Quickly he made his way to Joan Hiashi’s cell, making use of the knowledge of the combination on the intervening doors that he had gained in his protracted period of mind-picking.
Two Joan Hiashis stood inside Joan’s door, one in prison uniform, the other in guard’s uniform. He could not tell which was the robot and which the human until the one in the guard’s uniform said, barely audibly, “She says she won’t go, sir.”
“If you don’t go,” Percy whispered hoarsely to her, “I won’t go.”
For a moment Joan remained silent. But he read in her mind, I can’t have you giving your life for me. She shrugged, then, and began listlessly, with agonizing slowness, to change clothes with the robot.
A moment later two “guards,” one tall and one short, made their way to the garbage shed. After a pause two garbage men, one tall and one short, emerged from the shed and carried two garbage cans to the truck. The shorter one seemed hardly strong enough for the task, but somehow she made it. Two more trips and all the garbage had been taken out.
The white-coveralled figures climbed into the truck and drove back out the gate.
“Took a long time, today,” the uniformed inspector at the gate said sourly.
“Had to stop by the men’s room,” Percy X said.
The inspector shrugged and waved them past.
“Why didn’t they recognize us?” Joan whispered.
“Look at me,” Percy said briefly. She looked— and her eyes widened, The man beside her wasn’t Percy X at all. “It’s these gadgets on our belts,” Percy explained. “They project a false image into people’s minds; they make us look like what the person expects. Balkani perfected it a number of years ago, according to Doctor Rivers.”
“Oh yes,” Joan said faintly. “Doctor Rivers. I wondered when he’d show up again.”
They passed inspection at the other end of the bridge, too, and from there they found themselves in the clear.
In a garage just off the fjord-side highway, Doctor Paul Rivers and Ed Newkom sat on the fender of a sleek ionocraft, tensely waiting. Next to the wall two authentic garbage men, stiff and silent, looked sightlessly on.
“Yes,” Paul said, glancing with approval at the hypnotized men. “I haven’t lost it, the ability.” In the old days, at the beginning of his professional practice, he had gone in a great deal for hypnotherapy as had Freud. Much better, he reflected, to save something of the potency of hypnotism for special occasions. Such as this.
“Got a light?” Ed asked tautly.
“I don’t smoke,” Paul answered. He brought outa tin of Inchkenneth Dean Swift snuff. “Oral gratification is oral gratification, and snuff doesn’t get soot down into you windpipe.”
“I’ll use the car lighter.” Ed muttered, with a psychosomatic cough. “Snuff—keerist; I prefer a bag of peanuts.” He climbed into the ionocraft and nervously lit a cigarette.
For a time the two men sat in silence, one smoking and the other taking pinch after pinch of snuff, and then they heard the distant roar of the elderly garbage truck, slamming and banging down the highway.
Instantly Paul hopped down from the fender and swung open the garage door. With a snort and noisy backfire the truck came rumbling in and stopped with a squeal of brakes. Percy X killed the turbine and jumped out, followed, more slowly, by Joan Hiashi. Paul at once closed the garage doors and strode over to greet them.
“I’m Paul Rivers, Percy,” he said as he shook hands with the hard-eyed Neeg-part leader, “and this is my coworker and friend, Ed Newkom.
Perhaps you recall, Miss Hiashi, that we met. Briefly.”
Joan gazed at him with unfocused eyes and expressionless face, saying nothing. Within him, Paul shuddered. What has Balkani done to her? he asked himself. Such a lovely little creature and he’s managed to turn her into—God knows what. But, he thought, perhaps I can help her.
He gave a few instructions to the hypnotized garbage men, then stood back with a humorless smile on his lips as they obediently climbed into their truck. “Open the garage; door for them,” he said to Percy X. “Before they break it down.” Percy opened the door; the truck motor exploded into life and, a moment later, lurched down the short driveway, swerved out onto the highway and headed off in the direction of Oslo.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ed said impatiently, stubbing out his cigarette. The four of them got into the ionocraft, Paul seating himself behind the wheel; with a whoosh the vehicle shot out of the garage and over the smooth waters of the fjord.
“There’s one thing I’d like to know, Doctor Rivers,” Percy X said, not using his telepathic powers out of politeness to the non-telepaths present. ‘‘Why did you go to such risk and trouble to get us out?” He felt suspicion, deep and abiding.
“We have a favor,” Paul Rivers said, “to ask of you.” His voice held softness—and yet it sounded peculiarly firm.
“What favor?”
Paul Rivers said, “We want you to go back to Tennessee and die. Preferably like a hero.”
IX
Major Ringdahl met Doctor Rudolph Balkani in the dim hallway outside the psychiatrist’s office. Balkani tried to get by him with only a mumbled greeting, but the major touched his arm and said, “Wait a moment, there.”
Fidgeting impatiently, Balkani waited.
“I understand you’re now working with both Joan Hiashi and Percy X, Doctor.” Ringdahl regarded him acutely. “How’s it going?”
“Not too well.” Balkani frowned as he stroked his irregular beard. “I think I may be pressing them too hard. Their reactions have become almost— mechanical.”
The major slapped Balkani on the back, an apparently friendly gesture … but Balkani felt the pressure of force beneath it. “Keep at them; they’ll crack sooner or later. After all, they’re only human.” When he finally managed to break free of his superior, Balkani found himself thoroughly depressed. The thing that annoyed him most seemed to be Ringdahl’s insistence that he “crack them.” I want to cure them, not crack them, he thought to himself as he entered his office.
He thought, then, about Joan Hiashi. An interesting case, but not in accord with any of his previous findings; her reaction to oblivion therapy was unique. He would have to write an entire new chapter in his thesis on the New Psychoanalysis, all because of her. Perhaps, he reflected, I’ll have to revise my entire theory. What a painful thought a life’s work down the drain, just because of one exception. And yet, as he well knew, a single inordinate exception such as this did not prove the rule; it broke the rule.
At this point he had completed half of the crucial last chapter. He could not finish it until he had closed the Joan Hiashi case, one way or the other. Perhaps, he mused, I’ll honor her by naming a mental illness after her. “The Hiashi Complex.” No, that was perhaps too ambitious. “The Hiashi Syndrome.” That would be better.
Closing the door of his office after him he seated himself at the foot of his analyst’s couch and glared sightlessly at the rather tarnished bust of Sigmund Freud looming on top of his bookcase. Quite a frowning father figure, aren’t you? he thought.
Joan Hiashi was late. What kind of idiots did they have for guards, anyway? They were probably making time with her this very moment, the animals, pawing her with their sweaty soldier hands. He got irritably to his feet, paced back and forth a few times, then sat down again and reached for his pipe
Footsteps in the hall. He leaped back up to his feet, spilling tobacco from his pouch; this he did not notice, because the door had begun to open. And there she stood.
“Hello, Doctor.” She entered the office; behind her the guard shut the door. As on every other occasion of late she seemed cool and remote, even indifferent. “What do we do today?” she asked as she slipped noiselessly into a chair facing him.
“The tank,” Balkani said. “Or some multiphasic profile tests. Or perhaps just a little chat, eh? We ought to get to know each other better.” “Anything you say, Doctor.”