YOU ARE FORBIDDEN!
By JERRY SHELTON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Dr. Jules Craig, P.L.L., was unhappy. He was famous. He was young. He was talented, healthy, successful. He carried the distinguished degree of P.L.L. He had everything!
But he was unhappy.
He sat at his tastefully furnished desk, shuffling the Life-Line charts of the patient seated across from him. The patient awaiting the diagnosis was nervous.
Poor devil! Craig thought. This man is going to die. He doesn't know it—and I can't tell him.
A wave of pity swept through him, intensifying his own brooding unhappiness. Despite the fact he had instructed his psycho-color experts to design his inner consultation office in as soothing a shade as scientifically possible, the patient was sweating profusely, awaiting the verdict. The room was comfortably air-conditioned.
The patient was a little fat man. The face was putty-white. Eyes shifty, breathing rapid, voice shaky and twisting of the hat. This man would be dead in three weeks, and he, Dr. Jules Craig, had to lie to the man. With an unpleasant sensation, he summoned his resolution, looked at the name near the upper left-hand corner of the charts, and spoke.
"You have no cause for worry, Elder Wayman," he said. He forced his voice to sound as smoothly professional as possible. "The diagnosis of your Predictable Life-Lines are clear and definite. I know this matter has been a strain upon you, but you cooperated well. Your own reports, and the necessary Crystaleen Cell you have been wearing during these last three months gave all the details I needed."
He began to shuffle the Life-Line charts again as if reading them. He heard his voice go into the routine patter used on such unfortunate cases as this.
The irony of what his professional voice was saying to this little fat man burned another scar into his heart. The Predictograph had predicted this man would be dead within three weeks—and that wondrous, complex machine never erred. Yet, because of "Medical Ethics," he heard himself giving this innocent patient the old conversation, professionally used in such unhappy cases: "—everything is all right—" and, "your Life-Lines show a happy future—" and, "—you will be successful—" and, "—happy—" and, "—you should relax and enjoy yourself now that you have your future Life-Lines completed." He also said other things.
Craig felt sick. The Predictograph had predicted this little fat man would be killed in three weeks—in an accident! A gyro crash, with fire and an unpleasant death.
Outwardly, Dr. Craig knew he appeared cool and professional. But inwardly, his brain seethed and raged with questions that lashed his conscience.
If only the Supreme Medical Council would permit him to tell this man not, on pain of death, to get into any gyro—perhaps this little fat man wouldn't die. But, Quote:
"You are forbidden to tell a patient his true future when it is unfortunate."
"You are forbidden!" the Supreme Medical Council said.
Craig gritted his teeth. He knew the Degree of Predictable Life-Lines was the highest medical degree a human could attain. But cases like this made him doubtful that he should have ever worked for his P.L.L.
Why couldn't this be prevented? The question reminded him of what he, himself, was going to do today. He was going to break his oath! He intended to do something that the Supreme Medical Council had said was forbidden! His resolve, like a shot of adrenalin, strengthened him. He would carry out his plan.
He heard his voice speaking.
"Since your charts predict a happy, successful and—" the untrue word almost stuck in his throat, "—long life ahead of you, I suggest, now that your Life-Lines are completed, you go home, forget about your business, and the few little minor troubles I mentioned, and celebrate. You have fulfilled the Galactic Federation requirements by completing your Predictable Life-Lines and you are entitled to throw a real party."
He forced the professional twinkle into his eyes.
"Of course the Predictograph hinted you will have a super-hangover—after your party."
As the little fat man's tension broke and he began to chuckle, Craig nodded.
"You know the machine can't pick up small sensory lines like hangovers," Dr. Craig said. "We can learn only the major facts of your future with the usual possible ten-percent error of course."
He made himself smile.
"So perhaps you won't have a hangover. But if you react to such a splendid report as this, as most of my patients do, then you will throw a real brawl that should give you that super-hangover." He extended his hand. "Good-by! Speak to my secretary, Miss Evans, on your way out about the balance on your account. And congratulations."
The door closed behind the patient. Craig's head dropped. One more hopeless case he had lied to. He sat motionless at his desk. He let the lids close over his eyes, as his broad forehead wrinkled with conflicting thoughts. Unpleasant thoughts.
