If the group of workers so much as noticed Frank adding the flat box to their burden, they gave no sign. Disappearing into the small dome, they emerged a few minutes later empty-handed. Frank didn't wait for further instructions, but simply shoved the second bomb under the nearest machine.
"Now," Arthur said, trying not to show his tension, "we've got just twenty- five minutes to find that hypnosis machine and get out of here." He took a long, sweeping look around the room, and for the first time the enormity of that task hit him. There were literally hundreds of instruments lining the walls, not even counting the freestanding ones scattered around. How were they going to find the right one?
"This is ridiculous," Frank said. "What're we supposed to do, smash everything in sight?"
"No," Charles gasped. "It's easier than that."
"What is it, Charles?" Arthur asked, suddenly alert. Charles, after all, had a sort of inside track here. "You know which one it is?"
"No. But—" He halted, as if having to fight out the words. "The people here... building and... and fixing things. We're not... working like we're... supposed to."
And suddenly Arthur understood. "Aha! Got it!" He scanned the room again, and this time he saw it. "Over there, on the wall—that gadget with eight people working on it. Let's go."
"But how do you know that's the right one?" Susan asked.
"Because no one was working over there when we first came in."
"Huh?" Frank asked.
"It's really very simple." Arthur grinned tightly. "We're not doing what we're supposed to; therefore, the hypnosis gadget must have developed a fault—and therefore, the dome's started getting people over there to try and fix it."
The workers had the instrument's cover off by the time Frank began shoving through the group. For the first time there was resistance to his advance, as if the dome had belatedly recognized the magnitude of the threat and was trying to counter it. But long starvation had left far too little strength to the men, and Frank brushed them aside as if they were children. Seizing the heaviest tool within reach, he began flailing about at the exposed circuitry. His first three blows seemed to have no effect; but at the fourth—
"That's it!" Charles shouted.
And all around the room activity suddenly ceased, replaced by an equally abrupt babble as all the frustration and terror of the past days found release in newly loosened tongues. But Charles was ready, and before the noise had time to reach panic levels, he filled his lungs and bellowed, "Everybody get out of here now! This dome will blow up in less than twenty minutes. The door's in that direction; move!"
Perhaps the time under hypnosis had left a residual susceptibility to orders, or perhaps getting out simply struck them all as the smart thing to do. But whatever the reason, they obeyed without question or complaint. It wasn't easy—in the absence of artificial compulsion, the physical drain of their ordeal abruptly appeared. But with a lot of mutual support, they kept moving. "I don't suppose there's any way to disarm the bombs," Susan said wistfully. "I mean, now that there's no reason to destroy all of this..."
"No reason, my eye," Charles snorted. "You never felt how strong that hypnosis machine was. If anyone got ahold of it and figured out how to make it work again—"
"Would it hurt people?" Dennis asked.
"Very much," Susan sighed. "You're probably right, Charles. Let's just get out of here, then."
There was less than a minute to go on the fuses when they reached the first row of buildings, the point at which Charles had earlier gotten his first glimpse of the dome. "It was a lot more colorful before," he commented to no one in particular as he turned for one final look. "Must have been part of the hypnosis."
"Can we stay here and watch the bang?" Dennis asked eagerly.
"Probably won't be much to see," Charles told him. "The dome will contain most of the explosion, and anything that leaks out the door probably won't be very bright."
"Aw, what the hell," Frank said, to everyone's surprise. "Let's let the kid have a look."
"I thought you didn't like Dennis, Frank," Susan said.
"Naw, he's okay. And—look, he did his share, right?"
"Sure," Charles said. "Okay, we'll stay."
The seconds ticked by. "Even if we don't see anything, we ought to feel the ground shake when they go off," Arthur remarked, talking to cover up his nervousness. He had led them through the critical part of the mission; he alone was responsible for success or failure. And if—somehow—this didn't work, no one would ever let him be a leader again.
"Oh, I'm sure we'll see something," Susan assured him.
As it turned out, she and Charles had both rather underestimated things.
—
This hospital, he decided early on, was much nicer than the other one. Not only was the bed more comfortable, with no lumps or straps, but the nurses were friendlier and more attentive. His eyes still hurt a little beneath their bandages and the perpetual darkness was sometimes scary, but Dr. Housman and the others assured him he would be all right. Best of all, there were none of the horrible sounds of the other hospital here; no one laughed or cried or gurgled. He slept a great deal now, and nightmares were no longer commonplace.
"Charles?" a familiar voice asked softly. "Are you awake?"
"Hello, Colonel Lee," he said. "I didn't hear you come in."
There was the sound of a chair being pulled over to his bed. "I thought I'd drop by and let you know that all of the people you got out of the dome are off the critical list now, though most are still pretty weak."
"Glad to hear it. You ever figure out what went wrong that the dome needed them?"
"Only indirectly—you didn't leave us a whole lot to study, you know. But a couple of the others told us they saw a bunch of things that looked like robots lying around one of the outer corridors. Best guess is that the dome had an accident and lost control of its automated workers. Whether recruitment of native help was already programmed in or whether the dome was smart enough to develop the hypnosis field from scratch we'll probably never know."
"So it really wasn't a threat, after all."
Lee must have heard the regret in his voice. "We don't know that. It's quite possible that it intended to cover the whole globe with copies of itself. And even if it wasn't deliberately threatening us, the people inside would have started dying very soon. Who knows how big the field would have become, or how many people would have been sucked in to die? No, Charles, you did the right thing. Now, I'm going to leave and let you rest, but I want you to hurry up and get well. The president is anxious to meet you—" he paused dramatically—"at the White House ceremony where you'll be getting the Medal of Freedom."
Charles tried to find the right words; finally gave up. "Thank you," he said.
"You earned it. All of you did." A hand briefly gripped his shoulder. "I'll drop back in next week, after the bandages are off your eyes. Good-bye for now."
Charles heard him walk to the door and open it. Another voice greeted Colonel Lee as he stepped into the corridor: Dr. Housman's, Charles recognized it. For a moment the two men talked by the open door; and while the conversation was obviously meant to be private, Charles had always had exceptional hearing.
"How's he doing?" Lee asked.
"Better than our best predictions, I'm delighted to say. That new hypnotic technique for intrapsyche communication was very helpful, but I personally think the success of his mission played a bigger role. Low self-esteem, you see, is often at the root of these really chronic cases. Eliminate that problem and you're halfway home."
"So who did I just talk to? I mean, who's where now?" "The Susan and Dennis fragments have been completely integrated into the main Charles personality. Arthur and Frank are still separate—especially Frank; Charles still has a great deal of suppressed anger within him—but both are moving toward integration. I give them a month, maybe less. If you've got a few minutes I can show you the progress charts."