Part 2

"Yes. I can't go against Elliot's wishes. It would be monstrous to put him back where he would suffer the hell of those headaches once again, where he never had a moment's peace from worry and pressure. He's happy now. Like a child, but happy."

"Mrs. Macklin," the Army man said levelly, "if you don't help us restore your husband's mind we will be forced to get a court order declaring him incompetent."

"But he is not! Legally, I mean," the woman stormed.

"Maybe not. It's a borderline case. But I think any court would give us the edge where restoring the mind of Elliot Macklin was concerned. Once he's certified incompetent, authorities can rule whether Mitchell and Ferris' antitoxin treatment is the best method of restoring Dr. Macklin to sanity."

"I doubt very much if the court would rule in that manner," she said.

The colonel looked smug. "Why not?"

"Because, Colonel, the matter of my husband's health, his very life, is involved."

"There is some degree of risk in shock treatments, too. But--"

"It isn't quite the same, Colonel. Elliot Macklin has a history of vascular spasm, a mild pseudostroke some years ago. Now you want to give those cerebral arteries back the ability to constrict. To paralyze. To kill. No court would give you that authority."

"I suppose there's some chance of that. But without the treatment there is _no_ chance of your husband regaining his right senses, Mrs. Macklin," Mitchell interjected.

Her mouth grew petulant. "I don't care. I would rather have a live husband than a dead genius. I can take care of him this way, make him comfortable...."

Carson opened his mouth and closed his fist, then relaxed. Mitchell led him back into the hall.

"I'm no psychiatrist," Mitchell said, "but I think she wants Macklin stupid. Prefers it that way. She's always dominated his personal life, and now she can dominate him completely."

"What is she? A monster?" the Army officer muttered.

"No," Mitchell said. "She's an intelligent woman unconsciously jealous of her husband's genius."

"Maybe," Carson said. "I don't know. I don't know what the hell to tell the Pentagon. I think I'll go out and get drunk."

"I'll go with you," Ferris said.

Mitchell glanced sharply at the little biologist.

Carson squinted. "Any particular reason, doctor?"

"To celebrate," Ferris said.

The colonel shrugged. "That's as good a reason as any."

On the street, Mitchell watched the two men go off together in bewilderment.

IV

Macklin was playing jacks.

He didn't have a head on his shoulders and he was squatting on a great curving surface that was Spacetime, and his jacks were Earth and Pluto and the rest of the planets. And for a ball he was using a head. Not his head. Mitchell's. Both heads were initialed "M" so it was all the same.

Mitchell forced himself to awaken, with some initial difficulty.

He lay there, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, listening to his heart race, and then convulsively snatched the telephone receiver from the nightstand. He stabbed out a number with a vicious index finger.

After a time there came a dull click and a sleepy answer.

"Hello?" Elliot Macklin said.

Mitchell smiled to himself. He was in luck; Macklin had answered the phone instead of his wife.

"Can you speak freely, doctor?" Mitchell asked.

"Of course," the mathematician said. "I can talk fine."

"I mean, are you alone?"

"Oh, you want to know if my wife is around. No, she's asleep. That Army doctor, Colonel Sidney, he gave her a sedative. I wouldn't let him give me anything, though."

"Good boy," the biologist said. "Listen, doctor--Elliot--El, old son. I'm not against you like all the others. I don't want to make you go back to all that worrying and thinking and headaches. You believe me, don't you?"

There was a slight hesitation.

"Sure," Macklin said, "if you say so. Why shouldn't I believe you?"

"But there was a hesitation there, El. You worried for just a second if I could have some reason for not telling you the truth."

"I suppose so," Macklin said humbly.

"You've found yourself worrying--thinking--about a lot of other problems since we left you, haven't you? Maybe not the same kind of scientific problem. But more personal ones, ones you didn't used to have time to think about."

"If you say so."

"Now, you know it's so. But how would you like to get rid of those worries just as you got rid of the others?" Mitchell asked.

"I guess I'd like that," the mathematician replied.

"Then come on over to my laboratory. You remember where it's at, don't you?"

"No, I--yes, I guess I do. But how do I know you won't try to put me back where I was instead of helping me more?"

"I couldn't do that against your wishes. That would be illegal!"

"If you say so. But I don't guess I can come anyway. The Army is watching me pretty close."

"That's alright," Mitchell said quickly. "You can bring along Colonel Carson."

"But he won't like you fixing me up more."

"But he can't stop me! Not if you want me to do it. Now listen to me--I want you to come right on over here, El."

"If you say so," Macklin said uncertainly.

* * * * *

Mitchell opened the door on the first knock.

Macklin stood in the doorway, looking uncertain and ill at ease. Carson stood behind his left shoulder, looking actively belligerent.

