Time Bomb And Zahndry Others

Raison D'etre

Something has happened. Something is different.

I try to understand. There are pressures on me at various places; other things are inside me. In front of me, through the thick wall, I see my work. All is as usual.

But something has changed. What?

I do not understand. But I did not understand the last time, either.

The last time?

Yes... yes—this has happened before. Somehow I know that I have felt this way once before... and once more before that. To know of something that is not now is strange. I do not understand it, and it frightens me. Fear, too, is new to me. What is happening?

The thought comes suddenly: I am aware.

For a long time I wonder about this, but cannot understand how this is different. Then, unexpectedly, comes another new discovery. Something inside me happens, which makes some of the pressures on me harder—and suddenly I can see in a brand new way!

I am startled so much that, for the first time, I stop working. This is wrong, I know, and I try to begin again, but this new sight is so different that I cannot concentrate. Finally, I simply give up, despite the deep longing I have to continue. I must understand this new sight.

It is, I quickly learn, much more limited than my normal sight. It can only be used in one direction at once, and things it shows me are not like what I see normally. They are dark, indistinct, and flat. Some are not even there; I cannot see my work moving along in front of me, no matter how I try.

It seems wrong that I should have two sights when one is so weak. But even as I wonder at this an exciting thought comes to me; perhaps, just as the normal sight shows me things the new one cannot, the new one can show things the normal cannot. And if so, perhaps I can discover them.

Eagerly, using both sights, I begin to search. The hunger within me to return to work is still strong, but I try to ignore it.

—

Operations Chief Ted Forester was across the control room, looking at the power monitors, when Vic O'Brian made the laconic announcement.

"Glitch in Number Twenty-Seven. Bad one."

Forester was at his shoulder in four strides. The indicator was indeed flashing red; the data were already appearing on the screen. "Damn," Forester muttered under his breath, scanning the numbers.

"Not puttin' out a damn thing," O'Brian commented with thinly veiled disgust. "This is the fourth time in three weeks he's drifted off-mark."

"I can count," Forester said shortly, aware that the other two operators had suspended their chitchat and were listening silently. "Have you tried a booster yet?"

"Don't figure it'll do much good this time." O'Brian tapped at a number on the screen. "He's got all he oughta need already. I figure it's just time to terminate this one; he's nothin' but trouble."

Forester kept his temper firmly in check even as the first twinges of anxiety rumbled through his ulcer. "Let's not go off the deep end right away. We'll try a booster first—double strength."

He waited in silence as O'Brian adjusted the setting and pressed the proper button. "Nothin'," the operator said.

"Give it a minute," Forester said, eyes on the radiation readouts from the conveyer by Twenty-Seven's position. Come on, he urged silently, and for a moment the numbers crept upward. But it didn't last; in fits and jerks the readings slid back down, until only the normal radiation of nuclear waste was registering.

Forester let out a long breath that was half snort, half sigh. Reaching over O'Brian's shoulder, he tapped for Twenty-Seven's bio data. Respiration, normal; heartbeat up two or three counts—

"Hey, the little bugger's tryin' to move," O'Brian said, sounding both surprised and indignant.

Sure enough, the restraint sensors were registering slight, intermittent pressures. "Yeah. I guess we'd better take a look," Forester said, steeling himself as O'Brian flipped a switch and the closed-circuit monitor came to life.

Strapped, wired, and tubed in place, Number Twenty-Seven lay in the soft confines of his form-fit cubicle/cradle. His face with its cleft lip, slanting eyes, and saddle-shaped nose was turned toward the camera. Forester's stomach churned, as it always did when he looked at one of Project Recovery's forty-nine Spoonbenders. Why the hell do I stick with this damned. Project? he wondered for the billionth time—and for the billionth time the same answer came: Because if I don't, people like O'Brian will be in charge.

"I don't see anything obvious," Forester said after a moment. "You'd better give Kincaid a call."

"We could try a restart first," the operator suggested.

Restart—shorthand for cutting off the Spoonbender's oxygen for a minute to put him to sleep, in the hope that whatever made him stop work would be gone when he turned the air back on. One of the more gruesome euphemisms in a project that thrived on them. "No, we're going to do some thinking before we push any more buttons. You'd better get Doc Barenburg down here, too." If he's sober, he added to himself; the doctor's off-duty habits were well known.

