Caddigan glanced down the insertions. “Your life seems to be one long question mark.”

  “It’s really of little consequence.”

  Caddigan shrugged his high shoulders. “You’ll find that the guiding spirits around here are sticklers for regulation. This—” he indicated the application “—is like a red flag to a bull.”

  “Perhaps the guiding spirits need stimulation.”

  Caddigan gave him a hard stare. “Orderlies seldom are agents of stimulation without regretting it.”

  “I hope not to remain orderly long.”

  Caddigan smiled quietly. “I’m sure you won’t.”

  There was a short silence. Then Waylock asked, “Were you an orderly?”

  “No. I’m a graduate of Horsfroyd College of Psychiatrics. Worked two years as interne at Meadowbrook Home for the Criminal Insane. Therefore—” Caddigan turned out his lank hands “—I was able to bypass the menial jobs.” He looked with sardonic expectancy at Waylock. “Eager to learn the nature of your duties?”

  “Interested, at least.”

  “Very well. In all candor, it’s not nice work. It sometimes is dangerous. If you injure one of the patients you lose career points. We’re not allowed violence or emotion—unless of course we ourselves go manic.” Caddigan’s eyes gleamed. “Now if you’ll come with me…”

  2

  “Here is our little empire,” said Caddigan in an ironic voice. He motioned up the room which, by some obscure association, awoke in Waylock’s mind the word “museum”. Beds extended from both sides into the room. The walls were buff, the beds were white, the floors were covered with a checker of linoleum in brown and gray. Partitions of transparent plastic separated each bed from the next, creating a series of stalls along both walls. Although the plastic was very clear, the beds at the far end of the room were indistinct and clouded, an effect like the multiple images in mirrors held opposite. The patients lay on their backs, arms lax along their sides. The eyes of some were open; others were clenched shut. They were all male, men of late youth or early middle age. The beds were immaculately tended, the faces shone pinkly clean.

  “Nice and tidy and quiet,” said Caddigan. “These are all strong cattos; they hardly ever stir. But every once in a while—click! Something pops in their brain. You’ll notice restless motions, their mouths work, they convulse. That’s the manic stage.”

  “Then they’re violent?”

  “It depends on the individual. Sometimes they just lie there and writhe. Others leap to their feet and stride down the corridors like gods, destroying whatever they touch. Rather,” he added with a grin, “they would if they were allowed. Notice,” he pointed to the floor at the foot of the first bed, “those holes. As soon as weight leaves the bed, stress-tubes shoot up and block off the stall. The patient is unable to escape, and can only tear up the sheets. After considerable experimentation, we have developed sheets which tear with optimum sound and vibration. The patient works off much of his fury, and presently we enter the booth with a swaddle and bear him back to his bed.” He paused, looked down the passage. “But these strong cattos aren’t too bad. There are worse wards.” He looked toward the ceiling. “Up there are the shriekers. They lie like statues, but every so often, like a clock striking, they cry out. It’s hard on the orderlies. They are human, after all, and the human mind is sensitive to certain timbres of the voice.” He paused and seemed to muse. Waylock looked dubiously along the row of rigid faces. “I have often thought,” Caddigan went on, “that if one had an enemy, a sane and sensitive enemy, how exquisite a torture to confine him in the shrieker ward, where he could hear and not escape. He would join the shrieking in six hours.”

  “Don’t you use sedatives?”

  Caddigan shrugged. “For the strong manics, of necessity. Otherwise we operate by the theory—whim, if you prefer—of the psychiatrist in charge. In this ward it is—nominally—Didactor Alphonse Clou. But Didactor Clou is preparing a treatise: Synchrocephaleison among the Doppelgangers, or, if you prefer, the symbiotes, who need each others’ presence to exist. He rejects the influence of telepathy, which to my mind is ridiculous; however, I am Brood and Didactor Clou may make Verge on the strength of his treatise. With Clou occupied, Basil Thinkoup is the man in authority; and this ward is his domain. Basil does not drug. His ideas are unconventional. He espouses the remarkable principle that whatever is established practice is incorrect, and in fact the diametric opposite of what should be done. If painstaking research suggests that mild massage is beneficial to victims of hysterical delusion, Basil either wraps them in rigoroid or runs them violently around a course attached to a mechanical guide. Basil is an experimenter. He tries anything, without qualm or moderation.”

  “With what results?” asked Waylock.

  Caddigan pushed out his lips in sour amusement. “The patients are none the worse. Some seem to benefit…But of course Basil doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  They walked along the central aisle. The faces, of all contours and casts, had one element in common: an expression of the most profound melancholy, dreariness without hope.

  “Good heavens,” muttered Waylock. “Those faces…Are they conscious? Do they think? Do they feel as they look?”

  “They are alive. At some level their mind is functioning.”

  Waylock shook his head.

