Transmigration (3 page)

 

 

They stopped frequently for coffee. Fletcher was amused; this had been
his one condition when he agreed to come, and Baudaker was painstakingly
literal in such matters. Baudaker also took care to go out when he wanted
a smoke, taking his notes with him to the little office. Of the students,
three apparently did not smoke, including both girls, and of the three
who did, two smoked pipes.

 

 

When they stopped, the students withdrew to a screened corner where they
had coffee and sandwiches. Baudaker remained with Fletcher. Fletcher drank
a good deal of coffee, but refused sandwiches.

 

 

"How am I doing?" he asked Baudaker.

 

 

Baudaker was shocked. "I can't tell you that."

 

 

"I thought as much. Baudaker, I'm tired and I'm beginning to get a
headache. Couldn't we have even a Rorschach for a change?"

 

 

"Please, Mr. Fletcher . . . " The little man was agitated, terrified
that Fletcher would refuse further tests and walk out, as he had done
once before.

 

 

Fletcher smiled faintly. "Oh, all right. But is this any
good? Are you sure it isn't a waste of time?"

 

 

Baudaker hesitated, torn between the necessities of his test plan and
keeping his subject cooperative; even, perhaps, keeping his subject.

 

 

Then, his voice trembling with excitement, he said: "Mr. Fletcher,
the results so far are sensational."

 

 

Fletcher was startled. "Sensational" was not a word Fletcher had thought
he would use at all.

 

 

Something was happening in the darkened lab that night, something
remarkable in the unremarkable life of John Fletcher, (F for failure).
Could it be a late, last breath of achievement? Fletcher, who had always
lacked ambition, was surprised to find himself hoping fiercely that in
the end -- before the end -- he would be proved not entirely useless, and
that his lonely unhappy life would turn out not to be entirely pointless.

 

 

 

 

Hour after hour the tests went on, always with the ESP cards. No doubt by
intent, there was no clock in the lab, and none of the students seemed to
have watches. If Baudaker or any of the others ever consulted a watch, it
was done covertly.

 

 

The students worked conscientiously and remarkably quietly. Once or
twice, when he had a spare moment, Fletcher did try to differentiate
between them, get a good look at them, catch them staring at him. But
they remained deliberately impersonal. They acted like masked surgeons in
an operating theater. Even Baudaker, who talked to Fletcher frequently,
was abstracted. Fletcher felt like an animal specimen being observed
coldly by beings of a different species.

 

 

He did not complain again as the hours went by and his headache grew
steadily worse. He wanted to
know
. Many times he stopped himself on
the point of asking what time it was. He had, after all, agreed to stay
all night if necessary.

 

 

Now that was a strange thing. Here were four young men and two girls of
twenty-one or less, and a university technician, all prepared to give
up a night's rest to work on him. Some of them, perhaps all, would be
expected to be active the next day. And Baudaker, after all, was only
a glorified office-boy, not a professor who might have compelled these
youngsters to help in this routine investigation.

 

 

They were all amateurs. They showed no sign of excitement or even
interest, but they worked steadily and carefully on their chores, most
of which were routine.

 

 

At last Baudaker, who no longer seemed quite so helpless a little man,
turned on more lights and said: "It's five o'clock."

 

 

 

 

It had gone on for ten hours. At a rough estimate, they had consumed
among them four gallons of coffee. The students had had sandwiches as
well; Fletcher and Baudaker had eaten nothing.

 

 

Fletcher started to rise. "You're finished?"

 

 

"No, we want to try something different now," said Baudaker. "Another
two or three hours, that's all . . . "

 

 

Fletcher groaned. "My head is splitting."

 

 

"I'm not surprised. We know nothing about the kind of energy you've been
using up, but the strain must be immense." Baudaker's enthusiasm burst
through again.

 

 

"It's all tremendously worth while, though. What we've been doing tonight
may be one of history's turning points. We're all tired, but none of us
would give up if we had to carry on here for a week."