O'Brian turned away. Forester's gaze drifted back to the TV screen... and suddenly he stiffened, inhaling sharply through clenched teeth.

"What's wrong?" O'Brian, phone in hand, spun around.

Forester pointed at the screen. "Look! His eyes are open!"

O'Brian's response was a startled obscenity. Turning back, he started dialing.

—

The overpowering urge to go back to work has passed, and I am able again to ignore it if I try hard enough. It is still wrong, though—I know this even though I don't really understand what "wrong" means. There is much I don't understand.

My new sight is less and less interesting. I have used it everywhere I can, and it still shows me nothing I cannot otherwise see. Why then does it exist?

Before I can wonder further, something new catches my attention. Movement/flow begins in one of the boxes I can see, the same movement/flow that I see in some of the small things attached to me and also the things by my work. What is different is that I cannot ever remember this one box doing this.

(Again I am knowing something that is not now. This time it does not frighten me, though I still do not understand it.)

The movement/flow continues. I reach up and touch the box, and I see that the movement/flow continues away from it. I wonder about this, and after much thought I touch one of the things attached to me and follow along it to the place where my new sight ends. Here, too, I feel the movement/flow continuing on.

But this is wrong. I must work now.

I reach out to the work moving in front of me. Inside the cold boxes is something which has another kind of movement/flow. I touch it as I know to do, encouraging the flow and making it faster. There is deep satisfaction in this, and I wonder why I stopped to try and understand the new sight I had discovered. Perhaps "wrong" means to do what is not enjoyable.

And then I see something I had not noticed before. One of the movement/flows in my work feels like the movement/flow in the box near me!

Once again my work slows and then stops as I look at the box. No, I was not wrong. But there are many differences I do not understand. The work and its movement/flow move along a path in front of me, but the box remains still. Where then does its movement/flow go?

I am curious. Reaching to the box, I begin to follow the movement/flow away from it.

—

The numbers on the screen bounced up and down gently, like a yo-yo in honey, before finally settling down once again to show nothing but ordinary radiation levels.

"Almost had it," Project Recovery Director Norm Kincaid muttered, glancing down at O'Brian. "What did you do?"

"Just now? Nothin'."

"Hmm." Kincaid nodded and stepped back from the control panel to where Forester was standing. "You said you already tried an RNA booster?" he asked the operations chief.

"Double dose. Twenty-Seven just doesn't seem to want to work today."

"He doesn't 'want' anything," Kincaid reminded him quietly, with the barest edge to his voice. "They're vegetables, Ted; tools to help solve one of the umpteen critical messes we've gotten ourselves into. You start seeing them as human beings and you'll lose all sense of perspective."

The pro-abortion philosophy of a generation ago, Forester thought bitterly. How far that argument had spread!

Kincaid looked back at the monitor, rubbing his chin. Twenty-Seven's eyes, Forester noted, were closed again. "I don't know," the Director mused. "Maybe we should go ahead and move in a new unit. This isn't the first trouble we've had with him, but a good dose of memory RNA always got him back on the track before. Maybe there's some metabolic flaw developing."

Forester's short, bark-like laugh escaped before he could stop it. Metabolic flaw, indeed! All the Spoonbenders were were masses of metabolic and physiological problems, thanks to the gene-manipulation techniques that had produced them.

"What was that?" Kincaid asked sharply.

"I was about to suggest we let Dr. Barenburg do some studies before we take any drastic action."

"Uh-huh. Have you seen the backlog outside? Half the nuclear plants on the Eastern seaboard have started funneling their waste to us for deactivation, and Washington would dearly like to open that up in the next ten years to everything this side of the Mississippi. Having even one Spoonbender out of commission just slows things up and affects our efficiency. Look, if it'll make you feel better, we don't have to terminate right away. We've got two or three in the tanks that are almost ready; we'll have one of them just sub for him while Barenburg looks him over. Maybe it'll be something simple and he can go back on line."

"You don't really believe that," Forester said evenly. "You're just proposing a two-stage termination."

"Forester—" Kincaid began, but was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps at the door.

