Stewards of the Flame Read Online Free PDF Page B

preferable. The voice of the unseen interviewer was absolutely emotionless, devoid even of supercilious courtesy. Having nothing to hide, he had not tried to resist the questioning. They’d already known he hated them. They’d known Carla had helped him, and that he found her attractive. What had they possibly hoped to gain?
    When he woke he was back in the substance abuse unit, with his brain intact, as far as he could tell. Emotionally, however, he was deeply shaken. He felt stripped, violated, now that the last vestige of personal privacy had been taken from him. The physical indignities paled beside the callous probing of his inmost thoughts. It scarcely mattered that within minutes he was called for another session of aversion therapy, one of many to which he was subjected during the next few days.
    Though normally, these sessions would have been held in a room outfitted as a bar, the experimenters dispensed with that in favor of one with a gallery from which medical students could watch. “We’re not trying to condition you,” he was told. “This is simply what will happen if you drink, from now on, for the rest of your life. Awareness of it is necessary for your future safety.”
    For the rest of his life, then, his decisions were to be based on their standards of well-being instead of his own? No one suggested that he might ever leave the planet, and indeed Jesse had begun to doubt it. If they’d believed him still in the employ of Fleet, they would not have chosen him as a guinea pig. They planned to turn him into a healthy colonial citizen. That was acknowledged, in fact; several people remarked on how lucky he was not to be deported. They seemed genuinely unable to conceive of anyone’s not appreciating the protection of the galaxy’s finest medical facility.
    As the drug dosage was increased, each drinking session made him sicker than the previous one. The goal was to find, then stop short of, the point at which he’d pass out before feeling distress. By the third day, Jesse feared struggling for breath more than he feared the nausea. Still, he drained the glass given him without protest, for it had been made plain that if he refused, the liquor would be poured down his throat. The less indignity, the better. He had few enough chances to avoid it.
    The seriousness of the attacks was now such that they were terminated by antidote, leaving him with no worse than residual nausea and weakness. He could thus have multiple “treatments” per day, which was desirable, one nurse said, because hospital beds were in demand. This news was halfway welcome; it meant that he might get out soon. On the other hand, he’d have the implants before he got out. That would be soon, too. It was too final for his liking: a symbol of permanent subjugation to this world’s medical authorities.
    During the last session of the fifth day, just before he drank the proffered whiskey, Jesse looked into the observers’ gallery and saw Carla.
    She wasn’t in her own uniform; instead, she wore the gown of an intern. She was holding a mask, briefly removed so that he could recognize her. He nodded quickly, almost imperceptibly; she caught the gesture almost before he knew what he was doing. When he looked again, her face was covered.
    Yet he felt as if she had spoken to him. He had never met anyone before from whom he got such a feeling. He knew, as positively as if he’d been told, that she would come to his room. The knowledge sustained him. He found he hardly minded getting ill. He did not even react to the announcement, made by the night nurse, that he was scheduled to receive the implants in the morning.
    Carla didn’t appear until past midnight, when the corridor was quiet. She still wore the intern’s gown. “Oh, God, Carla,” Jesse said, torn between relief and fear for her. “You shouldn’t be here. If you’ve got to wear a disguise—”
    “I’m all right,” she said calmly. “I got only a reprimand, and that