Chapter 9

Dagger of the Mind

Tom Dodd took command and gave orders crisply. "Help get him into the car. Here, into the back seat."

The agent got in after the scientist while the boys got into the front. "Scotty, start driving. We have to shake off any tail that picks us up. Try to find a stretch where there isn't much traffic."

Scotty swung the sedan into the traffic stream while Rick joined Tom Dodd in watching behind them. A few minutes later Scotty slipped into an alley and stepped on the gas. At the end of the alley he turned the wrong way down a one-way street, found another alley, and slipped into it. He emerged under a railroad trestle and moved into the stream of traffic once more. Watching carefully, he moved with the traffic until he saw an opportunity to cross a main thoroughfare as the light changed from yellow to red.

Theirs was the last car through the intersection, Rick saw, before traffic started through the cross street. Scotty took another turn, doubled back, and went through another alley. As he emerged onto a street where traffic was sparse, he slowed.

"That should do it," Tom Dodd said. "Nice work."

"How is he?" Rick asked anxiously.

"Just like the others," Tom said flatly. "Listen, boys. Our Newark agent is in Whiteside. I don't think it's wise to take Marks to Spindrift in this condition, but I don't want to take him far, either. Have you any contacts here?"

Rick tried to remember. His father had associates in Newark, he was sure, including a doctor or two. But he couldn't remember their names. "I could call home," he suggested. "Dad will have some ideas."

Dodd considered. "You couldn't use the scrambler from here. Could you tip your father off without giving information to anyone who happened to be listening on the wire?"

Rick thought he could.

"Okay." Dodd motioned to a restaurant. "There's a phone in there. I can see the booth through the window. Hop to it."

Rick hurried into the restaurant. The full horror of what had happened to Dr. Marks was just having its effect. He found himself shivering as though with a severe chill. Marks was the victim of something ghastly. He seemed to be trying to make sense, as though there was still a glimmer of intelligence behind the blank stare. But his words were disconnected, completely unintelligible.

Barby answered the phone, caught the urgency in Rick's voice, and yelled for their father. Hartson Brant came hurriedly.

"What is it, Rick?"

"Guarded language," Rick said urgently. "Dad, don't you have a professional friend in Newark? The teletype machine just went haywire for the third time and I need help."

Hartson Brant muttered, "Good Lord! Yes, Rick. I have a mechanic friend who is ideally suited for the purpose. Constantine Chavez. Look him up in the professional part of the phone directory. I'll phone him and say you're bringing the machine."

"Good, Dad. I'll come home as soon as possible. Better phone the man who runs the machines and give him the information."

"All right. Be careful."

Rick disconnected and looked up the name under the listing of physicians. Back in the car, he cast a quick look at Dr. Marks. The scientist was sitting quietly, staring straight ahead. He wasn't talking, and Rick was glad. He didn't know how much of the gibberish he could take. It was weird and horrifying, particularly since Marks had been so crisp and terse--even though sometimes unpleasant--in his speech.

Dr. Chavez was watching for them through his window and hurried out to meet the car. He was a tall, slender man with handsome features that showed his Spanish ancestry.

"You must be Rick," he said, shaking hands. "You look very much like your father. He phoned to say you were bringing a damaged machine, but I also gathered he was merely being cautious about something he didn't care to discuss on the phone."

"That's right, Doctor," Rick said. He introduced Tom Dodd and Scotty, failing to mention that Dodd was a government agent. Then he pointed to Dr. Marks in the back seat.

"There's your patient, sir."

"Bring him into the house," Dr. Chavez directed. "I assume from his appearance that the trouble is mental and not physical?"

"Exactly," Dodd said.

Inside the house they found one room outfitted as a home office. "I have an office downtown," the doctor explained, "but I also use this one a few afternoons a week. Now, who can tell me about this?" His eyes were on Marks, and as he talked, he reached for the scientist's wrist.

Tom Dodd explained carefully, "He was suddenly stricken. We were with him. We don't know what happened, except that he made sense one minute, but talked only garbled words the next."

Chavez took an otoscope, an instrument used to examine eyes, ears, nose, and throat, and switched on the tiny light. He flicked it into Marks' eyes and watched the behavior of the pupils. Then he listened with a stethoscope. A little rubber hammer came out next and was applied to the reflexes of the stricken scientist. The reflexes looked normal to Rick.

