The Science Fiction of Mark Clifton, page 62
“Insufficient data,” Bossy flashed back again.
“What data do you need?” Hoskins snapped at Bossy irritably.
“A complete survey of every cell memory to determine the quantum of repressors.” Bossy flashed.
Joe, who had been hovering in the background, stepped forward.
“Based on techniques now in use,” he asked, “how long would that take?”
“Insufficient data,” Bossy’s screen said.
“What do you need to get the data?”
“Cessation of interference,” Bossy said. “By verbal methods now used, a survey would take years, or never be accomplished. The past failure of psychosomatic therapy is not in theory but in technique. A human mind is too slow, reactions are too gross. The best the human can accomplish is a few obvious snarls.”
“If left alone, how would you accomplish it?” Billings asked curiously.
“It is simple,” Bossy said, “for me to use the principles of the electroencephalogram. I would run all combinations of my entire storage unit against the patient. Any disturbance to the alpharythms would indicate the source of a tension in the patient—on the order of the lie-detector principle. All such tensions could be released by replacing fallacy with understanding.”
“How long would that take?” Hoskins asked.
“Insufficient data,” Bossy answered.
“It makes sense, though,” Billings said. “We’ve always known that time was our greatest enemy; that even in months we could only uncover a few of the most obvious. Bossy can operate on a thousands per second review of her storage units.”
“What would be the effect of the tension release?” Joe asked Bossy.
“When the repressors are removed from the cells,” Bossy answered, “they can again function normally, restoring themselves.”
“Which would mean that health is restored, obviously,” Billings said. “Any objections to Bossy taking over, gentlemen?”
“You’re the doctor,” Hoskins said.
And it was not until a week later, a week of constant watching, intravenous feeding, physical body care, while Mabel lay on the couch in an apparent coma, that they saw any change.
It was on the morning of the seventh day, after Hoskins had spent his vigil through the night sitting beside Mabel, that they saw how startling a change had occurred. It was as if accumulated releases were, all at once, showing their effect.
The puffiness was disappearing from her cheeks, the deep pouches under her eyes were less swollen, the roll of fat around her neck had shrunk. Slowly, like a face emerging from a sculptor’s shapeless blob of clay, there was another Mabel—a younger Mabel.
It was more than a skin health and tautness, than the relaxation of rest, than the disappearance of wrinkles, the reduction of swelling in the joints.
The three men stood looking down at her recumbent form on the couch. They stared at her with wide, incredulous eyes. Mabel was growing young again!
The faint hum of Bossy, working at top level speed, buzzed in their ears.
TO BE CONTINUED
Part II
Second of Four Parts. It was said long ago that the price of immortality is rebirth—and that is a price that few have ever been willing to pay. Given the chance . . .
SYNOPSIS
Joe Carter, a telepath, had fled from Hoxworth University with “Bossy,” a mechanical brain which represented man’s closest approach to duplicating the human brain.
The machine had originated through an order from the federal government to take the principles of the guided missile and develop them to the point where a vehicle could think for itself under all circumstances. As frequently happens in science, the end result was far removed from what they had started out to accomplish. The mechanical brain which resulted aroused the superstitious fears of mobs who were incited by rabble rousers to destroy the machine and the men who were principally responsible for it.
A side from Joe, whose part had been to open up the barriers and antagonisms between men’s minds, so that they could work more cooperatively in understanding of one another’s concepts, had been Jonathan Billings, world famous dean of psychosomatics at the university, and Duane Hoskins, professor of cybernetics.
These two men fled from the mob, and by prearrangement met at the San Francisco depot where they awaited Joe. Since Bossy had been subsidized by the government, she was considered government property. Federal agents had followed Billings to the meeting place in hopes that Billings would lead them to where Bossy had been hidden.
On his way to join the two professors, Joe realized they were under surveillance and through his psionic abilities he distracted the agents long enough to rescue the two professors and to obtain the crate of Bossy’s parts which had been shipped to this point under the guise of television equipment.
Joe hid the professors in a skid-row flophouse while he made arrangements for a safer hiding place through Carney, a skid-row habitué whom Joe had met previously in a mind-reading act with a traveling carnival. Carney arranged to rent basement quarters, previously used by counterfeiters, from old Mabel who had made her doubtful profession pay off well enough that she now owned much of the skid-row property.
Neither Mabel nor Carney knew that this was the celebrated Bossy, whose disappearance was being discussed in all the newspapers. Everyone was demanding that Bossy be found and destroyed. Only one public voice called for reasonable consideration of Bossy’s potential value. Howard Kennedy, nonconformist industrialist, published an open letter through one of the newspapers he controlled which was recognized by Joe and the professors to be a bid for their cooperation with him.
In setting up the memory storage banks of Bossy, scientists had exercised great care to feed in only known fact. They screened out theoretical conclusions drawn from these facts. It was Joe’s theory that the tensions created by warped suppositions and prejudices was one source of man’s ills. He prevailed upon Billings to feed all the knowledge he had of psychotherapy into Bossy’s storage units, in the hope that if Bossy were shown to be of curative benefit to man she would be more welcome by the public.
