Part 5 (1/2)
Apart from this at least one half of his mental and physical energy had to be expanded in suppressing nausea and bracing himself against the gyrations which still jerked his feet from under him and made friction disks of his shoulders as his body swayed from side to side. All of a sudden he felt that he was being derailed. There was an opening in the plastics wall of the cylinder; a curved metal s.h.i.+eld like the blade of a bulldozer jumped into his path, caught him, slowed down his momentum and delivered him safely at a door marked ”Apperception-Center 24.” It opened and within its frame there stood an angel neatly dressed in the uniform of a registered nurse.
”_There_,” said the angel, ”at _last_. How did you like your little Odyssey through The Brain, Dr. Lee?”
Lee pushed a hand through the mane of his hair; it felt moist and much tangled up.
”Thanks,” he said. ”It was quite an experience. I enjoyed it; Ulysses, too, probably enjoyed his trip between Scylla and Charybdis--after it was over! It's Miss Leahy, I presume.”
The reception room where he had landed, the long white corridor, the instruments gleaming in built-in recesses behind crystal gla.s.s, the nurse's uniform; all spelled clinic, a private one rather for the well-to-do. Since the procedure was routine he might as well submit to it, Lee thought. He felt the familiar taste of disinfectant as a thermometer was stuck into his mouth and then the rubber tube around his arm throbbing with the vigorous pumpings of the efficient Vivian.
”L. F. Mellish, M.D.--I. C. Bondy, M.D.” was painted on the frosted gla.s.s door where she led him afterward. The two medics received Lee with a show of respect mixed with professional cordiality. Both Bondy, the dark and oriental looking chap, and Mellish, blond and florid, were in their middle twenties and both wore tweeds which depressed Lee with the perfection of their cut. Seeing the professional table at the center of the office, Lee frowned but started to undress; he wanted this thing done and over with as soon as possible.
”No, no--that won't be necessary, Dr. Lee,” they stopped him laughingly, ”We have already a complete medical report on you. Came in this morning from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Canberra on our request. You're an old malaria man, Dr. Lee; your first attack occured in '42 during the Pacific campaign. Pity you refused to return to the States for a complete cure right then. As it is it's turned recurrent; left you a bit anemic, liver's slightly affected. But in all other respects you're sound of limb and wind; we've gone over the report pretty carefully.”
”Then why bother with me at all?” Lee said irritably. He had been in doctors' hands too often and had become a little impatient of them.
The freckled hand of Mellish patted his arm. ”We do things different over here,” he said and Bondy chimed in. ”Or rather The Brain does. Just lie down on that table, Dr. Lee, and relax. We're going to enjoy a little movie together, that's all.”
Lee did as he was bidden, but hesitant and suspiciously. He hated medical exams, especially those where parts of one's body were hooked up to a lot of impressive machinery. Of this there obviously was a good deal. The two medics seemed determined literally to wall him in with gadgetry. From the ceiling they lowered a huge, heavy-looking disk; not lights, but more like an electro-magnet beset with protruding needles.
Lee couldn't see the cables but hoped they were strong, for the thing weighed at least a ton and, overhanging him, looked much more ominous than the sword of Damocles. They wheeled a silver screen to the foot of the table and batteries of what appeared to be thermo-therapeutic equipment to both sides. He wasn't being hooked up to anything, but there was much activity with testing of circuits, b.u.t.ton-pus.h.i.+ngs and s.h.i.+ftings of relay-levers. And then all of a sudden lights went out in the room.
”Say, what is the meaning of all this?” Lee raised his head uneasily from the hard cus.h.i.+on. All he could see now were arrays of luminous dials and the faint radiations from electronic tubes filtering through metal screens inside the apparatus which fenced him in. From behind his head a suave voice--was it Bondy's or Mellish's answered out of the dark.
”This is a subconscious a.n.a.lysis and mental reactions test, Dr. Lee.
It's an entirely new method made possible only by The Brain. It has tremendous possibilities; they might include your own work as well.”
”Oh Lord,” Lee moaned. ”Something like psychoa.n.a.lysis? Have you got it mechanized by now? How terrible.”
There was a low chuckle from the other side of his head; they both appeared to have drawn up chairs beyond his field of vision. Lee didn't like it; he liked none of it, in fact. He felt trapped.
”No, Dr. Lee,” said the chuckling voice. ”This isn't psychoa.n.a.lysis in the old sense at all. You are not exposed to any fanciful human interpretation, and it isn't wholly mechanical either as you seem to think. The Brain is going to show you certain images and by way of spontaneous psychosomatic reaction you are going to produce certain images in response. Results are visual, immediate and as convincing as a reflection in a mirror; that's the new beauty of it. And now, concentrate your mind upon your body. Do you feel anything touching you?”
”Y-e-s,” Lee said, ”I think I do--it's--it's uncanny: it's like spiders'
feet--millions of them. It's running all over my skin. What is it?”
”I think he's warming up,” whispered the second voice; then came the first again.
”It's feeler rays, Dr. Lee; the first wave, low penetration surface rays.”
”Where do they come from?”
”From overhead; that is, from the teletactile centers of The Brain.”
”What do they do to me?”
There was the low chuckle again. ”They excite the surface nerves of your body, open up the path for the deep-penetration rays; they proceed from the lower organs to the higher ones; in the end they reach the conscious levels of your brain. It's the tune-in as we call it, Dr. Lee.”
A small movie projector began to purr; a bright rectangle was thrown upon the silver screen and then, Lee stirred. Hands, soothing but firm held him down. ”Where did you get _those_.” he exclaimed.