or far too many things to mention. If I'd been a used car salesman I would have sold her a used car. Instead I was a detective so I arrested her. But hey, to be fair if we'd been playing chess I'm sure she would have won.

Sarah Gettel: You don't sound very impressed with Mega-Smarts, but you work with Andrew and other mega-Smart novas?

Steve Courier: Of course I do, and Andrew is very impressive and has contributed a lot to society. But this is where we come back to ethics again. Andrew works inside a system that's designed to maximize his gifts. Everyone benefits from such an arrangement. Caroline's big mistake was thinking her gifts would let her function totally outside the system, that she could beat everyone at everything. When playing that kind of game something as simple as a fashion error can be deadly. Andrew and the other mega-smart can, and do, make those kinds of mistakes and it's not an issue.