Robert Heinlein: Time For The Stars

"Huh? Why ask me? You're the psychologist, ma'am. Anyhow," I added, "if you had sat on as many tacks as I have, you'd be suspicions too."

"Mmm... never mind. I've been studying for years and I still don't know what the younger generation is coming to. Well, are you going to take the injection?"

"Uh, I'll take it—since the LRF carries insurance. Just write out what it is you are giving me and sign it."

She got two bright pink spots in her cheeks. But she took out stationery, wrote on it, folded it into an envelope and sealed it. "Put it in your pocket," she said briskly. "Don't look at it until the experiments are over. Now bare your left forearm."

As she gave me the shot she said sweetly, "This is going to sting a little... I hope." It did.

She turned out all the lights except the light in the transparency viewer. "Are you comfortable?"

"Sure."

"I'm sorry if I seemed vexed. I want you to relax and be comfortable." She came over and did something to the chair " I was in; it opened out gently until I was practically lying in a hammock. "Relax and don't fight it. If you find yourself getting sleepy, that is to be expected." She sat down and all I could see was her face, illuminated by the viewer. She was awfully pretty, I decided, even though she was too old for it to matter... at least thirty, maybe older. And she was nice, too. She spoke for a few minutes in her gentle voice but I don't remember exactly what she said.

I must have gone to sleep, for next it was pitch dark and Pat was right there by me, although I hadn't noticed the light go out nor the door being opened. I started to speak when I heard him whisper:

"Tom, did you ever see such nonsensical rigamarole?"

I whispered back, "Reminds me of the time we were initiated into the Congo Cannibals."

"Keep your voice down; they'll catch on."

"You're the one who is talking too loud: Anyhow, who cares? Let's give 'em the Cannibal war whoop and scare 'em out of their shoes."

"Later, later. Right now my girl friend Mabel wants me to give you a string of numbers. So we'll let them have their fun first. After all, they're paying for it."

"Okay."

"Point six nine three one."

"That's the natural logarithm of two."

"What did you think it was? Mabel's telephone number? Shut up and listen. Just repeat the numbers back. Three point one four one five nine..."

It went on quite a while. Some were familiar numbers like the first two; the rest may have been random or even Mabel's phone number, for all of me. I got bored and was beginning to think about sticking in a war whoop on my own when Dr. Arnault said quietly, "End of test run. Both of you please keep quiet and relax for a few minutes. Mabel, I'll meet you in the data comparison room." I heard her go out, so I dropped the war whoop notion and relaxed. Repeating all those numbers in the dark had made me dopey anyhow—and as Uncle Steve says, when you get a chance to rest, do so; you may not get another chance soon.

Presently I heard the door open again, then I was blinking at bright lights. Dr. Arnault said, "That's all today, Tom... and thank you very much. We want to see you and your brother at the same time tomorrow."

I blinked again and looked around. "Where's Pat? What does he say?"

"You'll find him in the outer lobby. He told me that you could come tomorrow. You can, can't you?"

"Uh, I suppose so, if it's all right with him." I was feeling sheepish about the trick we had pulled, so I added, "Dr. Arnault? I'm sorry I annoyed you."

She patted my hand and smiled. "That's all right, You were right to be cautious and you were a good subject. You should see the wild ones we sometimes draw. See you tomorrow."

Pat was waiting in the big room where we had seen the redheads. He fell into step and we headed for the drop.

"I raised the fee for tomorrow," he whispered smugly.

"You did? Pat, do you think we should do this? I mean, fun is fun, but if they ever twig that we are faking, they'll be sore. They might even make us pay back what they've already paid us."

"How can they? We've been paid to show up and take tests. We've done that. It's up to them to rig tests that can't be beaten. I could, if I were doing it."

"Pat, you're dishonest and crooked, both." I thought about Dr. Arnault... she was a nice lady. "I think I'll stay home tomorrow."

I said this just as Pat stepped off the drop. He was ten feet below me all the way down and had forty stories in which to consider his answer. As I landed beside him he answered by changing the subject. "They gave you a hypodermic?"

"Yes."

"Did you think to make them sign an admission of liability, or did you goof?"

"Well, sort of." I felt in my pocket for the envelope; I'd forgotten about it. "I made Dr. Arnault write down what she was giving us."

Pat reached for the envelope. "My apologies, maestro. With my brains and your luck we've got them where we want them." He started to open the envelope. "I bet it was neopentothal-or one of the barbiturates."

I snatched it back. "That's mine."

"Well, open it," he answered, "and don't obstruct traffic. I want to see what dream drug they gave us."

We had come out into the pedestrian level and his advice did have merit. Before opening it I led us across the change strips onto the fast-west strip and stepped behind a wind break. As I unfolded the paper Pat read over my shoulder:

"'Long Range Fumbling, and so forth-injections given to subjects 7L435 & -6 T. P. Bartlett & P. H. Bartlett (iden-twins)—each one-tenth c.c. distilled water raised to normal salinity,' signed 'Doris Arnault, Sc.D., for the Foundation.' Tom, we've been hoaxed!"

I stared at it, trying to fit what I had experienced with what the paper said. Pat added hopefully, "Or is this the hoax? Were we injected with something else and they didn't want to admit it?"

"No," I said slowly. I was sure Dr. Arnault wouldn't write down "water" and actually give us one of the sleeping drugs—she wasn't that sort of person. "Pat, we weren't drugged... we were hypnotized."

He shook his head. "Impossible. Granting that I could be hypnotized, you couldn't be. Nothing there to hypnotize. And I wasn't hypnotized, comrade. No spinning lights, no passes with the hands—why, my girl Mabel didn't even stare in my eyes. She just gave me the shot and told me to take it easy and let it take effect."

"Don't be juvenile, Pat. Spinning lights and such is for suckers. I don't care whether you call it hypnotism or salesmanship. They gave us hypos and suggested that we would be sleepy—so we fell asleep."

"So I was sleepy! Anyhow that wasn't quite what Mabel did. She told me not to go to sleep, or if I did, to wake up when she called me. Then when they brought you in, she—"

"Wait a minute. You mean when they moved you back into the room I was in—"

"No, I don't mean anything of the sort. After they brought you in, Mabel gave me this list of numbers and I read them to you and—"

"Wait a minute," I said. "Pat, you're mixed up. How could you read them in pitch darkness? She must have read them to you. I mean—" I stopped, for I was getting mixed up myself. Well, she could have read to him from another room. "Were you wearing headphones?"

"What's that got to do with it? Anyhow, it wasn't pitch dark, not after they brought you in. She held up the numbers on a board that was rigged with a light of its own, enough to let me see the numbers and her hands."

"Pat, I wish you wouldn't keep repeating nonsense. Hypnotized or not, I was never so dopey that I couldn't notice anything that happened. I was never moved anywhere; they probably wheeled you in without disturbing you. And the room we were in was pitch dark, not a glimmer."