  “Don’t think of them as human beings,” Caddigan declared. “If you do, you’re lost. For our purposes they are only elements of the striving, to be manipulated in such a way as to win us career-points…Come now, I’ll show you what must be done.”

  3

  Waylock found his duties altogether repellent. As orderly he was required to wash, air, force-feed and attend to the bodily evacuations of thirty-six comatose patients, any one of whom might suddenly be keyed into violent mania. In addition he was obliged to keep records, and to assist Caddigan or Basil Thinkoup in any special treatment or exercise.

  Basil Thinkoup looked into the ward about lunchtime, and seemed in high good spirits. He clapped Waylock on the back. “Mind now, Gavin, don’t let Seth put you off with his mockery; he’s really a smart enough lad.”

  Caddigan pursed his lips and looked off across the room. “I think I’ll be seeing to my lunch.” He nodded curtly and sauntered loosely off. Basil took Gavin’s arm. “Come along. I’ll show you the cafeteria; we’ll have a good meal and see what’s to be done.”

  Waylock looked down the ward. “What about the patients?”

  Basil’s expression became quizzical. “What about them indeed? Where can they go? What harm can befall them? They recline as if frozen; if they thaw or erupt—what then? The bars hold them; they tear up the sheets; they spend themselves and sleep once more.”

  “I suppose that’s the practical attitude.”

  “And eminently sensible!”

  The cafeteria occupied a half-hemisphere cantilevered out from the main structure, providing a view of sunny air and blue-gray river. Tables were arranged in concentric half-circles, with all the chairs turned outward. Basil led Waylock to a table at the far end of one of the inner circles—a self-effacing choice, made without apparent calculation. Others in the room seemed rather cool toward Basil.

  As they seated themselves, Basil winked at Waylock. “Professional jealousy at work; did you notice?”

  Waylock made a noncommittal response.

  “They know I’m progressing,” said Basil complacently. “Pulling a prize out from under their very noses, and it irks them.”

  “I imagine it would.”

  “This group,” Basil made a sweep with the back of his hand, “is riddled with suspicion and jealousy. Since I seem to be advancing rapidly, they turn on me like small-town gossips. Seth Caddigan no doubt has been condemning my practices, right?”

  Waylock laughed. “Not exactly. He says you are unconventional; and it disturbs him.”

  “He should be disturbed. He and I started on equal terms. Seth burdened his mind with hypotheses derived at fourth or fifth hand from classical case studies; I ignored the lot and played by ear, so to speak.”

  A menu wrought from slave-light fine as wire drifted down to each of them; Basil ordered lettuce, pickled shad and crackers, explaining that he felt better for light eating. “Seth frets and eats himself away with self-pity, and develops his wit instead of his psychiatry. Myself, hmm—perhaps I am boisterous. So they describe me. But I have no misgivings. Our society is the most stable structure in human history, and shows no tendency to change. This being the case, we can expect our typical ailment, the catatonic- manic syndrome, to continue its advance. We must attack it vigorously, with our gloves off.” Waylock, busy with cutlet and watercress, nodded his understanding.

  “They say I use the patients as guinea pigs,” Basil complained. “Not so. I do try various systems of therapy as they occur to me. The waxers are expendable. They’re of value to no one, not even themselves. Suppose I aggravate twenty of them, thirty, or a hundred? What then?”

  “A detail,” said Waylock.

  “Correct.” Basil stuffed his cheeks with lettuce. “The condemnation might be justified if my methods produced no results—but—ha, ha!” He spluttered with laughter, holding his hand over his mouth. “To the intense dismay of all, some of my patients improve! I have discharged several as cured, which increases the contempt in which I am held. Who is less popular than the lucky bungler?” He clapped Waylock on the arm. “I am pleased to have you here, Gavin! Who knows, we may make Amaranth together! Great sport, eh?”

  After lunch, Basil took Waylock back to Ward 18 and left him to his duties. Waylock went unenthusiastically to work, touching each patient with a nozzle which puffed a dosage of vitamins and toners through the skin into the blood stream.

  He considered the row of beds. Thirty-six men whose common denominator was a slack lifeline. There was no mystery as to the source of their psychosis. Here they would live out their years until finally the black-glassed limousine called to take them away.

  Waylock strolled along the passage, pausing to look into the desolate faces. At each bed he asked himself: What stimulus, what therapy would I use?

  He halted by a bed where a thin man, mild and soft, lay with eyes closed. He noted the man’s name. Olaf Gerempsky, and his phyle, Wedge. There were other notations and code marks which he did not understand.

  Waylock touched the man’s cheek. “Olaf,” said Waylock in a soft voice. “Olaf, wake up. You are well. Olaf, you are well. You can go home.”

  Waylock watched closely. Olaf Gerempsky’s face, slack and pointed, like the face of a white rat, underwent no change. Evidently this was the wrong approach.

  “Olaf Gerempsky,” said Waylock in a stern voice, “your lifeline has broken through into Third. Congratulations, Olaf Gerempsky! You are now Third!”

