A Fine Fix Part 6

"Yeah, but what's it all about? I must've pa.s.sed out, but d.a.m.ned if I know what for."

Grant heard Bridget's laugh and his morale improved. "You come down and take me to dinner and I'll give you the answer--and what I think may be the answer to all the general's troubles. Right now I've got a report to write so the general can get the word soon--and as painlessly as possible."

Grant pressed the stud to activate the skin coolant system for entrance into the atmosphere. He almost felt like grinning.

Grant at the medical officer's advice took a brief nap, which quickly cleared up his mental fuzziness. As a surprise to Bridget he ordered a rotocab from Barstow, the nearest town, booming since the base had become operative.

In a specialty restaurant over freshly arrived seafood from San Francisco, Grant tried to persuade Bridget to stop teasing him about the navigational foul-up and set him straight. He had put up with it as long as he did only because she had worn an off-shoulder yellow gown, snugly fitted, that made the uniform seem like the design of a Mid-Victorian prude.

Grant, exasperated, brought her teasing up short. "I've been priding myself on keeping up the myth I'm a wide-awake young man and pilot.

Never have I pa.s.sed out before--never. I feel like a washed-out cadet.

You've had your fun baiting--now, what made me blank?"

Bridget cringed as he tore a slice of French bread in half with one hostile, meaningful bite.

She waved her cigarette haughtily. "We in psychology have found certain stimuli productive of consistent human response. Especially true in tactile sensation, this, however, is not as true in the auditory and visual."

"You're being technical," Grant interrupted. "Just let me know simple-like, if you don't mind."

"Consequently," she continued, "the problem presented to the investigating psychologist was one of seeking an involuntary response to one or more stimuli, in sequence or grouped. Traditionally--"

"Miss Ashley--" Grant held up the small, square tissue-wrapped box, tied with a bow--"I would like to have you open this tonight, but obviously you're not going to have time what with the thesis, and all." He deliberately put the box back in his coat pocket.

Their eyes held over her swordfish momentarily.

"So, O.K., I looked around for nasty stimuli, that's all," Bridget went on. "There were lots of possibilities, but I sorta picked two or three.

Part of our pilot interviews was for getting descriptions from the men on what the conditions up there felt like, sounded like, looked like, smelled like, and so on. Completely individual, mind you. From that we spotted negative elements held in common by them."

Grant reached for her arm and blocked the upward motion of her fish-loaded fork.

"You can eat after," he said.

"I threw the nasty ones at you when you began tiring, because that's when the body's stimulus-response setup starts pulling away from conscious direction. I saved the one I had the hunch on for the last."

"The navigation exercise, you mean? I still don't get what that has to do with my leg cramp."

Bridget laughed. "Oh, that. One of those leads attached to your leg carried a little voltage--just in case you pa.s.sed out. The benefits of current psychology, you know."

Grant repressed a smile. "Thanks for letting me know what brought me around, but you are still stalling about why I went under."

"You figure it out. What were the stimuli a.s.sociated with the manual navigation problem?"

"Let's see," he mused. "Tactile: nothing important, just the control levers. Visually, the star field and Jupiter and the crosshairs.

Auditorily, the power hum--"

"What stands out?"

"The planet and the hum, I guess."

"And how did the planet appear?" Bridget asked.

"A point of light, you mean?"

"And what does that add up to: a bright concentrated light source on which you fix your attention and a monotonous hum?"

"Not hypnotism!"

Bridget shrugged. "A reasonable facsimile. Especially when you throw mental fatigue in with it."

"But you need a suggestion, I thought--" Grant was amazed.

"Not necessarily," she replied. "You were mentally tired, there was some self-suggestion for sleep. But simply a continued fixation of the eyes in suggestive subjects can be enough. There may be a subconscious a.s.sociation with previous hypnosis, or early states of mental shock. In the highly suggestive, a steady lulling noise can be sufficient in itself. And you were alone, with no one around to snap a finger under your nose. Add it up in your situation, and you blank out."

Grant slapped his forehead. "What did I look like?"

"Not any different than usual," she said, laughing. "You continued to hold the controls, but you stared vacantly and tensed quite a bit. Well, we have the complete recording on your reactions if you want to check.

Naturally, you pulled off course, ended up over Mexico, gaining about fifty miles in alt.i.tude."

The others, thought Grant, rode until their oxygen gave out or dived through the atmosphere without skin-cooling, or came out of it too late and found-- He decided not to think about it.

"But I don't think I'm hypnotic," Grant protested.

"Everyone is hypnotic to a degree. Some are a great deal more than others, and these are the ones that are apparent. Impose the right conditions and a quasi-hypnotic condition could be affected on most anyone."

"But why hasn't this happened elsewhere?"

Bridget took a quick bite of fish before he could stop her. "It has.

First doc.u.mentation I found was in the South Pacific air war in the '40s. One-man escorting fighter planes in several cases slipped out of bomber formations they were following at night and splashed. One of the explanations at their hearings, but never investigated thoroughly, was hypnosis from the single red taillight of the bombers. In one outfit, the losses stopped when the fighters flew up front."

"Not only sharp, but good-looking, too," Grant admired, and began chewing on the other half of his French bread. Then he ceased masticating and mouthed anxiously, "You've told the general this?"

Bridget clapped her hands. "With exquisite pleasure."

"And he--?"

"... Got excited, phoned for engineering to remove navigational sights and suggested I join the staff at the base."

Grant coughed on the bread and hurriedly reached for his water. "He wants you around?"

"Grat.i.tude, I guess, in his own bra.s.sy way."

"And you'll stay?"

"If Washington O.K.'s it, and I'm coaxed."