Old Mabel, now in her late sixties, was crippled with arthritis. Further, her attitude was one of great-hearted tolerance, and a singular lack of knowing right from wrong. Since psychosomatic therapy hinges upon the patient’s willingness to consider the validity of points of view other than his own, and since Mabel willingly admitted that her years and experiences had left her without any positive opinions of the only right way of things, she became a natural subject for testing Bossy’s psychosomatic abilities.
After eight days of lying in deep hypnosis in the network of electrodes connected to Bossy, the scientists and Joe were astonished to see the aged old woman begin to revert to a youthful girl.
Far more than a mere cure, they had discovered how to work at a cellular level, to restore the vigor of youth, to give possible immortality.
VIII.
It was not a miracle.
The regeneration and rejuvenation of Mabel was no more than the end result of completely applied psychosomatic therapy. Yet it was a result which a human therapist, unassisted by Bossy, could never attain. However he may strive for detachment from bias, no man can grow to maturity without at least something of a framework of prejudice; and the therapist, in removing the warping deformations of one matrix, unconsciously supplies another.
Further, thousands of hours of verbal therapy were reduced to seconds by Bossy. Never before had anyone known what a complete therapy could produce. And they did not know now. Dr. Billings, Professor Hoskins, Joe Carter, the three men stood looking down at Mabel who lay on the couch, the center of a network of conduits connecting her to Bossy, and marveled.
They did not understand the obvious reformation of Mabel’s body. But they were witnessing it.
It was characteristic of Billings that even in the moments of astonishment he remembered to check the gross aids of therapy. To his surprise, the last drops of the synthetic plasma, fed from the suspended tank to Mabel’s veins, were running out of the container. He had put on a fresh bottle the night before, and at her low threshold of activity, it should have lasted for two more days.
Almost instantly, as the last drops ran down the transparent tube, Mabel’s lips began to move.
“Hungry,” she muttered. “Hungry, hungry, hungry, HUNGRY!”
Bossy’s screen was flashing on and off in emergency signals.
“Cells cannot regenerate without food,” the machine said, over and over. The statement of fact seemed, to the men, to carry a connotation of contemptuous impatience, as if these human beings should be expected to know at least that much.
Quickly Billings ran across the room, grabbed up one of the few remaining bottles of plasma, broke the seal on his way back, and replaced the empty bottle with the full one. As the liquid began to flow down the tube, Mabel’s mutterings ceased, and she lay still and quiet again. Almost visibly, Joe, Dr. Billings and Professor Hoskins could see the changes in her appearance taking place, and wondered what mental changes could account for them.
Joe tried to follow, but the thought-patterns were so rapid and so varied it was like trying to pick up and follow one spoke in the blur of a speeding wheel.
“Hunger creates tensions to act as cell repressants, hindering therapy,” Bossy volunteered a flash on her screen, as if to reproach them and warn them not to let it happen again. In the pattern of human beings generally, they had given her a job to do, and then followed a procedure to hamstring her and prevent her from doing it. As with human beings generally, they did not intend to thwart her, they merely let their lack of comprehension do it for them.
Perceptibly the level in the bottle was lowering. At this rate the supply, expected to last for another two days, would be gone in two hours. And they had only one more bottle in reserve.
Synthetic fortified plasma cannot be cooked up in the ordinary apartment kitchen, and none of them were sufficient biochemists to attempt it. The only alternative to halting the therapy, and none of them would insider that, was to obtain more plasma quickly, within the four hours their total supply would last. And even that time was a rough estimate, the consumption of the supply might be progressively accelerated.
They called Carney into their living room.
He had been hanging around the outskirts of the experiment for a week, since it had started; not admitted to the workroom, nor asking to be admitted since Mabel, herself, had told him to stay out. His sulks and belligerence had disappeared, replaced by anxiety. His anxiety was mitigated by confidence. He realized that inasmuch as Mabel had made the decision and had stuck to it, she could not be in better hands.
But their reports to him did create some doubts. They were all identical, and to him they were vague and unsatisfactory.
“Mabel is resting naturally and progressing normally.”
He had not had much real experience with hospitals. His concepts of what probably went on was drawn from motion picture script writers’ efforts to knock themselves out with drama piled upon drama, one near-fatal crisis after another, ever trying with the same old tricks to excite a public long since immune to further emotional response. Yet, without it, something seemed lacking to Carney.
His reaction, when Joe told him that more plasma must be obtained at once, was one more nearly relief than alarm. This was more like. As with the script writers, it did not occur to him that crisis piled upon crisis is usually a sign of inefficiency and bungling. It did not occur to him lo ask the very normal question of why this need for further plasma had not been foreseen, or what change had occurred in Mabel to make their estimates fall short.
Actually, he was flooded with a sense of satisfaction. He would be of some use after all, Mabel’s life depended upon him. He, Carney, was as important to her as these Brains.
He was cooperative. That is, he wanted to be.
“But I don’t know where I could buy that stuff on short notice,” he blurted. “I had plenty of warning on the last and put out the word I could use it. In a few days the word came back that it was ready. You got to be careful on things like that. It’s different from tools and electrical stuff.”
