She smiled and said, “Sit down, boys. I’m Doctor Arnault.” She held up the profiles and a bunch of punched cards and added, “Perfect mirror twins, even to dextrocardia. This should be interesting.”
Pat tried to look at the papers. “What’s our I.Q. this time, Doctor?”
“Never mind.” She put the papers down and covered them, then picked up a deck of cards. “Have you ever used these?”
Of course we had, for they were the classic Rhine test cards, wiggles and stars and so forth. Every high school psychology class has a set and a high score almost always means that some bright boy has figure out a way to cold-deck the teacher. In fact Pat had worked out a simple way to cheat when our teacher, with a tired lack of anger, split us up and made us run tests only with other people-whereupon our scores dropped to the limits of standard error. So I was already certain that Pat and I weren’t ESP freaks and the Rhine cards were just another boring test.
But I could feel Pat become attentive. “Keep your ears open, kid,” I heard him whisper, “and we’ll make this interesting.” Dr. Arnault did not hear him, of course.
I wasn’t sure we ought to but I knew if he could manage to signal to me I would not be able to refrain from fudging the results. But I need not have worried; Dr. Arnault took Pat out and returned without him. She was hooked by microphone to the other test room but there was no chance to whisper through it; it was hot only when she switched it on.
She started right in. “First test run in twenty seconds, Mabel,” she said into the mike and switched it off, then turned to me. “Look at the cards as I turn them,” she said.
“Don’t try, don’t strain. Just look at them.”
So I looked at the cards. This went on with variations for maybe an hour. Sometimes I was supposed to be receiving, sometimes sending. As far as I was concerned nothing happened, for they never told us our scores.
Finally Dr. Arnault looked at a score sheet and said, “Tom, I want to give you a mild injection. It won’t hurt you and it’ll wear off before you go home. Okay?”
“What sort?” I said suspiciously.
“Don’t fret; it is harmless. I don’t want to tell you or you might unconsciously show the reaction you expected.”
“Uh, what does my brother say? Does he get one, too?”
“Never mind, please. I’m asking you.”
I still hesitated. Dad did not favor injections and such unless necessary; he had made a fuss over our taking part in the encephalitis program. “Are you an M.D.?” I asked.
“No, my degree is in science. Why?”
“Then how do you know it’s harmless?”
She bit her lip, then answered, “I’11 send for a doctor of medicine, if you prefer.”
“Uh, no, I guess that won’t be necessary.” I was remembering something that Dad had said about the sleeping sickness shots and I added, “Does the Long Range Foundation carry liability insurance for this?”
“What? Why, I think so. Yes, I’m sure they do.” She looked at me and added, “Tom, how does a boy your age get to be so suspicions?”
“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?”