The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 409
"That's what I said," Devlin replied tiredly. "But they may have taken the risk, and this is the result."
She shook her head. "If they had administered a drug with memory reinforcing capabilities, and remember that they seemed to be very concerned during training about the possibility of us losing our memories, then any biochemical instability would react against the original purpose of the drug—our memories would remain normal or perhaps even faded instead of becoming sharper, as has happened. More likely such instability and subsequent breakdown of the chemical structure would have caused severe and apparent brain damage and, at the very least, the type of hallucination generally encountered with derivatives of LSD. We have had nightmares, and bad ones, but they were invariably self-consistent."
"You are saying then," said Devlin, rubbing his eyes, "that they didn't administer a psychodrug, stable or otherwise?"
"No, not exactly," she replied. "They could have administered something that would not change over a long period because it was non-material. The treatment could have been hypnotic rather than biochemical."
Devlin rolled on to his side so that he could look across at her. He said excitedly, "Hypno-conditioning is affected only by the passage of biological time, and so far as our waking and conscious minds are concerned, the conditioning took place only days or weeks ago. Assuming you're right, it was probably administered at intervals during training. But that fact doesn't answer all the questions, you know."
"I know that," she said, turning toward him. "But I think we are probably close to the true explanation."
"Until we know the true explanation," he said drily, "I can't answer that. But assuming it is the right or nearly right answer, think of the work involved for the project staff. Hypnotizing us, and concealing the fact with various forms of post-hypnotic suggestion, would have been the easiest part of the job. They would have had to subject us to films, sensory impressions of all kinds, and fine psychosurgical work of the type that needs a lot of time. But my strongest objection is based on the quality and detail of the dreams themselves and the apparent duration of the dream sequences. I say apparent because I know how time can be telescoped during conditioning, but those dreams went on for years.
"Assuming your idea to be correct in every detail," Devlin ended, "how does it help us?"
"I'm not sure," she replied. "But wouldn't it be possible to search our memories of the training period for the gaps which must be present during the conditioning sessions, and try to use our improved memories to break those post-hypnotic commands. Alternatively, isn't it possible that if we go over some of those dream sequences again, the humdrum episodes as well as the more dramatic bits, we might be able to spot the joins or see some evidence of artificiality or error in the dreams.
"They must have put a lot of effort into those alleged dreams," she ended, "but no simulation is ever perfect."
Devlin sat up suddenly and swung his legs off the couch. It was a reaction to his feeling of excitement rather than a need to go anywhere. He said, "I see what you're driving at. But examining some of those dreams for technical errors will be a, well, harrowing job. What you're really saying is that if we can show that the dreams have been imposed from without, that they might be a result of hypno-conditioning gone wrong, we can communicate this fact to the others and perhaps convince them that it is possible to negate the worst effects of the dreams."
"That's it," she agreed. "Even when I dreamed of being a crustacean or a wolverine, I was still also aware of being myself. Maybe we can do or suggest something to strengthen that awareness."
Devlin nodded. "It might not be as simple as you make it sound," he said, "but where do we start? With the dreams or with the actual memories?"
"With memories," she said firmly. "I'm very reluctant to go back to some of those dreams, and we just might find what we're looking for in the real past. I realize that the actual conditioning sessions would not show because we have been ordered to forget them, but there must have been a lead-up some prior mental preparation, by the project staff. Brother Howard might have let something slip during those early meetings—in the park, at the project building or in the rec hall. If hypno-conditioning was being used, he must have known about it."
Devlin nodded again and said, "I don't think he let anything slip in the park or during his first visit to the block. I went over that day as a memory exercise during an earlier warm-up. It was a pleasant and important day for me, except for the riot on the way home, and I remembered it in considerable detail—"
"Funny," she broke in, looking away from him as she spoke, "I picked the same day to remember."