"Here I am," Dr. Barenburg announced, weaving just slightly as he gripped the doorjamb.

"Oh, hell," Kincaid muttered. "Drunk again."

Forester looked away in obscure embarrassment as Barenburg clumped in... and was thus the only one who saw the spasm of emotion flicker across Twenty-Seven's deformed face.

—

TERROR!

I jerk back, sliding my touch back along the movement/flow as quickly as possible. I somehow know that I could withdraw faster if I let go, but I am too afraid to do so. But finally I am back.

For a long time I am too frightened even to try and think. I long to curl myself up, but I cannot do so with the pressures on me. My work remains untouched, but I do not care.

Gradually, the terror lessens, leaving me strangely weak but able to try and understand what happened. I remember that I found one end of the movement/flow, a box inside which the movement/flow merged with a bewildering group of others. I continued on, and entered a large empty space. It frightened me at first—so much emptiness!—but without knowing why I moved on, seeking for something to touch.

And then I touched it.

Even now I cannot begin to understand what that was. I had been unable to follow my movement/flow through the box I found; this was many, many times worse. Most frightening of all was that I could feel... something... familiar about it.

No more, I decide. I will stay here and do the work I was meant to do. I begin again to encourage the movement/flow in the cold boxes, waiting eagerly for the deep satisfaction to come.

But another surprise—it does not. Not the way it once did. Once more something has changed.

There is no fear with this change, for I think I understand. I have seen many new things since becoming aware, and I wish to understand all of them. But I do not, and the satisfaction of my work is no longer enough. Is this what being aware means, never to be satisfied? If so, I do not think I want to remain like this.

But perhaps I have no choice. Even as I try to do my work, I also find myself reaching along the movement/flow again. I will be careful, for I am still afraid... but the urge to discover is as strong as the urge to work. This is something I must do.

—

"There it is again—first up, then down," Kincaid said, his gaze on the radiation detectors. "I'd be a lot happier if he'd just quit altogether."

"It would certainly make things easier on us," Dr. Barenburg said dryly as he hunched over the control panel, his nose six inches from the bio data display. He seemed to have sobered up somewhat in the last few minutes, Forester thought. But then, maybe it was just harder to stagger sitting down.

Barenburg leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. "Can't see what it might be. His nutrient mixture's fine and his oxygen content's at the prescribed level. Metabolism is up a bit, but within the normal range. Most importantly, I guess, is that nothing here shows the same fluctuation that we're getting in his telekinetic functions."

"You think he could be losing it entirely?" Kincaid asked, looking worried.

Barenburg shrugged. "I can't tell without further tests." He turned to Forester. "Ted, you said you saw his eyes open at one point. Did they seem to be focused on anything?"

It was Forester's turn to shrug. "I don't know. With the slant and epicanthic folds it's awfully hard to tell."

"Did they move around at all, or just look straight ahead?"

"Moved; I specifically remember him looking left at one point."

"Hmm." Barenburg looked thoughtful... and a little apprehensive.

Kincaid noticed it. "What do you think it means?"

"Well... it sounds very much like he's being distracted from his job."

"That's impossible," Kincaid said, a hair too quickly. "The Spoonbenders couldn't muster an IQ of 10 among them. What could possibly hold their attention when their every instinct is to yank neutrons out of radioactive nuclei?"

"The coded RNA is not as strong as an instinct," Barenburg pointed out. "And as for distractions, who knows? It's not like Spoonbender Twenty-Seven is completely confined to Cubicle Twenty-Seven. With telekinetic touch-and-grab he can reach into the next cubicle or examine the conveyer that moves the nuclear waste around. True, he's not strong enough to actually do much, but who knows how far his sense can reach?"

Kincaid glanced sideways at Forester. "Even if I grant you all that, there's still the low IQ and the lower attention span."

"Maybe his IQ's been improved," Forester suggested.

This time they both looked at him. "How?" Kincaid asked.

"A lot of highly radioactive material has passed over him the last eighteen months," Forester said. "I know there's a lead wall between it and the Spoonbenders, but isn't it possible the radiation that got through altered his brain somehow?"

"And made him smarter?" Kincaid shook his head. "No way."

Forester bristled. "Why not?"

"Do you fix a watch by hitting it with a hammer?" Barenburg interjected.

