Curtice’s goal of the ACCED-trained mental superman was being played down at present; it was less tangible, of far less direct interest, than the observable response of an aging body to the complete SELAM process. Hair had seen the seventy-year-old subjects of whom Curtice had told him. They were old men still, but old men from whom the physical and emotional tensions of a lifetime had been drained together with the memory traces of a lifetime. The relaxed, sleeping bodies had fleshed out again, become strong and smooth-skinned, presenting the appearance of young maturity. They gave credibility to Curtice’s claim, based on comparable work with animals, that SELAM now offered humanity a life extension of at least sixty healthy years.
The public had seen those same rejuvenated bodies in the tridi screens today. It had listened while Curtice explained the developments in his SELAM machines which had brought about the miracle, and watched him walk smiling into the laboratory where he was to become the first human being to whom the combined SELAM and ACCED techniques would be fully applied.
Those were compelling arguments. The superman theme had been barely introduced but would grow in significance as the implications of Felix Austin following Curtice within a few months, and Mallory and Sebert following Austin within two years, were considered. What the leaders wanted for themselves, the public wanted. Unofficially, the word already was out that when the President and Secretary received the Rejuvenation treatment, a hundred deserving citizens would receive it with them, that SELAM and ACCED would become available to all whose personal records qualified them for the processes as quickly as Dr. Curtice’s intricate machines could be duplicated and technicians trained in their use.
There was no question, George Hair thought, that the bait was being swallowed. And the thought appalled him. On the one occasion he’d spoken with Philip Mallory during the past weeks, he had brought up the subject of loss of individuality, of personality, by the SELAM process and in the subsequent period when, within a year and a half, a new mentality would be created by machines in the emptied, receptive brain, perhaps a vastly more efficient mentality but nevertheless . . .
And Mallory had looked at him shrewdly, and laughed.
“The old Phil will be there again, George—don’t worry!” he’d said. “Pm not suddenly rushing into this thing, you know. We can’t talk about everything Dick Curtice has done with SELAM, but I’ve seen enough of his half-way jobs to go ahead.” He gave Hair a conspiratorial dig with his elbow. “If Curtice weren’t as far along as he is, Wingfield would have had our skins before summer! That’s part of it. The other part of it is that I’m sixty-four and Sebert’s sixty-six. You’re fifty-eight yourself. We can all use some freshening up if we’re to stay on top of the pile . . .”
That had been the lure for Mallory. If it hadn’t been for. the pressures being built up by Wingfield, Hair thought, Mallory need have felt no concern about remaining on top for another twenty years. But he’d seen the developing threat and prepared quietly to more than match it with a bold, overwhelming move of his own. A new Big Four was in the making, a Big Four of supermen, with Curtice in Hair’s position as thinker and theorist, Felix Austin in Wingfield’s, while Mallory and Sebert remained the central two, the leaders. Hair had no illusions about his own prospects in the new era. As Administrator of Education, he had remained a popular, almost legendary figure; but it was clear now that it had been a popularity skillfully maintained by Mallory’s publicity machine to give ACCED additional respectability in the transition period ahead. Thereafter, the legend would be allowed to fade away, and he with it.
He didn’t, Hair decided, really want it otherwise. He did not share Mallory’s will to stay on top at all costs . . . definitely not at the cost of allowing his personality to be dissolved in Curtice’s Rejuvenation process, even if the opportunity were offered him, although he was already quite certain it would not be offered. The new ruling group would have no further need of him.
He could resign now; but it would be awkward and change nothing. The psychotic children in ACCED’s nursery schools were no longer an issue. They had been mentioned, casually, as a detail of the experiments, now concluded, which had been required to produce Rejuvenation, with the additional note that their rehabilitation would be undertaken promptly. The statement had aroused few comments . . . He might as well, George Hair told himself finally, watch the thing through to the end.
DURING the next three months, he found himself involved frequently in the publicity connected with the Rejuvenation program, although he refused interviews and maintained the role of a detached spectator. Oliver Wingfield, stunned into silence no more than a few days, shifted his attack from ACCED to the new government program, lashed out savagely at Hair from time to time as one of the planners of what he described as an attempt to foist the rule of robot minds on normal men. Hair, not too sure he wasn’t in some agreement with Wingfield on the latter point, held his peace; but Mallory’s publicity experts happily took up the battle.
Despite Wingfield’s best efforts, the Rejuvenation program retained its high level of popularity. The successful conclusion of the SELAM phase of the process on Richard Curtice was announced by Dr. Langdon. For the next sixty days, Curtice would be kept asleep to permit physical regeneration to be well advanced before ACCED was introduced by degrees to the case. Tridi strips taken at ten-day intervals showed the gradual transformation of a middle-aged scientist in moderately good condition to a firmmuscled athlete apparently in his early twenties. Attention began to shift to Felix Austin as the next to take the step, six weeks after Curtice’s ACCED training had begun; and the continuing denunciations by Wingfield and his followers acquired a note of raging hysteria.