The Predictograph never missed! For the trained operator like himself, it picked up everything down to the slightest detail. He shouldn't have worked so long, so hard, to earn his P.L.L. He was beginning to realize he wasn't the psycho-type for this sometimes unhappy business. Patients with happy futures made him happy in turn. But when he diagnosed a future full of heartbreak, he couldn't remain cool and impersonal.
He continued to sit there, thinking of what he intended to do this day. He noticed the palms of his hands were becoming slippery with sweat. He could feel his heart beginning to hammer as if it were terrified. His breathing felt cramped and smothered.
Today was his day! He was going to learn his own future. Not in sugar-coated, pink-pill form, with any future horrible happenings omitted. He was going to know his true future. If the Supreme Medical Council found out that he was violating his doctor's oath, they would break him without mercy. But if he succeeded with his plan, it would forever guide humanity along paths of happiness undreamed.
He tried to pick up a cigarette. His hands were shaking so badly he had to make three attempts before he got it into his mouth. He puffed it alight. He managed a short laugh. Like all patients about to receive the diagnosis concerning their future life, he was nervous too. And patients were always told nice little "medical white-lies," if their futures were hopelessly unfortunate, instead of the truth.
But if there were bad times ahead of him, he would know them, down to the slightest horrible detail, before this day had crawled by. The cigarette was dry and tasteless.
"Doctor Craig?"
He jumped, startled. A blurred image before him sharpened into focus. It was his secretary, Miss Evans, crisp in her cool white uniform, standing across the desk from him.
"I plugged my call light into your interphone minutes ago," she said. "You didn't answer." She glanced at the brightly glowing signal on the desk, then at the doctor. "Is there anything wrong?"
He shook his head, switched off the light and mashed the life out of the tasteless cigarette.
Miss Evans pressed her lips together. "Electro-Transport just sent over your reservation. Your passage is arranged at Grand Terminus, through Booth Two-Seventeen. You'll be transmitted at Hour Eleven Hundred. Here is your ticket. I got you a round trip." Her voice, usually so impersonal, trembled on the last word. "Can I do anything else, Doctor Craig? Your face is so pale."
"Everything's fine," he mumbled. "After I leave, I want you to check on that last patient. Find out about his family, his insurance and all that. Be discreet of course. He has about three weeks left."
"Oh!" gasped Miss Evans. "Another one?"
"Yes, his lines are very definite. Find the usual angle, if you can, to see that his family gets the medical fee back through some sort of anonymous donation. If the family needs it in your opinion, add a thousand credits."
"But, Doctor Craig!" She hesitated. "You can't afford to keep giving away your money."
"Don't worry, Freckle-nose," he said, uttering the pet name before he thought.
The girl burst into tears. "Oh, Jules," she sobbed. "I know it's still business hours, but I can't stand it any longer." Her brown eyes wet with the long pent-up tears, blinked at him pleadingly. "Please, honey! Can't you tell me? Can't I help you? Why are you going to Mars? I'm so worried about you."
"Freckle-nose!" He moved from behind the desk and pulled her to him. "Don't worry. After today, I promise we'll have a lot of fun together. Just don't worry. That's all I can say until tonight when I return. I've got an idea, and if it works out, it might change the destiny of the human race." He lifted her chin and kissed her on the tip of her freckled nose. He forced his voice to sound cheerful. "You got another freckle there since this time yesterday."
The girl was trembling. She held him tightly a moment, then pushed herself from his arms. She straightened her hair and assumed her secretary manner.
"Right, Doctor Craig. When shall I expect you?"
"That's the girl!" He knuckled her under the chin. "I'll be back late—at about Seventeen Thirty Hours. Wait for me and we'll find a nice noisy spot somewhere, where we can resume our usual discussion about who is going to ask who to marry whom, and when and where. Okay?"
He stepped through the door, picking up his hat in the outer room. A thought swung him around.
"When a report is transported from Doctor Praggor concerning a patient named Bradbury, don't file it. I will want to see it first, tonight! It's a special case." He watched the door close slowly, shutting out the framed vision of a freckle-nosed girl in a crisp white uniform watching him with worried eyes.
He took a lift to the roof and signaled a cruising gyrocab. He climbed in, giving the Electro-Transport Grand Terminus address stamped on his reservation. As soon as they were air-borne, the cabbie pulled up to the two thousand-foot level and since traffic was light, they made good time. Below, the city drifted slowly behind like a chessboard of rioting colors, studded with gargantuan chessmen.
