"I've already sent it in."
"You little fool! Do you want to wreck everything I've worked for?"
Tears filled her eyes.
"James! Does the possible harm to our baby mean nothing to you? Only
the medals, the promotions, the power?"
"Nonsense! There's no danger! If there were, wouldn't I know it? Come
along now!"
But she did not follow him through the door. Instead, she stood with
her face against the wall, her shoulders shaking.
* * * * *
A moment later, Jason Cramer entered. The young man closed the door
behind him and put his arm around her. Without protest, she turned and
buried her face in his chest. For a while, she could not talk but could
only weep.
Finally, she released herself from his embrace and said, "Why is it,
Jason, that every time I need a man to cry against, James is not with
me but you are?"
"Because he is the one who makes you cry," he said. "And I love you."
"And James," she said, "loves only himself."
"You didn't give me the proper response, Jane. I said I loved you."
She kissed him, though lightly, and murmured, "I think I love you. But
I'm not allowed to. Please forget what I said. I mean it."
She walked away from him. Jason Cramer, after making sure that he had
no lipstick on his face or uniform, followed her.
Entering the laboratory, Jane Carroad ignored her husband's glare
and sat down in the chair in the middle of the room. Immediately
thereafter, the Secretary of Science and two Security bodyguards
entered.
The Secretary was a stocky dark man of about fifty. He had very thick
black eyebrows that looked like pieces of fur pasted above his eyes.
He radiated the assurance that he was master, in control of all in the
room. Yet, he did not, as was nervously expected by James Carroad and
Jason Cramer, take offense because Jane did not rise from the chair to
greet him. He gave her a smile, patted her hand, and said, "Is it true
you will bear a male baby?"
"That is what the tests indicate," she said.
"Good. Another valuable citizen. A scientist, perhaps. With its genetic
background...."
Annoyed because his wife had occupied the center of the stage for
too long, Doctor James Carroad loudly cleared his throat. He said,
"Citizens, honored Secretary, I've asked you here for a demonstration
because I believe that what I have to show you is of utmost importance
to the State's future. I have here the secret of what constitutes a
good, or bad, citizen of the State."
He paused for effect, which he was getting, and then continued, "As
you know, I--and my associates, of course--have perfected an infallible
and swift method whereby an enemy spy or deviationist citizen may be
unmasked. This method has been in use for three years. During that
time, it has exposed many thousands as espionage agents, as traitors,
as potential traitors."
The Secretary looked interested. He also looked at his wristwatch.
Doctor Carroad refused to notice; he talked on at the same pace. He
could justify any amount of time he took, and he intended to use as
much as possible.
* * * * *
"My Department of Electroencephalographic Research first produced the
devices delicate enough to detect the so-called rho waves emanated by
the human brain. The rho or semantic waves. After ten years of hard
work, I correlated the action of the rho waves in a particular human
brain with the action of the individual's voice mechanisms. That meant,
of course, that we had a device which mankind has long dreamed of.
A--pardon the term--mind-reading machine."
Carroad purposely avoided scientific terminology. The Secretary did
have a Ph.D. in political science, but he knew very little of any
biological science.
Jason Cramer, at a snap of the fingers by Carroad, wheeled a large
round shining machine to a spot about two feet in front of Jane.
It resembled a weird metallic antelope, for it had a long flexible
neck at the end of which was an oval and eyeless head with two
prongs like horns. These pointed at Jane's skull. On the side of the
machine--Cervus III--was a round glass tube. The oscilloscope.
Carroad said, "We no longer have to attach electrodes to the subject's
head. We've made that method obsolete. Cervus' prongs pick up rho
waves without direct contact. It is also able to cut out 99.99% of the
'noise' that had hampered us in previous research."
Yes, thought Jane, and why don't you tell them that it was Jason Cramer
who made that possible, instead of allowing them to think it was you?
At that moment, she reached the peak of her hate for him. She wished
that the swelling sleeper within her was not Carroad's but Cramer's.
And, wishing that, she knew that she must be falling in love with
Cramer.
Carroad's voice slashed into her thoughts.
"And so, using the detected rho waves, which can be matched against
definite objective words, we get a verbal picture of what is going in
the subject's mind at the conscious level."
He gave an order to Cramer, and Cramer twisted a dial on the small
control board on the side of Cervus.
"The machine is now set for semantic relations," Carroad said.
"Jane!" he added so sharply that she was startled. "Repeat this
sentence after me! Silently!"
He then gave her a much-quoted phrase from one of the speeches of
the Secretary himself. She repressed her scorn of him because of his
flattery and dutifully concentrated on thinking the phrase. At the same
time, she was aware that her tongue was moving in a noiseless lock-step
with the thoughts.
The round tube on the side of Cervus glowed and then began flashing
with many twisting threads of light.
"The trained eye," said Carroad, "can interpret those waveforms. But we
have a surprise for you to whom the patterns are meaningless. We have
perfected a means whereby a technician with a minimum of training may
operate Cervus."
* * * * *
He snapped his fingers. Cramer shot him a look; his face was
expressionless, but Jane knew that Cramer resented Carroad's arrogance.
Nevertheless, Cramer obeyed; he adjusted a dial, pushed down on a
toggle switch, rotated another dial.
A voice, tonelessly and tinnily mechanical, issued from a loudspeaker
beneath the tube. It repeated the phrase that Carroad had given and
that Jane was thinking. It continued the repetition until Cramer, at
another fingersnap from Carroad, flicked the toggle switch upward.
"As you have just heard," said Carroad triumphantly, "we have converted
the waveforms into audible representations of what the subject is
thinking."
The Secretary's brows rose like two caterpillars facing each other, and
he said, "Very impressive."
But he managed to give the impression that he was thinking, Is that all?
Carroad smiled. He said, "I have much more. Something that, I'm
sure, will please you very much. Now, as you know, this machine--my
Cervus--is exposing hundreds of deviationists and enemy agents every
year.
"Yet, this is _nothing_!"
He stared fiercely at them, but he had a slight smile on the corners
of his lips. Jane, knowing him so well, could feel the radiance of his
pride at the fact that the Secretary was leaning forward and his mouth
was open.
"I say this is nothing! Catching traitors after they have become
deviationist is locking the garage after the car has been stolen. What
if we had a system of control whereby our citizens would be _unable_ to
be anything but unquestioningly loyal to the State?"