Three months and ten days after Curtice had submitted himself to his SELAM machines, George Hair came back to the ACCED Building, now the center of the new Rejuvenation complex. He was not at all sure why he should be there, but Longdon had called him that morning, told him there had been a very important development and asked him to come as soon as he possibly could. There had been a degree of urgency in the man’s voice which had made it difficult to refuse. Hair was conducted to a part of the building he had not seen before and into a room where Longdon was waiting for him.
Longdon’s appearance underlined the urgency Hair had sensed in his voice when he called. His eyes were anxious; his face looked drawn and tired. He said, “Mr. Hair, thank you very much for coming so promptly! Dr. Randall and I are faced with a very serious problem here which I could not discuss on the telephone. It’s possible that you will be able—and willing—to help us. Let me show you what the trouble is.”
He opened a door to another room, motioned to Hair to enter, and followed him inside, leaving the door open.
Hair recognized this room immediately. He had seen it several times in the tridi screen during demonstrations of the changes being brought about in Curtice’s physical condition by SELAM. As he had been then, Curtice was lying now on a sunken bed in a twelve by twelve foot depression in the floor, his tanned, muscular body clothed only in white trunks. His face was turned toward the door by which they had entered and his eyes were half opened. Then, as they came toward him, his right hand lifted, made a slow, waving motion through the air, dropped to his side again.
“Our subject is exceptionally responsive today!” Dr. Longdon commented, an odd note of savage irony in his voice.
Hair looked quickly at him, frowning, asked, “What is the problem you wanted to discuss?”
LONGDON nodded at the figure sprawled across the sunken bed.
“There is the problem!” he said. “Mr. Hair, as you know, our calculations show that an adult brain, freed completely by SELAM techniques of the clutter of memories it has stored away, can absorb the entire volume of ACCED information within a period of less than two years. At the end of that time, in other words, we again would have a functioning adult, and one functioning in a far more integrated manner, far more efficiently, than is possible to the normally educated huma
n being, and on the basis now of a vastly greater fund of accurate information than a normal human mind can acquire in a lifetime . . .”
“I know, of course that that was your goal,” Hair said. “Apparently, something has gone wrong with it.”
“Very decidedly!” Longdon said. “This is the forty-third day since we began to use ACCED training methods on Curtice. In child subjects—children whose memories were completely erased by SELAM at the age of five—forty-three days of modified ACCED produced a vocabulary equivalent to that of an average two-year-old. Curtice, in the same length of time, has acquired no vocabulary at all. Spoken words have no more meaning to him today than when we started.”
A door had opened and closed quietly behind Hair while Longdon was speaking. He guessed that Eileen Randall had come into the room but did not look around. He was increasingly puzzled by Longdon’s attitude. Curtice’s failure to develop speech might be a very serious problem—might, in fact, be threatening the entire Rejuvenation program. But he did not see what it had to do with him, or how they expected him to help them.
He asked, “Have you discovered what the difficulty is?”
“Yes,” Longdon said, “we know now what the difficulty is.” He hesitated, scowling absently down at Curtice for a few seconds, went on. “A child, Mr. Hair, a young child, wants to learn. Not long after birth, it enters a phase where learning might appear to be almost its primary motivation. Later in life, it may retain the drive to learn or it may lose it. It has been assumed that this depended on whether its life experiences were of a nature to encourage the learning urge, or to suppress and eventually to stifle it.
“Now it appears that this is only partly true. Later life experiences may indeed foster and even create a learning urge of their own. But the natural drive, the innate drive, apparently is present only for a comparatively short time in childhood. It is not, in itself, a permanent motivation in man.
“Dr. Curtice’s biological age is nearly fifty years. Before SELAM wiped the effects of his life experiences from him, he was, of course, a man intensely interested in learning, intensely curious. But his curiosity and interest were based on the experiences he has lost, and were lost with them. And he is decades past the age where the innate drive to learn could still motivate him.
“We can teach him almost nothing because he is inherently uninterested in learning anything. We have used every conceivable method to stimulate interest and curiosity in him. Intense pleasure or severe pain will produce corresponding reactions, but when the sensations end, he appears to forget them quickly again.
“There is, however, a barely detachable learning curve, which can be projected. In twenty years, by the consistent use of brutally drastic methods, we should be able to train Dr. Curtice’s brain to the point where he could comprehend very simple instructions. By that time, of course, the training process itself would have produced such severe physical and emotional stresses that the rejuvenating effect of SELAM would have been lost, and he would be showing—at the very least—his actual physical age.”
Dr. Longdon shrugged, spread his hands, concluded, “So at best, Mr. Hair, we might wind up eventually with a very stupid, very dull old man of seventy.
EILEEN RANDALL’S voice said harshly behind Hair, “Mr. Hair, it is not nearly as hopeless as that! Not nearly!” She went on vehemently, as he turned to look at her. “We simply need time! Time to understand what really has happened here . . . to decide what must be done about it. If Richard weren’t helpless, he would tell us what to do! He would never—” Her voice broke suddenly.
Longdon said patiently, giving Hair an apologetic glance, “Eileen, you know we’ve gone endlessly over all calculations, tried everything! We . . .”