 

 

"It's been worth while, then?"

 

 

Baudaker started to say something and checked himself.

 

 

Now that the lights were up Fletcher saw the students properly for the
first time. A tall, thin youth in tight jeans and a floppy shirt grinned
at him. One of the girls smiled too. He wondered if at last Baudaker was
going to introduce them.

 

 

But no; at least he was introduced only to one.

 

 

"Anita would like to try a little experiment on her own," said Baudaker.
"Meantime, the rest of us will have plenty to do sorting out these results.
She'll tell you herself what she wants to do."

 

 

One of the girls was pretty, one was not. It was the pretty one, a small,
neat brunette in a white coat, who smiled at him and led him to a waiting
room, a small room carpeted in red, containing comfortable armchairs,
a sofa, and nothing else.

 

 

She laid her papers and boxes on the sofa, smiled at him again, and took
off her white coat. She was disturbingly attractive in a sleeveless red
dress, short but of a more modest length than was fashionable, nylons
of a shade so natural he could not be sure her legs were not bare, and
high-heeled shoes of an uncommon style, open-toed like the shoes pretty
girls used to wear twenty years earlier. She was not at all like the
graceless, present day dollies wearing boots and recklessly short skirts,
with eyes so blackened they always looked tired, sad and surprised. Also,
her lips were unfashionably red.

 

 

She held out her hand. "I'm Anita Somerset."

 

 

He managed to turn and sit down as if he had merely failed to see her
outstretched hand. He did not want to touch her.

 

 

In less than twenty-four hours fate had thrown three pretty girls in
his path. Fate was not usually so generous -- or ungenerous. He liked,
he had always liked, looking at pretty girls, but they disturbed him
deeply. And for many years he had been careful never to touch any woman
if he could help it. Judy, careless, trusting and quite unsophisticated,
had several times that day brushed past him and she had certainly expected
him to probe her ankle and her thigh. Probably she was unaware that he
had managed to avoid touching her or being touched.

 

 

Anita didn't seem to notice either. She pushed her papers aside, sat on
the sofa and swung her legs up carelessly.

 

 

"I'm nineteen," she said, "and I'm reading psychology. Actually, I'm
the only psychology student among the six of us -- pure psychology,
that is. Mr. Baudaker asked me to round up some helpers, and I did."

 

 

So that was how it was done.

 

 

"One," she said with a frown, "I didn't want, but he got wind of it and
insisted on coming along . . . but that needn't concern you. About me --
most people consider me rather quiet and studious -- but I really fancy
myself as a sort of Mata Hari."

 

 

She laughed, an infectious crow of high spirits. "Of course I'm not.
Really, I'm a bit of a drag. I can't dance, can't swim, don't like pop
music, hate alcohol, drink and drugs, and I haven't a steady boy friend."

 

 

"Why are you telling me all this?"

 

 

"We've been doing completely impersonal experiments up to now. I bet
you never saw me until five minutes ago?"

 

 

"Well, I saw you, but . . . "

 

 

She nodded. "That was according to plan. What I want to do now is entirely
my own idea. Mr. Baudaker agrees it should be tried, but he didn't put me
up to it."

 

 

She stretched herself out and put both bare arms up to her head,
caricaturing a screen vamp. "Do you think I could persuade an enemy
general to tell me about the secret plans?" she said. "Please say yes."

 

 

"I don't know anything about enemy generals," he said, and cursed his
own crass awkwardness.

 

 

"Can't you see me driving men mad, while I conceal secret documents in
my camisole? Oh, well. But at least tell me I'm not repulsive, before
I burst into tears."

 

 

He could have told her that whatever she had in mind, it wasn't going to
work. His self-consciousness, caution and uneasiness with women would
ensure that. The more attractive they were, the worse it was. But he
didn't want to tell her. That would be still more embarrassing. Being
a psychology student, she would at once probe, ask searching questions
and force him to talk about the one thing which, above all others,
he didn't want to discusa.

