"Considerably. I—want to be changed. I want to be someone else, anything else. I've seen things too horrible to remember anyway. I'd rather forget everything. It could all have been delusion, hallucination rigged up in your psyche labs. As Keith said—you boys are good at that sort of thing. If that's how it was—it was good therapy. There's a doubt in my mind, you see. It might have happened, and just the bare possibility that it did happen is enough to make me gladly volunteer for reconditioning."

Seers nodded. "I'm very glad you're approaching it this way. It will make the processing easier to perform, and the new personality easier to maintain. We probably will never need your kind again, Danton. Now that the Oligarchs are gone, the last threat to our new system is gone with them. The chance of some other intelligent life-form being in the universe at all is remote, and the further chance that they would take aggressive action against Earth makes the whole thing something we can logically ignore."

"That's fine," Danton said.

"You've seen where the psychology of war would lead, inevitably. If you can justify killing human beings at all, the final result is bound to be, in some form or another, what you saw on Mars."

"If I actually saw it. If I was on Mars at all."

Seers signaled through the intercom. A door opened. Rhone stood there, a tablet in her hand, and a pencil. She sat down and crossed attractive legs. Very attractive legs, Danton thought.

"Miss Tannon, this is Richard Danton. Mr. Danton, my new secretary, Miss Tannon."

She nodded, turned her nose down once more, very business-like, into the tablet.

Danton thought, It's Rhone all right. A reconditioned Rhone. They must be good at their reconditioning to change an Oligarch mind into that of an efficient secretary. Danton said, "What about the others up there on Mars?"

"We'll take care of them, peacefully of course," Seers said. "We have plenty of time. We won't bring them back. We will set up our new system there."

Danton listened to Seers' dictation. "To Chief Psyche-adjustment Administrator. From Seers, Department of Social Security. Subject: Voluntary reconditioning of Richard Danton. To take place at once under the jurisdiction of...."

There was more. Danton didn't hear it ... and later they 

 Prev. P 35/36 next