In front of the door stood a desk at which sat a police woman with a register. Otterburn signed the register, and followed the others in. These were Dubrowsky, Dubrowsky's young P-l assistant, and Dubrowsky's associate, de Castro, a bald and burly psychologist.
The test was to be the first tryout on a human being of what some mythological-minded functionary in the Bureau had christened Project Styx. Otterburn had become involved in this project by solving a minor but baffling problem in the design of the apparatus—a matter of getting an actuator-mechanism into a small space—for the regular engineers on the project.
Since the project was classed as Secret he had had to be cleared for secret information outside of his own immediate field. And because the plan had fascinated him—although he was not an electronics man—he had kept in touch with it ever since and had let Dubrowsky talk him into volunteering for the first tests on a live man.
Dubrowsky ambled over to his section of the laboratory and extracted from the general clutter on the workbench a mess of straps and cables, saying, "This is her. Want to take off your coat and shirt?"
Otterburn, while stripping to the waist, asked, "How did those live tests come out?"
Dubrowsky said, "Fine, except that the field seems to extend in from the surface of the skin as well as out."
"What does that do?"
"Nearly as we can figure from the effects on the animals it affects parts of their brains."
"Huh?" said Otterburn in a tone of alarm.
"Nothing serious. Has an effect like a little alcohol. Doc can tell you."
"Yes," said de Castro."It appears to affect mainly the frontal lobes and also some of the cortex, so as to decrease inhibitions and promote the thalamic functions. The dog, for instance, tended to forget that he was housebroken while he had it on."
Otterburn said, "Boy, I sure hope it doesn't—"
"I do not think so. Of course we do not really know with a human being. The effect on the forebrain might suppress the superego."
"The what? I'm sorry, but that's out of my line."
"Of course, of course," said de Castro."The superego is the name given in the old Freudian psychology to the section of the ego, mostly on the unconscious level, that criticizes one's performance by comparing it with some ideal and punishes one by making one unhappy when one fails to live up to the ideal."
"Do you mean the conscience?" said Otterburn. Dubrowsky was fastening. the thing around his bare torso. There was a little flat black-enameled box in front, over his solar plexus, and another in back. The two were connected by a number of straps radiating from each, so that they looked not unlike a pair of enormous black spiders embracing Otterburn's trunk between them.
"No, not exactly the conscience," said de Castro."That is on the conscious level."
"Let's not get off into psych terminology," said Dubrowsky."Been listening to it for years now and I still don't understand it. The point is that it may temporarily uninhibit you a little, like a prefrontal lobotomy. Or hibit you, if you prefer." He smiled at his little joke.
"That's why I wanted you to be the first subject, because heaven knows if there's anybody on the station who's over-inhibited it's you. Gives us a margin of safety to play with.".
De Castro smiled agreement."Yes, Tom, you even stand out among a crowd of research scientists, who tend to be inhibited introverts—you know, the quiet, subdued, intellectual type—-to begin with."
Dubrowsky said, "All right, she's ready to go. Are you?"
"Okay," said Otterburn, feeling a little like the Earl of Essex giving his own executioner the signal to swing the ax. Despite the excitement inside him, however, he kept his voice as low and steady as always.
Chapter II.
Dubrowsky clicked the switch on the chest-section of the materiostat, saying: "We'll try it on low power first." He turned the knob control to the first index figure."Feel anything?"
"No, not a thing—wait, it tingles a little," said Otterburn.
They waited several minutes in silence."Anything now?" asked Dubrowsky.
"No. I got used to the tingle so I don't notice it."
"How about your brain?"
"Hasn't affected it at all as far as I can tell."
"All right, let's begin testing. Brace yourself." Dubrowsky put his hand out and touched the skin of Otterburn's face, neck, and thorax. Then he began slapping lightly, making a note on a pad after each slap.
As long as he moved his hand slowly nothing out of the ordinary happened, but as he slapped harder, some force manifested itself just before his hand reached his subject's skin, so that his slaps were slowed and cushioned before they reached their target.
"Try intermediate," suggested de Castro.
Dubrowsky turned the control a notch higher."Any feeling?"
"No, sir," said Otterburn."A little more tingle but that's going away now. Okay, go ahead, sock me one."
Dubrowsky tried more slaps. This time, when he struck hard, his hand bounced back before it reached Otterburn's skin at all. Finally Dubrowsky doubled his fist and threw a stiff punch at Otterburn's jaw.
The fist bounced off empty air. Otterburn's head rocked a bit as the energy of the fist was transferred to it through the cushioning medium of the materiostat field, but he grinned.
"Hot spit!" he said."That didn't hurt at all. Here, you, give me a whack with that stick!"
De Castro raised an eyebrow—after all he was nearly twice Otterburn's age—but wordlessly picked up the sawed-off broomstick and swung on Otterburn. The stick swooshed through the air and bounced harmlessly away.
Otterburn's grin became broader."Say, this is the thing to wear when you're attending a riot! Too bad we haven't got a bow and arrow," he said."We could put on a William Tell act. I know, how about a baseball? I don't suppose there'd be one around the lab, would there?"
"Come to think of it, one of the mechs has one they play catch with in the lunch hour," said Dubrowsky."Hey, John!"
The mechanic presently produced one very dirty hard baseball out of his tool-box."You want I should lend you the gloves too?" he said.
"No thanks," said Dubrowsky."Stand by, everybody!" He wound up and hurled the ball at Otterburn in a very creditable pitch.
The ball ricocheted off the field and went through a pane of glass separating Dubrowsky's part of the laboratory from that adjoining. The tinkle of falling glass mingled with shouts of alarm and indignation from the engineers in the next section.
"Oh-oh," said Dubrowsky."Must be getting kind of hibited myself." He recovered the baseball, pacified the occupants of the adjacent booth as best he could and returned the ball to its owner.
"Now," he said with artificial solemnity, "let's try high."
When he turned the control as far as it would go, the results were similar only more so. Even a light tap was repulsed, and the subject's clothes showed a tendency to bag out from his body as he moved.
Dubrowsky said, "With that setting you'd have to be careful about eating. If you shoved a forkful of grub at your face too fast it would fly off at a tangent."
Otterburn, moving tentatively, said, "Wouldn't be practical unless I were going to jump off a high building or something. Now let's try the stat at various settings with all my clothes on."
Two hours later de Castro asked, "You say you do not feel any effect, any mental effect that is?"
"Not a bit. I never felt better."
"It might be that you are afflicted with euphoria," said de Castro, "like that induced by alcohol or anoxemia."
Otterburn shook his head vigorously."Nonsense, Doc. I've drunk liquor and I've been anoxic in the altitude chamber and I know what euphoria feels like. I feel perfectly normal. Want me to do some simple addition to show you?"