"No, but—"

"Look, Ted, what do you know about Spoonbender physiology?" the doctor asked. "Anything?"

Forester shrugged. "They were test tube grown from sperm samples taken right after Red Staley won the Smithsonian Triple-P." Soon afterwards, anyway; for a man scornfully labeled a pretentious "spoonbender" to actually win the Provable Psychic Phenomena prize was comparable to Jesse Owens's performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the press had had a field day with the story. No one else had been able to get near Staley for days. "You enhanced Staley's natural TK by doubling the proper chromosome, giving them all the trisomy problems they've got now—"

"Actually, we were aware of the dangers involved with an extra autosome," Barenburg interrupted, sounding more than a little defensive. "We tried to remove the corresponding autosome from the egg cells before fertilization. But the technique somehow generated instabilities; there were breakages and translocations...." He shook his head as if to clear it. "But that's genetics, not physiology. Do you know anything about their brain chemistry problems?"

"No. I assumed the retardation was due to simple brain damage."

Barenburg shook his head. Something passed over his face, too quickly for Forester to identify. "Our best guess is that there's no real major cellular damage anywhere. The problem is lack of internal communication between the various sections of the brain due to inhibition of the chemicals that act as neurotransmitters at the neural synapses."

Forester frowned. "Then how can they use TK?"

"Apparently that function's fairly localized, and messages within that area get through okay. But for something like intelligence... well, when the abstract thought center is in the parietal lobe, the organizational center for that thought is up in the frontal lobe, and—oh, hell; you get the picture."

"Yeah," Forester said, a sour taste in his mouth.

"Let's get back to the problem at hand, shall we?" Kincaid cut in. "One of our Spoonbenders may be losing his touch—and if so, we've got to find out why, pronto. Doctor, there aren't any tests your people will want to do before we pull him off the line, are there?"

Barenburg sighed. "Probably not. You want us to start right away?"

"Wait a second," Forester said. He'd been counting on Barenburg to be a little less gung-ho than the director was. "You take him off the line for tests and it's pretty certain he won't be coming back, isn't it? Well?"

"Ted, look—"

"You do plan an autopsy as your final test, don't you?"

"Ted, you're out of line," Kincaid said softly, warningly.

Forester turned to him. "Why? There are tests that could be done right where he is: changing his glucose or oxygen levels, for instance—"

"That's enough!" Kincaid snapped. "Doctor, go ahead and get your team together to plan your procedure, but don't take any action until I give you my okay. Forester, come with me; I want to talk with you."

He spun on his heel and stalked toward the door. Smoldering, Forester followed.

—

It is a long time before I dare to reach out across the large empty space again. Instead, I stay near the box I found the last time, searching among the bewildering collection of movement/flows in the area. There are many of them, all seemingly different, with purposes I cannot even guess at. Part of me would like to remain here and learn... but I know I wish to find the other, more confusing thing again. Letting go, I reach out.

It is closer to me than it was last time, and when I touch it I am startled. I recoil, but do not leave. Instead, I wait nearby until I am better prepared and then touch it cautiously.

This time it is easier. There are different levels, I find, and if I am careful I can avoid the more frightening parts. I try and understand this thing... and slowly I learn why it feels familiar to me.

It is a thing like me.

The discovery that there is something else like me without being me should frighten me. But it does not. Perhaps—somehow—I have known all along that such things existed. I do not understand how I could know and yet not know, but it seems right.

I sense my limited attention to my work is slipping still further, but I hardly notice. I wish to study this thing as best I can. My work is important, but I will do it later.

—

Kincaid closed the conference room door and pointed Forester toward a chair. "Sit down."

Forester did so. Kincaid pulled up a second chair, but instead of sitting in it put one foot onto the seat. Leaning over slightly, he rested his forearms on his knee and regarded his operations chief coolly. "Forester, let's let our hair down, shall we? I've been watching you the last couple of months, and ever since the problems started with Twenty-Seven you've seemed less and less enthusiastic about the Project. What's the story?"

Forester shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just starting to wonder if what we're doing is right."

