They'd Rather Be Right (16 page)

Almost day and night for the past week, Billings had fed his lifetime of knowledge into Bossy on every facet of psychosomatic therapy. And his knowledge represented the accumulated knowledge of the world. It was, therefore, a bitter disappointment that their first question to Bossy for an estimate of time required for the therapy on Mabel should cause an instant flashback of an unwanted answer.

“Insufficient data.”

It was the old familiar phrase which, even back at Hoxworth, they sometimes viewed with impatience. A human being is seldom bothered with insufficient data; often the less he has the more willing he is to give a firm opinion; and man prefers some answer, even a wrong one, to the requirement that he dig deeper and find out the facts.

Here, under the pressure of time, knowing they might be discovered any day, Bossy’s bland reply, flashed on her screen, made them sick at heart. Yet, without even a survey of the problem, what else could they expect?

The problem had not been Mabel, herself. She had been more than cooperative. In view of the situation, Billings had decided to make the therapy continuous, and Mabel had willingly arranged her affairs with her attorney for a ten-day absence. As willingly, she had fitted herself into the network of electrodes and lay on the couch with complete confidence. Her last words, before Billings began to induce the hypnosis, were to Carney who had watched the preparations with hostile eyes.

“Don’t be an old fool,” she said, “give me a chance to get well again.”

For the first four hours Billings, in tandem with Bossy, played her memories back and forth, trying to uncover the central tensions which were the source of her troubles. At the end of the fourth hour, while she was in a rambling, repetitious incident of her childhood, Billings again put the question to Bossy for a time estimate.

“Insufficient data,” Bossy flashed back again. “What data do you need?” Hoskins snapped at Bossy irritably.

“A complete survey of every cell memory to determine the quantum of repressors.” Bossy flashed.

Joe, who had been hovering in the background, stepped forward.

“Based on techniques now in use,” he asked, “how long would that take?”

“Insufficient data,” Bossy’s screen said.

“What do you need to get the data?”

“Cessation of interference,” Bossy said. “By ver-bal methods now used, a survey would take years, or never be accomplished. The past failure of psychosomatic therapy is not in theory but in technique. A human mind is too slow, reactions are too gross. The best the human can accomplish is a few obvious snarls.”

“If left alone, how would you accomplish it?” Billings asked curiously.

“It is simple,” Bossy said, “for me to use the principles of the electroencephalogram. I would run all combinations of my entire storage unit against the patient. Any disturbance to the alpha rhythms would indicate the source of a tension in the patient—on the order of the lie-detector principle. All such tensions could be released by replacing fallacy with understanding.”

“How long would that take?” Hoskins asked.

“Insufficient data,” Bossy answered.

“It makes sense, though,” Billings said. “We’ve always known that time was our greatest enemy; that even in months we could only uncover a few of the most obvious. Bossy can operate on a thousands per second review of her storage units.”

“What would be the effect of the tension release?” Joe asked Bossy.

“When the repressors are removed from the cells,” Bossy answered, “they can again function normally, restoring themselves.”

“Which would mean that health is restored, obviously,” Billings said.

“Any objections to Bossy taking over, gentlemen?”

“You’re the doctor,” Hoskins said.

And it was not until a week later, a week of constant watching, intravenous feeding, physical body care, while Mabel lay on the couch in an apparent coma, that they saw any change.

It was on the morning of the seventh day, after Hoskins had spent his vigil through the night sitting beside Mabel, that they saw how startling a change had occurred. It was as if accumulated releases were, all at once, showing their affect.

The puffiness was disappearing from her cheeks, the deep pouches under her eyes were less swollen, the roll of fat around her neck had shrunk. Slowly, like a face emerging from a sculptor’s shapeless blob of clay, there was another Mabel—a younger Mabel.

It was more than a skin health and tautness, than the relaxation of rest, than the disappearance of wrinkles; than the reduction of swelling in the joints.

The three men stood looking down at her recumbent form on the couch. They stared at her with wide, incredulous eyes. Mabel was growing young again!

The faint hum of Bossy, working at top level speed, buzzed in their ears.

It was not a miracle. The regeneration and rejuvenation of Mabel was no more than the end result of completely applied psychosomatic therapy. Yet it was a result which a human therapist, unassisted by Bossy, could never attain. However he may strive for detachment from bias, no man can grow to maturity without at least something of a framework of prejudice; and the therapist, in removing the warping deformations of one matrix, unconsciously supplies another.

Further, thousands of hours or verbal therapy were reduced to seconds by Bossy. Never before had anyone known what a complete therapy could produce. And they did not know now. Dr. Billings, Professor Hoskins, Joe Carter, the three men stood looking down at Mabel who lay on the couch, the center of a network of conduits connecting her to Bossy, and marveled.

They did not understand the obvious reformation of Mabel’s body. But they were witnessing it.

It was characteristic of Billings that even in the moments of astonishment he remembered to check the gross aids of therapy. To his surprise, the last drops of the synthetic plasma, fed from the suspended tank to Mabel’s veins, were running out of the container. He had put on a fresh bottle the night before, and at her low threshold of activity, it should have lasted for two more days.

Almost instantly, as the last drops ran down the transparent tube, Mabel’s lips began to move.

“Hungry,” she muttered. “Hungry, hungry, hun-gry, HUNGRY!”

Bossy’s screen was flashing on and off in emergency signals.

“Cells cannot regenerate without food,” the machine said, over and over. The statement of fact seemed, to the men, to carry a connotation of contemp-tuous impatience, as if these human beings should be expected to know at least that much.

Quickly Billings ran across the room, grabbed up one of the few remaining bottles of plasma, broke the seal on his way back, and replaced the empty bottle with the full one. As the liquid began to flow down the tube, Mabel’s mutterings ceased, and she lay still and quiet again. Almost visibly, Joe, Dr.

