"Dead average?" said Susan.
John looked stricken at the use of the phrase he had thought his own innermost, and disgraceful, secret. "Come on, now," he said.
Ignoring John’s outcry, Kupfer answered Susan, "Yes."
"And he won’t be, if he submits to treatment?"
Anderson’s lips stretched into another one of his cheerless smiles. "That’s right. He won’t be. This is something to think about if you’re going to be married soon – the firm of Johnny and Sue, I think you called it. As it is, I don’t think the firm will advance at Quantum, Miss Collins, for although Heath is a good and reliable employee he is, as you say, dead average. If he takes the disinhibitor, however, he will become a remarkable person and move upward with astonishing speed. Consider what that will mean to the firm."
"What does the firm have to lose?" asked Susan, grimly.
Anderson said, "I don’t see how you can lose anything. It will be a sensible dose which can be administered at the laboratories tomorrow – Sunday. We will have the floor to ourselves; we will keep him under surveillance for a few hours. It is certain nothing could go wrong. If I could tell you of our painstaking experimentation and of our thoroughgoing exploration of all possible side effects – "
"On animals," said Susan, not giving an inch.
But John said, tightly, "I’ll make the decision, Sue. I’ve had it up to here with that dead-average bit. It’s worth some risk to me if it means getting off that dead-average dead end."
"Johnny," said Susan, "don’t jump."
"I’m thinking of the firm, Sue. I want to contribute my share."
Anderson said, "Good, but sleep on it. We will leave two copies of an agreement we will ask you to look over and sign. Please don’t show it to anybody whether you sign or not. We will be here tomorrow morning again to take you to the laboratory."
They smiled, rose, and left.
John read over the agreement with a troubled frown, then looked up. "You don’t think I should be doing this, do you, Sue?"
"It worries me, sure,"
"Look, if I have a chance to get away from that dead average – "
Susan said, "What’s wrong with that? I’ve met so many nuts and cranks in my short life that I welcome a nice, average guy like you, Johnny. Listen, I’m dead average too."
"You dead average. With your looks? Your figure?"
Susan looked down upon herself with a touch of complacency. "Well, then, I’m just your dead-average gorgeous girl," she said.
The injection took place at 8 A.M. Sunday, no more than twelve hours after the proposition had been advanced. A thoroughly computerized body sensor was attached to John in a dozen places, while Susan watched with keen-eyed apprehension.
Kupfer said, "Please, Heath, relax. All is going well, but tension speeds the heart rate, raises the blood pressure, and skews our results."
"How can I relax?" muttered John.
Susan put in sharply, "Skews the results to the point where you don’t know what’s going on?"
"No, no," said Anderson. "Boris said all is going well and it is. It is just that our animals were always sedated before the injection, and we did not feel sedation would have been appropriate in this case. So if we can’t have sedation, we must expect tension. Just breathe slowly and do your best to minimize it."
It was late afternoon before he was finally disconnected. "How do you feel?" asked Anderson.
"Nervous," said John. "Otherwise, all right."
"No headache?"
"No. But I want to visit the bathroom. I can’t exactly relax with a bedpan."
"Of course."
John emerged, frowning. "I don’t notice any particular memory improvement."
"That will take some time and will be gradual. The disinhibitor must leak across the blood-brain barrier, you know," said Anderson.
It was nearly midnight when Susan broke what had turned out to be an oppressively silent evening in which neither had much responded to the television.
She said, "You’ll have to stay here overnight. I don’t want you alone when we don’t really know what’s going to happen."
"I don’t feel a thing," said John, gloomily. "I’m still me."
"I’ll settle for that, Johnny," said Susan. "Do you feel any pains or discomforts or oddnesses at all?"
"I don’t think so."
"I wish we hadn’t done it."
"For the firm," said John, smiling weakly. "We’ve got to take some chances for the firm."
John slept poorly, and woke drearily, but on time. And he arrived at work on time, too, to start the new week.
By 11 A.M. however, his morose air had attracted the unfavorable attention of his immediate superior, Michael Ross. Ross was burly and black-browed and fit the stereotype of the stevedore without being one. John got along with him though he did not like him.
Ross said, in his bass-baritone, "What’s happened to your cheery disposition, Heath – your jokes – your lilting laughter?" Ross cultivated a certain preciosity of speech as though he were anxious to negate the stevedore image.
"Don’t exactly feel tip-top," said John, not looking up.
"Hangover?"
"No, sir," said John, coldly.
"Well, cheer up, then. You’ll win no friends, scattering stinkweeds over the fields as you gambol along."
John would have liked to groan. Ross’s subliterary affectations were wearisome at the best of times and this wasn’t the best of times.
And to make matters worse, John smelled the foul odor of a rancid cigar and knew that James Arnold Prescott – the head of the sales division – could not be far behind.
Nor was he. He looked about, and said, "Mike, when and what did we sell Rahway last spring or thereabouts? There’s some damned question about it and I think the details have been miscomputerized."
The question was not addressed to him, but John said quietly, "Forty-two vials of PCAP. That was on April 14, J.P., invoice number P-20543, with a five percent discount granted on payment within thirty days. Payment, in full, received on May 5."
Apparently everyone in the room had heard that. At least, everyone looked up.
Prescott said, "How the hell do you happen to know all that?"
John stared at Prescott for a moment, a vast surprise on his face. "I just happened to remember, J.P."
"You did, eh? Repeat it."
John did, faltering a bit, and Prescott wrote it down on one of the papers on John’s desk, wheezing slightly as the bend at his waist compressed his portly abdomen up against his diaphragm and made breathing difficult. John tried to duck the smoke from the cigar without seeming to do so.
Prescott said, "Ross, check this out on your computer and see if there’s anything to it at all." He turned to John with an aggrieved look. "I don’t like practical jokers. What would you have done if I had accepted these figures of yours and walked off with them?"
"I wouldn’t have done anything. They’re correct," said John, conscious of himself as the full center of attention.
Ross handed Prescott the readout. Prescott looked at it and said, "This is from the computer?"
"Yes, J.P."
Prescott stared at it, then said, with a jerk of his head toward John, " And what’s he? Another computer? His figures were correct."
John tried a weak smile, but Prescott growled and left, the stench of his cigar a lingering reminder of his presence.
Ross said, "What the hell was that little bit of legerdemain, Heath? You found out what he wanted to know and looked it up in advance to get some kudos?"