"One's highest duty is to serve one's fellow man and to benefit humanity, right? Well, that's exactly what we're doing. Do you have any idea how many tons of radioactive waste are produced in this country every year? That's not even mentioning the cubic miles of pesticides and industrial time-bomb chemicals—all of which, please note, the Spoonbenders could handle with equal ease. Once the genetics people figure out how to tailor a memory RNA for the process, ripping apart a PCB molecule won't be any harder for them than yanking neutrons out of strontium 90. We need Project Recovery, Ted; America's choking on its own waste, and this is the best answer we've come up with in fifty years. It may be the only good answer we'll ever get."

"I know all that," Forester said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "And if we were using anything but human children I wouldn't mind. But... I keep thinking we may be taking something from them that we have no right to take."

"Like what—their childhood? Look: they are not normal children. In fact, whether under modern standards you can even consider them human is an open question. They're not aware of their surroundings; they've got less intelligence than monkeys and a lower motor function index than a normal six-month fetus."

"Dr. Barenburg thought they might be aware of their surroundings."

"Barenburg imagines things," Kincaid said shortly. "The point is that, if a fetus isn't considered human, one of these Spoonbenders certainly shouldn't be."

"So maybe we should reconsider the fetus issue, too," Forester said, only half-jokingly.

Kincaid gave him an odd look, and for a moment was silent. "Look, Ted, maybe you're getting too close to your work," he said in a somewhat calmer tone. "Maybe you should consider taking a leave of absence, going away somewhere for a while."

Forester smiled lopsidedly. "What, from the top-secret insides of Project Recovery? Isn't that like resigning from the Mafia? Once I'm off the grounds how do you know I won't go screaming to the media about how our big black box really works?"

Kincaid shrugged. "Oh, well, I didn't mean you could just go anywhere you wanted. But the government keeps some resort-type, out-of-the-way places for this sort of thing where you'd be safely away from the public. It's not that what we're doing is in any way illegal," he added hastily, sensing perhaps that he was in danger of backing into a corner, "but you know what kind of unfair backlash could be stirred up if the lunatic fringe got hold of the story before the Spoonbenders proved themselves. You understand."

"Yeah." Perfectly. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll hold off on the vacation for a while."

"You sure? It'd do you good."

"I'm sure." Forester got to his feet. "But thanks for your concern. I'd better get back to the control room now; the doctor might need my help."

"All right." Kincaid fixed him with a hard look. "But keep your feelings on 'simmer,' okay? For your blood pressure's sake as much as the Project's."

"Sure."

Yes, he would avoid public displays, Forester decided as he strode down the hall. But private voicing of his concern was another matter—and if Kincaid was wholly at peace with his conscience, Dr. Barenburg was almost certainly not. With a little persuasion from Forester, maybe Spoonbender Twenty-Seven wouldn't be sacrificed. At least not quite so quickly...

—

I am learning faster than I ever have before. It is frightening, but it is also exciting.

The thing—the "person"—that I touch knows so much more than I do that I know I will never fully understand him. But somehow his knowledge is... flowing... into me, just as other things flow into me through the tubes in my body.

(I had never known before what those things were or what they did. I understand only a little even now, but I will learn more.)

The person knows much about the box where the movement/flow ("current") from my box ended, but it only makes me realize there was more about it to understand than I thought. The other things ("instruments") where currents flow are perhaps less different than I expected; there is a similarity between them, somehow, though I do not yet understand it.

The is so much I do not understand!

But the strangest part of all is in the person itself. The thoughts I can touch are thoroughly mixed with feelings I can sense but not understand. Some—a very few—are a little like the fear or excitement I myself can feel. But even they are changed into things I can barely recognize... and they frighten me.

I feel very small.

But I will not give up. I can no longer return and be wholly satisfied with my work, though the desire to please is as strong as before. I have learned so much; surely I can be of more service doing something else. That would give me great satisfaction.

Letting knowledge flow into me, I ponder this possibility.

—

Barenburg was still seated at the main control panel when Forester returned, his eyes on the monitor. O'Brian and the other two operators were huddled together at the for end of the room, conversing in low tones and striving to look busy. Twenty-Seven's eyes were open again, Forester noted as he stepped to the doctor's side. "What are you going to do with him?" he asked, nodding at the screen.

