"Biographical knowledge, psychological knowledge, medical knowledge…" She sat cross-legged upon the examination-table and told the list on her fingers. "Fluoroscopic knowledge, physiometrical knowledge, visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory… We forgot auditory! Use Kennard's stethoscope." She fetched it from a countertop and prettily gave me to listen in upon her heartbeat, respiration, and intestinal chucklings, all more subdued than my own. She strained but could not fart; on the other hand, she had a surprising knack for bringing up belches at will, a trick she'd learned at ten and never forgotten. All the while she chattered matter-of-factly about the question of carnal knowledge, the last item on her improvised list. Many of our investigations, she acknowledged, were distinguishable from amatory foreplay only by their motive, and though she intended to postpone actual copulation with me until she'd asserted herself with Stoker and Bray, she knew that Dr. Sear's bookshelves contained a library of erotica wherein was catalogued such a staggering variety of sexual practices, stunts, and exquisitries as to make ordinary genital intromission seem as tame as shaking hands; would it be out of order, she wondered, for me to acquaint myself with her by means of fellatio, cunnilingus, heterosexual sodomy, flagellation, reciprocal transvestism, and whatever like refinements and experiments we could discover or invent, other than simple coitus?
"Let me be the man," her chest boomed into the stethoscope, "and You be the woman."
But I put down the instrument and shook my head. "I don't know, Anastasia. I don't see — "
I was interrupted by a vigorous pounding on the one-way mirror. Anastasia first gasped and snatched about her for cover, then thought better of it, let go the sheet she'd half torn from the examination-table, and beckoned with her finger at the unknown pounder, with the other hand displaying her pudenda in the manner of those carven shelah-na-gigs — which she must have noted upon my stick. Peter Greene burst into the room, all crimson face and orange hair and blinking eyes; he it was who'd pounded; but he'd not come at her beck — nor to berate her, though he cried, "I seen what you was up to, Lacey Stoker, what I mean lewdwise! Trying to flunk the Grand Tutor!" Anastasia blushed red as Greene, either at his rebuke or at her nakedness before him; but she contrived to stay her ground, put her hands on her hips, and regard him with her eyes half closed and her head half turned — a really quite provocative stance, considering how unnaturally it came to her. Greene got to the point of his alarum.
"The whole durn place has gone kerflooey!" he announced to me. "Crooks and loonies running all over! It's the end of the University!"
Dr. Sear, it appeared, had gone to the Women's Chronic Ward to arrange a weekend leave for his wife, and Greene had gone with him as far as the Infirmary lobby, intending to visit his own wife's suite of rooms. But they'd found the place in uproar over an astonishing executive order just issued by Chancellor Rexford: not only had a general amnesty been declared for everyone in Main Detention, but the Infirmary had been directed to turn loose every mental patient who was not also a physical invalid. The consensus of the Infirmary staff was that Rexford himself had lost his mind — there was talk, for example, that not only the Open Book Tests were going to be repealed, as most people wished, but every administrative regulation concerning gambling, prostitution, cheating in the classroom, narcotics, homosexuality, and pornographic literature and films. They shook their heads — but there was the order, and to everyone's surprise Dr. Sear, so far from countermanding it, had declared he understood and approved of the Chancellor's position; orderlies and campus patrolmen he'd directed to protect the bedridden (like Mrs. Greene); then he'd gone personally to see to it that every door and gate in the Psychiatric Annex was put open. Many of the staff had fled; the halls and lounges, Greene reported, were a pandemonium; the patrolmen had several times been obliged to pistol the violent, in self-defense. Of Dr. and Mrs. Sear, Greene had heard no more; having bribed the police to double their guard at Miss Sally Ann's door, he'd returned at considerable risk to apprise me of the danger.
"And your mom, too, pass her mind," he added; "ain't her fault she's touched in the head. A fellow's got a duty to his mom." But at Anastasia he curled his lip. "They can have the likes of you, for all I care. Serve you right!"
Too alarmed by the news to heed his insult, Anastasia rushed into the Reception Room to see that Mother was safe, and then began hastily redonning her white uniform. "Those poor patients!" she exclaimed. "Maybe I can tranquilize some of them."
Indeed the situation seemed perilous. Mad bangs and screams came from the hallway; a chap, white-gowned, galloped sideways into the office, scratching under his ribs, and made hooting water on the wall-to-wall carpet.
"Oh, yes, well," my mother murmured. He sprang at her even as I at him, but changed course at sight of me and leaped through the window instead, smashing first the pane and presently himself, as the office was many stories high. Mother resumed her knitting. Other unfortunates thrashed about in the vicinity of the doorway.
"Lock the door," I bade Greene. He stiffened.
" 'Scuse me, George, sir. No disrespect intended, but I can't go against the Chancellor of my native college, true or false. My only regret, alma-materwise, is that I don't have but one life to give for — "
"Let's get out, then," I said, for pleased as I was at Rexford's following my advice, I recalled Leonid's fiasco in the Nikolayan Zoo and feared for our safety. My Ladyship protested that her first responsibility was to the patients, and Greene that the likes of her were disgraces to their uniforms, say what one would. I bade the former to keep in mind that everyone's first responsibility was to the Founder — which was to say, to one's own passage, not always to be attained by charitable works — and declared to the latter my wish that he escort Mrs. Stoker not only out of the Infirmary but all the way to the Powerhouse.
"No!" Anastasia objected. "If everything's going to pieces, then I don't care about my Assignment! I'm going with You." And Greene muttered that I should not ought to take him from Miss Sally Ann's bedside for the sake of no floozy.
"It's for Miss Sally Ann's sake you have to," I said; "for the sake of all the patients. I want this floozy out in the Powerhouse where she belongs, so she won't take advantage of helpless people. Do you think you'll be okay with her?"
Anastasia saw my motive and protested.
"I'll be okay," Greene said, and wiped his palms grimly on his trouser-thighs.
"No, please, George…" said Anastasia.
"She may try to seduce you," I warned him, for her benefit. "She's awfully aggressive. Not like her sister."
"George…"
With a fierce squint Greene took her arm. "You come along with me. Don't try to flooze me none, neither."
More gently I took my mother's elbow; clucking and smiling, she bagged her yarn and obediently rose.
"At least give me a minute to fix my hair!" Anastasia said. Her tone had changed, was newly resolute and guileful, as was her face. I surmised, not without mixed feelings, that what had been at odds — her wish to assert herself as I'd advised and her wish to go to Tower Hall with me instead of to her home with Greene — were now in league: she would attempt to bribe Greene with her favors. And though I myself had urged such initiative upon her, the twinge I felt was not owing entirely to the danger of her succeeding and thus following me into the Belly. To assure myself that I was not jealous, or envious of Greene, I smiled and winked at her, as if to say, "I see right through you, and wish you luck."