And that, Allen knew, was the truth—the bitter truth.
For years now there had been a breakdown of human efficiency. It had started gradually, a few incidents here, a few there. But it had spread, had progressed almost geometrically; had reached a point now where, unless something could be done about it, the Solar System’s economic and industrial fabric would go to pot for lack of men to run it and the power plants and laboratories, the mills, the domed cities, the communication system men had built on all the planets encircling the Sun would crumble into dust.
Men were better trained, better equipped mentally, more brilliant than ever before. Of that there was no question. They had to be. Hundreds of jobs demanded geniuses. And there were geniuses, thousands of them, more than ever before. Trouble was they didn’t stay geniuses. They went insane.
There had been evidence of a mass insanity trend as far back as the twentieth century, stemming even then from the greater demands which an increasingly complex, rapidly changing, vastly speeded-up civilization placed upon the human brain, upon human capabilities and skills. With the development of a scientific age, man suddenly had been called upon to become a mental giant. Man had tried, had in part succeeded. But the pace had been too fast—the work of man had outstripped his brain. Now man was losing out.
Today the world was a world of specialization. To be of economic value, men had to specialize. They had to study harder than ever to fit themselves into their world. College courses were tougher and longer. The very task of educating themselves for a place in their civilization placed upon them a nervous tension that was only intensified when they took over the strenuous, brain-wearing workaday tasks to which they were assigned.
No wonder, Allen told himself, that there came a time when they threw up their hands, walked out, didn’t give a damn.
“You’ve got to find out what’s wrong with the bright boys,” he said. “You have to find what’s in their make-up that makes them unstable. Maybe there’s something wrong with their education, with the way it’s dished out to them. Maybe—”
“The educators and psychologists are conducting research along those lines,” Chambers reminded him, shortly.
“I get it,” said Allen. “I’m to stick to my own field. All right, then. I’m going to tell you something that will make you madder than hell.”
Chambers sat silent, waiting. Hannibal shifted himself along the desk, edging closer to Allen, almost as if he were listening and didn’t want to miss a word.
“It’s this Sanctuary business,” Allen said. “You’ve seen the ads—”
He stopped in flustered embarrassment, but Chambers nodded.
“I see them, yes. I read the papers, Moses. I spread them out and Hannibal looks at them and I read them, just as well as you do. You needn’t be so sensitive about my blindness.”
“Sanctuary has those ads plastered all over the place,” said Allen. “In papers, on signboards, everywhere. Sometimes they call themselves a rest home, sometimes a sanitarium. Sometimes they don’t even bother to call themselves anything. Just use a lot of white space, with the name ‘Sanctuary’ in big type. Refined, all of it. Nothing crude. Nothing quackish about it. They’ve run about all the other mental sanitariums out of business. Nobody thinks of going anywhere but Sanctuary when they go batty now.”
“What are you getting at?” snapped Chambers.
“I told you it would make you sore,” Allen reminded him. “They’ve fooled you, just like they’ve fooled all the rest of us. Let me tell you what I know about them.”
Chambers’ lips were thin and straight. “Whatever made you investigate them, Moses? Sanctuary is—” He faltered. “Why, Sanctuary is—”
Allen laughed. “Yes, I know what you mean. Sanctuary is lily-white. Sanctuary is noble. It’s a shining haven in a world that’s going haywire. Yeah, that’s what you think and everyone thinks. I thought so myself. I started looking them up on a hunch. I hated myself. I felt like I ought to go and hide. But I had a hunch, see, and I never pass one up. So I gritted my teeth and went ahead. And I’m convinced that Sanctuary is either the greatest racket the Solar System has ever known or it’s tied up with this insanity some way. My best guess is that it’s a racket. I can’t figure any angles the other way except that maybe they’re doing something to drive people nuts just to boost their business and that doesn’t add up for a lot of reasons. If it’s a racket, I’m wasting my time. There’s bigger game to hunt than rackets these days.”
He took a deep breath. “First I checked up on Dr. Jan Nichols, he’s the fellow that runs it. And he’s a nobody, far as I can find out. Certainly not a psychiatrist. Was in the Solar Service at one time. Headed a party making a survey of mineral resources out in the Belt. Had a minor degree in mineralogy. Just that, nothing more, no specialization. An opportunist, I would deduce. Took just enough education to get a job.
“Our records show the whole party dropped out of sight. Listed as lost. All the rest of them still are lost so far as anybody knows.
“I tried to get in touch with Nichols and couldn’t do it. There’s no way to reach him. No mail service. No radio service. Nothing. Sanctuary is isolated. If you want anything there, you go there personally, yourself.”
“I hadn’t realized that,” said Chambers.
“Neither does anyone else,” declared Allen. “No one tries to get in touch with Sanctuary unless they need their services and if they need their services they go there. But you haven’t heard the half of it.”
Allen lit a cigarette. A clock chimed softly in the room, and Hannibal, leaning out from the desk, took a swipe at Allen, missed him by bare inches.
The Secret Service man leaned back in his chair. “So, since I couldn’t get in touch with Nichols, I sent some of my men out to Sanctuary. Six of them, in fact, at different times—”
He looked at Chambers, face grim.
“They didn’t come back.”
Chambers started slightly. “They didn’t come back. You mean—”
“I mean just that. They didn’t come back. I sent them out. Then nothing happened. No word from them. No word of them. They simply disappeared. That was three months ago.”
“It seems incredible,” declared Chambers. “Never for a moment have we worried about curing or caring for the men who went insane. Sanctuary did that, we thought. Better than anyone else could.”
He shot a sudden question. “They do cure them, don’t they?”
“Certainly,” said Allen. “Certainly, they cure them. I’ve talked with many they have cured. But those they cure never go back into Solar Service. They are—”
He wrinkled his brow. “It’s hard to put into words, chief. They seem to be different people. Their behavior patterns don’t check against their former records. They have forgotten most of their former skills and knowledge. They aren’t interested in things they were interested in before. They have a funny look in their eyes. They—”
Chambers waved a hand. “You have to realize they would be changed. The treatment might—”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Allen. “Your reaction is just the same as mine was—as everyone else’s would be. It’s instinctive to protect Sanctuary, to offer apology for it. Because, you see, every last one of us, some day may need to go there. And knowing that it’s there, we feel reassured. Maybe we go batty. So what? Sanctuary will fix us up O.K. Won’t cost us a cent if we haven’t got the money. Even free transportation if we haven’t got the fare. It’s something to anchor to in this mad world. A sort of faith, even. It’s tough to have it knocked from under you.”