"We'll go into the deep, dark, psychological significance of that later," Devlin went on, smiling, "because if we did it now we probably could not remain objective about ourselves—"
"Later that evening," she broke in again, "Brother Howard was very objective about us. Objectionable, even."
"My cooldown warning came before I was able to remember into the evening," Devlin said, "and that is the time when I recall that the Brother spoke very freely. I'd like to go over that memory again, from the time when your father left us ..."
CITIZEN Morley had been a small man who did not try to compensate for this fact by making a lot of noise. He wore an empty belt signifying that, although he was technically safe within and among the residents of his block, he was not entirely surrounded by his own family circle. When Brother Howard and Devlin found their table and were introduced by Patricia, her father, for all his mildness and friendliness, looked quietly furious.
She had explained the presence of the Brother and the doctor by saying that her self-inflicted wound had caused them to be concerned about her mental as well as her physical well-being, and that Brother Howard was a friend of the doctor who was anxious to help her. Citizen Morley, as he handed her formally into their charge, said that he could not really blame his daughter for doing as she had done, but it was very obvious to Devlin that if the citizen ever did find someone to blame, that person's life-expectancy would be drastically shortened.
For the first few minutes at the table they had privacy of a sort. The Brother's profession was obvious from his dress and Devlin's from the ornate dress earring which he wore on semi-social occasions, but a crowd of high-spirited but essentially good youngsters—as the block sociologist, but nobody else, described them—seemed intent on harrassing these two half-sheep who had the temerity to sit with one of the best-looking girls in the building.
None of them were old enough to be citizens, which meant that theoretically anyone living in the block who had reached maturity had the right to chastize them. In actual fact, however, no one who was not a full citizen with a large number of citizen relatives could do so if he or she expected to go on living, much less working, in the block. And in any case it would have been senseless to try chastizing a group which outnumbered them five to one and whose members were wearing spiked chains with their leathers.
Devlin suggested that they go up to the roof.
The high-spirited but essentially good youngsters were not allowed on the roof lest they render it as uninhabitable for ordinary people as the Maxers did the city parks at night. But Brother Howard and Devlin were adults and responsible, theoretically, even though they were not citizens; and whether the girl and the doctor were accompanied by the Brother as a chaperone, or whether she was psychologically ill as well as facially damaged and was seeking quiet for physical and spiritual solace, both were acceptable reasons for their being there. The fact that Citizen Morley was on duty with the roof security party who searched them for weapons saved a lot of red tape.
A cold wind was blowing in from the sea, dissipating the air wastes inland and carrying away the sounds of desultory gunfire from the business districts. They found a radiant plate which both sheltered them from the wind and gave them a good view of the city through the antisuicide netting while the plate's warmth bathed their backs. Occasionally a security man came along to check on the plate's functioning in case they had been irresponsible enough to damage it or switch it off. They did not mind that because the plates were not there for the convenience of block-dwellers on cold nights, but as infrared dazzlers against high-spirited but essentially good types in other blocks who wanted to shoot at roof security men with heat-sighted or heat-seeking weapons.
But their conversation, while interesting, was not very informative regarding the project. Without making it obvious, Brother Howard was refusing to change the subject, and the subject was the Morley girl. Without ever telling her why he wanted to know, the Brother found out a great deal lot about her, and Devlin knew enough to know that she was being subjected to one of the most expert verbal probings he had ever witnessed.
After more than two hours of delving, an interruption, a sharp detonation and ground-level flash from a few miles away, stopped the interrogation long enough for Devlin to ask a question.
"Now that you know everything there is to know about Patricia," he said, "I expect it will be my turn. Then, presumably, you will decide finally whether or not we are suitable candidates for training?"
The light from the fire which had followed the explosion was still too weak to enable Devlin to read the Brother's expression, but the other sounded impatient as he replied, "I decided that you, Doctor, were suitable a few hours after meeting you for the first time. Deciding about Miss Morley is a longer and more difficult job, because no man can get inside a woman's mind and fully understand what is going on there. But don't worry, either of you—you will be on the ship. The process which you are shortly to undergo is not really training so much as a transfer of necessary information, an adult education exercise ..."
