“And she accepts this, because of the drug.”
“Yes. But the drug has other powers, a whole new order of powers on a scale quite undreamed of. Because when she hears the sound of the tuning fork—well, watch for yourself.”
The girl was by now in bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin. She stared calmly at the ceiling.
“Darling,” she said.
“I’m here,” Lefevre said. “I love you.”
The girl did not move. She continued to stare at the ceiling.
“You make love beautifully,” she said.
Abruptly, Lefevre struck the tuning fork. The girl’s eyes snapped shut and her body went rigid for a moment and then relaxed. She seemed suddenly fast asleep.
Clark began to understand. “She’s in a coma,” he said.
“Yes. Unarousable for a period of twelve to sixteen hours, but quite safe, I assure you. In fact she is experiencing sensations of fantastic pleasure. That is the beauty of the drug: it stimulates hypothalamic pleasure centers directly, in combination with the correct auditory stimuli. For twelve hours she will experience nothing but pure, total, delightful pleasure.”
“And afterward?”
“She will get more drug. And more again, up until the morning of her departure. The doses will be tapered on that final day; she will be just beginning to awake fully when she is aboard the seaplane, taking off for Nassau. When she wakes up, she will be refreshed, tanned, invigorated—and she will carry beautiful memories back with her.”
“All quite neat.”
“Yes indeed,” Lefevre said. “This drug is a significant breakthrough.”
They walked out of the room, down the hallway. Clark said, “What exactly is the drug?”
“We’re not certain. It hasn’t been fully analyzed yet.”
“But you’re administering it—”
“Oh yes,” Lefevre said, with a wave of his hand, “but it’s quite safe. You can see that for yourself. Perfectly safe.”
“What’s it called?”
“It hasn’t got a name. After all, why name it? Who needs to know its name? It will never be marketed, never be made available to the public. Can you imagine what would happen if it were available?” Lefevre shook his head. “The whole world would be lying around in a coma. Industry would grind to a halt. Commerce would cease. Wars would end in mid-battle. Life as we know it would simply stop.”
Clark said nothing.
“When we at Advance developed this drug, we were aware of its potential. We were most careful to guard it, and to plan for its limited commercial use. In this setting, you see, the drug is superb. People come here, have a fine time, and go home refreshed and happy. They return to normal, active lives none the worse for their experience—indeed, much improved. Don’t you think we’ve accomplished something marvelous?”
“No,” Clark said.
“That’s very odd,” Lefevre said. “An opinion like that, coming from an employee of the corporation.”
“What corporation?”
“Advance, of course. Why do you think we woke you up? You’ve got to start working right now.”
Back in his office, Lefevre showed him the material. “You see,” he said, “there’s no question about it. You are an employee of Advance. Here is the contract you signed when you visited the Santa Monica office.”
He pushed a photostat of a form across the desk.
“I signed—”
And then he remembered the little lady at the desk. There was something that he had signed.
“And your picture, of course. Shaking hands with Harvey Blood, president of the Corporation. Shaking hands with George K. Washington. The contract states, by the way, that you have full knowledge of the experimental drug, and have agreed to supervise activities at the resort for the month.”
He smiled.
“And here,” he said, “is a canceled check, deposited to your account. And another check, here. And a third. Totaling slightly more than seven thousand dollars. So you see, you’re an employee, all right. And a rather well-paid employee at that.”
Clark said nothing. He was thinking over everything, from the beginning, from the Angel, and then Sharon…
“This was all planned,” he said. “You planned a way to get me out here, you engineered it all—”
“Let’s say,” Lefevre said, “that we helped you to make up your mind. Now then. For the duration of your stay here—for the rest of the month, until our regular physician in residence comes back from his vacation—you are going to be a rather busy man. We run into minor problems here and there, you know. Nothing to do with the drug, but peripheral things. A young lady sleeps on the balcony to her room and neglects to wear her bathing suit; that can give you a nasty burn, and it must be attended to so that she is not unhappy when she finally goes home. Or a gentleman gets pneumonia. We have two cases of that now, because of the bad weather. They’ll need penicillin treatment, and whatever else you deem appropriate. After all,” he said, “you’re the doctor.”
Clark sat calmly in his chair. He stared at Lefevre and said, “Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes. Sorry. I won’t play.”
Lefevre frowned. “That’s a rather serious decision on your part.”
“Sorry.”
“I strongly advise you to reconsider.”
Clark shook his head. “No.”
“You must realize, of course, that we have anticipated such a maneuver. We are prepared for the possibility that you would reject the plan, and begin scheming. Thinking up ways to blow the whistle on our organization, tell the world, let everyone know about the drug of choice. Eh?”
Clark kept his face expressionless, but in fact such thoughts had been running through his mind.
“We have devised a method for dealing with such plans,” Lefevre said.
He pressed a button on his desk, and two waiters came into the room. They stood quietly by the door.
“I think,” Lefevre said, “that a demonstration is best.”
And then, almost before he knew what had happened, the two waiters grabbed him and held him, and Lefevre came forward with a gun in his hand, pressed it to Clark’s arm, and fired. There was a hissing sound, and a slight pain.
“Release him.”
The waiters let Clark sit down; he stopped struggling and rubbed his sore arm.
“And what was that?”
“I’m rather surprised, doctor,” Lefevre said. “I would have thought you’d have guessed. We have just given you a dose of another compound. It is the reverse of the drug we give here. The exact opposite.”
Clark waited, preparing himself for some sensation. Nothing happened. He felt a little queasy, but that was all.
“The posterior thalamic nuclei, on the inferior aspect,” Lefevre said, “can produce most peculiar sensations when stimulated.”
He held up the tuning fork; the metal glinted in the light.
Then he swung it down abruptly, striking the table.
Clark heard a hum.
15. REVERSAL
THERE WAS NO IMMEDIATE change. He remained sitting in the office, staring at Lefevre, with the two men at his back. He continued to rub his arm, still sore from the pneumatic hypodermic.
Gradually, he became aware of an unearthly silence in the room, a still and muffled quality. He looked back at one of the men, and was surprised to see he was talking.