Beyond Bedlam

There was in Bill a fright, a demand for survival so great

that it could not be felt.

It was actually from an island of complete calm that part of

him saw the medical students rising dismayed and white-

faced from their seats. It was apart from himself that his

body strained to lift some mountain and filled the operating

amphitheatre with shrieking echoes. And all the time the

thousand eyes of the mnemonic eraser flickered in swift pat-

terns, a silent measure of the cells and circuits of his mind.

Abruptly the tiny red counting lights went off, a red beam

glowed with a burr of warning. Someone said, 'Now!' The

mind of Bill Walden flashed along a wire as electrical energy,

and, converted on the control panel into mechanical energy,

it spun a small ratchet counter.

'Please sit down,' the professor said to the shaken stu-

dents. 'The drug that has kept the other personality immo-

bilized is being counteracted by this next injection. Now that

the sickly personality has been dissipated, the healthy one can

be brought back rapidly.

'As you are aware, the synapse operates on the binary

'yes-no' choice system of an electronic calculator. All synapses

which were involved in the diseased personality have now

~been reduced to an atypical, uniform threshold. Thus they

can be re-educated in new patterns by the healthy personality

remaining. .. . There, you see the countenance of the healthy

personality appearing.'

It was Conrad Manz who looked up at them with a wry

grin. He rotated his shoulders to loosen them. 'How many

of you pushed old Bill Walden around? He left me with

some sore muscles. Well, I did that often enough to him. . . .'

Major Grey stood over him, face sick and white with the

horror of what he had seen. 'According to law, Mr. Manz,

you and your wife are entitled to five rest days on your next

shift. When they are over, you will, of course, report for sus-

pended animation for what would have been your hyperal-

ter's shift.'

Conrad Manz's grin shrank and vanished. 'Would have

been? Bill isgone?'

'Yes.'

'I never thought I'd miss him.' Conrad looked as sick as

Major Grey felt. 'It makes me feel1 don't know if I can

explain itsort of amputated. As though something's wrong

with me because everybody else has an alter and I don't.

Did the poor son of a strait-jacket suffer much?'

'I'm afraid he did.'

Conrad Manz lay still for a moment with his eyes closed

and his mouth thin with pity and remorse. 'What will happen

to Helen?'

'She'll be all right,' Major Grey said. 'There will be Bill's

insurance, naturally, and she won't have much trouble finding