He broke off, then said worriedly, "I'm not sure of my bearings from this block, Doctor. Was that explosion close to the project building?"
"No, nowhere near it ..." began Devlin, when there was a second and larger explosion from the same area. Armored fire and ambulance units were already racing toward the trouble spot, their positions signaled by flashing blue lights and the strident donkey-call of their sirens. As they converged on the fire, heavy gunfire and a few armor-piercing rockets hammered at them from the surrounding darkness. The ambulance and fire-fighting units grounded themselves to protect their vulnerable undersides, unable to deploy their equipment. Then the lights and sirens of the city security heavies, a great many of them, came bounding in to their support. It was rapidly becoming impossible to hold a conversation without shouting.
Citizen Morley appeared out of the darkness beside them.
"This looks like it may be a bad one," he said, speaking slowly and clearly. "The timing and tactics indicate cooperation between a large number of protesting factions, and the incident, together with the city security reaction to it, is sure to involve a lot of uncommitted local residents. That will mean confusion and wild shooting.
"You will be safer in your room, Patricia," he ended, "and I suggest that you gentlemen will also be more comfortable below."
He could have sent them from the roof with a few short, sharp words, Devlin thought, but Patricia's father was a citizen in the true sense of the word—firm, decisive, responsible and considerate. As they turned to go below Devlin's last view of the incident, the most serious they had had that week, was a writhing, red and many-petaled flower growing rapidly in a bed of flickering blue stars.
It had been a terrible and all too familiar beauty ...
THE CONTROL-center bulkheads took on substance behind the fading mind-picture, and Devlin said, "The initial explosion and his worry about the project building may have put the Brother off guard for a moment. Perhaps he did not mean to say what he did about training and education. I asked him about it later, at my place. If you give me a few minutes I'll recall the conversation for you."
She shook her head and said, "I'm hungry."
"So am I," said Devlin.
"I'm worried about the others," she went on. "Do we eat and sleep again or do we try to find an answer now? We were to check cold-dreams as well as our waking memories, remember?"
"I know, I know," said Devlin, wishing that she would not remind him of their duty when he had been silently engaged in reminding himself. "We'll check the dreams for faulty workmanship for a while, then I'll go back to Brother Howard talking on my surgery couch. But I suggest you begin with a pleasant episode, or one that is not too unpleasant."
She shook her head again. "We're not trying to protect them against pleasant dreams."
Angrily, Devlin said, "You can do just as you please, of course." Then he lay back in the couch and pointedly stared straight ahead. He was beginning to realize that a woman strong-willed enough to disfigure herself for wholly unselfish reasons could, at times, have mannerisms that were not entirely charming.
Very carefully he sent his memory probing back.
His biggest problem was ignorance. He did not know enough about the subject to tell whether there was a technical error in the sensory impressions or environment of a trilobite or a giant saurian, or whether the weapons and armor given to the young king by Hawn were correct for that historical period. Some of the vegetation, coloration of fur and skin, methods of making and fastening clothing were surprising but not, because of that, necessarily incorrect.
Timidly, Devlin began to move into the actively unpleasant areas, even though it was impossible to remember the finer details of environment and sensation through the floods of remembered pain. He had the feeling that such areas were crude and melodramatic, if they were in fact psychological constructs, and the people who might have implanted them might also have become a little careless.
He had no knowledge of the physiology or nervous systems of the majority of the creatures he had dreamed himself to be—with one exception. The king had been a man, a human being, and Devlin knew about human beings as only a trained medic would know them. Very carefully he recalled the assassination of the old king and how the knife had felt going in, how it felt inside the wound and how he had felt as he went rapidly into shock from loss of blood and died. He went over the incident again, with greater attention to detail, and again. He could detect no technical or physiological errors. Suddenly he sat up.
