She spun on him. "Have you no shame? You are married to my
hyperalter--don't you understand that?" Her face was suddenly wet with
tears and the intensity of her shame flamed at him from her cheeks.
"How can Conrad ever forgive me for being with his hyperalter and
talking about him? Oh, how can I have been so _mad_?"
"They have done something to you," he said, shaking with tension.
Her chin raised at this. She was defiant, he saw, though not toward
himself--he no longer existed for her--but toward that part of herself
which once had needed him and now no longer existed. "They have cured
me," she declared. "They have cured me of everything but my shame, and
they will help me get rid of that as soon as you leave this room."
Bill stared at her before leaving. Out in the corridor, the young
medicop did not look him in the face. They went back to Bill's room and
the officer left without a word. Bill lay down on his cot.
Presently Major Grey entered the room. He came over to the cot. "I'm
sorry it had to be this way, Bill."
Bill's words came tonelessly from his dry throat. "Was it necessary to
be cruel?"
"It was necessary to test the result of her psycho-surgery. Also, it
will help her over her shame. She might otherwise have retained a seed
of fear that she still loved you."
Bill did not feel anything any more. Staring at the ceiling, he knew
there was no place left for him in this world and no one in it who
needed him. The only person who had really needed him had been Mary,
and he could not bear to think of how he had treated her. Now the
Medicorps was efficiently curing the child of the hurt he had done her.
They had already erased from Clara any need for him she had ever felt.
This seemed funny and he began to laugh. "Everyone is being cured of
me."
"Yes, Bill. That is necessary." When Bill went on laughing Major
Grey's voice turned quite sharp. "Come with me. It's time for your
trial."
* * * * *
The enormous room in which they held the trial was utterly barren.
At the great oaken table around which they all sat, there were three
Medicorps officers in addition to Major Grey.
Helen did not speak to Bill when they brought him in. He was placed on
the same side of the table with an officer between them. Two orderlies
stood behind Bill's chair. Other than these people, there was no one in
the room.
The great windows were high above the floor and displayed only the
blissful sky. Now and then Bill saw a flock of pigeons waft aloft on
silver-turning wings. Everyone at the table except himself had a copy
of his case report and they discussed it with clipped sentences.
Between the stone floor and the vaulted ceiling, a subtle echolalia
babbled about Bill's problem behind their human talk.
The discussion of the report lulled when Major Grey rapped on the
table. He glanced unsmiling from face to face, and his voice hurried
the ritualized words: "This is a court of medicine, co-joining the
results of medical science and considered lay judgment to arrive
at a decision in the case of patient Bill Walden. The patient is
hospitalized for a history of drug refusal and communication breaks. We
have before us the medical case record of patient Walden. Has everyone
present studied this record?"
All at the table nodded.
"Do all present feel competent to pass judgment in this case?"
Again there came the agreement.
Major Grey continued, "It is my duty to advise you, in the presence
of the patient, of the profound difference between a trial for simple
drug refusal and one in which that aberration is compounded with
communication breaks.
"It is true that no other aberration is possible when the drugs are
taken as prescribed. After all, the drugs _are_ the basis for our
schizophrenic society. Nevertheless, simple drug refusal often is a
mere matter of physiology, which is easy enough to remedy.
"A far more profound threat to our society is the break in
communication. This generally is more deeply motivated in the patient,
and is often inaccessible to therapy. Such a patient is driven to
emotive explorations which place the various ancient passions, and the
infamous art of _historical gesture_, such as 'give me liberty or give
me death,' above the welfare of society."
* * * * *
Bill watched the birds flash down the sky, a handful of heavenly
coin. Never had it seemed to him so good to look at the sky. _If they
hospitalize me_, he thought, _I will be content forever to sit and look
from windows._
"Our schizophrenic society," Major Grey was saying, "holds together and
runs smoothly because, in each individual, the personality conflicts
have been compartmentalized between hyperalter and hypoalter. On
the social level, conflicting personalities are kept on opposite
shifts and never contact each other. Or they are kept on shifts where
contact is possible no more than one or two days out of ten. Bill
Walden's break of shift is the type of behavior designed to reactivate
these conflicts, and to generate the destructive passions on which
an undrugged mind feeds. Already illness and disrupted lives have
resulted."
Major Grey paused and looked directly at Bill. "Exhaustive tests
have demonstrated that your entire personality is involved. I might
also say that the aberration to live without the drugs and to break
communication codes _is_ your personality. All these Medicorps officers
are agreed on that diagnosis. It remains now for us of the Medicorps
to sit with the laymen intimately involved and decide on the action
to be taken. The only possible alternatives after that diagnosis are
permanent hospitalization or ... total removal of the personality by
mnemonic erasure."
Bill could not speak. He saw Major Grey nod to one of the orderlies
and felt the man pushing up his sleeve and injecting his nerveless arm.
They were forcing him to shift, he knew, so that Conrad Manz could sit
on the trial and participate.
Helplessly, he watched the great sky blacken and the room dim and
disappear.
* * * * *
Major Grey did not avert his face, as did the others, while the shift
was in progress. Helen Walden, he saw, was dramatizing her shame at
being present during a shift, but the Medicorps officers simply stared
at the table. Major Grey watched the face of Conrad Manz take form
while the man who was going to be tried faded.
Bill Walden had been without makeup, and as soon as he was sure Manz
could hear him, Major Grey apologized. "I hope you won't object to this
brief interlude in public without makeup. You are present at the trial
of Bill Walden."
Conrad Manz nodded and Major Grey waited another full minute for the
shift to complete itself before he continued. "Mr. Manz, during the
two days you waited in the hospital for us to catch Walden in shift, I
discussed this case quite thoroughly with you, especially as it applied
to the case of Clara Manz, on which we were already working.
"You will recall that in the case of your wife, the Medicorps diagnosis
was one of a clearly localized aberration. It was quite simple to apply
the mnemonic eraser to that small section without disturbing in any way
her basic personality. Medicorps agreement was for this procedure and
the case did not come to trial, but simply went to operation, because
lay agreement was obtained. First yourself and eventually--" Major Grey
paused and let the memory of Helen's stubborn insistence that Clara die
stir in Conrad's mind--"Mrs. Walden agreed with the Medicorps."
Major Grey let the room wait in silence for a while. "The case of
Bill Walden is quite different. The aberration involves the whole
personality, and the alternative actions to be taken are permanent
hospitalization or total erasure. In this case, I believe that
Medicorps opinion will be divided as to proper action and--" Major Grey
paused again and looked levelly at Conrad Manz--"this may be true,
also, of the lay opinion."
"How's that, Major?" demanded the highest ranking Medicorps officer
present, a colonel named Hart, a tall, handsome man on whom the
military air was a becoming skin. "What do you mean about Medicorps
opinion being divided?"