shave in private. We’re jumpy about the most innocent acts, for fear some
head doctor, half batty himself, will see it and decide it’s a sign we’re
slipping. Good grief, what do you expect?” His outburst having run its
course, he subsided into a flippant cynicism that did not quite jell. “O.K.
— never mind of it, chief,” he added, “and I’m glad to have worked under
you. Good-bye.”
King kept the pain in his eyes out of his voice. “Wait a minute, Cal —
you’re not through here. Let’s forget about the vacation. I’m transferring
you to the radiation laboratory. You belong in research, anyhow; I’d never
have spared you from it to stand watches if I hadn’t been short on No. 1
men.
“As for the constant psychological observation, I hate it as much as you
do. I don’t suppose you know that they watch me about twice as hard as they
watch you duty engineers.” Harper showed his surprise, but Silard nodded in
sober confirmation. “But we have to have this supervision. Do you remember
Manning? No, he was before your time. We didn’t have psychological
observers then. Manning was able and brilliant. Furthermore, he was always
cheerful; nothing seemed to bother him.
“I was glad to have him on the bomb, for he was always alert, and never
seemed nervous about working with it — in fact, he grew more buoyant and
cheerful the longer he stood control watches. I should have known that was
a very bad sign, but I didn’t, and there was no observer to tell me so.
“His technician had to slug him one night. He found him dismounting the
safety interlocks on the trigger. Poor old Manning never pulled out of it —
he’s been violently insane ever since. After Manning cracked up, we worked
out the present system of two qualified engineers and an observer for every
watch. It seemed the only thing to do.”
“I suppose so, chief,” Harper mused, his face no longer sullen, but still
unhappy. “It’s a hell of a situation just the same.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” King rose and put out his hand. “Cal, unless
you’re dead set on leaving us, I’ll expect to see you at the radiation
laboratory tomorrow. Another thing — I don’t often recommend this, but it
might do you good to get drunk tonight.”
King had signed to Silard to remain after the young man left. Once the door
was closed he turned back to the psychiatrist. “There goes another one —
and one of the best. Doctor, what am I going to do?”
Silard pulled at his cheek. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “The hell of it
is, Harper’s absolutely right. It does increase the strain on them to know
that they are being watched — and yet they have to be watched. Your
psychiatric staff isn’t doing too well, either. It makes us nervous to be
around the bomb — the more so because we don’t understand it. And it’s a
strain on us to be hated and despised as we are. Scientific detachment is
difficult under such conditions; I’m getting jumpy myself.”
King ceased pacing the floor and faced the doctor. “But there must be some
solution — ” he insisted.
Silard shook his head. “It’s beyond me, Superintendent. I see no solution
from the standpoint of psychology.”
“No? Hm-m-m. Doctor, who is the top man in your field?”
“Eh?”
“Who is the recognized No. 1 man in handling this sort of thing?”
“Why, that’s hard to say. Naturally, there isn’t any one leading
psychiatrist in the world; we specialize too much. I know what you mean,
though. You don’t want the best industrial-temperament psychometrician; you
want the best all-around man for psychoses nonlesional and situational.
That would be Lentz.”
“Go on.”
“Well — he covers the whole field of environmental adjustment. He’s the man
who correlated the theory of optimum tonicity with the relaxation technique
that Korzybski had developed empirically. He actually worked under
Korzybski himself, when he was a young student — it’s the only thing he’s
vain about.”
“He did? Then he must be pretty old; Korzybski died in — What year did he