Craig settled back into the pneumatic seat and tried to relax. His muscles refused to obey. They shrieked their nervous alarm at him now that he was beginning to carry out the long-awaited, final phase of his plan.
There was no turning back. It was too late to hesitate now. His own life, his reputation and perhaps the happiness of countless billions of humans, yet unborn, depended on his courage.
A sickening doubt raced through him. How ironical it would be, if, when he appeared before his old classmate, Dr. William Praggor, P.L.L., presenting again the false name of William Bradbury as he had done three months previously, Praggor should suddenly recognize him as Dr. Jules Craig, P.L.L. Praggor would be compelled to report he had broken his oath! The Supreme Medical Council would be merciless.
If he were recognized, he wouldn't get a chance to finish the last, most important part of the experiment. And this experiment would force him to risk far more than his career—risk his own sanity!
Perhaps Praggor wouldn't recognize him this time either. They had changed during the long busy years since graduation. Praggor had become soft and fat, while he, Craig, still possessed the lean hard body of his youth. But his thick dark hair was graying at the temples. That graduation day had been only eleven years ago.
He remembered the silver-haired speaker, the head doctor whose name he couldn't even recall, walking to the center of the raised platform adjusting his glasses.
"Youngers, I congratulate you. You are about to receive the degree of P.L.L., the most sacred degree ever intrusted to man! The road behind you has been mind-racking. But now you hold in your brains the ability to determine the Predictable Life-Lines of any patient who, having received his order from the Galactic Federation when they have decided his life lines are necessary, will come to you for his diagnosis.
"The Galactic Foundation has its own vast Bureau of Public Records which, in combination with our services, has succeeded in keeping peace in our system for two centuries. Our work is vital to the proper functioning of their methods. But their own investigations are not to be put aside lightly.
"Their departments of mass psychology, propaganda, environmental and racial trends and all the rest of their methods, so necessary to keep a Galactic Empire running smoothly, are at your disposal to make an accurate diagnosis of the particular individual. Where the Federation deals in masses—you in turn have been trained to deal with the individual."
The doctor had paused to clear his throat impressively.
"Youngers—I know all of you have wondered about your own futures," he had continued. "What I am about to say now is such a top-secret matter that it is only revealed at this last moment of graduation. All men want to know their futures. That is their natural right." His voice had become firm. "But when you accept this degree of Doctor of Predictable Life-Lines, you will have forever severed yourself from normal humanity and the right to know your future. You are now declared a breed of man apart. You will never learn your own future. There is a reason for this, and the Galactic Federation is confident you will never cause trouble. No man who has ever stood in this room a Younger and walked out a doctor, has ever violated his oath. You have been investigated far more than you know. But all of you are human."
The speaker softened his voice.
"In a few moments you will be issued your own personal Predictograph. It will be your life-long companion. It is attuned and geared to you personally. It is part of you. While you have been students you worked with standard models to learn their functions.
"But the machine you will receive will be different. Do not think for a moment you can tell your own future with your own Predictograph. You cannot! It has a built-in principle guarding against that unfortunate possibility should you ever try to violate your oath.
"We have never tried to foretell your futures for you, since once you have worn the Crystaleen amplifier-recorder cell necessary for a Life-Line diagnosis for the required three months, the Supreme Medical Council has decided it upsets the delicate attunement of a Doctor of P.L.L. to his own Predictograph, upsets it to a degree which interferes with accurate diagnosis.
"It is unwise for any man to know his own exact future. Danton Marko, the inventor of the Predictograph, proved that two centuries ago when he diagnosed his own future and went hopelessly insane in three weeks."
The voice boomed suddenly like the clang of metal upon metal, and gathered itself into a rising crescendo of sound.
"Mankind has enjoyed peace for two centuries. The peace has proven that the Galactic Federation is right in compelling each human to submit, at the proper age of his development, to a Predictable Life-Line diagnosis. Consequently, no single human, has been able to succeed in planning disorder and chaos to a serious degree before being stopped.
"I admit that seems to be a paradox. I admit your logical minds may question this paradox and ask: If a human is forced to have a Life-Line made and his future indicates he is going to try to breed trouble and unrest, he must be executed. This fact will naturally show up in his diagnosis, which immediately must be filed with the Galactic Federation. Therefore, are you, as a doctor of P.L.L., responsible for the man's death, since you revealed he would cause trouble?" He raised his hand as if to stifle any sudden comment.
