“The Glow Girl is a rock and roll singer. You have a group called the Scientific Coming.”
“A rock and roll singer! But I can’t sing a note—”
“They’ll take care of that,” Clark said. “They take care of everything. And you’ll make a lot of money. A well-paid employee is a contented employee.”
“Yes,” Susan Ryle said, but she was frowning. Still thinking about her singing ability. It occurred to Clark that she might not be over-intelligent.
“I suppose they’ll give me voice lessons,” she said.
“I suppose.”
“In a way, it’s exciting.”
“I suppose.”
“Don’t you agree it’s exciting?”
“Frankly,” he said, “no. I think it’s frightening, I think it’s terrifying, but I do not think it is exciting.”
“Oh,” she said. “But aren’t you an employee?”
“I’m well looked-after,” Clark said.
She was silent. He could tell he had confused her, and she had been confused enough at the outset. It wasn’t really fair, taking out his frustration on her.
“Listen,” he said. “As a doctor, I have a piece of advice.”
“Yes?”
“Get out. Get out of the whole thing, right now. Forget the dough, the fame, the bright lights and the limousine pulling up for opening night—”
“What?” She was staring at him.
He threw up his hands. “Just forget the whole damned thing. You’re a nice girl. You’ll make some lucky guys a fine wife. Go out, get married, get divorced, get married again, have some kids, get divorced—do the California thing, and be happy.”
“You’re very peculiar,” she said, looking at him and tugging down at her short skirt.
“I was born under an unlucky star,” Clark said.
“Gee,” she said. “That’s too bad.”
Clark sighed. She was innocent and wide-eyed and lovely. And he would never in a million years make her understand.
He went to the door. “Nurse!”
The examination was brief. The girl was in excellent shape physically. Excellent shape.
He reported to Blood.
“That’s very reassuring to hear,” Blood said.
“She’s a little dumb, of course—”
“Very reassuring,” Blood nodded.
“And you’ll have a lot of work to do, whipping her into some kind of shape as a singer—”
“We are prepared,” he said mildly, “to work.”
“I’m not,” Clark said.
Blood seemed surprised. “I thought we’d been all over this. I thought you had come to understand.”
“What I understand,” Clark said, “is that a month ago I was a happy doctor working in a happy hospital. I had never heard of blue urine, or comas, or Eden Island. I had never heard of this damned corporation, or Sharon Wilder, or the Glow-Glow Girl.”
“That’s quite clever. We may use that.”
“I had never heard of calling the police in the Miami airport, or being abducted, or held a prisoner in the middle of goddamned Santa Monica. And I want out.”
Blood shrugged. “You can’t get out, I’m afraid.”
“I can try.”
“Oh yes, of course you can try. And you may even succeed, for a few hours. But not for long. We’d have you back in no time. You see, Roger, you’re with us now. Outside of here, beyond these walls, you’re nothing. Nothing at all. There is nowhere that you could turn to, nowhere that you could go. Your old friends would shun you. They aren’t your friends, any more. Your old world would reject you—it isn’t your world, any more. You’re with us now.”
“The hell I am.”
Blood regarded him steadily for several moments. “I can see that you’re serious. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“But I am. I hate to use you in this way. I really do. I think it’s a waste of a fine mind. But at the same time, I’m grateful for the opportunity you present. I must admit it was George who thought of it first, but the fact remains, you’re a fine opportunity for us, Roger. You are ideal.”
He picked up a telephone on a small table behind his desk. “Get me section seven,” he said.
While he was waiting, telephone cradled in his shoulder, he said, “They’ll all be delighted. They’re a little like vultures, actually. Hovering about waiting for their chance. And now they have it.”
He spoke into the phone. “George? Set up the series right away. Yes…yes, I’m afraid so.”
He hung up.
“You see, Roger, we can use a man of your talents in many ways. We can use you to help us, to work with us, to prepare our projects and ventures. Or we can use you in other ways. After all, look at your qualifications. You are a trained physician. You have a working knowledge of anatomy, pharmacology, biochemistry. You are experienced in biological matters, and you are a trained observer. All invaluable traits.”
“Invaluable traits for what?”
“For an experimental subject, of course.”
Behind him, the door opened. Two guards came in, and caught him by the arms.
Harvey Blood stood. “I think you’ll find it interesting, Roger.”
The guards took him out of the room.
19. K PUPPY
“GOOD, GOOD,” GEORGE WASHINGTON said. “Good, good, good.”
He bent over Clark, securing the leather straps which held him to the wooden chair. They were in a laboratory and the chair was on some kind of metal track, which ran forward to a door in the far wall.
“We can observe you,” Washington said, “by remote control. I want you to know we’ve taken every safeguard.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“I feel,” Washington said, tightening one of the arm straps, “that you should know a little about this series. There are no drugs involved. None at all. Instead, we are working on the K principle.”
“It being?”
“Roger, you’re so hostile. Try to look at it as an interesting experience. The K principle was first elaborated in Montreal. Researchers there experimented with puppies, raised from birth in zero sensory environments. They were kept in total darkness, constant temperature, constant sound for six weeks after birth. And then they were brought out into the real world.”
“And they went mad.”
“No. No indeed. But they acted quite peculiarly. They could see, for example; their eyes reacted to light and so forth. But they couldn’t organize visual information. They walked right into walls—that kind of thing. They couldn’t understand what sensory stimuli meant.”
“That’s nice.”
“Meantime,” George continued, “some people in Ann Arbor were experimenting with sensory deprivation in human beings. Put a person in a room with cardboard tubes on his arms and legs—so he can’t feel—and a blindfold over his eyes—so he can’t see—and earplugs—so he can’t hear. And leave him there for a while. The subjects acted pretty strangely after a few hours.
“But the experiments were inconclusive. There was some suggestion of increased pliability, of agreeability, after exposure. Our small experiments here have tended to confirm that. But the factor of education is major, and nobody knows how to deal with that. Also, there is a question about the duration of effect. With drugs, we know that suggestibility is strictly limited. The drug wears off, and you go back to normal. But with the K principle—”
“I see,” Clark said. “No wonder you’re interested.”
“As a scientific development, it has possibilities,” Washington said. “But now we have you. Ideal subject—you’re educated, informed, aware. And you know exactly what we’re going to do to you.”
“You’re going to make me a K puppy.”