But it was considerably more absorbing, say, than even chess.
Brother Chard could beat boredom. He could probably beat another three years of boredom.
He hadn’t forgiven anyone for making him do it.
* * *
THE END OF YEAR FIVE
For some hours, the association’s Altiplano station had been dark and almost deserted. Only the IMT transit lock beneath one of the sprawling ranch houses showed in the vague light spreading out of the big scanning plate in an upper wall section. The plate framed an unimpressive section of the galaxy, a blurred scattering of stars condensing toward the right, and, somewhat left of center, a large misty red globe.
John Emanuel Fredericks, seated by himself in one of the two Tube operator chairs, ignored the plate. He was stooped slightly forwards, peering absorbedly through the eyepieces of the operator scanner before him.
Melvin Simms, Psychologist, strolled in presently through the transit lock’s door, stopped behind Fredericks, remarked mildly, “Good evening, doctor.”
Fredericks started and looked around. “Never heard you arrive, Mel. Where’s Ollie?”
“He and Spalding dropped in at Spalding’s place in Vermont. They should be along in a few minutes.”
“Spalding?” Fredericks repeated inquiringly. “Our revered president intends to observe the results of Ollie’s experiment in person?”
“He’ll represent the board here,” Simms said. “Whereas I, as you may have guessed, represent the outraged psychology department.” He nodded at the plate. “That the place?”
“That’s it. ET Base Eighteen.”
“Not very sharp in the Tube, is it?”
“No. Still plenty of interfering radiation. But it’s thinned out enough for contact. Reading 0.19, as of thirty minutes ago.” Fredericks indicated the chair beside him. “Sit down if you want a better look.”
“Thanks.” The psychologist settled himself in the chair, leaned forward and peered into the scanner. After a few seconds he remarked, “Not the most hospitable-looking place—”
Fredericks grunted. “Any of the ecologists will tell you Eighteen’s an unspoiled beauty. No problems there except the ones we bring along ourselves.”
Simms grinned faintly. “Well, we’re good at doing that, aren’t we? Have you looked around for uh . . . for McAllen’s subject yet?”
“No. Felt Ollie should be present when we find out what’s happened. Incidentally, how did the meeting go?”
“You weren’t tuned in?” Simms asked, surprised.
“No. Too busy setting things up for contact.”
“Well”—Simms sat back in his chair—”I may say it was a regular bear garden for a while, Doctor. Psychology expressed itself as being astounded, indignant, offended. In a word, they were hopping mad. I kept out of it, though I admit I was startled when McAllen informed me privately this morning of the five-year project he’s been conducting on the quiet. He was accused of crimes ranging . . . oh, from the clandestine to the inhumane. And, of course, Ollie was giving it back as good as he got.”
“Of course.”
“His arguments,” Simms went on, pursing his lips reflectively, “were not without merit. That was recognized. Nobody enjoys the idea of euthanasia as a security device. Many of us feel—I do—that it’s still preferable to the degree of brain-washing required to produce significant alterations in a personality type of Chard’s class.”
“Ollie feels that, too,” Fredericks said. “The upshot of the original situation, as he saw it, was that Barney Chard had been a dead man from the moment he got on the association’s trail. Or a permanently deformed personality.”
Simms shook his head. “Not the last. We wouldn’t have considered attempting personality alteration in his case.”
“Euthanasia then,” Fredericks said. “Chard was too intelligent to be thrown off the track, much too unscrupulous to be trusted under any circumstances. So Ollie reported him dead.”
* * *
The psychologist was silent for some seconds. “The point might be this,” he said suddenly. “After my talk with McAllen this morning, I ran an extrapolation on the personality pattern defined for Chard five years ago on the basis of his background. Results indicate he went insane and suicided within a year.”
“How reliable are those results?” Fredericks inquired absently.
“No more so than any other indication in individual psychology. But they present a reasonable probability . . . and not a very pleasant one.”
Fredericks said, “Oliver wasn’t unaware of that as a possible outcome. One reason he selected Base Eighteen for the experiment was to make sure he couldn’t interfere with the process, once it had begun.