“We have not!” Eileen Randall began to weep.
George Hair looked in something like irritated amazement from one to the other of them. He said carefully, “This is, of course, a very serious matter, but I am hardly qualified to assist you in it. It’s no secret to you that my connection with the program has been and is a purely figurative one. The only suggestion I can make is that President Mallory should be informed immediately of the problems you’ve encountered here.”
Longdon said tonelessly, “President Mallory is aware of the problem, Mr. Hair.”
“What?” Hair said sharply. “When was he told?”
“Over a month ago. As soon as it became evident that Dr. Curtice was not responding normally to the ACCED approach for de-memorized subjects.” Longdon cleared his throat. “President Mallory’s instructions were to maintain absolute secrecy while we looked for a solution. Now, however . . . He shrugged.
Over a month ago . . . Hair’s mind seemed to check for an instant at the words; then his thoughts were racing as Longdon went on. For more than a month after Mallory and Sebert had realized that the Rejuvenation program might end in humiliating public failure before it had well begun, the build-up had continued, Oliver Wingfield and his adherent were being scientifically needled into a crescendo of baffled rage, and Felix Austin—yes, only five days from now, Chief Justice Austin was scheduled to undergo the SELAM techniques which evidently had destroyed Curtice! Hair felt a sudden chill prickling the back of his neck . . .
“Mr. Hair, you must help us!” Eileen Randall was staring desperately at him, tears streaming down her face.
“There’s no way I could help you, Dr. Randall.”
“But you can—you must! They’ll murder Richard if you don’t! They’ve said so! You—your influence with President Mallory—his old friend . . .” The words drowned in a choked wailing.
HAIR felt his breath shorten.
Curtice had to die, of course—die plausibly and conveniently so that his condition need never be revealed. But Mallory and Sebert weren’t stupid enough to think that Curtice’s death alone would be sufficient.
“It isn’t necessary!” Eileen Randall was babbling shrilly again. “Even—even if the program has to end, we could take him away quietly, take care of him somewhere. They could say he was dead—no one would ever know! We . . .” She clapped her hands to her face, turned and ran from the room, making muffled, squalling sounds.
“I should see she’s taken care of, Mr. Hair,” Longdon said shakily. “If you’ll excuse me a minute . . .” He started for the door.
“Dr. Longdon!”
Longdon stopped, looked back. “Yes?”
“Who suggested to you that I should use my influence with President Mallory on Curtice’s behalf?”
Longdon’s eyes flickered. “Chief Justice Austin.”
“I see,” Hair said. “When did he suggest it?”
“This morning,” Longdon told him, with a brief, frightened grimace. “He was here shortly before I called you. I could not avoid acknowledging that Dr. Curtice’s case was hopeless. The Chief Justice advised us then that only your personal appeal to President Mallory could save Curtice’s life, that we should attempt to get in touch with you immediately . . .”
He hurried out of the room. Hair stood staring after him a moment, then turned, glanced at the mindless thing on the sunken bed, went quickly over to the other door through which he and Longdon had entered. There had been, he recalled, a telephone in the outer room.
He dialed the number of his office, waited, listening to the soft purr on the line. Then, suddenly, the line went dead.
That was that, Hair told himself. He replaced the receiver, went over to the window and looked out at the newly erected buildings of the Rejuvenation complex. His thoughts seemed to be moving sluggishly. Perhaps it was fear; but perhaps it simply had been too long a time since he had been involved in an operation of this kind. After the Takeover, it no longer had seemed necessary; and he Had a feeling that what was going on now was somehow unreal.
But it was real enough. Mallory, the man of action, the practical man who intended to remain on top, hadn’t forgotten the lessons of the past. He might have been betting on Curtice’s genius, but he had been preparing for yea
rs to hedge on the bet if necessary. Perhaps he’d never expected ACCED or the Rejuvenation program to come to anything. Either way, he could turn the projects to his advantage in the end.
Hair’s gaze shifted for a moment to the sky above the buildings. It would come from there in all likelihood, and in an instant of ravening fury the Rejuvenation complex would be obliterated. The buildings, the personnel, the machines, the records—anything that would have left the slightest possibility of beginning the program again . . . and George Hair, the thinker, the theorist, the living legend, whom Mallory had not forgiven for failing to throw in his influence openly against Wingfield in their first struggle for control.
Wingfield would be blamed for it, and they could make it stick. Wingfield was finished . . .
Hair turned at a sound behind him. Longdon had come into the room.
“Mr. Hair,” he said, grinning apologetically, “you must forgive Eileen! She has always been in love with Curtice, of course. If she is only allowed to take care of him, she will be satisfied. I hope you can persuade President Mallory to leave her that much . . .”
Hair looked at Longdon’s anxious eyes. Longdon hadn’t grasped everything, of course, but he had grasped enough to be aware that not only Curtice’s life was in danger.
For an instant, Hair wondered how Longdon would react if he were told that communications from the building to the world outside already were being intercepted, and that therefore neither of them—nor anyone else within half a mile of where they stood—could have more than a very few minutes still to live.
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 144