Perchance. Michael Kurland

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СКАЧАТЬ fairly bright, you know that?”

      “Yes, sir.” Delbit was actually very bright, a fact which he had learned to conceal, as it had never done him one bit of good. Intelligence was of small comfort while sweeping the factory floor. The master and the other ’prentices tended to resent it when his intelligence showed in any form whatever. “If you were so smart, you wouldn’t be a ’prentice” was one of the milder comments. Which was grossly unfair, as his opinion had never been asked in the matter.

      “Well, I can see you’re not modest either. That’s fine, lad. Modesty never won a war.” Dr. Faineworth leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, his black-sleeved elbows sticking out like wings on either side. “Would you like to know what you’re doing here?”

      “Yes, sir.” There was no doubt about that.

      “You remember a bunch of tests you took on a big machine, where they pasted electrodes all over you?”

      “Yes, sir, I remember.” Painful, irritating, boring, and pointless. The Faineworth Apperception Tests, they were. Faineworth—well, how do you like that.

      “Well, one of the things that test did was to take what I like to call a mental profile of you. One might say that it showed the way your individual mind does its thinking in different situations, based on the way the electrical currents move about in your brain. Do you see what I mean?”

      “Yes, sir.” Delbit had read up on the theory, as much as was in the school library, and knew about the singleton waves from the top of the brain and the doubleton waves from each side, and the slow rhythm from the back. But he decided to let Dr. Faineworth do the explaining. By now not appearing smart had become a fixed habit.

      “Well, I needed a certain type of brain—a certain very specific pattern—to aid me in some work I’m doing. And so I went over school records of all the East Coast schools using the Faineworth Tests for the past ten years. And, Delbit my lad, you have it.”

      “Yes, sir.” Delbit swallowed. This didn’t sound too good. He would have to go over the New York State Apprentice Protection statutes, if there were any such and if he could get a copy. He really didn’t think he wanted anyone fooling around with his brain. And if he had wanted anyone to do it, he didn’t think it would be Dr. Faineworth.

      “While I need you for this project your work will be interesting, and not very arduous. I decided to buy your articles from your previous master, as it was simpler than borrowing or, er, renting you. Especially as I have no idea how long the project will last. You will sleep in the servants’ quarters of the clinic, and eat at the servants’ table, but you are excused from all duties except for this project until further notice. If you have any special needs, you will tell Dobbins, and he will see to it. Do you understand?”

      “I think so, sir.”

      “Good. Now come with me and I will show you the reason for all this.” Dr. Faineworth rose from his chair and strode into the hall without pausing or checking to see if he was being followed. Delbit scurried after him, and Dobbins stalked behind.

      Up two flights of stairs the doctor strode, and across into one of the new sections, and through a locked door, which was opened for them by a hefty male nurse on the inside. “Everything quiet today, Fenton?”

      The nurse gave a two-fingered salute. “Snug and shipshape, Doctor,” he said.

      “And our unidentified guest?”

      “Quiet as a bunny, sir.”

      “Very good.” The doctor led the way to the end of the corridor, past a double row of white-painted locked doors, to the final door on the right.

      “In here, young Delbit, is the object of my interest and the reason you’re here,” Dr. Faineworth said, tapping lightly on the door. “A nameless young lady of unknown antecedents, who was found by our constabulary wandering about on Lower Broadway about two weeks ago.”

      “Naked,” Dobbins added, some strange emotion crossing his face. “She was naked as a jay.”

      Faineworth gave his servant a sharp look. “That is neither here nor there,” he said. “The young lady is amnesiac, and suffers from strange and terrible nightmares. Of both of these things I rather hope you, young Delbit, can help us cure her.”

      “Me?”

      “All will be explained in due time. For now, let us have you meet the young lady. She may act a little, ah, sedated, but that is the effect of medication we’re giving her. She’ll be so pleased, I’m sure, to meet you. Don’t say anything to get her excited.”

      Dr. Faineworth pulled a large key ring from under his coat and isolated one large key.

      “She’s a very interesting case,” he said, turning the key in the lock and pulling at the door. “We have every hope that—why, what’s this?”

      Delbit looked into the small cell. There was a cot on the far wall and a basin and toilet to his right. On the cement floor was a small pile of woman’s clothes.

      There was nothing else.

      “She’s gone!” Dr. Faineworth said. “I’ll be damned!”

      CHAPTER TWO

      Delbit spent the next two days adjusting to his new environment. Dobbins found him a bed on the servants’ floor of the clinic, sharing a room with three dull teenage boys-of-all-work. After lunch on the third day, Dr. Faineworth called him into the laboratory and explained the techniques of deep breathing, relaxation, and mental disassociation that Delbit would need for his projected job. Of what use this would be when the subject had disappeared from a locked room, leaving only a pile of clothes in her wake, was not discussed. What effect this electrical probing would have on his brain, or the girl’s brain, was dismissed by the doctor as beneath consideration.

      “You are going to get into this girl’s mind, young man,” Dr. Faineworth told him. “The similarity of your brain waves to hers will make it possible for us to monitor the girl’s dreams while she is asleep. That is why I have purchased you at great expense, and diverted you from an otherwise useful existence as a shoemaker. You will, in effect, be an observer at these dreams. I warn you that, as they seem to be nightmares, the experience may not be the most pleasant you have ever had. Although you will be awake, and therefore not as impressionable, you may be horrified by what you see. This is all very theoretical. I cannot tell you precisely in what form you will experience the young lady’s dreams. We are on the frontiers of science, as it were. But the theory is good, and it is worth the risk. The value of these experiments is incalculable.”

      Worth the risk to whom? Delbit wondered. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be in someone else’s dream, and found that he couldn’t, and that the idea bothered him. A dream was surely an extremely personal thing. But he didn’t say anything. He had long since learned the futility of protesting the inevitable.

      On the fourth day the girl came back, escorted by a constable, who had found her wandering above Lower Broadway naked at four in the morning. He wrapped her in his greatcoat and brought her uptown to the clinic. “I figured that if she weren’t a patient of yours, Dr. Faineworth, then she ought to be,” he said.

      The next day Delbit was up in his room sewing the gold insignia of the Faineworth Clinic on his jacket when Dobbins appeared at the door. “Come,” he said, СКАЧАТЬ