 

 

"You're a charming girl," he said awkwardly. "And I like your voice
very much."

 

 

"Just my voice?" she said with pretended disappointment. "I thought I had
rather nice legs." She pulled her dress up to her hips. "And I wore a
dress with a belt because I have a rather neat waist and I like people
to know it."

 

 

She laughed at his consternation. "No, don't let the reference to Mata
Hafi fool you," she said. "I'm not trying to vamp you . . . at least,
if I am, that's only a small part of the exercise. As I said, we've
done impersonal tests so far. Now I've told you a little about myself,
and I'll tell you any more you want to know. I want you to tell me
about yourself. Then, when we're not strangers any more, we'll do some
tests similar to those we've done already, and see if the results come
out differently."

 

 

He saw the idea, which was not difficult, and no doubt it made sense.
But she had invited honesty.

 

 

"It won't work," he said.

 

 

"Why not?"

 

 

"Well, it's pretense. It's unreal."

 

 

"What's unreal about it?"

 

 

He wished he had not started this. "Forget it."

 

 

"You're scared of me," she said in wonder.

 

 

"Oh, nonsense."

 

 

"Searled to death. I'm not blind."

 

 

"Not scared . . . "

 

 

"Then what? Are you a misogynist?"

 

 

"No."

 

 

"Homosexual?"

 

 

"No!" he said, revolted.

 

 

"Impotent?"

 

 

He choked.

 

 

"All right, I'll withdraw the question," said Anita. "But if you don't
hate women, and you've nothing against me personally, what's behind this?
Why are you so sure my idea won't work?"

 

 

He hesitated, feeling a sudden urge to tell her of the tumor. But that,
he knew, was an irrelevance; if he introduced the subject, it would be
as a red herring. Instead he told the truth.

 

 

"Failure!" he burst out suddenly and bitterly. "That's all I've ever
achieved in life. I don't know if failure with women is the most important
. . . maybe it is. Some psychologists say so. The worst of it is, I've
no possible excuse I'm not ugly even now . . . "

 

 

"No," she agreed, leaning forward to inspect him. "A girl could go for
that face. I could. I like the lean and hungry look."

 

 

"And when I was younger I was strong and better looking. So as for girls,
I told you I'm not a misogynist, not a pervert, not impotent. I'm
sensitive, of course, and shy, but not cripplingly so. I think it's
life that has made me nervous with you. Not anything that was in me at
birth. As for that . . . "

 

 

He stopped, not sure he wanted to tell her he didn't know where or
exactly when he was born and who his parents were. She might pounce on
that as though it explained everything. Almost certainly she would. But
she'd be wrong. That was another irrelevancy.

 

 

So Anita stuck to the subject, unaware it had nearly been changed. "You
never had any success with girls?" she said sympathetically. "They always
let you down?"

 

 

"I'm not blaming them . . . "

 

 

"Why not? Maybe that's the trouble, that you didn't blame them. You
were too serious, and they let you down. In that way, women are totally
unscrupulous. They go with a man, but if they see somebody they fancy
more, they ditch the first sucker without a qualm. They say 'I hope we'll
always be friends,' but the poor blighter doesn't want to be friends, he
wants all or nothing, so it's nothing. If a girl has a date with somebody
else and her heart-throb calls her, she'll drop the first sucker like
a hot potato!"

 

 

"That's it exactly!" said Fletcher eagerly. "That's how it always was.
But I still can't say the girls were always to blame. It was me. Often
they'd be quite attracted to me, and let me see it. But something was
always wrong. I couldn't say the right things."

 

 

"There are no right or wrong things to say," said Anita gently. "You
just say the first thing that comes into your head."

 

 

He told her a lot more, briefly touching on his insecure childhood in
a way that warned her not to probe, the way he did the right thing
at the wrong time and never at the right time, his awkward personal
relationships with men as well as women, the fact that he had never had
a real friend. "That must be my fault," he said, and if she had disagreed
with him he would have suspected her of insincerity. She did not.