"It is a puzzling question, Youngers. The same as which was first—the chicken or the egg? There are things concerning the phenomena we deal with which we do not understand as fully as we some day hope to. But you have your sacred trust and obligation to file with the Council and Federation all Life-Lines you diagnose.
"Mankind has had no war for centuries. But mankind's massed life force and intelligence is a terrible, powerful blind energy that could wreck the entire Universe if it were not guided and controlled into the proper channels.
"Isn't it better to sacrifice a few—instead of a billion?" The lines in the lecturer's face became grim. "Youngers, as the years slip by, and you find yourself with a patient whose future is although not dangerous but full of misery and agony—always remember your training and your oath: You are forbidden to tell him his unhappy future and you are forbidden to tamper with your machine to tell your own future. Those are your medical ethics. Younger Praggor, step forward!"
Craig remembered how Praggor had mounted the platform a Younger and stepped down a Doctor, P.L.L. Like himself, minutes later. Eleven years ago. Eleven years of stepping aside and permitting men and women to walk blindly ahead to their doom. Eleven years of lies. Of cheating himself of his own self-respect.
These were some of the reasons he had decided to break his oath! He would make himself a guinea-pig. He would have his own future diagnosed in a way that he would know beyond the shadow of a doubt if he could actually change his own Predictable Life-Lines. That was why he had sent Praggor that letter three months ago:
25, Augusti, 243 G. T.
Stanton-Greenstone Center
5th, Wing, 82nd, Level
Greater NYC—EARTH.
TO: Dr. William Praggor, P.L.L.
Manya Clinic
New Paris, MARS
Dear Bill:
Sending you patient, Earthian rank of Younger, Ben Bradbury. Would run case myself but since he is friend, feel he has been too close to me for that. Suggested he see you for more impersonal diagnosis. He will probably request appointment pre-lim consultation within week. Send his charts to my secretary before you file them with Council.
Jules Craig, P.L.L.
He had been nervous, three months ago, when he had presented himself to Praggor's secretary with the false name of Bradbury. He had hoped the report he would turn in would be complete enough that Praggor would not have to go to the Federation's files for more data. If that happened, since the name of Ben Bradbury wouldn't be found in the files, he would be exposed immediately and all chance of making the experiment lost forever to him.
But Praggor's secretary had seemed cold and indifferent, like a machine. And although he had sweated out the fear Praggor would recognize him when he was admitted to the inner office, he saw that Praggor hardly even looked at him. Just another patient....
The sudden whine of the vanes of the gyrocab as it began to drop toward the landing-stage snapped him back to the present, and its new problems. He gradually pulled himself together as he saw Grand Terminus swell and expand in size beneath him. He felt the landing gear bump. He climbed out, paid the cabbie and walked to the information desk presenting his reservation for transport.
In a bored voice, the clerk issued instructions for finding Booth 217. Down the corridor, through the hall, down the lift, and into the booth. The attendant ripped off the receipt, opened the door. Craig entered and sat down in the metal chair. He waited.
His hands still felt wet. He tried to reason with himself that there was no sense in getting nervous now. That could come after he diagnosed his own charts.
Distantly, he heard the attendant drone:
"Grand Terminus, Earth—calling New Paris, Mars. Reservation Twenty-six B. Doctor Jules Craig, Earthian, awaiting transport, Booth Two-Seventeen to New Paris. Please verify. Over."
The lights inside the booth were bright, hot and dazzling. He could hear the vague hum and whir of the scanners as the invisible technicians adjusted the transmitting beam in relationship to his mass. The spacial chit-chat, with no time lag since it was sub-ether stuff, was incomprehensible to the layman. It continued:
"New Paris, Mars, to Booth Two-Seventeen, Grand Terminus, Earth. Doctor Jules Craig, Earthian, in sync for transport. Will adjust. Over."
Craig felt a tingle sweep through him, and as it continued, he puffed a cigarette alight. He blew a swirling cloud of smoke.
"New Paris to Grand Terminus. Adjustment complete on Two-Seventeen. Go ahead. Over."
Craig tensed himself against the unpleasant sensation of a bad transport. But he felt nothing. He waited until the "All Clear" signal flashed, and stood up. It had been a smooth trip. Even the puff of smoke had come along with him.
