"How's my picture now?"
"Your vertical is off, and you flutter. Major, the first three hours
have been without direction from the base. For the next two, we're going
to ask you to perform certain patrol tasks, perhaps repeat them. The
process may not prove especially enjoyable. Your close coöperation will
be appreciated."
"If this is all stuff we went through in training--" Grant sputtered.
"Some of it may be," Bridget's voice. "The fact it's distasteful may
make it the more significant. Are you ready to coöperate?"
Grant nodded at the lens and screwed up his face in an exaggerated
frown.
Bridget's thoroughness called for admiration. She had him at the end of
a string, activating him from a plot taken directly from the pilot's
manual. He would coöperate, but he was not enthusiastic.
As the exercises progressed, Grant detected subtle variations Bridget
had added to the basic maneuvers. On the tight starboard circle, for
instance, she had him keep his eyes on Earth, making him slightly dizzy.
Then she requested a free-fall drop from a stall with the provision he
this time place his attention on the instrument panel--"with no peeking
outside." He complied, watching the altimeter trace forty miles toward
the basement, and experienced effects no different than usual.
After a while, he came to consider it a game and might have gained
amusement from it, were it not for the tiredness creeping in behind his
eyes and the fact two dozen technicians somewhere down there were hoping
to trip a fatal, hidden synapse.
"How much more of this?" Grant transmitted finally.
"Getting tired?" Bridget replied, and paused for an answer.
"Let's say I don't feel like six sets of tennis."
"A few more, major, and we'll authorize your glide-in." If there was
disappointment in her voice, it did not manifest itself. "Your next
exercise is manual navigation with Jupiter as your fix."
* * * * *
Grant took down the figures she gave in acute disinterest. Boredom had
settled heavily over his outlook on the operation. No longer did it
matter that his facial reactions were being televised to the syk-happy
probers; and it made no difference to him any more that his every
breath, swallow, heart beat, tension, and sweat-secretion was magnified
by inky needles along moving rolls of paper.
His exercise target was a southwestern New Mexico town, and he swung
back from the Gulf area and coaxed the responsive craft until the planet
gleamed brightly in the crosshairs of the navigational sight. That put
him four degrees off the horizontal, he noted, but Jupiter was setting;
he adjusted his velocity to maintain the planet's relative skyward
position in the west.
In some irritation he stepped up the thrust. This one could easily take
too long. The faint hum of the power plant provided music as the bright
point of light danced slightly from the sight's center.
The realization came that he had jumped convulsively. Grant was puzzled
that he was not aware what had happened. Some sort of reflex? But reflex
from what? Tingling coursed its way up his left leg and he rubbed his
thigh.
When he put his attention on the sight again, the planet had slipped
out. In fact, it was nowhere in the immediate starscape ahead of him.
His quick glance at the basement showed first that a twilight shadow was
moving in from the north-- From the north? It had to be the east! And
how come so soon?
* * * * *
Small panic twisted his diaphragm when he viewed below the unfamiliar
topography and increasing cloudiness. And when he saw by his watch it
was nearly three--
The radio had started to transmit. He swallowed a lump of fear and
prepared some kind of an answer. "... If you hear me. Please indicate if
you hear me, Grant."
He nodded at the lens.
"Would you like a pilot to help you orient from here?"
Grant felt sheepish, but the panic still remained. He was now aware his
alertness was not up to par, so he nodded again. But he was feeling
better by the minute.
Back on course under one of the pilot's directions, Grant soon took
over.
"Skip that exercise, Grant, and glide in," Bridget sent. "Feel up to it,
now?"
"Yeah, but what's it all about? I must've passed out, but damned if I
know what for."
Grant heard Bridget's laugh and his morale improved. "You come down and
take me to dinner and I'll give you the answer--and what I think may be
the answer to all the general's troubles. Right now I've got a report to
write so the general can get the word soon--and as painlessly as
possible."
Grant pressed the stud to activate the skin coolant system for entrance
into the atmosphere. He almost felt like grinning.
* * * * *
Grant at the medical officer's advice took a brief nap, which quickly
cleared up his mental fuzziness. As a surprise to Bridget he ordered a
rotocab from Barstow, the nearest town, booming since the base had
become operative.
In a specialty restaurant over freshly arrived seafood from San
Francisco, Grant tried to persuade Bridget to stop teasing him about the
navigational foul-up and set him straight. He had put up with it as long
as he did only because she had worn an off-shoulder yellow gown, snugly
fitted, that made the uniform seem like the design of a Mid-Victorian
prude.
Grant, exasperated, brought her teasing up short. "I've been priding
myself on keeping up the myth I'm a wide-awake young man and pilot.
Never have I passed out before--never. I feel like a washed-out cadet.
You've had your fun baiting--now, what made me blank?"
Bridget cringed as he tore a slice of French bread in half with one
hostile, meaningful bite.
She waved her cigarette haughtily. "We in psychology have found certain
stimuli productive of consistent human response. Especially true in
tactile sensation, this, however, is not as true in the auditory and
visual."
"You're being technical," Grant interrupted. "Just let me know
simple-like, if you don't mind."
"Consequently," she continued, "the problem presented to the
investigating psychologist was one of seeking an involuntary response to
one or more stimuli, in sequence or grouped. Traditionally--"
"Miss Ashley--" Grant held up the small, square tissue-wrapped box, tied
with a bow--"I would like to have you open this tonight, but obviously
you're not going to have time what with the thesis, and all." He
deliberately put the box back in his coat pocket.
Their eyes held over her swordfish momentarily.
"So, O.K., I looked around for nasty stimuli, that's all," Bridget went
on. "There were lots of possibilities, but I sorta picked two or three.
Part of our pilot interviews was for getting descriptions from the men
on what the conditions up there felt like, sounded like, looked like,
smelled like, and so on. Completely individual, mind you. From that we
spotted negative elements held in common by them."
Grant reached for her arm and blocked the upward motion of her
fish-loaded fork.
"You can eat after," he said.
"I threw the nasty ones at you when you began tiring, because that's
when the body's stimulus-response setup starts pulling away from
conscious direction. I saved the one I had the hunch on for the last."
"The navigation exercise, you mean? I still don't get what that has to
do with my leg cramp."
Bridget laughed. "Oh, that. One of those leads attached to your leg
carried a little voltage--just in case you passed out. The benefits of
current psychology, you know."
* * * * *
Grant repressed a smile. "Thanks for letting me know what brought me
around, but you are still stalling about why I went under."
"You figure it out. What were the stimuli associated with the manual
navigation problem?"
"Let's see," he mused. "Tactile: nothing important, just the control
levers. Visually, the star field and Jupiter and the crosshairs.
Auditorily, the power hum--"
"What stands out?"
"The planet and the hum, I guess."
"And how did the planet appear?" Bridget asked.
"A point of light, you mean?"
"And what does that add up to: a bright concentrated light source on
which you fix your attention and a monotonous hum?"
"Not hypnotism!"
Bridget shrugged. "A reasonable facsimile. Especially when you throw
mental fatigue in with it."
"But you need a suggestion, I thought--" Grant was amazed.
"Not necessarily," she replied. "You were mentally tired, there was some
self-suggestion for sleep. But simply a continued fixation of the eyes
in suggestive subjects can be enough. There may be a subconscious
association with previous hypnosis, or early states of mental shock. In
the highly suggestive, a steady lulling noise can be sufficient in
itself. And you were alone, with no one around to snap a finger under
your nose. Add it up in your situation, and you blank out."