Mack Reynolds: Ability Quotient

Within a few minutes he was speeding up the rate of page turning. The tests at the end of each chapter seemed irritatingly simple He wanted to get on with it. He plowed on through, speeding up, speeding up. And, once again, came to the end of the course, startled.

The screen said, “You have been credited with Anthropology One.”

He sat there for a moment and stared at it. He licked his lips and said, “Kay. What’s next?”

“Ancient History One. Our Oriental Heritage.”

“Jesus,” Bert said in resignation.

“No,” the screen said. “The period previous to the emergence of the Christian ethic.”

Who could expect a computer to have a sense of humor?

“Kay, let’s go.”

At six o’clock he called it quits and stumbled from his chair and to the bar in the corner. He looked up at the selection of potables. It looked as though it had been chosen by a multi-millionaire Some of the Scotch was forty years old. If they wanted to woo him with forty-year-old whisky, he’d be glad to cooperate. He reached up for bottle and glass and poured himself a healthy slug, a very healthy one. The military had taught him to take his drink where he could find it and to get it down quickly before somebody, or something, changed the situation under which you could imbibe.

He held the glass up in a sarcastic toast and said, “Here’s to education,” and belted it down.

It was ultra-smooth, ultra-strong and had an absolutely wonderful bouquet. He had never tasted a more delicate spirit in his life. He hadn’t known that strong liquor could go down so wonderfully.

He looked into his now empty glass and then at the bottle from which he had poured it and said, admiringly, “Now that’s what I call whiskey.”

And then he fell unconscious.

He had awakened how many hours later, he didn’t know. He had failed to check the time between finishing his last lesson and taking the drink. He felt nauseated, but, surprisingly, at the same time desperately hungry. He was starved. He looked out the fabulous picture window. It was pitch dark outside. He looked at his wrist chronometer. The second hand was creeping.

“Oh, oh,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet, groaning, and made his way over to the table where—how many centuries ago?—Professor Ralph Marsh, the fink, had left the two pill bottles. What was it? Brown turned you on, green turned off. Oh great. He felt like one of the victims of some mad scientist type.

However, he shook out one of the green pills, knocked it back and went over to the bar for water.

He couldn’t imagine getting any food into his stomach, feeling as it did, but on the other hand he was still desperately hungry It came to him that when he was stimulated, turned on, or call it whatever you will, that he burned up energy like a dynamo. Nervous energy, perhaps, but where physical consumption of energy ended and nervous began, he didn’t know. In combat you could spend several days sitting in a foxhole, immobile for endless hours at a time, and come out having lost as much as ten pounds, although you had eaten reasonably well of the high energy foods the military provided.

He stumbled to the kitchen and, lacking imagination, ordered the same dishes he had eaten at lunch. He managed to get down three steaks this time. The nausea had largely disappeared after the first few bites of hot food.

He went back into the study, irritation growing in him by the minute, and sat down at the desk phone screen. He activated it and said, “Professor Ralph Marsh.”

“The number is restricted. Who is calling, please?”

He grunted sarcastically. These people were really exclusive. “Albert Alshuler.”

“You name is listed. Thank you.”

“It had better be,” he growled.

Marsh’s face faded in. By the grain, he was evidently on his pocket phone and from the appearance of his image, evidently in a moving vehicle.

“Yes, Alshuler?”

Bert said, “Look. The booze in this apartment. Somebody’s put a mickey in it.”

“Mickey?”

“Somebody’s poisoned it. I took a slug a few hours ago and bang, passed out. I still feel a little sick.”

The other was staring at him. “But that’s impossible!”

“Great. And here I stand, wasting my time telling you fairy stories, eh?”

“How do you feel now?”

“Better. I got some food into my stomach.”

Marsh thought about it, his plump face pouting. “Well, I’ll go over it with you in the morning. I’d suggest you don’t drink anything more before then.”

Bert looked at him in disgust and switched the phone off.

He awoke at first dawn, opened one eye to take a look at the light, growled and turned over again.

But there was no sleep in him. Too much was pounding away in his mind. He got up and explored the bathroom that led off the master bedroom. It was ultramodern, as was the rest of the suite, and was well stocked with a man’s toilet articles.

He performed standard ablutions, then returned to where he had left his suitcases. He opened them in search for clean clothing but then something came to him He went over to one of the huge closets and opened it. There were at least a dozen suits, obviously brand new, inside. He turned and went over to a set of drawers and inside found a wide selection of shirts, underclothing, socks, a veritable warehouse of clothing. He had a sneaking suspicion that it would fit him. It did, suits and all, and was of a quality he had never experienced. He went on a search for shoes and found them, a score of pairs, running from dress shoes to loafers.

When he was fully dressed, he stared at himself in a full length mirror. “Beyond dreams of avarice,” he muttered.

The door screen summoned him before he had decided whether to take another of the brown pills and give his next subject a whirl.

It was the lardy Professor Marsh, as well turned out and as condescending as ever, and with oversized briefcase in hand. As soon as he was in the door, he said, “Now, what was this about being poisoned? How do you feel?”

“Better,” Bert said, leading the way back to the living room. “Listen, what’s all this about?”

“First, the alleged poisoning.”

Bert took him to the bar and indicated the Scotch. “I knocked back about two ounces of that and in no time flat, passed out like a light.”

At Bert’s nod, he removed the top, poured himself a small portion and drank it.

“You’ll be sorry,” Bert told him sourly.

But there was no reaction. Marsh said testily, “You were under the influence of the ganglioside?”

“The what?”

“The brown pill.”

“That’s right.”

“It never occurred to us. Evidently, alcohol is toxic when you are, ah, turned on.”

Bert Alshuler was indignant. “You mean to tell me you haven’t worked this out any further than that?”

“We’ll look into it further. It’s not important. Now, how far did you get yesterday?”

Bert glared at him. “Through that math, through elementary ethnology and ancient history one. If I hadn’t been bombed with that drink, I probably…”

“All right, all right,” Marsh cut him off. He bent over his briefcase and began extracting medical equipment. “You are doing even better than we had hoped.”

“Listen, who’s we, and what’s this all about?”

“All in good time.”

“All in good time, hell. I want an answer, Marsh. For all I know, this turn on, turn off stuff will turn my brain into mush after a few sessions. It’s obviously based on some psychedelic—”

“No, not exactly. We’ve gone far beyond the early psychedelics.”

“Kay. It’s not my field, but I object to being the first customer cruising through this rat maze. I want some answers. ”