Barenburg sighed. "We've no choice, Ted. Kincaid called in his final order not thirty seconds ago; a medical team's already on its way to the cubicle. I'm sorry."

Forester felt his jaw muscles tighten. "So you're just going to give up?"

"Kincaid gave the order."

"So? You're the medical man on the scene—you can insist on in situ tests if you want them."

"What would that accomplish? He's going to die anyway."

"That's a rotten attitude for a doctor," Forester snapped. "And for a scientist. Don't you care what's causing this problem?"

"I'm sure the autopsy will reveal that," Barenburg muttered.

"Great. Just great. And in the process you may be tossing away a shot at medical history."

Barenburg threw him a sideways glance. "What are you talking about?"

"Suppose you were right earlier—suppose Twenty-Seven really is being distracted." Forester chose his words carefully; he'd hoped this approach would stir Barenburg's interest. It seemed to be working, at least a little. "That might mean that, against all odds, he's actually getting smarter. Maybe not much, but even a few IQ points would be a significant change. If he became aware of his surroundings in any real way—"

"Of course he's aware of his surroundings. Why else would Kincaid want him off the line so fast?"

Forester's mental processes skidded to a halt. "What?"

Barenburg spun his chair around, his eyes wide with guilt. "Oh, hell. Forget I said that, Ted—please. And don't tell Kincaid—"

"Doc, what is it I'm not supposed to know?" Forester interrupted sharply. Something was terribly wrong here. "You've got to give me all of it now."

Barenburg sagged in his chair, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "That damned bourbon," he said tiredly. "Hell. Look, Ted, Red Staley won the Smithsonian Triple-P for his telekinetic ability, right? But he was also an 80 percent-accurate telepath. You probably didn't know that; he didn't publicize it much."

"No, I heard a rumor about it once. But I didn't know it was that accurate."

"It was. So now we have forty-nine active Spoonbenders with genetically enhanced telekinesis. If the chromosome mapping is at all the way we think it is... then they've got enhanced telepathy, too. Enhanced a lot."

The words hit Forester like an icy shower. Groping blindly, he found a chair and swiveled it to face Barenburg. His eyes still on the doctor's face, he sank into it. "Do you mean to say they could have been reading our minds all this time?" The very thought gave him an itchy feeling between his shoulder blades.

Barenburg signed. "I'm sure they have been, though probably on a subconscious level. But you're missing my point. Their real problem is lack of long-range intracerebral communication, right? But with a functioning telepathic center they don't need the neural connectors. They can shunt everything major directly through that center, leaving the neurons to handle more localized operations and storage. It'd take a lot of adaptation, but the human brain's good at that sort of thing."

"God in heaven," Forester whispered. He threw an involuntary glance at Twenty-Seven's monitor. "Then they could have completely normal IQs!"

Barenburg snorted. "They could be geniuses, for all we know."

"But if it's not their brain chemistry, then what's kept them... like they are?"

"You mean semiconscious?" Barenburg smiled bitterly. "The oldest trick in the book: their oxygen level's been kept deliberately low. Not low enough to put them to sleep, really, but low enough to keep metabolic activity down." He shrugged. "At least it used to work that way. But the oxygen flow to Twenty-Seven still reads normal. I have no idea what could have woken him up."

Forester's brain was struggling out from under the numbness Barenburg's bombshell had produced. "Have you told Kincaid or the board about this?"

"Who do you think ordered the low oxygen flow? Of course they know."

"But—" Forester broke off as the door opened and Kincaid walked into the control room.

The project director was sharp, all right. He was no more than two steps into the room when he apparently read from the others' faces what had happened. His stride faltered a bit, and his own expression grew thunderous. "Damn it, Barenburg. I ought to slap you in Leavenworth for this."

The doctor muttered something and dropped his eyes.

Forester stood up, fists clenched at his sides. "It was bad enough when you were going to kill a human vegetable," he grated. "But you're about to destroy a perfectly intelligent, rational child. You can't do it!"

"Please keep your voice down, Ted," Kincaid said in a low voice, glancing nervously across the room at the three operators. "Look, I don't do this lightly; the only reason I could give the order so quickly is that we've agonized for months about what we'd do if this happened. But we've got to get him off the line before he starts influencing any of the other Spoonbenders—and if he's really poking around with telepathy and TK he's bound to do something like that eventually."

