Supermind, page 16
He felt extremely confident. It seemed to him that before anyone found out that it had been started, the Point Omega Stimulation experiment on human beings would have run its course.
XXVI
Hammond heard the bell sound as he was shaving in the bathroom of his living quarters, which were located behind his office. He paused, then deliberately put down his razor and activated a hidden microphone in the wall.
"Yes, John?" Helen's voice came.
"Who came in?"
"Why—only Barbara." She sounded surprised. "What makes you ask?"
"The life-range indicator just now registered an over-six read."
"On Barbara!" Helen sounded incredulous.
"On somebody," said Hammond. "Better have Special Servicing check the indicator out. Nobody else came in?"
"No."
"Well—check it." He broke the connection and finished shaving.
The buzzer sounded in Barbara's office a little later—the signal that she was to report with her notebook to Hammond's office. She went, curious, wondering if he would notice any change in her. Much more important was her own desire to take a closer look at this strange, powerful man who was her boss.
She walked into Hammond's office and was about to sit in the chair he motioned her to, when something in his manner warned her. Barbara made an apologetic gesture.
"Oh, Mr. Hammond—excuse me a moment."
She hurried out of the office and down the hall to the washroom. The moment she was inside, she closed her eyes and mentally relived her exact feelings at the instant she had sensed—whatever it was.
Not Hammond at all, she realized. It was the chair that had given forth some kind of energy flow. Eyes still closed, she strove to perceive what within herself had been affected. There seemed to be an exact spot in her brain that responded each time she reviewed the moment she had started to sit down.
She couldn't decide what the response was. But she thought: "I don't have to let it be affected now that I know."
Relieved, she returned to Hammond's office, seated herself in the chair, and smiled at Hammond where he sat behind his great, gleaming, mahogany desk.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But I'm ready now."
During the half-hour that followed, she took shorthand with a tiny portion of her mind, and with the rest fought off a steady, progressively more aware battle against the energy pressure that flowed up at her in rhythmic waves from the chair.
She had by now decided it was a nerve center that reacted to hypnotic suggestion, and so when Hammond said suddenly, "Close your eyes, Barbara!" she complied at once.
"Raise your right hand!" he commanded.
Up came her right hand, with the pen in it.
He told her to place it back in her lap; and then swiftly put her through several tests—which she recognized as being of a more important kind.
What interested her even more was that she could let the center respond and monitor the parts of the body that he named—without losing control. So that when he commanded her hand to be numb and suddenly reached over and stuck a needle into it, she felt no sensation; and so she did not react.
Hammond seemed satisfied. After normalizing the feeling in her hand, he commanded: "In just a moment, I'm going to tell you to forget the tests we've just been doing, but you will remain completely under my control and answer truthfully any questions I ask you. Understand?"
"Yes, Mr. Hammond."
"Very well, forget everything we've done and said since I first asked you to close your eyes. When the memory has completely faded, open your eyes."
Barbara waited about ten seconds. She was thinking: "What roused his suspicions so quickly? And why would he care?" She suppressed an excited conviction that she was about to discover something of the secret life that went on in this office. She had never heard of a hypnotizing chair.
She opened her eyes.
She swayed—an act—then caught herself. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Hammond."
Hammond's gray eyes regarded her with deceptive friendliness. "You seem to be having problems this morning, Barbara."
"I really feel very well," Barbara protested.
"If there's anything in your life that has changed recently," he said quietly, "I want you to confide in me."
That was the beginning of an intensive questioning into her past history. Barbara answered freely. Apparently Hammond was finally convinced, for he presently politely thanked her for the conversation and sent her off to type the letters he had dictated.
As she sat at her desk a few minutes later, Barbara glanced up through the glass and saw Helen Wendell walking along the hall toward Hammond's office, disappear into it.
Hammond greeted Helen: "All the time I talked to Barbara, the life-range indicator showed eight-four, above the hypnotizable range. And she told me nothing."
"How is it registering on me?" Helen asked.
He glanced down at his right to the instrument in an open desk drawer.
"Your usual eleven-three."
"And you?"
"My twelve-point-seven."
"Perhaps only the middle ranges are out of order," Helen said, and added, "Special Servicing will make their check after daytime office hours. All right?"
Hammond hesitated, then agreed that there seemed to be no reason for breaking the rules of caution by which they operated.
During the lunch hour Barbara experienced a brief return of the dizziness. But she was alert now to the possibilities. Instead of simply letting it happen, she tried to be aware of every nuance of the feeling.
There was a—shifting—taking place inside her.