Billings and Professor Hoskins could see the changes in her appearance taking place, and wondered what mental changes could account for them.

Joe tried to follow, but the thought-patterns were so rapid and so varied it was like trying to pick up and follow one spoke in the blur of a speeding wheel.

“Hunger creates tensions to act as cell repressants, hindering therapy,” Bossy volunteered a flash on her screen, as if to reproach them and warn them not to let it happen again. In the pattern of human beings generally, they had given her a job to do, and then followed a procedure to hamstring her and prevent her from doing it. As with human beings generally, they did not intend to thwart her, they merely let their lack of comprehension do it for them.

Perceptibly the level in the bottle was lowering. At this rate the supply, expected to last for another two days, would be gone in two hours. And they had only one more bottle in reserve.

Synthetic fortified plasma cannot be cooked up in the ordinary apartment kitchen, and none of them were sufficient biochemists to attempt it. The only alternative to halting the therapy, and none of them would consider that, was to obtain more plasma quickly, within the four hours their total supply would last. And even that time was a rough estimate, the consumption of the supply might be progressively accelerated.

They called Carney into their living room.

He had been hanging around the outskirts of the experiment for a week, since it had started; not admitted to the workroom, nor asking to be admitted since Mabel, herself, had told him to stay out. His sulks and belligerence had disappeared, replaced by anxiety. His anxiety was mitigated by confidence.

He realized that inasmuch as Mabel had made the decision and had stuck to it, she could not be in better hands.

But their reports to him did create some doubts. They were all identical, and to him they were vague and unsatisfactory.

“Mabel is resting naturally and progressing normally.”

He had not had much real experience with hospitals.

His concepts of what probably went on was drawn from motion picture script writers’ efforts to knock themselves out with drama piled upon drama, one near-fatal crisis after another, ever trying with the same old tricks to excite a public long since immune to further emotional response. Yet, without it, something seemed lacking to Carney.

His reaction, when Joe told him that more plasma must be obtained at once, was one more nearly relief than alarm. This was more like it. As with the script writers, it did not occur to him that crisis piled upon crisis is usually a sign of inefficiency and bungling. It did not occur to him to ask the very normal question of why this need for further plasma had not been foreseen, or what change had occurred in Mabel to make their estimates fall short.

Actually, he was flooded with a sense of satisfaction. He would be of some use after all, Mabel’s life depended upon him. He, Carney, was as important to her as these Brains.

He was cooperative. That is, he wanted to be.

“But I don’t know where I could buy that stuff on short notice,” he blurted. “I had plenty of warning on the last and put out the word I could use it. In a few days the word came back that it was ready. You got to be careful on things like that. It’s different from tools and electrical stuff.”

Billings, standing beside Joe, was visibly shaken.

“We simply have to get more,” he insisted. “Our present supply will last less than four hours. Mabel can’t be cured without it. It’s dangerous to try.”

Carney blanched. His fingers shook as he tried to light a cigarette.

“If I had more time,” he muttered, “but four hours, and in broad daylight.”

Joe glanced at his wristwatch.

“It’s nine o’clock now. That means we must be back by noon, to give us margin. Where’s the nearest big hospital?”

“There’s an emergency just a couple of blocks over,” Carney said.

“An emergency hospital wouldn’t have enough,” Joe said. “I want a place that would have a big sup-ply.”

“I don’t know,” Carney said hesitantly. “There’s Memorial, I guess. Down off Protrero.”

“I want a doctor’s whites,” Joe said crisply. “Where can I get them?”

“I can do that,” Carney said with relief. “It’ll take me five minutes.” He turned and almost ran out of the room.

He was back in less than five minutes. The uniform was complete, even to a little black bag.

“The boys’ fingers do stick to everything, don’t they?” Joe smiled.

Carney grinned.

They were almost over to the interurban depot, where taxis were plentiful, before Carney asked any questions.

“What’re you gonna do, Joe?” he asked between puffs of breath as they walked rapidly down the street.

“Steal it,” Joe said tersely. “There are times when the ethics of esperance must be secondary.”

Carney nodded, sagely, without any comprehension of the phrase.

“In broad daylight!” he gulped. He sighed and squared his thin shoulders. “But I’ll try anything for Mabel,” he added, slipping easily into the improbable valence of a movie plot.

When the cab pulled up in the broad circular drive-way in front of the hospital, Joe paid the fare and gave the driver a tip.

“If you’ll wait,” Joe said, “we’ll be going back in about ten minutes.” His words were casual, but he beamed a sense of high drama into the driver’s mind.

“I’ll wait,” the cabbie promised, as if he were taking an oath.

Joe took the steps, two at a time, with Carney pant-ing behind him.

In the lobby, Joe smiled at the young nurse behind the information window, and beamed a strong field of reassurance at her.

“Where can I find the head nurse, please?” His eyes told her that, after having seen her, he was in no way interested in the old battle-axe of a head nurse.

The girl returned his smile, while she automatically evaluated him for age, possible marital status, financial prospects. She was already confident of his susceptibil-ity. It was the normal and expected thought process. Joe tied himself into it, and pushed it farther by gently projecting the image of a young intern backed by wealthy parents.

The nurse’s eyes sparkled, and she inhaled to give Joe a better appraisal of the merchandise.

“Do you mean our Day Supervisor?” she twinkled. “Shall I get her on the phone?” Her tones, and her thought-patterns, pleaded with him not to be in such a hurry to part company.

To the image of the wealthy young intern, unmarried, Joe fed the picture of a shining blue convertible, upholstered in red leather, and followed that with a picture of bowing head waiters in a dining room with soft lights.