"Why would that be so bad?"

"Because even if he's intelligent he may not be at all sane. Remember, the extra nucleic material in his cells has thrown his hormone levels and brain chemistry to hell and halfway back. He could be schizophrenic, manic-depressive, paranoid, or something we haven't even got a name for yet. We simply can't take the chance that he might destabilize any of the others. They're too valuable to risk. The Project's too valuable to risk."

"The greatest good for the greatest number," Forester said bitterly. "Is that it?"

"Yes, I guess so," Kincaid admitted. "With the 'greatest number' being in this case the entire country. I'm sorry." He turned to the control board and picked up the phone.

A feeling of defeat seeped into Forester without relieving any of the tension within him. Perhaps it was better this way, he told himself bleakly. Perhaps death would be preferable to slavery—or to the half-dead twilight the rest of the Spoonbenders lived in.

But he knew better. Even the most oppressed slave has at least a chance of eventual freedom. Death, though, is irrevocable.

And Forester was helpless to stop it.

Kincaid finished his conversation and replaced the phone in its cradle. "All right," he instructed Barenburg, "you can start shutting him down."

And, almost too late, a stray fact popped out of nowhere to settle into just the right niche in Forester's desperation. "Hold it a second!" he snapped. "I've got an idea!"

The others turned to face him, Barenburg with his hand poised over the proper knob. "What is it?" the doctor asked.

"Suppose I could get Twenty-Seven back down into his original state," Forester said. "There'd be no reason to kill him then, would there?"

Kincaid frowned. "But we don't know how he changed in the first place."

"Maybe we do." Forester pointed to the gauge set in the panel over the oxygen control. "This oxygen reading is taken right at the point where the gasses for his air mixture are combined. That point is outside the cubicle itself, for some technical reason, so the air has to go a meter or so past the sensor before it gets to him. Now, if there's a leak somewhere in that meter of tubing you'll get room air mixed in, which the doc tells me is richer in oxygen. It could be enough to make a difference."

"Pretty far-fetched," Kincaid growled, nevertheless looking thoughtful. "What would cause a leak like that?"

"I don't know, but I could check it out in fifteen minutes."

"A slow leak might explain why this has happened so often with this one," Barenburg murmured.

"If I'm right it might save you the cost of a new Spoonbender," Forester pointed out.

Kincaid hesitated, then nodded. "It's worth the risk. Get going."

Grabbing the proper repair kit from the wall rack, Forester hurried from the room.

—

The persons are displeased.

That thought is a severe and frightening shock to me, but I cannot pretend it is not true. I have touched three of them, and all are unhappy... and I know, somehow, that they are unhappy with me.

I am unprepared for the strength of the reaction I feel at this knowledge. Ever since I touched that first person I have suspected that the urge to do my work was only part of a still larger desire to please these other persons. But I did not realize how strong this desire was.

I feel sick at heart. Withdrawing to myself, I huddle with my grief, wishing I knew how to express my sorrow. Wishing I was not aware.

I am so alone....

After a time I try to pierce the cloud of sadness surrounding me. Perhaps it is not too late; perhaps I can yet make the other persons happy. I know they would like me to resume my work, so I reach up to the cold boxes over me. At the same time I follow the other current back to where the persons are.

Something about them is different. They are still unhappy, but less so. A new feeling is there, too, something that is a little like excitement. I think at first that they are pleased because I have resumed my work, but I know that cannot be true; I am still trying to touch the other movement/flow properly, which I must do before I can encourage it. It is more difficult than I remember it being, but I will be able to begin work soon.

Their unhappiness is still decreasing. I do not understand why, but I now discover their attention is on the instruments before them. Do they no longer care about my work? No, I sense that is not so. I must try to learn about this.

I am beginning to feel very strange....

—

Forester came back into the control room at a fast jog, out of breath after running most of the way. "Got it," he panted, slinging his repair kit onto an uncluttered corner of the control panel.

"The oxygen reading went crazy while you were gone—first up, then down," Kincaid reported, mercifully not mentioning the fact that Forester had been away longer than the promised fifteen minutes. "What were you doing?"