“His feeling, after talking with Chard for some hours, was that Chard was an overcondensed man. That is Oliver’s own term, you understand. Chard obviously was intelligent, had a very strong survival drive. He had selected a good personal survival line to follow—good but very narrow. Actually, of course, he was a frightened man. He had been running scared all his life. He couldn’t stop.”
Simms nodded.
“Base Eighteen stopped him. The things he’d been running from simply no longer existed. Ollie believed Chard would go into a panic when he realized it. The question was what he’d do then. Survival now had a very different aspect. The only dangers threatening him were the ones inherent in the rigid personality structure he had maintained throughout his adult existence. Would he be intelligent enough to understand that? And would his survival urge—with every alternative absolutely barred to him for five years—be strong enough to overcome those dangers?”
“And there,” Simms said dryly, “we have two rather large questions.” He cleared his throat. “The fact remains however, that Oliver B. McAllen is a good practical psychologist—as he demonstrated at the meeting.”
“I expected Ollie would score on the motions,” Fredericks said. “How did that part of it come off?”
“Not too badly. The first motion was passed unanimously. A vote of censure against Dr. McAllen.”
Fredericks looked thoughtful. “His seventeenth—I believe?”
“Yes. The fact was mentioned. McAllen admitted he could do no less than vote for this one himself. However, the next motion to receive a majority was, in effect, a generalized agreement that men with such . . . ah . . . highly specialized skills as Barney Chard’s and with comparable intelligence actually would be of great value as members of the association, if it turned out that they could be sufficiently relieved of their more flagrant antisocial tendencies. Considering the qualification, the psychology department could hardly avoid backing that motion. The same with the third one—in effect again that Psychology is to make an unprejudiced study of the results of Dr. McAllen’s experiment on Base Eighteen, and report on the desirability of similar experiments when the personality of future subjects appears to warrant them.”
“Well,” Fredericks said, after a pause, “as far as the association goes Ollie got what he wanted. As usual.” He hesitated. “The other matter—”
“We’ll know that shortly.” Simms turned his head to listen, added in a lowered voice, “They’re coming now.”
* * *
Dr. Stephen Spalding said to Simms and Fredericks: “Dr. McAllen agrees with me that the man we shall be looking for on Base Eighteen may be dead. If this is indicated, we’ll attempt to find some evidence of his death before normal ecological operations on Eighteen are resumed.
“Next, we may find him alive but no longer sane. Dr. Simms and I are both equipped with drug-guns which will then be used to render him insensible. The charge is sufficient to insure he will not wake up again. In this circumstance, caution will be required since he was left on the Base with a loaded gun.
“Third, he may be alive and technically sane, but openly or covertly hostile to us.” Spalding glanced briefly at each of the others, then went on, “It is because of this particular possibility that our contact group here has been very carefully selected. If such has been the result of Dr. McAllen’s experiment, it will be our disagreeable duty to act as Chard’s executioners. To add lifelong confinement or further psychological manipulation to the five solitary years Chard already has spent would be inexcusable.
“Dr. McAllen has told us he did not inform Chard of the actual reason he was being marooned—”
“On the very good grounds,” McAllen interrupted, “that if Chard had been told at the outset what the purpose was, he would have preferred killing himself to allowing the purpose to be achieved. Any other human being was Chard’s antagonist. It would have been impossible for him to comply with another man’s announced intentions.”
Simms nodded. “I’ll go along on that point, doctor.”
Scalding resumed, “It might be a rather immaterial point by now. In any event, Chard’s information was that an important `five-year-plan’ of the association made it necessary to restrict him for that length of time. We shall observe him closely. If the indications are that he would act against the association whenever he is given the opportunity, our line will be that the five-year-plan has been concluded, and that he is, therefore, now to be released and will receive adequate compensation for his enforced seclusion. As soon as he is asleep, he will, of course, receive euthanasia. But up to that time, everything must be done to reassure him.”