He waited half a minute until the lights blinked off and walked through the opposite door. It had been as simple as that. No sensation. Good transport.
The air was thin and cold. His breathing quickened, and since he felt a bit dizzy he made his way slowly to the nearest move-walks. He noticed, however, that he could breathe more easily than the last time he had come to Mars to see Praggor. That meant the Federation, at last, was beginning to get some results with the new oxygen-output machines.
The Manya Clinic swarmed with patients. The lift shot him up to Praggor's office. The waiting room was crowded and the unsmiling secretary took his false name without comment. He found a place to sit, and began to wait.
Irritated, Craig pulled out a cigarette and tried to smoke, but his hands shook so noticeably and the cigarette tasted so muggish, he threw it away.
The waiting was nerve-racking. Good grief! he thought. Is this the refined mental torture all his patients went through in his own waiting room? Is this why all his patients were so nervous despite his efforts to assure them worrying wouldn't help things? Is this the way they felt while waiting for his diagnosis—with the mind building up possible or imaginary terrible future happenings?
Craig noticed his hands were sweating more than ever, and furious with himself, he tried to clench them together as if to push the cold, clammy moisture back where it came from. He had never considered this part of a diagnosis so seriously before.
Without warning, the nasty little thought he had been trying to fight down and out of his consciousness ever since he had started the experiment struck him like a blow from an invisible fist.
"Is this experiment too big for one man, Doctor Craig?"
Would there be an inevitable punishment for trying to tamper with the lines and forces of space and time? Were humans still too small and insignificant and ignorant to try to sway the very basic structure of the entire Universe?
Relentlessly, the long submerged, nasty little voice beat at his brain with questions.
"Suppose, Doctor Jules Craig, by breaking your oath, you learn your future is to be a fearsome thing crammed with disease, heartbreak, disfigurement and an early painful death and that it is impossible to change your future? Is that why Marko went mad? Can you keep your own sanity?"
Chaotic thoughts rushed through Dr. Craig's mind and he wondered whether he dared read his report from Praggor.
He almost shouted aloud. He realized he was sitting stiff and tense on the edge of his chair. He took a desperate grip on himself and forced his body into a more relaxed pose.
He waited, with the sweat drenching his body.
"Younger Bradbury?" The secretary was calling him.
Wearily, he stood up and walked into the inner office. He saw Praggor sitting behind his desk, fatter than the last time. He wondered if the doctor would recognize him at this last moment.
Praggor didn't. Praggor hardly looked at him as he shuffled charts importantly, looking professional.
"Younger Bradbury, your great day has come. You have finished your P.L.L. Nice report. Notes you supplied my secretary were exact." He looked oddly at Craig. "You know—your reports were almost as complete as if a doctor himself had made them out. Usually it is difficult to convince a patient of the importance of detailing every movement, contact, every bit of food and drink, every thought so as to enable the machine to get the Life-Lines well centered and to wear the Crystaleen Cell at all times. But you followed my instructions perfectly."
Praggor laughed and continued: "Of course your charts have the small error of ten percent which we always have to allow for. Some of your unimportant detail lines are fuzzy."
A blasting fear, like exploding petrol, swept through Craig. Here he was sitting in front of a desk, waiting for a diagnosis, the most important thing in his life—and he had to listen to this kind of rubbish! Error of ten percent? The machine never missed! With the care he had taken, checking his own behavior, he knew he had turned in probably the most accurate report ever filed into any Predictograph. He had wanted to be sure.
He listened, the fear inside of him growing and swelling until it was choking him in the throat, as the doctor spouted off with medical rubbish that sounded like Page 310, of Chapter IV, of Marko's "The Necessity of Telling the Patient What He Wants to Hear."
This was a diagnosis like telling futures with tea-leaves and palm-reading, when he wanted to know! And now Praggor was giving him the old stuff about: "—you'll take a nice long trip—" and "make money—nothing to worry about—celebrate—" and the chuckles about, "—a beautiful blond with long legs—"
Praggor wasn't telling him the truth! There never would be a blond with long legs. All he wanted was Freckle-nose. Praggor was lying to him! The thought rose up monstrous in his mind. Good heavens! What did it mean?
"I'll send these charts to Doctor Jules Craig tonight," Praggor was saying. "He will give you additional lines in detail if you should so desire. Don't bankrupt yourself on that celebration. Congratulations. See my secretary about your account on the way out. Good-by."