"Come in," Mitchell said. "I have the injection ready for you, Doctor."

"Now you aren't going to 'cure' me?" Macklin said in concern. "This is just going to help ease my mind?"

"Of course," the biologist said soothingly.

Colonel Carson lunged forward, mouth opening ominously.

Mitchell winked at him broadly.

Carson stopped in confusion and studied Mitchell's face. He essayed a second wink. Carson relaxed.

Mitchell picked up the hypo of colorless carrier fluid from the interestingly stained work table. "One thing first, Dr. Macklin. I'll have to have your signed release for this treatment. It specifies that your intelligence will probably be affected in this effort to keep your head from troubling you. Carson can witness it."

"Sure," Macklin said. "I guess that's okay. If you say so."

The colonel grinned, his face hot and shiny. "I'm sure it will be fine, Doctor."

Macklin looked at the officer with almost a trace of suspicion, then accepted the sheet of typescript and the ballpoint pen from Mitchell. Laboriously he affixed his signature.

Mitchell had the mathematician take a seat and pressed the needle directly into the neck area.

"Ouch!" Macklin said.

Mitchell stood back and exhaled.

"It should take effect shortly," the biologist said.

"Good," Carson said....

The cylinders of the electric clock said 4:35:00 A.M.

Macklin was playing with his hands and their shadows in front of his face.

"How long will this stage last, Dr. Mitchell?" Colonel Carson said in concern.

"Indefinitely. This is the last stage. The circulatory system of his brain has been relaxed to the point where he has about the I.Q. of a turnip."

Carson steeled himself. "_So_, doctor! You're nothing but a dirty Lux!"

"No, Colonel. I've never even seen Luxemburg. My reason for doing this to Dr. Macklin were entirely patriotic ... or, at least, sympathetic."

"Tell that to the hangman! I'll see you tried for treason."

"Look at him, Colonel. He is certainly no longer legally responsible. He has the strength of a grown man and the intellect of an amoeba. It would be impossible to keep him alive either under sedation or in a padded cell. Even if Mrs. Macklin still refuses her consent--and I don't think she will when she sees him in this bad a state--you can go over her head and get permission for Ferris and myself to administer our antitoxin to destroy the pituitrin-absorbing virus colony in his cerebrum."

Carson looked dazed. "I--I'll call her."

* * * * *

Mitchell greeted the orangish sunrise with a feeling of defeat. He turned from the window to face the instruments of his laboratory. Mrs. Macklin had come. Numbly she signed the release allowing the restorative treatment. By the time she, Carson and the mathematician left, Macklin had been able to say "mama" and--embarrassingly--"papa" to him. Mitchell was confident he would regain his full senses and that the brain cells had only become passive, and had not decayed.

But still it was only the wiping out of one horrendous mistake. Months and months of work wasted.

The door banged open and a small man entered with a long, slender brown paper bag and proceeding on an aeronautical search pattern.

"Dr. Ferris!" Mitchell said. "You mustn't take it so hard. I tried to get in touch with you. But at least I have been able to administer the antitoxin to Dr. Macklin."

"Who gives a damn about that egghead?" Ferris said, placing the paperbag upright on the work table. "Don't you understand, man? We're rich! Where are the glasses?"

"Rich?" Mitchell said. "Doctor, would you like me to help you over to your own quarters?"

"Relax, Mitchell. I'm not _that_ drunk. I know what I'm talking about. I tell you the F-M Virus is going to make us rich! Powerful! Men like Elliot Macklin will be insignificant beside us."

He knew that Ferris was in sober earnest. "What do you mean, Doctor?"

Ferris turned, his thin face lit up with a flush of pleasure. "Mitchell, we have something to make people permanently stupid! People can stop thinking temporarily by using alcohol or narcotics or watching television. But we--only you and I--have something to let them stop thinking permanently. And we'll make them pay for it--for the shot and the rent on the condition. Who _wants_ to think? A handful of people. Who _has_ to think to do routine paperwork or push a button or pull a lever? A bunch of happy, content morons can do all of that. We'll return man to his natural, pre-evolutionary state of stupidity. As for those of us who _don't_ take the treatment, we have it made! Made!"

Mitchell stared at him.

"Don't you get it, Mitchell?" Ferris roared. "_We have the ultimate tranquilizer!_"

Mitchell thought of the world after the F-M Virus had been given it. He thought: In his condition, if I shoved Ferris so that his head cracked into the corner of the table, no one could prove anything. I could destroy our records....

No, it wasn't any good. Some other researcher somewhere else was bound to isolate the F-M Virus. None of it was any good.

He groped blindly towards the door. He had to get out, get to a drugstore, buy some aspirins.

His head was killing him.