She sensed a flow of energy particles from various points in her body to other points. A specific spot in her brain seemed to be monitoring the flow.
When the pulsations ceased—as abruptly as they had started—she thought: "That was more change taking place. I grew in some way in that minute."
She sat very still there in the restaurant, striving to evaluate what had changed. But she couldn't decide.
Nonetheless, she was content. Her impulse had been to seek out Dr. Gloge sometime during the day in the hope that he would be wanting to give her a second injection. But obviously, all the changes from the first shot had not yet taken place.
She returned to Scientific Liaison and Investigation.
The bell sound, as Barbara entered, caused Hammond to glance at the indicator. He stared at it for a long moment, then buzzed Helen Wendell.
"Barbara now reads nine-point-two!" he said.
Helen came to the door of his office. "You mean her reading has gone up?" She grew thoughtful. "All other things being equal, it would have to be the instrument is not working."
Hammond said softly, "But all other things are not equal. Could it be that Barbara is another of Gloge's experimental subjects? That's almost too direct and simple, considering the great mind behind all this. And yet it adds up. According to your records she worked in Gloge's office for a while; so he knew her by sight."
"All I'll say to that," said the woman, "is that in my normal experience I've never seen anyone change for the better. There's a slow drop,as they grow older. So, why don't I have the instrument checked, and make sure?"
The strong face was relaxing. "Obviously," Hammond said, "but since we never take chances, why don't I also keep Barbara with me tonight? Do you mind?"
"It's a nuisance," she said, "but all right."
"I'll give her the conditioning that overwhelms twelve-point-oh and higher. She'll never know what hit her."
XXVII
It was shortly after dark when Dr. Henry Gloge parked his black van near Barbara's home. He promptly tuned in on the audio device attached to the tree and adjusted the volume for pickup.
After thirty seconds of silence, he began to frown. "Not again!" he thought; then, wearily, "Well, maybe she's over at her boyfriend's."
He started the motor and presently drew up at the curb opposite Strather's apartment. A quick check established that the lanky redhead was there—but alone.
The young man was awake and in an angry state. As Gloge listened in, Vince savagely picked up the phone and dialed what must have been Barbara's number, for presently he slammed the receiver down and muttered, "Doesn't she know I've got to go to work tonight? Where can that girl be?"
That, in rising alarm, was a question which Gloge asked himself as the evening wore on. He returned to the vicinity of Barbara's boardinghouse. Until eleven P.M. the phone in her room rang periodically, testifying to Vince's concern.
When it had not rung for an hour, Gloge presumed that Strather had gone off to night duty. It was not a fact that could be left to surmise. He drove back to Vince's apartment. No sounds came from it.
Gloge accordingly returned to the street where Barbara lived.
He was tired now, so he rigged up an alarm system that would buzz him if Barbara entered her room; then, wearily, he crawled onto the cot in the back of the van and quickly fell into a deep sleep.
Earlier, as Barbara sat in her office a few minutes before closing time, she swayed and almost blacked out.
Greatly alarmed, she emerged from her office and reported the feeling to Helen Wendell. She did not question the logic of seeking the help of Hammond's blond aide.
The secretary was sympathetic, and promptly took her in to John Hammond. By this time Barbara had experienced several more brief blackouts. So she was grateful when Hammond unlocked the door behind his desk, led her through a luxurious living room, and into what he called the "spare bedroom."
She undressed, slipped under the sheets, and promptly went to sleep. Thus, subtly, she was captured.
During the evening, Hammond and Helen Wendell took turns looking in on her.
At midnight the Special Servicing expert reported that the life-range indicator was working properly, and he himself checked the body of the sleeping girl. "I get nine-two," he said. "Who is she? New arrival?"
The silence that greeted his remark abruptly startled him. "You mean she's an Earther?"
"At least," said Helen Wendell after the man had departed, "there's been no further change."
Hammond said, "Too bad she's above the hypnotizable stage. Mere conditioning is actually a sorry substitute for what we need here—truth."
"What are you going to do?"
Hammond did not make up his mind about that until after daybreak.
"Since nine-two is no real threat to us, perhaps we might even use a little ESP on her occasionally."
"Here—at Alpha?"
Hammond stared thoughtfully at his beautiful aide. Normally, he trusted her reactions in such matters.
She must have sensed what he was thinking, for she said quickly, "The last time we used extended perception, about eighteen hundred Earthers tuned in on us. Of course, they thought of it merely as their imagination, but some of them compared notes. It was talked about for weeks, and some awfully important things were close to being revealed."