Dr. Marks suddenly looked up and began spouting gibberish. Rick winced.

Chavez listened gravely, apparently not at all disturbed. The flow of meaningless words ceased and Rick sighed with relief. He saw that Scotty had been equally affected.

"What is your specialty, Doctor?" Dodd asked.

"I'm a neurologist."

That was good, Rick thought. A neurologist was exactly what Marks seemed to need.

"Do you make anything of this?" Dodd asked.

The doctor shook his head. "Nothing. I've never seen a case like it. I've never even heard of one. In fact, I know of only one analogue, and it's an electronic one. Do you know how computers work? The big electronic brains?"

The three nodded.

"Then you will understand. I have worked with computers, and now and then one of them suddenly starts turning out gibberish for no apparent reason. A check of the circuits may show that everything is functionally normal. Yet, the gibberish continues. Often it clears up, with no more reason than it started. Sometimes this happens when the machine is cold, before it is properly warmed up. At other times, it happens when the machine is tired."

"Tired?" Dodd looked his disbelief. "Machines don't get tired. Not in those terms."

Chavez smiled. "Perhaps not. Yet, to those who work with them, it does sometimes appear that the machine is tired. There is really no other expression for it."

Rick knew something of this through his association with Dr. Parnell Winston of the Spindrift staff. Winston was an expert in the new science of cybernetics, which is defined as the science of communications and control mechanisms in both living beings and machines.

"Parnell Winston would know," Rick said.

"He most certainly would," Chavez agreed. "Are you aware that he and I have worked together? My interest was in the biological portion of the project. His was in the electronic. Of course we worked as a team with other specialists."

"Under whose auspices?" Dodd asked quickly.

"Let us be candid," Chavez invited. "Obviously, this is not an ordinary case. The guarded language Hartson Brant used was indication enough of that. Rick Brant I identify because of his resemblance to my friend, and I think I identify Don Scott, of whom I have heard a great deal from Hartson. But who are you, Mr. Dodd?"

For answer, Tom Dodd took out his identification folder and handed it to the physician.

Chavez studied it. "I know your organization, Mr. Dodd. But what is of greater importance for the moment, your organization knows me. I suspect it was for that reason Hartson Brant selected me for you to consult." He gestured to the phone. "You will want to call your office. My records are in New York."

Dodd's face expressed his relief. "I was a little nervous," he admitted. "It was a choice between possibly risking further damage to Marks or taking a chance on someone based only on a recommendation from Dr. Brant. I'm glad you're in the clear."

He went to the phone and called New York. In a moment he said, "Dodd here. Check on Dr. Constantine Chavez." He held the phone for perhaps half a minute, then said, "Roger. That does it."

He held out his hand to the neurologist. "Glad to know you, Doctor. Can you take over?"

"Not only can I take over, you would have trouble getting rid of me. This man is obviously hurt in a way that is strange to me, and I assure you, my experience with damaged minds is considerable. He may be somewhat under the influence of a drug--I will check more thoroughly--but that is not the cause. If I may make a quick and highly tentative guess, this mind is suffering from some kind of trauma induced from an outside source."

"You mean it's not a disease?" Rick asked quickly.

"Precisely. I know of no disease that would behave like this. I can't even imagine a disease with these symptoms."

"How can you be sure?" Scotty pressed.

"Obviously I can't at this stage of investigation. But you must recognize that a physician develops a rather definite feeling for injury after years of experience. My own experience tells me that mental damage of this scope is almost always accompanied by other symptoms when it is the product of a disease. No, I cannot credit the idea of a pathogenic organism too seriously. It is as though some outside agent pierced the cranium and cut off the control centers of the brain."

"A dagger of the mind," Scotty murmured.

Chavez looked up sharply. "Yes! An ideal phrase for it."

Rick recognized the quotation from his school-work. _Macbeth_, Act II. Another of Shakespeare's phrases from the same work leaped into his mind. "Macbeth hath murdered sleep." Not Macbeth, but Marks. Rick knew he wouldn't sleep well that night, nor for many nights to come.

Dagger of the mind! Well, it fitted. Watching the blank face of what had been, only hours before, a brilliant scientist, Rick could feel its deadly point himself.