"Of course," the machine said soothingly. "Don't we all? I am now
scanning the material in your preconscious with the intent of
synthesis, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. I find...."
"Yes?"
"Just one moment." The Regenerator was silent for several minutes.
Then, hesitantly, it said, "This is beyond doubt a most unusual case."
"Really?" Caswell asked, pleased.
"Yes. The coefficients seem--I'm not sure...." The machine's robotic
voice grew feeble. The pilot light began to flicker and fade.
"Hey, what's the matter?"
"Confusion," said the machine. "Of course," it went on in a stronger
voice, "the unusual nature of the symptoms need not prove entirely
baffling to a competent therapeutic machine. A symptom, no matter how
bizarre, is no more than a signpost, an indication of inner difficulty.
And all symptoms can be related to the broad mainstream of proven
theory. Since the theory is effective, the symptoms must relate. We
will proceed on that assumption."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" asked Caswell, feeling
lightheaded.
The machine snapped back, its pilot light blazing. "Mechanotherapy
today is an exact science and admits no significant errors. We will
proceed with a word-association test."
"Fire away," said Caswell.
"House?"
"Home."
"Dog?"
"Cat."
"Fleefl?"
Caswell hesitated, trying to figure out the word. It sounded vaguely
Martian, but it might be Venusian or even--
"Fleefl?" the Regenerator repeated.
"Marfoosh," Caswell replied, making up the word on the spur of the
moment.
"Loud?"
"Sweet."
"Green?"
"Mother."
"Thanagoyes?"
"Patamathonga."
"Arrides?"
"Nexothesmodrastica."
"Chtheesnohelgnopteces?"
"Rigamaroo latasentricpropatria!" Caswell shot back. It was a
collection of sounds he was particularly proud of. The average man
would not have been able to pronounce them.
"Hmm," said the Regenerator. "The pattern fits. It always does."
"What pattern?"
"You have," the machine informed him, "a classic case of feem desire,
complicated by strong dwarkish intentions."
"I do? I thought I was homicidal."
"That term has no referent," the machine said severely. "Therefore I
must reject it as nonsense syllabification. Now consider these points:
The feem desire is perfectly normal. Never forget that. But it is
usually replaced at an early age by the hovendish revulsion.
Individuals lacking in this basic environmental response--"
"I'm not absolutely sure I know what you're talking about," Caswell
confessed.
"Please, sir! We must establish one thing at once. You are the patient.
I am the mechanotherapist. You have brought your troubles to me for
treatment. But you cannot expect help unless you cooperate."
"All right," Caswell said. "I'll try."
Up to now, he had been bathed in a warm glow of superiority. Everything
the machine said had seemed mildly humorous. As a matter of fact, he
had felt capable of pointing out a few things wrong with the
mechanotherapist.
Now that sense of well-being evaporated, as it always did, and Caswell
was alone, terribly alone and lost, a creature of his compulsions, in
search of a little peace and contentment.
He would undergo anything to find them. Sternly he reminded himself
that he had no right to comment on the mechanotherapist. These machines
knew what they were doing and had been doing it for a long time. He
would cooperate, no matter how outlandish the treatment seemed from his
layman's viewpoint.
But it was obvious, Caswell thought, settling himself grimly on the
couch, that mechanotherapy was going to be far more difficult than he
had imagined.
-- -- -- -- --
The search for the missing customer had been brief and useless. He was
nowhere to be found on the teeming New York streets and no one could
remember seeing a red-haired, red-eyed little man lugging a black
therapeutic machine.
It was all too common a sight.
In answer to an urgent telephone call, the police came immediately,
four of them, led by a harassed young lieutenant of detectives named
Smith.
Smith just had time to ask, "Say, why don't you people put tags on
things?" when there was an interruption.
A man pushed his way past the policeman at the door. He was tall and
gnarled and ugly, and his eyes were deep-set and bleakly blue. His
clothes, unpressed and uncaring, hung on him like corrugated iron.
"What do you want?" Lieutenant Smith asked.
The ugly man flipped back his lapel, showing a small silver badge
beneath. "I'm John Rath, General Motors Security Division."
"Oh ... Sorry, sir," Lieutenant Smith said, saluting. "I didn't think you
people would move in so fast."
Rath made a noncommittal noise. "Have you checked for prints,
Lieutenant? The customer might have touched some other therapy machine."
"I'll get right on it, sir," Smith said. It wasn't often that one of
the operatives from GM, GE, or IBM came down to take a personal hand.
If a local cop showed he was really clicking, there just might be the
possibility of an Industrial Transfer....
Rath turned to Follansby and Haskins, and transfixed them with a gaze
as piercing and as impersonal as a radar beam. "Let's have the full
story," he said, taking a notebook and pencil from a shapeless pocket.
He listened to the tale in ominous silence. Finally he closed his
notebook, thrust it back into his pocket and said, "The therapeutic
machines are a sacred trust. To give a customer the wrong machine is a
betrayal of that trust, a violation of the Public Interest, and a
defamation of the Company's good reputation."
The manager nodded in agreement, glaring at his unhappy clerk.
"A Martian model," Rath continued, "should never have been on the floor
in the first place."
"I can explain that," Follansby said hastily. "We needed a demonstrator
model and I wrote to the Company, telling them--"
"This might," Rath broke in inexorably, "be considered a case of gross
criminal negligence."
Both the manager and the clerk exchanged horrified looks. They were
thinking of the General Motors Reformatory outside of Detroit, where
Company offenders passed their days in sullen silence, monotonously
drawing microcircuits for pocket television sets.
"However, that is out of my jurisdiction," Rath said. He turned his
baleful gaze full upon Haskins. "You are certain that the customer
never mentioned his name?"
"No, sir. I mean yes, I'm sure," Haskins replied rattledly.
"Did he mention any names at all?"
Haskins plunged his face into his hands. He looked up and said eagerly,
"Yes! He wanted to kill someone! A friend of his!"
"Who?" Rath asked, with terrible patience.
"The friend's name was--let me think--Magneton! That was it! Magneton!
Or was it Morrison? Oh, dear...."
Mr. Rath's iron face registered a rather corrugated disgust. People
were useless as witnesses. Worse than useless, since they were
frequently misleading. For reliability, give him a robot every time.
"Didn't he mention anything significant?"
"Let me think!" Haskins said, his face twisting into a fit of
concentration.
Rath waited.
Mr. Follansby cleared his throat. "I was just thinking, Mr. Rath. About
that Martian machine. It won't treat a Terran homicidal case as
homicidal, will it?"
"Of course not. Homicide is unknown on Mars."
"Yes. But what will it do? Might it not reject the entire case as
unsuitable? Then the customer would merely return the Regenerator with
a complaint and we would--"
Mr. Rath shook his head. "The Rex Regenerator must treat if it finds
evidence of psychosis. By Martian standards, the customer is a very
sick man, a psychotic--no matter what is wrong with him."
Follansby removed his pince-nez and polished them rapidly. "What will
the machine do, then?"
"It will treat him for the Martian illness most analogous to his case.
Feem desire, I should imagine, with various complications. As for what
will happen once treatment begins, I don't know. I doubt whether anyone
knows, since it has never happened before. Offhand, I would say there
are two major alternatives: the patient may reject the therapy out of
hand, in which case he is left with his homicidal mania unabated. Or he
may accept the Martian therapy and reach a cure."