"Listen once, Jeff. Right first toe corresponds to left thumb; right second toe to right index finger. (Wonderful stuff, hypno-palamine, only one repetition to learn) When you feel a shock in a toe, press the button for the corresponding finger. Ready now, Jeff, as fast as you can." Shock, press, shock, press. Jeff's mind was still, silent, a blank, an open circuit for reactions to speed through without hindrance, without modulation. Another round done and on to the next.... Doctor Schiml's pale face loomed up from some distant place. "Everything all right?" "Going fine, fine. Smooth as can be." "No snags anywhere?" "No, no snags. None that I can see--yet." * * * * * "I want a smoke." Dr. Gabriel relaxed, offered Jeff a smoke from a crumpled pack, extended his lighter and smiled. He noticed that Jeff's wide eyes missed their focus, could not see the extended flame. "How do you feel, Jeff?" "Fine, fine--" "Still got a lot to do." A flicker of fear crossed the dull eyes. "Fine. Only I hope...." "Yes?" "... hope we finish. I'm tired." "Sleepy?" "Yeah, sleepy." "Well, we'll have everything on punched cards for Tilly in a couple of hours or so. All the factors about you that this testing will unearth would take a research staff five hundred years to integrate down to the point where it would mean anything. With Tilly it takes five minutes. She doesn't make mistakes, either." "Nice Tilly." "And after the results come through, you're assigned and you sign your release and you're on your way to money." Again the flicker of fear came, deeper this time. "Money...." * * * * * More tests, more tests. Hear a sound, punch a button. See a picture, record it. Test after endless test, dozens of records, his brain growing tired, tired. Then into the bright, gleaming room, up onto the green-draped table. "No pain, Jeff, nothing to worry about. Be over in just a minute." His eyes caught the slender, wicked-looking trefine; he heard the buzz of the motor, felt the grinding shock. But there was no reaction, no pain. And then he felt a curious tingling in his arms and legs, as the small electro-encephalograph end-plates entered his skull through the tiny drilled holes. He watched with dull eyes as the little lights on the control board nearby began blinking on and off, on and off. The flashes followed a hectic, nervous pattern, registering individual brain-cell activity onto supersensitive stroboscopic film. This, in turn, was fed down automatically to Tilly for analysis. And then the trefine holes were plugged up again and his head was tightly taped, and he was moved back into another room for another five-minute recovery. "Hit the ink blots yet?" "Not yet, Rog. Take it easy, we're coming along. Ink blots and intelligence runs next, and so on."