"Are you Miss Dwardie…"
"Doctor Dwardie, Doctor Hessian;' Dorothy replied calmly but there was a slight edge to her voice that alerted both Kris and Sarah. Kris wouk have risen but Sarah grabbed her by the arm, pressing her back against the crate.
"You've made a remarkable recovery;' said Dorothy with apparent plea sure.
Sounds like "grumph grumph" and an audible "be that as it may" seemed to indicate that this Dr. Hessian was not in complete accord. His raspy baritone gave Kris a mental image of a portly man of advanced years, probably balding, overweight, and overbearing.
"I was told that there had been new additions to the library and wished to avail myself of some suitable reading material."
"Oh.› Were you not also told that your help in cataloging our new shipment would be sincerely appreciated?"
"Shelving? Books?" was the pompous and astonished reply. Kris thought he sounded remarkably like Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, declaiming: "Handbag? Station?"
"Doctor Hessian, we all do community work…:'
"He's from the Freudian school of psychology," Sarah whispered to Kris. "Dorothy's a social learning psychologist… completely opposite to him."
"The community work;' Dr. Hessian went on inexorably, "for which I am eminently qualified is to help those Victims still in severe mental distress.
I am quite willing to allot all the time necessary with some of the more prestigious Victims whom I have recognized, despite their appalling ordeals. I can certainly provide blueprints of the underlying psychody-namic conflicts of their conditions."
"We know what happened to them, Doctor Hessian. As it happened to you, and it is quite a triumph to see you walking about and conversing with everyone. Quite normal again."
"Normal? Normal?" the second repetition was louder than the first.
"What is normal… ah…"
"Doctor Dwardie," Dorothy put in gently. "Shall we take a walk, Doctor Hessian? I think the shelving of the books can wait."
Kris looked chagrined and Sarah evidently felt the same way for they were obviously not supposed to know what Dorothy needed to tell Hessian.
Books in hand, they crept quietly out by way of the tarpaulin.
Although Dorothy had seen the slight ripple of the tarpaulin, she wanted to continue this discussion outside, where there was no danger of them being overheard. Hessian, responding to a tug on his arm, followed her out of the library, saying as they went, "My normal self scarcely compares with anyone else's so-called 'normal state; "and "certainly anyone here" lingered in the air as if the doctor had spoken aloud. "I have only just begun to recall how exceptional my normal self is. You cannot expect… me… to shelve books?"
"If I can do it, why should it be beneath your capabilities, Dr. Hessian?"
"Now, just a moment, young woman," and his voice dripped with opprobrium.
"Doctor Dwardie, Doctor Hessian," Dorothy said firmly but kindly.
"This colony survives because everyone… everyone… is willing to do the basic tasks as well as the application of their previous profession, whatever that might have been. My entire team looks forward to your helping us with the psychological treatment of the remaining Victims. Treating trauma response has been such an overwhelming task that even I have been doing this, as a much needed change of pace. There are so many more Victims," and her voice was not exactly imploring him to be reasonable, as encouraging him, "than we can effectively treat with so few psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses. Will you join our treatment team, Doctor Hessian?"
"Arumph. Be part of a team?" and his voice and manner reminded Dorothy of the English actor Robert Morley at his most pompous and petulant. "You're not serious? I hardly think so. Not with my exemplary qualifications."
Fortunately, there were few people around as dusk settled over Retreat so she steered him to the flagstone path that would eventually lead to his current residence.
"Yes, they certainly are, Doctor Hessian," Dorothy said warmly. "I am quite familiar with your professional background. However, the psycho-' logical team here is under my direction and we have designed a multi-modal treatment program, which has indeed healed the trauma of many of the Victims. While your work within the psychoanalytic community is a valuable asset to the field, we have employed a social learning framework here because of its efficacy with psychological trauma:'
"And I would, I opine, have to use…" and once again Dorothy was treated to the magnificent disdain he could inject into such a small word, "this… this multi-modal treatment?"
"Yes, you would, since we have found it to be so effective. I worked with trauma units before I was… dropped here. But undoubtedly you would not be aware of my professional work in that area:'
"No, I am not," he said in a flat discounting of any expertise she might have. "Especially since you now have someone of my stature in the field.
Surely you realize that a change of treatment models would benefit those still in the grip of what appears to be catatonia. When the main troops ar-five, as it were," and his supercilious tone suggested that he was smiling con-descendingly at Dorothy. "… the reserves are no longer needed."
Dorothy was undaunted. "Let's take a stab at this situation from the viewpoint of research, and see what happens. I understand that it is probably a shock for you to discover that there are other treatment models with empirical efficacy greater than the one you are most familiar with and have evidently spent most of your life studying. I know, for example, that your resume includes eight books on the life and work of Freud in theory and psychoanalysis. I really do believe that you will be a tremendous asset to the Victims."
There was no immediate response by Dr. Hessian.
"Doctor Hessian, please don't misunderstand me. I am not implying any undervaluing of Sigmund Freud or the power of his work. I think that Freud was one of the greatest thinkers of all time in the study of nervous disorders. It's just that we are using a model with proven efficacy, and the model your work is based in is most applicable to a different treatment problem-not neurosis. We're dealing with deep mental trauma, not neuroses."
His earlier long stride, as if he had intended to outwalk her, had shortened.
Now he stood, head down, pulling at his lips.
"I doubt that you and I, Doctor Dwardie, can ever work together with any degree of mutual respect, much less find a basis for a proper course of treatment for these unfortunate Victims."
"I can accept that, although with great regret, Doctor Hessian. No, please don't go yet. There is one trauma case I'd like a chance to discuss with you. It was one that baffled all of us."
"Oh?"
"Yes, now do sit down, Doctor Hessian," and she indicated a strategically placed stone bench that had a magnificent view of the Bay, "this might take a little time."
"I should imagine so."
"Well," and Dorothy seemed to be taking a breath before plunging into this case. "There is a professional woman, Doctor K a psychologist of exceptional brilliance-whose case, though successful, was very difficult. She experienced the mind-wipe shortly after a series of Victim deaths, or so one observer tells us. These had resulted from the effects of the modulated electrical current level. Some of the early deaths were those who had been trained as neuropsychologists although leading professionals of all branches of sciences also were among the dead."
"Yes, I had heard that," Dr. Hessian was willing to admit, "from talks with Doctor Seissmann. Evidently Doctor Stanley Kessler was one. Tragic loss to the field."
"I agree," Dorothy said. "From various sources, we did learn that the Eosi reduced the current to prevent additional deaths due to central nervous system overload. Unfortunately the reason was less humanitarian than selfish. The Eosi were killing before they could complete the retrieval process that would extract the information they wanted. To be useful, the subject had to remain in a state of altered consciousness, therefore alive, during the probe."