She recalled falling in the bush, crawling, being unable to crawl further, then being captured,. her wrists dragged behind her, their being locked in Gunther’s cuffs.
She recalled being lifted, thrown, secured, over his shoulder, and being carried to the Land Rover. She had then lost consciousness.
“And, doubtless,” she said, “it is pleasant, after bringing your catch home, to make them slaves.”
“Yes,” said Gunther, “doubtless that would be pleasant.”
“You are a beast, Gunther,” she said.
He smiled. He shrugged. “I am a man,” he said.
“Finish your coffee, Doctor Hamilton,” suggested Herjellsen.
Hamilton finished the small cup of bitter, black fluid.
Brandy was brought for the men. Herjellsen, and William and Gunther, lit cigars.
“Would you like a liqueur?” asked Herjellsen.
“Yes,” said Hamilton.
It was brought. It was thick, heavily syruped, flavored with peach.
Hamilton sipped it.
“The escape phase of the experiment,” said Herjellsen, “permitted us to test your cunning and your initiative. Both proved themselves satisfactory.”
“Thank you,” said Hamilton.
“In the bush itself, of course, as we expected,” said Herjeljsen, “you behaved like a frightened, ignorant woman.”
“I suppose,” said Hamilton, sipping the liqueur, “that my `training’ was also enhanced in some way by my escape attempt?”
“Yes,” said Herjellsen. “We regarded it as important to give you the experience of being a fleeing, hunted, then captured woman.”
“It is a very helpless, frightened feeling,” said Hamilton.
“We wished you to have it,” said Herjellsen.
“The most important lesson of the escape phase, or perhaps I should say, the `failure-to-escape’ phase,” said Gunther, smiling, “was to imprint, and imprint deeply, in your consciousness the incontrovertible recognition that you had not escaped-that you had been caught-and were once again, and more securely than ever, the prisoner of men.”
10
Hamilton recalled the misery with which she had understood this.
She had been, thereafter, their experiment finished, shackled during the day, handcuffed to the cot at night. They had needed no more data. She was held, perfectly.
And Brenda Hamilton knew, deeply within her, that her futile escape attempt, summarily punished by a brief humiliating beating, stinging, trivial, a woman’s beating, had never been realistic. She would have left a trail. To a practiced eye it could have been followed. She knew then that, even if the Land Rover had not been used, she could have been retaken, and almost at their leisure. How female she had felt, how helpless. She was angry. And how swiftly, in a matter of days, the short rations, the bread and water, had brought her to her knees before them, promising compliance.
She had come to understand, as it had been intended that she should, that men were dominant, and, if they chose, women were at their mercy.
The room seemed dark at the edges.
She sipped again the liqueur.
She had failed to escape. She remained the captive of men.
“We had difficulty, as you may recall,” said Herjellsen, “in transmitting the leopard.”
“Yes,” said Hamilton, shaking her head.
“It is interesting,” said Herjellsen, “but I met resistance.”
“How is that?” she asked.
“I felt it,” said Herjellsen. “Earlier we had failed to transmit the beast when it was unconscious. When you observed, it was conscious-but resisting.”
Hamilton recalled the animal, twisting, growling.
“It could know nothing, of course, of what was occurring,” said Herjellsen, “but still it was distressed, angry, displeased, resistant.”
“You failed to transmit it?” said Hamilton.
“Later, when it was partially anesthetized, we managed to transmit it,” said Herjellsen, “when the resistance was lowered.”
Hamilton steadied herself with a hand on the tablecloth.
“Interesting that a beast could resist,” said Herjellsen. “Fascinating.”
“I will resist you!” suddenly cried Hamilton. “I will resist you!”
The room seemed to be growing darker.
“It seems unlikely,” said Herjellsen.
“I do not feel well,” said Hamilton.
Herjellsen appeared concerned. He glanced at William. “It is a temporary effect,” said William.
“When is your experiment to take place?” asked Hamilton.
“Tonight,” said Herjellsen. “Now.”
She shook her head.
“Strip her,” said Herjellsen.
She felt Gunther removing the pearls from the back of her neck.
She could not resist.
“The liqueur has been drugged,” explained Heriellsen. “You will not resist.” Then he spoke to Gunther and William. “Remove her clothing and clean her,” he said, “and then place her in the translation cubicle.”
“Please,” wept Brenda Hamilton. “Please!”
She felt Gunther remove the earrings from her ears.
Brenda Hamilton, raw, lay on her stomach in the translation cubicle.
She heard the men outside.
“No,” she wept. She struggled, weakly, to her hands and knees, her head down, hair falling forward. She tried to lift her head.
“Raise the power,” she heard Herjellsen say, the voice seemingly far away, on the other side of the plastic.
“No,” she wept, and again sank to her stomach. She lay on the cool, smooth plastic, almost unable to move her body. She tried to close her hand into a fist. It was difficult to do so. She only wanted to lie still, to rest, helpless, on the plastic.
“It is beginning,” she heard William say.
She opened her eyes. To her horror she saw, at one corner of the cubicle, a tracery of light, darting, swift.
Herjellsen sat before his apparatus, his head beneath the hood, his fists clenched.
Slowly, muscle by muscle, she moved her body, raising herself again to her hands and knees. She tried to lift her head.
She saw a tendril of light appear now to her right.
She lifted her head. She looked out through the plastic. It was heavy. She saw that it had been, on the outside, reinforced with metal piping.
She rose to her feet. Light played about her ankles. “No,” she whispered. She could not feel the light. She was conscious only of a tiny coolness.
A set of beads of light darted from one side to the other of the cubicle.
She stumbled against the plastic wall and, weakly, tried
to beat on it with her fists. “Please!” she wept. “Let me out! Let me out!”
Tears streamed down her face.
She saw Gunther and William, impassive, on the other side of the plastic.
“Gunther!” she wept. “William! William!”
Suddenly it seemed a tendril of light moved about her leg. She kicked wildly at it. She tried to thrust the light from her body. She could not see the floor of the cubicle now, though she felt it, as firm and cool and solid as before, beneath her bare feet.
“Let me out!” she wept.
It seemed to her suddenly that she was a little girl in a closet, crying to be let out, pounding on the wood in the darkness. The voice that seemed to cry within her was that of a child.
Then she saw again William and Gunther outside, and Herjellsen, under the hood.
She shook her head, wildly, having sensed the dissociation which as a psychological concomitant, occasionally accompanied the presence of the Herjellsen phenomenon.
She must resist, she knew. She must resist!
Her body, her will, was weakened, but she would fight. She could fight, and would!
She stood in the center of the cubicle, bent over, fists clenched, hair wild. “No!” she cried. “No! No! No! No!”