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Quickly really was very quick with Coypu. He must have been holding a psycho blaster in his lap because there was a loud humming and Berkk folded. Angelina and I were there to catch him before he hit the floor.
A padded operating table rolled out of the massed machinery and we placed him gently on it. Coypu got to work. He took an empty TF from the shelf and plugged it into the back of Berkk’s head. Worked the controls and nodded happily.
“There. This very brave young man can now go back on the shelf. If Slakey causes trouble I will then zap him Out of the neurons and get Berkk back with this. Now—to work.”
He seized up the Slakey TF and placed it onto the workbench, then slipped a multiganged plug into the TF’s socket. He ran an electronic check of the contents before reeling out the contact and co
“Wait,” I said. He stopped. “How about securing Berkk’s body in place so he doesn’t hurt himself—or us.”
“I will have him securely under electronic control—”
“Slakey has never been under control in the past. So let us be sure and take no chances now.”
Coypu threw a few switches and padded clamps hummed out from below the table. I locked them securely into place on ankles and wrists. Found a large belt and secured that around his waist and nodded to Coypu. He put the final co
The speaker rustled a bit and there was a sound like a sigh. Then the words, almost inaudible: “I can hear you.”
“That’s very good.” He turned up the amplification a bit. “Now, tell me—who are you?”
I don’t know why they are called pregnant silences, perhaps because they are pregnant with possibilities. This one had all kinds of possibilities. The loudspeaker rustled again. “My name is… Justin Slakey..
Who can blame us for shouting with joy. We had done it!
Not quite. Berkk, or his body, was writhing and fighting against the bonds. He bit his lips until they bled. Then his eyes opened.
“What are you doing to me? Are you trying to kill me? I’ll kill you first..
The writhing stopped and he dropped back heavily as Coypu let him have it with his handy psycho blaster.
It was not going to be easy. Even with James helping, a far more skilled hypnotist than Coypu, it was impossible to exercise any control over Slakey. Just about the time they would hypnotize one Slakey another would take over. And all the subsequent thrashing about wasn’t doing Berkk’s body much good, what with fighting against the restraints, chewing on his lips and so forth.
“Time for some professional help,” Coypu said. “Dr. Mastigophora is on his way. He is the leading clinical psychosemanticist in the Corps.”
“Super—shrink?” I asked.
“Absolutely.” Dr. Mastigophora was lean to the point of emaciation, all sinew and leather, carrying an instrument case and sporting a great growth of gray hair. “I assume that is the patient?” he said, pointing a long and knobby finger.
“It is,” Coypu said. Mastigophora glared around at his auclience.
“Everyone out of here,” he ordered as he opened his instrument case. “With the single exception of Professor Coypu.”
“There is a physical problem with the patient,” I explained. “We don’t want him to hurt the body, which is only on loan.”
“Up to your mind—swapping tricks again, hey Coypu? One of these days you will go too far—” He looked at me and scowled. “I said out and I mean out. All of you.”
As he said this he sprang forward and seized my wrist and applied—a very good armlock. Of course I let him do it since I don’t beat up on doctors. He was strong and good enough—I hoped—to handle Berkk’s body in an emergency. I left with the others as soon as he let go.
A number of hours passed and we were begi
Coypu and Mastigophora were slouched deep in their chairs. trying to outmatch each other in looking depressed.
“Impossible,” Mastigophora moaned. “No control, can’t erect blocks, can’t access, terrible. It’s the multiple personality thing, you see. My colleague has explained that Professor Slakey has in some unspecified ma
“Nothing,” Coypu echoed hollowly.
“Nothing?” I shouted. “There has to be something!”
“Nothing…” they intoned together.
“There is something,” Angelina said, ever the practical one. “Forget Slakey and get back to looking into the guts of your interuniversal machine. Surely there has to be some way to get it working again.”
Coypu shook his head looking, if possible, even gloomier. “While Dr. Mastigophora was brain—draining I tackled the problem again. I even stopped all the other projects that were ru
“And?”
“It has tackled this question from every point of view in every way. And the conclusion was the same every time. It is impossible to alter the access frequencies in the interumversal commutator.”
“But it happened?” I said.
“Obviously.”
“Nothing is obvious to me.” I was very tired and my temper was shredding and all this gloom and doom was begi
Stood there on one leg for long seconds while my brain raced around in circles.
“He has just had an idea,” Angelina said, her voice seemingly coming from a great distance. “Whenever he freezes up like that it means he has thought of something, had an inspiration of some kind. In a moment he will tell us—”
“I’ll tell you now!” I shouted, jumping about to face them and neatly clicking my heels in the air as I did. “Your computer is absolutely right, Professor, and you should have more respect for its conclusions. Those universes will always be in the same place. As soon as we realize that, why the answer becomes obvious. We must look for the real reason why you ca
I had them now, professorial jaws gaping, heads shaking, Angelina nodding proudly, waiting for my explanation.
“Sabotage,” I said, and pointed at the control console. “Someone has changed the settings on the controls.”
“But I set them myself,” Coypu said. “And I have checked the original calculations and conclusions over and over again,”
“Then they must have been changed too.”
“Impossible!”
“That’s the right word for it. When all the possibilities have been tried—then it is tune to look to the impossible.”
“My first notes, I think that I still have them,” he said, stumbling across the room and tearing open a drawer. It fell to the floor and spilled out pens, paper clips, bits of paper, cigar butts and empty soup cans, all the things we leave in desk drawers. He scrabbled among the debris and pulled Out a crumpled piece of paper, smoothed it and held it up.