Billings, standing beside Joe, was visibly shaken.
“We simply have to get more,” he insisted. “Our present supply will last less than four hours. Mabel can’t be cured without it. It’s dangerous to try.”
Carney blanched. His fingers shook as he tried to light a cigarette.
“If I had more time,” he muttered, “but four hours, and in broad daylight.”
Joe glanced at his wristwatch.
“It’s nine o’clock now. That means we must be back by noon, to give us margin. Where’s the nearest big hospital?”
“There’s an emergency just a couple of blocks over,” Carney said.
“An emergency hospital wouldn’t have enough,” Joe said. “I want a place that would have a big supply.”
“I don’t know,” Carney said hesitantly. “There’s Memorial, I guess. Down off Protrero.”
“I want a doctor’s whites,” Joe said crisply. “Where can I get them?”
“I can do that,” Carney said with relief. “It’ll take me five minutes.” He turned and almost ran out of the room.
He was back in less than five minutes. The uniform was complete, even to a little black bag.
“The boys’ fingers do stick to everything, don’t they?” Joe smiled.
Carney grinned.
They were almost over to the interurban depot, where taxis were plentiful, before Carney asked any questions.
“What’re you gonna do, Joe?” he asked between puffs of breath as they walked rapidly down the street.
““Steel it,” Joe said tersely. “There are times when the ethics of esperance must be secondary.”
Carney nodded, sagely, without any comprehension of the phrase.
“In broad daylight!” he gulped. He sighed and squared his thin shoulders. “But I’ll try anything for Mabel,” he added, slipping easily into the improbable valence of a movie plot.
When the cab pulled up in the broad circular driveway in front of the hospital, Joe paid the fare and gave the driver a tip.
“If you’ll wait,” Joe said, “we’ll be going back in about ten minutes.” His words were casual, but he beamed a sense of high drama into the driver’s mind.
“I’ll wait,” the cabbie promised, as if he were taking an oath.
Joe took the steps, two at a time, with Carney panting behind him.
In the lobby, Joe smiled at the young nurse behind the information window, and beamed a strong field of reassurance at her.
“Where can I find the head nurse, please?” His eyes told her that, after having seen her, he was in no way interested in the old battle-axe of a head nurse.
The girl returned his smile, while she automatically evaluated him for age, possible marital status, financial prospects. She was already confident of his susceptibility. It was the normal and expected thought process. Joe tied himself into it, and pushed it farther by gently projecting the image of a young interne backed by wealthy parents.
The nurse’s eyes sparkled, and she inhaled to give Joe a better appraisal of the merchandise.
“Do you mean our Day Supervisor?” she twinkled. “Shall I get her on the phone?” Her tones, and her thought-patterns, pleaded with him not to be in such a hurry to part company.
To the image of the wealthy young interne, unmarried, Joe fed the picture of a shining blue convertible, upholstered in red leather, and followed that with a picture of bowing head waiters in a dining room with soft lights.
“She’s so busy this time of day,” the nurse said doubtfully. “If I could help you—?”
“Well, I’m really heading for the Blood Bank,” Joe said easily. “I’m borrowing a supply for St. Luke’s—” The picture crystallized into a long evening of dancing at the Venetian Room at the Fairmont, so much less touristy than the Top of the Mark.
“Oh, that,” the now utterly vivacious young woman trilled. “I’ll be happy to show you the way, Dr.—?”
“Dr. Carter . . . soon, anyway . . . I hope,” said Joe, with a wink.
The nurse turned to the non-uniformed girl at the typewriter behind her.
“I’ll be right back, darling,” she cooed. “If anyone asks where I am—”
“I know,” the girl said with a bored tone. “You’re powdering your nose.” These nurses with their airs!
None of them paid any attention at all to Carney. Obviously, in the hierarchy of the hospital caste, a system which puts India’s to shame, he was an Untouchable, lower, probably, than even an Orderly. As Joe and the nurse walked down the corridor, her heels clicking smartly, Joe knew that Carney, following behind, was staring at his back with an awe bordering on reverence.
During the course of the short trip to the second floor, rear, Joe dutifully went through the protocol of finding out the young nurse’s name, hours on and off duty, the telephone number at the adjoining nurse’s residence.
When they reached the Blood Storage Room, the nurse spoke crisply, and fraternally, to the interne in charge.
“This is Dr. Carter, from St. Luke’s—”
The interne, obviously not backed by wealthy parents or a blue convertible, regarded Joe enviously.
“I wish I could make St. Luke’s,” he said. “How long have you got?”
“Two more months,” replied Joe, with a sidelong glance at the nurse. “Sometime come over and get acquainted. Glad to introduce you around.”
“Well, thanks! I’d sure like to!” The interne offered his hand. “Harry Vedder,” he said. “Cal—”
“Harvard Medical,” murmured Joe. The interne blinked with respect, and thawed even more. His guess had been right. This was one of those wealthy boys; probably been money in the family so long that he didn’t even think about it; all this equality was the real thing, not an affectation. A real guy! The nurse was all but ready to take off and fly.