In a daze he paid his bill, forced himself calmly to go down the lift, onto the move-walks and into the Transport Building.
Dully, he noticed his hands hurt. His fists were clenched, his nails had dug into the flesh, and his palms were bleeding. The spreading flecks of crimson mingled splotchily with the sweat. He should go somewhere and disinfect the wounds.
But that could wait. He had to get back to his office and read the true report. Praggor was probably transporting the charts and diagnosis at this instant.
He entered Booth 217 and sat down. In minutes now he would know whether his basic theory was correct—that man could be master of his own destiny, and could change his predicted Life-Lines. His theory had to be correct!
It was futile and useless to think that man was nothing more than a helpless pawn—with his life laid out from birth until death by some Unknown Great Factor in some Great Unknown Game. That would be a devastating knowledge.
But no! He would learn his own future and change it! Then he would take his evidence to the Supreme Medical Council and prove that mankind could avoid certain unhappy paths of life if warned in advance. Then doctors like himself would be able to lead people along lines to ultimate happiness.
His tension increased as the technicians droned on and on with their adjustments. If only his own future wasn't too bad! If only he could keep his sanity!
The "All Clear" signal flashed, the lights winked off. He hurried out of the booth and into a gyrocab, up to his office, through the door, and saw Freckle-nose sitting at her desk, calmly powdering her nose.
"Well," she said, wrinkling her nose so the freckles quivered, "you're seven minutes late. Why can't handsome young doctors ever be on time?"
"Sorry," he said breathlessly. "That report on Bradbury. Where is it?"
"Oh—that? It just came through. I put it on your desk. Let it wait until tomorrow. I don't want you to get wrapped up in a P.L.L. diagnosis for hours and hours when we've got a date. I've found a new place to go."
"Sorry, honey," he muttered. "This is important."
He ran into his inner office and ripped open the report,
26, Novemberi, 243 G. T.
Manya Clinic
New Paris, MARS
TO: Dr. Jules Craig, P.L.L.
Stanton-Greenstone Center
5th., Wing, 82nd., Level
Greater NYC—EARTH
Dear Jules:
Thanks for the patient. An interesting, but unfortunate case. Since he was a friend of yours I was extremely careful in the diagnosis.
Younger Bradbury turned in excellent reports. But since I definitely did not like the diagnosis on the first run, I ran it through three times personally, to make sure. Inclosed you will find copies of all three charts. Since this man was a friend of yours I am deeply sorry. I advise you to stay away from him from this moment on.
The energy line, in this patient's case, that I find bewildering is the sudden rise of the mental factor C3. You will notice on Chart II that it rises rapidly up and beyond Marko's Constant with an intensity of 3.017 degrees. I have never been confronted with a case of such extreme mental deterioration in such a short period of time. This man will soon become dangerously insane.
You will see in his charts that from some unknown phobia buried in his own mind that this man is going quickly insane, and in his insanity will unknowingly commit three horrible murders before he is apprehended and executed. And one of these unfortunate murders will be the death of someone very close to him.
Naturally, my medical ethics would not permit me to inform this man of his unhappy destiny. I gave him the usual, routine soothing talk so necessary in sad cases.
In an attempt to account for his sudden mental breakdown, I traced the K4 and K5 lines, the physical and love factors, and found a sharp break which I interpreted as a sudden, unexplainable reversal of feeling, or intention, due to some hidden fear only apparent to himself, toward someone very dear in his emotional background.
However, I don't understand how a physical factor or reversal of feeling, is strong enough to cause such a mental breakdown as indicated. I think these are secondary reactions from some hidden fear or else some sudden unexpected shock. I wish we knew more about this type of case. I wish I could have said something to this patient, but with his tragic future, as you know, it is forbidden.
Be sure to attend the Medical Reunion. Like to see you.
Sincerely, your old classmate,
William Praggor, P.L.L.
Level 186—Bldg. 12
Manya Clinic
New Paris, MARS
Silently, the door opened.
"There you are, reading some of those old charts again." Freckle-nose edged her slim body up on the desk and pulled the charts from his lax fingers. "Tonight is my turn to ask you to marry me—remember?"
"No!" Dr. Craig said in a dull voice, and felt the first part of the phobia steal slyly into his brain.
"You see?" it said mockingly, and hungrily began to eat away at his brain.
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