Coldly, as if he were discussing the repair of some inanimate engine,
Scholar Ross said, "It starts with corrective surgery on the pituitary
and thyroid glands. Next comes some very complicated neuro-cerebral
surgery, somewhat resembling the crude, primitive process once called
'Prefrontal Lobotomy'. Nowadays it produces the desired effect without
all of the deleterious side-effects. Then, once the patient is
completely disoriented, the process of re-education takes place. The
patient is extremely docile and highly impressionable. All decisions
carry the same weight--"
"How do you mean that?" asked Mr. Hanford.
"Why, the decision to use blue or black ink in your fountain pen
becomes as important as the decision of whether to cling or jump from a
damaged aircar."
"Oh. And then?"
"Why, since the patient is docile and impressionable, we can mold the
patient's appreciation of people, places, and events into conformity.
Events of the former life are not erased, but they are viewed as if the
patient had seen a trivideo drama instead of having been that person.
The entire list of friends and acquaintances is changed because the
patient's personality is so different that the former friends no longer
have anything in common with the patient. It will be," said Scholar
Ross, "exactly as if your daughter left you, never to return, and then
next year you are introduced to a strange woman who bears a complete
resemblance to your daughter. To whom," he added, "you eventually
become emotionally attached because of your daughter's memory."
"It sounds pretty drastic."
"I shall not fool you. It is drastic, indeed."
"I don't like it," Gloria snapped.
"Yes," pleaded Mrs. Hanford. "What is the alternative?"
"Eden, Tau Ceti. I'll arrange transportation under the migration act,
and she'll be permitted two hundred pounds of gross." Scholar Ross
smiled thinly. "You can diet a few pounds off and thus increase the
net weight of your allowable possessions," he said. "But, on the other
hand, if you diet down to rail-skinny no one will take a chance on you."