A door opened. The lean cynical man entered, nodded, and stood beside
Pat. His eyes shone more brightly as he looked at Greg.
"That's right," Drakeson said. "Remember the two injections. I said
they were adrenolex. They weren't. Our spies inside the Cowls are
equipped with a supply of a certain aggression factor. It used to be
called Kappa, or K, for killer. This factor is handed down through
the generations in the general cell protoplasm. It forces aggressive
tendencies. It makes a man capable of physical aggressive action, and
able to kill, if he has to. High motivation is required though, in most
cases. With you, my probable death wasn't enough. It took the vision of
Pat here in the clutches of a monster to make the Kappa factor work on
you, Greg."
Greg rubbed his eyes. Pat came over and he took her hand, held it
tightly. A warmth came out of her and into him, into his mind.
* * * * *
Drakeson went on. "We isolated the Kappa factor, made it into solution.
We all have it, even the anesthetic citizens of the Cowls, but the mass
shock psychosis won't let it work. However, a strong overload of Kappa
injection will sometimes break the psychosis, force the person back
into an aggressive personality, capable of destruction. Each individual
carries an armament of between 200 and 800 particles of the Kappa
factor after we give an injection. It took 1600 particles to break your
suicidal hysteria."
Pat squeezed his hand. Greg looked up. He grinned with a kind of glad
embarrassment.
"I don't know yet whether to thank you or not. Frankly though, I do
feel better."
He thought of the Cowls. Test-tubes, glass cages, and dreams that led
finally to the final anesthesia, death. He shuddered, and tried to push
the memory out of his mind. It seemed unhealthy now. Unclean and--yes,
it did seem insane.
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. He saw the self-inverting three
dimensional mechanism that had given him that starkly real adventure
in which he had been able to kill, for Pat. A dream sequence, partly
hypnotic, partly created by cathode image activating the multi-phase
AC. A high harmonic of multi-phase AC field hanging over him, and a
focusing radiator. Dream. Nightmare.
He looked at Pat. "I think I'll take reality now," he said softly. He
felt the pull on his arm, and he got up. She led him through a door and
into a soft twilight. He held her tightly against him.
She whispered. "The ship's waiting for us, Greg. The next ship. You're
already on the passenger list. You see, I knew you'd come with us. I
was hoping so desperately, I couldn't think any differently."