“I said, you can come in now,” a voice broke into my thoughts, a female voice filled with annoyance. I looked up to see that the left-hand door of the two had been opened, and the woman stood in the doorway. She wore a light brown uniform and had brown hair and eyes, and seemed to have spoken to me once before without my having heard her. She was slender and fairly tall, and without the frown she might have been pretty.
“I suppose you were too busy thinking about the honor you’ve been given to pay attention to anything else,” she added, stepping back to give me room when I rose and walked over to her. “I’ve noticed that that’s usually the case. ”
“Well, it doesn’t happen to be the case with me,” I answered, wondering why she seemed so-distantly angry and accusing. “I told them what to do with their honor, and they smiled and told me to run along and play. If you’re about to add your own excellent advice and assistance, do us both a favor and save it for someone else. ”
I was annoyed that shed interrupted me when I’d been on the track of something important relating to my stolen memories, but she didn’t come back at me the way I thought she would. I could almost see her blinking in surprise, and then she looked at me with more interest and a good deal more concern.
“You’re not being held by the conditioning,” she said in a tone of near-revelation, but not what might be called a happy tone. “I’ve never seen one like you coming through here, and although I thought I’d find a meeting like this satisfying, I’m afraid I’m suddenly more deeply into feeling sorry for you. Why didn’t the conditioning work?”
“We’re all still trying to figure that out,” I responded, moving into the small office shed come out of. “That man Serdin thinks it was because of the way Director Gearing tried to welcome me to this place, and that might even be true. When he put his hand on me I was really repelled, so much so that I fought back. Before I knew what was happening I had won the fight, and the world had suddenly changed from gilded to brassy.”
“I’m not surprised to hear you were repelled by Gearing,” she said, making a face as she moved past me to get back to her small desk. “He-welcomes-every nonfertile Prime brought to the facility, and they do nothing to stop him because they need his stupid arrogance as a protective facade. Maybe this time they’ll at least give him a few regrets.”
Her office was really tiny, with nothing but the desk and a chair for her, and one chair in front of the desk. There were a few plaques scattered around on the walls in place of artwork, but one thing she did have was a full square yard of dot storage, the largest private library I could ever remember seeing. She’d closed the door behind me so, thinking I’d be there at least as long as I’d been in the other two offices, I moved to take her guest chair. She herself had stopped beside the desk instead of sitting down behind it, and when she saw what I was doing she shook her head.
“Don’t bother sitting down,” she said, picking up a folder set into a clipboard. “I usually spend a few minutes adding my congratulations to everyone else’s just to keep the pretense balanced, but this time it’s obviously not necessary. We’ll go straight to the examination and skip the small talk.”
“Examination?” I echoed, not understanding the sudden flash of heavy annoyance I felt at the suggestion. “Why do I have to be examined? And why do they need Gearing as a front for them? I’d like to know what’s really going on here, and why you’re working for them if you’re all that disapproving. If it was me, I’d leave.”
“Really?” she said, raising brows with no true surprise behind the gesture. “Just the way you’re leaving now because you’re unhappy about being here? I didn’t volunteer for this any more than you did, I was assigned to the post by my superiors. Once I learned what was going on I tried telling them I wanted no part of it, but all they did was smile and tell me to get back to work. Does that sound at all familiar to you?”
“Too familiar,” I agreed with a sigh, wondering if there were more than three people on that planet who were free to come and go as they pleased. I was tempted to say she was only being forced to stay, not to cooperate, but I wanted to see first how I did against them before I accused anyone else of improper resistance. “They seem to have a lot of experience ignoring protests. And all that learning you did about what was really going on-It explained everything and answered all your questions?”
“Yes, it certainly did,” she said, a dryness having entered her voice as she stared at me. “Unfortunately, though, it won’t be doing the same for you. I don’t know what they’d do to me if I started spreading around the little details of their plans, but it would undoubtedly be something to teach me the attractions of discretion. Don’t underestimate them at any time, my friend. Their plans are more important to them than you or I as individuals could ever be, and they won’t let anyone stand in their way. My examination room is through here.”
“Here” was a door leading into another, larger room, and the woman entered it without giving me a chance to argue with her. The new room had lots of very modern equipment designed for the most thorough of diagnoses and examinations, and even if I hadn’t been feeling frustrated from all the stone walls I’d been running into I wouldn’t have liked it. It was the sort of place that made me feel as though I’d just come off an assembly line, one of ten thousand others just like me, nothing but a unit to be run through the next process and then sent on my way. There was nothing of the personal in that very clean, light brown room, and once again I felt the ghost of being absolutely and completely alone.
“I’m sure you know that none of this is here to do you harm,” the woman said, and her voice had suddenly become kinder and more compassionate. “Let’s start with a general check, shall we? It will only take a couple of minutes. ”
She was looking at me as though she thought I needed comforting, as though she thought I couldn’t take care of myself. Other people I couldn’t quite remember had thought that about me, but I’d proved to them and everyone how wrong they were. I didn’t need anyone to take care of me, and walking over without a fuss to the table the woman had patted simply proved the point another time.
I had to take off that thin cloth smock before lying on the table, but that didn’t make me any more uncomfortable than I already was. I started wondering if I were already beginning to do what they wanted by not refusing to be examined, but by the time I decided I certainly was, the top of the machine had already been closed over me. As the lights came on I thought I understood just how alert I’d have to be in the future to keep something like that from happening again, but the entire truth of that thought hadn’t yet been brought home to me. The machine began to hum as the examination started, and then I was taught the lesson a bit more thoroughly.
Most physicals aren’t “physical” in the least, in the sense that you aren’t touched during them, not even by sensors. You’re completely scoped and scanned by the machinery all around you, measured and weighed and checked for blockages and stoppages and irregularities and anything that deviates from your particular norm. If something is found the doctor in charge is alerted, and more specific testing is then done. As the woman had said, the general check doesn’t usually take more than a couple of minutes, during which time you just lie there watching the pretty-colored lights blink. Most people know the lights have nothing to do with the exam; they’re there to give you something to look at while you’re waiting.