  The face was unchanged. The eyes never moved. But Waylock thought a small glow of personality quiver came timidly up from infinite melancholy. “Olaf Gerempsky, Third. Olaf Gerempsky, Third,” said Waylock in the tone of voice he used from the booth before the House of Life. “Olaf Gerempsky, you are now of Third Phyle, Olaf Gerempsky, you are Third!” But the small blaze had sunk despondently back into the depths.

  Waylock stood back, frowned at the mask. Then he bent close above the still face of Olaf Gerempsky.

  “Life,” he whispered. “Life! Life! Life eternal!”

  The face persisted in its melancholy calm. From within came a sense of ineffable regret, the sadness of watching a sunset fade. The glimmer passed, the mind slowly became blank. Waylock bent closer. He drew back his lips.

  “Death,” he said huskily. “Death!” The vilest word in the language, the ultimate obscenity. “Death! Death! Death!”

  Waylock watched the face. It remained still, but underneath something quickened. Waylock drew back an inch or two, staring in complete absorption.

  The eyes of Olaf Gerempsky snapped open. They rolled right and left, then fixed on Waylock. They glared like campfires. The lips contracted, the upper curled up under the nose, the lower drawn down to show the locked teeth. A gurgle started up from the throat, the mouth opened; from Olaf Gerempsky’s throat came an appalling scream. Without seeming to move his muscles, he rose from the couch. His hands plunged for Waylock’s neck, but Waylock had jumped away. He felt a cool contact at his back: the bars of toroidal light had automatically sprung up from the floor.

  Gerempsky was on Waylock; his hands were like tongs. Waylock made a hoarse sound, beat down at the arms; it was like beating at iron pipe. Waylock pushed Gerempsky in the face; Gerempsky toppled to the side.

  Waylock tugged at the bright bars. “Help!” he shouted.

  Gerempsky was at him again. Waylock tried to push him off, but the maniac caught his crisp new jacket. Waylock dropped to the floor, pulling Gerempsky on top of him, then heaved up on his hands and knees. Gerempsky clung to his back like a squid; Waylock threw himself over backward, tore himself loose. His jacket remained in Gerempsky’s hands. Waylock scrambled around behind the bed, yelling for help. Gerempsky, cawing in wild laughter, jumped at him. Waylock ducked under the bed. Gerempsky paused to tear the jacket into shreds, then looked under the bed. Waylock proved out of reach; Gerempsky vaulted the bed, in order to reach in from the other side, but Waylock rolled away again.

  The game went on for several minutes, Gerempsky leaping back and forth, Waylock rolling to the side opposite. Then Gerempsky stationed himself on the bed, and made no motion; Waylock, below, was trapped. He couldn’t watch both sides at once; in the middle, he could be reached from either side.

  He heard voices, the sound of steps. “Help!” he called.

  He saw the legs of Seth Caddigan. “I’m in here,” he cried.

  The legs came to a halt; the feet pointed at him.

  “This maniac will strangle me!” called Waylock. “I don’t dare move!”

  “Just hold on,” said Caddigan in a solicitous voice. Behind appeared other legs. The bars of light vanished; Gerempsky roared, lunged for the corridor. He was caught in a voluminous swaddle, enfolded, forced back on the bed.

  Waylock crawled from below and scrambled to his feet. He stood by, brushing his clothes, while Caddigan pushed a nozzle into Gerempsky’s mouth and discharged a spray. Gerempsky flung his arms out to the side, lay limp. Caddigan turned away, glanced at Waylock, nodded with careful courtesy, stepped past and returned down the corridor.

  Waylock stared after him, took a couple of long steps, then halted. He composed himself as well as possible, followed Caddigan into the anteroom which Caddigan used as an office. Caddigan was immersed in a pile of mimeographed papers, making notes and collecting references. Waylock sank into a chair, ran his hand through his hair.

  “That was quite an experience.”

  Caddigan shrugged. “You’re lucky Gerempsky is a weakling.”

  “Weakling! His hands were like iron! I’ve never seen such strength!”

  Caddigan nodded, and a small tremulous smile twitched on his mouth. “The feats of an hysterical maniac are incredible. They contradict the basic engineering of the human body. But then, so do many other phenomena.” His voice became a pedantic drone. “For instance, the fire-walking of many peoples, both ancient and modern, and the even more spectacular habits of the Czincin Mazdaists.”

  “Yes,” Waylock said restively. “No doubt.”

  “I myself have seen the power of a man called Phosphor Magniotes. He controls the flight of birds, ordering them up, down, right or left, singly or in whole flocks. Do you believe that?”

  Waylock shrugged. “Why not?”

  Caddigan nodded. “One thing is clear: these individuals command a source of power which we cannot even identify. The Amaranth no doubt use this energy to achieve empathy with their surrogates, who knows?”