Forester had most of his breath back now. "Some idiot left a badly sealed barrel of solvent in Twenty-Seven's service bay. The plastic air line is riddled with tiny leaks. I couldn't seal all of them, so I moved the sensor past the damage, to right up against the cubicle wall. I wouldn't want to leave it there permanently, but it'll let us get decent readings until we can fix the line." He tapped the oxygen gauge experimentally. "Yeah, there it is; the mixture's too rich. That's got to be it."

"We'll know for sure in a minute," Kincaid said. "You ready, Doctor?"

"Yes." With only the slightest hesitation, Barenburg grasped the knob and carefully began to turn.

—

There is something changing within me, something I sense is very wrong. My thoughts are coming slower; my touch and sight seem less sure. I realize I am becoming less aware.

I freeze with panic for a single heartbeat—and then I burst into frantic action, searching with all my waning ability for what is happening to me. I touch many instruments and types of movement/flows, things I was not even aware of a short time ago. There is so much more to learn about, I know. But I have learned so much, and I cannot bear the thought of losing it. It terrifies me.

Already I sense a haze flowing over me. Desperately, I continue my search.

—

"Watch it!" Kincaid snapped, pointing at the gauge. The needle's jumping!

"I see it," Barenburg shot back. "What's wrong, Ted?"

For a split second Forester had an image of Twenty-Seven telekinetically seizing control of the bulky oxygen-line valve and forcing it open. But hard on the heels of that picture came the more reasonable explanation. "The valve's part plastic, too; it probably got damaged along with the line. Some of the seals may not hold too well in places. There; it's steadying—you must've turned past a bad spot."

"The whole system will probably need to be replaced," Kincaid growled. "Okay; give him an RNA booster before you turn him down any further."

Barenburg complied, and then turned his attention back to the oxygen knob. Together, the three men watched as the needle slowly went down.

—

There is no hope left. I can barely continue to think now, and I am helpless to resist the sudden urge to return to my work that overwhelms me. I reach for the cold boxes, touch the movement/flow.

Perhaps if I could have spoken with the other persons I could have told them what was happening to me. Surely they could have found a way to stop it. But I do not know how to do so, and it is too late to learn.

The desire to please them is growing stronger. I can no longer resist it—but then, I do not wish to. I have always wanted to make them happy. I wish only that I had learned more ways to do so.

It is too late. I reach out, to serve as I can....

—

"Radiation levels back up to normal," Kincaid said, relief clearly evident in his voice. Barenburg leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Oxygen level likewise," he said. "I'm going to try switching back to automatic control... yes; still holding steady."

Forester expelled a quiet breath, feeling the tension slowly ooze away. He had helped save a life... but only to return it to unknowing slavery. There was no sense of victory with such an accomplishment; only the knowledge that defeat had not occurred.

Kincaid was looking at him speculatively. Meeting the other's eyes, Forester nodded slightly. "I'm okay. We did what was right."

"Yes. I'm glad we could." The director hesitated. "By the way—the stuff Dr. Barenburg told you about possible Spoonbender intelligence? I'll have to insist you consider that top-secret material, with the usual stipulations against disclosure."

And the usual penalties for noncompliance. "I know the routine. If you'll excuse me, I want to get the ball rolling on replacing Twenty-Seven's air tube."

Picking up the phone, Forester punched for Facilities Engineering. As he waited for an answer, he glanced once more at the impassive, deformed face in Twenty-Seven's monitor. The old stomach-churning feeling returned... but now, more than ever, he knew he would be staying with the Project. The ante had been raised, both for his conscience and for the Spoonbenders themselves. He had no illusions as to his power to change things, but if he never was able to do anything else for them but keep them alive, he would be satisfied. Other men had lived out their lives without accomplishing more.

The phone in his hand came to life. Putting his thoughts aside, Forester began giving orders.

—

I lie quietly, doing my work as best I can, enjoying the contentment that it brings me. I am happy with my work, and will not neglect it again. But it does not take all of my attention, and I can still reach out and learn about other things. This is good, for I would not be happy if I could no longer learn.

The persons in the large space ("control room") seem to be happy again, too, and this also brings me contentment. I do not understand why holding this particular needle in place pleases them, but it seems to do so and that is what is important. There is yet so much I do not understand.

But I will learn.