Judith Merril - The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 2

He whipped the blanket away from his face and gave himself up to an explosion of merriment which was past vocalization—in fact, but for that soft and intense chuckle, he had made hardly a sound.

“You . . .”

The doctor watched and slowly felt a vacuum in the scene somehow, and a great tugging to fill it with understanding, and the understanding would not come until the word “ridiculous” slipped through his mind . . . and that was it: This should be ridiculous, a grown man reacting like a seven-month infant. What was extraordinary was that it was not ridiculous and that it was indeed a grown man, not a mere infantile segment.

It was a thing to be felt. There was a—a radiance in these bursts of candid merriment which, though certainly childlike, were not childish. It was a quality to be laughed with, not laughed at.

He glanced at the audio selector. Yes, this was the 200-cycle response that Miss Thomas had mentioned. “A personality—” He began to see what she had meant. He began, too, to be afraid.

He went to the wall rack where the technician’s response-breakdown was clipped. It was a standard form, one column showing the frequencies arbitrarily assigned to age levels (700 cycles and the command suggestion: “You are eleven years old”) and another column with the frequencies assigned to emotional states (800 cycles and “You are very angry”; 14 cycles, “You are afraid”).

Once the patient was completely catalyzed, response states could readily be induced and their episodic material extracted—fear at age three, sexuality at fourteen, fear plus anger plus gratification at age six, or any other combination.

The 200-cycle area was blotchy with Miss Thomas’s erasures, but otherwise blank.

The doctor inwardly shook himself and got a firm grip. He went to the bed and stood looking down at that sensitive, responsive face.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The patient looked at him, eyes bright, a glad, anticipatory smile on his lips. The doctor sensed that the man did not understand him, but that he was eager to; further, that from the bottom of his heart the man was prepared to be delighted when he did understand. It filled the doctor with an almost tender anxiety, a protectiveness. This creature could not be disappointed—that would be inartistic to the point of gross injustice.

“What’s your name?” the doctor pursued.

The patient smiled at him and sat up. He looked into the doctor’s eyes with an almost unbearable attention and a great waiting, ready to treasure whatever might come next if only—if only he could identify it.

One thing’s certain, mused the doctor: this was no infantile segment. Child, yes, but not quite child.

“Miss Jarrell.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“The initial, the middle initial on the chart. It’s ‘A.’ What does that stand for?”

After a moment, “Anson,” she said.

To the patient, he said. “I’m going to call you Anson. That will be your name.” He put his hand on the patient’s chest. “Anson.”

The man looked down at the hand and up, expectantly, at the doctor.

The doctor said, touching his white coat, “Doctor. Doctor.” He pointed at Miss Jarrell. “Miss—”

“Hildy,” said Miss Jarrell quickly.

The doctor could not help it; he grinned briefly. This elicited a silent burst of glee from the patient, which was shut off instantly, to be replaced by the anticipation, the watchful and ready attentiveness. He burdened the doctor with his waiting and the necessity to appreciate. Yet what burden was it, really? This creature would appreciate the back of a hand across the face or two choruses of the Londonderry Air.

The doctor poised over the bed, waiting for an answer, and it came:

The burden lay in the necessity not to please this entity, but to do this thing properly, in ways which would never have to be withdrawn later. He trusts me —there, in three words, was the burden.

The doctor took the patient’s hand and put the fingertips close to his lips. “An-son,” he said. Then he put the hand to the patient’s own mouth, nodding encouragingly.

The patient obviously wanted to do it right, too—more, even, than the doctor. His lips trembled. Then, “An-son,” he said.

Across the room, Miss Jarrell clapped her hands and laughed happily.

“That’s right,” smiled the doctor, pointing. “Anson. You’re Anson.” He touched his own chest. “Doc-tor.” He pointed again. “Miss Hildy.”

The man in the bed sat up slowly, his eyes on the doctor’s face. “An-son. Anson.” And then a light seemed to flood him. He hit his chest with his knuckles. “Anson!” he cried. He felt his own biceps, his face, and laughed.

“That’s right,” said the doctor.

“Doc . . . tok,” said Anson with difficulty. He looked wistful, almost distraught.

“That’s okay. That’s good. Doctor.”

“Doc-tor.” Anson turned brightly to Miss Jarrell and pointed. “Miss Hildy!” he sang triumphantly.

“Bless you,” she said, saying it like a blessing.

While Anson grinned, the doctor stood for a moment grinning back like a fool and feeling frightened and scratching his head.

Then he went to work.

“Richard,” he said sharply, and watched for a reaction.

There was none, just the happy eagerness.

“Dick.”

Nothing.

“Newell.”

Nothing.

“Hold up your right hand. Close your eyes. Look out of the window. Touch your hair. Let me see your tongue.”

Anson did none of these things.

The doctor wet his lips. “Osa.”

Nothing.

He glanced at Miss Jarrell. “Anson,” he said, and Anson increased his attention. It was startling; the doctor hadn’t known he could. “Anson, listen.” He pulled back his sleeve and showed his watch. “Watch. Watch.” He held it close, then put it to Anson’s ear.

Anson gurgled delightedly. “Tk tk,” he mimicked. He cocked his head and listened carefully to the doctor repeating the word. Then. “Wats. Watts. Watch,” he said, and clapped his hands exactly as Miss Jarrell had done before.

“All right, Miss Jarrell. That’s enough for now. Turn him off.”

He heard her intake of breath and thought she was going to speak. When she did not, he faced her and smiled. “It’s all right, Miss Jarrell. We’ll take good care of him.”

She looked for the sarcasm in his face, between his words, back in recall, anywhere, and did not find it. She laughed suddenly and heartily; he knew she was laughing at herself, spellbound as she had been, anxious for the shining something which hid in the 200-cycle area.

“I could use a little therapy myself, I guess,” she said wonderingly.

“I would recommend it to you if you had reacted any other way.”

She went to the door and opened it. “I like working here,” she said, blushed, and went out.

The doctor’s smile disappeared with the click of the latch. He glanced once at the patient, then moved blindly to the controls. He locked them and went back to his office.

Miss Thomas knocked. Getting no answer, she entered the doctor’s office. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I thought—”

The expression on his face halted her. She took the reports she carried and put them down on the desk. He did not move. She went to the cabinet, which slid open for her, and shook two white pills from a vial. She broke a beam with a practiced flick of the wrist. A paper cup dropped and filled with ice-water. She took it to the doctor. “Here.”

He said rapidly, “What? What? What?” and, seeking, looked the wrong way to find her voice. He turned again, saw her. “What?” and put his hand for a moment over his eyes. “Oh, Miss Thomas.”