Hal at the Inner Infant meeting (p. 797)
Hal can summon a kind of mental Xerox of anything he’d ever read and basically read it all over again, at will, which talent the Abandonment of Hope hasn’t (so far) compromised, the withdrawal’s effects being more like emotional/salivo-digestive.
Context
Hal in the borrowed tow truck, 17 November, passing the drive by calling up the O.E.D.'s entry on Anonymous — the gift demonstrated in the same breath it's audited. The eidetic thread's status report under withdrawal: the Xerox still runs at will, and the narrator's "(so far)" is a fuse quietly lit. Three days later (179, p. 952) the compromise is in.