"Something's wrong," he said harshly. "Have you been going over the painful stuff, too?"
She nodded. "A very unpleasant death in childbirth in a smelly cave with—"
"You don't seem unduly bothered."
"No," she said, looking startled. "It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the first time I remembered it. Why is that?"
Devlin was silent for a moment while he thought out the explanation for himself before he began giving her the answer.
Simply, Patricia and he had done something that none of the others had done—they had slept. The situation was analogous to the painful post-operative period following major surgery. The patient remembered the experience for the rest of his or her life. Fortunately this memory dimmed with time, sometimes a very short time, otherwise anyone who had ever been hurt would spend the rest of his life hurting. But the mind was capable of putting up a barrier against remembered pain that allowed incidents to be recalled while filtering out the associated suffering. Even after a really bad op, patients felt much better after a good, sound sleep ...
"I see," she said seriously, when he had finished his explanation. "It's as simple as that. When we were warmed and awakened the cold-sleep memories were too fresh, too intense—like a raw nerve. But after we slept naturally they became normal memories, unpleasant but not actually painful." She laughed suddenly. "The others will be relieved when we tell them all they have to do when they are awakened is to go back to sleep."
Devlin did not smile. He was still very frightened at the prospect of another interminable session of cold-dreaming, but this time he wanted it to be himself who reminded them of their duty—even though he knew that he was being petty and probably stupid. He said, "We have the answer to the cold-dream suicide problem, even though we still don't know how or why or when the dreams were foisted on us. But we can go on working on that problem while we are waiting to be cooled.
"Right now we should tape instructions to the others," he went on firmly, "and I see no reason for our eating while we are doing that. Unless you have a strong objection, I suggest that we go cold as quickly as possible."
She was still laughing at him with her eyes as she said, "Before our feet get a chance to go cold before we do."
The message which they composed was as simple as possible to avoid confusing people who would be freshly awakened and very frightened.
URGENT MESSAGE FROM THE CREW TO BE GIVEN TO ALL COLONISTS AT EACH AWAKENING FROM COLD-SLEEP. MESSAGE TO BE INSERTED BETWEEN PERSONAL GREETING AND SHIP STATUS REPORT. MESSAGE FOLLOWS.
IT IS PROBABLE THAT SHIP'S PERSONNEL ARE EXPERIENCING SEVERE MENTAL DISTRESS AS A RESULT OF DREAMS ENCOUNTERED DURING COLD-SLEEP. THE REASON FOR THE INTENSITY OF THESE DREAMS IS NOT YET UNDERSTOOD, BUT THE DISTRESSING AFTER-EFFECTS CAN BE REDUCED BY ONE OR MORE PERIODS OF NORMAL SLEEP.
SINCE IT NOW SEEMS LIKELY THAT COLD-SLEEP DOES NOT PERFORM THE PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REPAIR FUNCTIONS OF NORMAL SLEEP, AND THAT PHYSICAL FATIGUE IS ALSO PRESERVED INTACT DURING COLD-SLEEP, THERE SHOULD BE NO DIFFICULTY EXPERIENCED IN SLEEPING NORMALLY. IF THE AWAKENING PERIOD SEEMS TOO SHORT FOR NORMAL SLEEP, EXTEND IT WITH THE EMERGENCY OVERRIDE FOR AS LONG AS NECESSARY. BE SPARING IN THE USE OF CONSUMABLES. CARRY OUT ALL OTHER PHYSICAL AND MENTAL EXERCISES AS INSTRUCTED. MESSAGE ENDS.
They agreed that that message should do it, until Patricia became anxious in case the constant use of the manual overrides would worry the computer into awakening the crew to check for possible physiological malfunctions in people who insisted on sleeping in their caskets instead of being out of them exercising. It was a valid cause for worry so they spent an additional few minutes modifying the computer instructions to cover this possibility. Then they spent several minutes more in very close contact without, however, recalling unpleasant dream memories.