"We-l-l-l, okay, let's be aware of her then."
"All right. On that basis I'll wake her up."
As soon as she was in her office, Barbara phoned Vince. There was no answer. Which was not surprising. If he had worked the night shift, he would be dead to the world. She hung up and checked with the photo lab, and was much relieved when the night work list showed that Vince had signed in and out.
As she sat at her desk that morning, Barbara felt extremely grateful to Hammond and his secretary for having been so helpful to her. But she was also slightly guilty. She suspected that she had been affected again by the injection that Gloge had given her.
It was disconcerting to have been so strongly affected. "But I feel all right now!" she thought as she typed away at the pile of work Helen Wendell had put in her basket. Yet her mind was astir with plans. At ten o'clock Helen sent her out with the usual morning briefcase full of memos and reports.
Elsewhere—
Gloge had awakened shortly after seven. Still no Barbara. Baffled, he shaved with his electric razor, drove to a nearby business thoroughfare, and ate breakfast.
He next went back to the street where Strather lived. A quick check established that the man was home. Gloge triggered his second charge of gas—and a few minutes later was in the apartment.
The young man had changed again to his pajamas, and he lay stretched out once more on the settee in his living room. If anything, the angry expression on his face was more pronounced.
Gloge, needle in hand, hesitated. He was not happy with this subject. Yet he realized that there was no turning back at this stage. Without further pause, holding the point almost against Strather's body, he squeezed the trigger.
There was no visible reaction.
As he headed for his office at Research Alpha, Gloge's thought was on the girl. Her absence was unfortunate. He had hoped to inject the serum into his two subjects at approximately the same time. Evidently that was not going to happen.
XXVIII
A few minutes after he returned to his office, Dr. Gloge's phone rang. His door was open, and he heard his secretary answer. The woman looked up over the receiver.
"It's for you, Doctor. That girl who worked here for a while—Barbara Ellington."
The shock that went through Gloge must have shown as disapproval, for the woman said hastily, "Shall I tell her you're not in?"
Gloge quivered with uncertainty. "No." He paused; then, "I'll take the call in here."
When he heard the clear, bell-like voice of the girl, Dr. Gloge felt tensely ready for anything.
"What is it, Barbara?" he asked.
"I'm supposed to bring some papers over to you," her voice trilled in its alive, vital way. "I'm to give them to you only, so I wanted to make sure you would be there."
.. . Opportunity!
It seemed to Gloge that he couldn't have asked for a more favorable turn. His other subject would now come to his office, where he could fire the second injection into her and deal personally with any reaction.
As it developed, there was no reaction that he could detect. She had turned away after delivering the papers to him, and that was when he fired the needle gun. It was a perfect shot. The girl neither jumped nor swung about; she simply kept going toward the door, opened it, and went through.
Barbara did not return to Hammond's office. She expected a strong physiological disturbance from the second injection, and she wanted to be in the privacy of her own room when it happened. It had cost her an effort not to react in front of Gloge.
So she stayed in her bedroom, waited as long as she thought wise, and then phoned and told Helen Wendell that she was not well.
Helen said sympathetically, "Well, I suppose it was to be expected after the bad night you had."
Barbara answered quickly, "I began to have dizzy spells and nausea. I panicked and rushed home."
"You're home now?"
"Yes."
"I'll tell Mr. Hammond."
Barbara hung up, unhappy with those final words. But there was no way to stop his learning about her condition. She had a feeling she was in danger of losing her job. And it was too soon. Later, after the experiment, it wouldn't matter, she thought uneasily.
Perhaps she had better take the "normal" precautions of an employee. "After all," she thought, "I probably show symptoms." She called her doctor and made an appointment for the following day. Barbara replaced the receiver, feeling a strange glee. "I ought to be in foul shape by tomorrow," she thought, "from the second injection."
What Hammond did when he returned to his office late that afternoon was to sit in thought for a while after Helen reported to him Barbara's situation.
Then: "Gloge must have given her the second injection. Any suggestions?"
The woman shook her head. "Just keep doing what we're doing," she said.
Hammond hesitated no longer. He was accustomed to trusting Helen Wendell. Abruptly he threw up his hands. "All right. She's got the whole weekend to be sick in. Call me when she comes in to work again. Did that report arrive from New Brasilia?"
"It was sent to Manila Center."
"Are you serious? Let me talk to Ramón. There must be a reason!" Quickly he was absorbed in his new tasks.
Barbara slept. When she awakened, her clock said twelve after seven.
