‘I said, ‘Thank you, Most Reverend Sir.’
‘Don’t thank me, thank the Lord I serve. However,’ he went on, frowning slightly, ‘this frontal assault on the mind, while necessary, is unavoidably painful. You will forgive me?’
I hesitated only an instant. ‘I forgive you, holy sir.’
He glanced at the lights and said wryly, ‘A falsehood. But you are forgiven that falsehood; it was well intended.’ He nodded at his silent helpers. ‘Commence.’
A light blinded me, an explosion crashed in my ears. My right leg jerked with pain, then knotted in an endless cramp. My throat contracted; I choked and tried to throw up. Something struck me in the solar plexus; I doubled up and could not catch my breath. ‘Where did you put her?’ A noise started low and soft, climbed higher and higher, increasing in pitch and decibels, until it was a thousand dull saws, a million squeaking slate pencils, then wavered in a screeching ululation that tore at the thin wall of reason. ‘Who helped you?’ Agonizing heat was at my crotch; I could not get away from it. ‘Why did you do it?’ I itched all over, intolerably, and tried to tear at my skin-but my arms would not work. The itching was worse than pain; I would have welcomed pain in lieu of scratching. ‘Where is she?’
Light…sound…pain…heat…convulsions…cold…falling…light and pain…cold and falling…nausea and sound. ‘Do you love the Lord?’ Searing heat and shocking cold…pain and a pounding in my head that made me scream-‘Where did you take her? Who else was in it? Give up and save your immortal soul.’ Pain and an endless nakedness to the outer darkness.
I suppose I fainted.
Some one was slapping me across the mouth. ‘Wake up, John Lyle, and confess! Zebadiah Jones has given you away.’
I blinked and said nothing. It was not necessary to simulate a dazed condition, nor could I have managed it. But the words had been a tremendous shock and my brain was racing, trying to get into gear. Zeb? Old Zeb? Poor old Zeb! Hadn’t they had time to give him hypnotic treatment, too? It did not occur to me even then to suspect that Zeb had broken under torture alone; I simply assumed that they had been able to tap his unconscious mind. I wondered if he were already dead and remembered that I had gotten him into this, against his good sense. I prayed for his soul and prayed that he would forgive me.
My head jerked to another roundhouse slap. ‘Wake up! You can hear me-Jones has revealed your sins.’
‘Revealed what?’ I mumbled.
The Grand Inquisitor motioned his assistants aside and leaned over me, his kindly face full of concern. ‘Please, my son, do this for the Lord-and for me. You have been brave in trying to protect your fellow sinners from the fruits of their folly, but they failed you and your stiff-necked courage no longer means anything. But don’t go to judgment with this on your soul. Confess, and let death come with your sins forgiven.’
‘So you mean to kill me?’
He looked faintly annoyed. ‘I did not say that. I know that you do not fear death. What you should fear is to meet your Maker with your sins still on your soul. Open your heart and confess.’
‘Most Reverend Sir. I have nothing to confess.’
He turned away from me and gave orders in low, gentle tones. ‘Continue. The mechanicals this time; I don’t wish to burn out his brain.’
There is no point in describing what he meant by ‘the mechanicals’ and no sense in making this account needlessly grisly. His methods differed in no important way from torture techniques used in the Middle Ages and even more recently-except that his knowledge of the human nervous system was incomparably greater and his knowledge of behavior psychology made his operations more adroit. In addition, he and his assistants behaved as if they were completely free of any sadistic pleasure in their work; it made them coolly efficient.
But let’s skip the details.
I have no notion of how long it took. I must have passed out repeatedly, for my clearest memory is of catching a bucket of ice water in the face not once but over and over again, like a repeating nightmare-each time followed by the inevitable hypo. I don’t think I told them anything of any importance while I was awake and the hypno instructions to my unconscious may have protected me while I was out of my head. I seem to remember trying to make up a lie about sins I had never committed; I don’t remember what came of it.