She frowned. “You quarrel with that?”
“Not at all. But the neat little tests assume that this stability is a permanent state.”
“They do not! The tests and the whole theory admit that in the face of unexpected strain, even the most stable, the most adjusted, can become psychoneurotic in one way or another. My goodness, that’s why I’m employed out there. It’s my job to detect the presence of any change in the face of strain and...”
“Now you’re stating my point. I say that one of your basic assumptions is that there has to be an environmental change to create the strain which results in an alteration of this basic quotient of stability. I say that the assumption is too hasty. I say that there is something further to study. I think the shift from stability to instability can come in the twinkling of an eye and come without reference to any outside stimuli. Forget hereditary weaknesses. Forget the old business about escaping from a life that is unbearable. I say that you can take a perfectly adjusted guy, put him in a situation where his life is satisfying — and boom, he can go off like that. You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. Why? Why does it happen? It happened to Bill Kornal. One minute he was okay. The next minute it was as though something... quite alien took over his mind. So now we’ve got him out in the car and there’s four month’s work lost.”
“Are we going to go back, Bard, to the old idea of being possessed by devils?”
“Maybe we should. How about the news we listened to? What keeps perpetually messing up mankind? Jokers who go off their rocker when they’ve got every reason not to. No, you people are doing a good, but a limited job. Floating around somewhere is an X factor that you haven’t found yet. Until you do I’m looking at psychology and psychiatry with a limited and dubious acceptance, Sharan.”
There was a whisper of sound. He searched the night sky until he saw, against the stars, the running lights of a jet transport, losing altitude for the Albuquerque landing, the six flame-tongues merged, by the altitude, into a thin orange line.
The breeze stirred her hair. She said slowly, “I should rise up in mighty wrath and smite you hip and thigh, boss. But a still small voice within me says there might be something in what you say. However, if I admit you might be right, I’m also admitting the impossibility of ever isolating this X factor. How can you find something that hits without warning and disappears the same way?”
“Possession by devils,” he said, grinning.
She stood up, slim against the light, more provocative to him in her complete, thoughtful, forgetfulness of self than if she had posed carefully.
“Then,” she said, “the devils are more active lately. Oh, I know that every generation that reaches middle age believes firmly that the world is going to hell. But this time, Bard, even at my tender years, I think they may have something. Our culture seems like a big machine that’s vibrating itself to bits. Parts keep flying off. Parts that are important. Decency, dignity, morality. We’ve all gone impulsive. Anything you want to do is all right, provided your urge is strong enough. It’s a... a...”
“Sociological anarchy?”
“Yes. And there, Mr. Lane, you have my motivation. Now you know why I’m so desperately anxious for you to succeed. I keep feeling that if mankind can find some new horizons, there’ll be a return to a decent world. Quaint, aren’t I?”
They walked across the lot toward the car. He looked at the night sky, at the stars which seemed closer, more attainable here.
“Elusive devils, aren’t they?”
She caught his wrist as they walked, her nails biting into the flesh with quick strength. “They won’t stay elusive, Bard. They won’t.”
“Four years now, that I’ve had my little obsession, Sharan, and they seem as far away as ever.”
“You’ll never give up, Bard.”
“I wonder.”
They had reached the car. Through the rear window, open an inch, came the soft sound of Bill Kornal’s snores.
“It makes me feel ill to have you talk of giving up,” she said in a half-whisper.
He leaned over to put the key in the lock. His shoulder brushed hers.
Without quite knowing how it had happened, he found her in his arms. She stood tightly against him with upturned lips, and with a small, plaintive sound in her throat. He knew that he was bruising her mouth, and could not stop. He knew it was a forgetfulness, a little time stolen from the project, from the endless drain of effort and responsibility. He had expected to find in her all the warmth and passion of any healthy young adult. He was pleased that her intensity matched his own.
“This is no good,” she said.
She stood a little aside, her head bent. He knelt and swept his hand back and forth across the gravel until he found the keys. He straightened up.
“Sorry,” he said.
“We’re both tired, Bard. We’re both scared to death of what General Sachson might do. We were clinging to each other for... comfort. Let’s forget it.”
“Let’s not exactly forget it, Sharan. Let’s shelve it for future action.”
“Please,” she said sharply.
“All right, so I shouldn’t have said that.” He knew that his tone was a shade indignant.
He unlocked the door. She slid under the wheel and across to her side. He chunked the door shut and drove out in a long curve onto the highway, accelerated viciously up to cruising speed. He gave her a quick glance. She was staring straight ahead, her face expressionless in the reflected dash lights. A big jack bounded from the shoulder into the road, startling him. He felt the tiny thud in his wrists as the wheel hit it, heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Just say I was possessed by one of those devils,” he said.
“Probably we both were,” she said. He glanced again and saw her smile. She moved a bit closer to him. “Besides, Bard, I’m a prim kid, I guess.”
“Didn’t taste very prim.”
“That’s what I mean,” she said, enigmatically. “Now be good.”
The gray sedan droned through the night.
Two
As the grayness in the east began to pale the conference room lighting, Bard and Sharan sat with the other three persons awaiting General Sachson.
Gray, shaggy Colonel Powys, Projects Coordinator, rolled a yellow octagonal pencil against the polished top of the conference table, pressing so hard with his palm that the pencil made an irritating clacking sound as it rolled. Major Leeber, Sachson’s aide, sleek and demurely pompous, nibbled at one edge of his moustache. The lean enlisted stenotype clerk turned a glass ashtray around and around and around.
Bard glanced over at Sharan. She gave him a wan smile. There were bluish shadows around her eyes.
“The general’s very upset about this,” Powys rumbled. His words dropped, like stones, into the pool of silence. There was an accusation behind his tone. The inference was that no one else was upset. Bard Lane restrained the impulse toward sarcasm.
The wall clock had a sweep second hand. Each time the hand made one full revolution, the minute hand jumped one notch with a tiny grating clack. Leeber yawned like a sated cat. He said, in a soft voice, “You’re quite young for all that responsibility, Dr. Inly.”
“Too young, Major?” Sharan asked politely.
“You’re putting words in my mouth, Doctor.”