Murder -- Fiction; Psychiatrists -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space stations -- Fiction
She hesitated. "The story seems satisfactory, up to a point. That is,
we've broken through the memory block and have determined that Glover's
death was not really an accident--which of course we suspected all
along. And we have a motive--of a sort."
Wolf sighed. "Yes--the motive. The boy feels that Glover is cutting him
out of the credit for an important experiment, so in a burst of anger
he disposes of the professor. There are just two things that bother me
about that. Look."
He switched on his desk projector and ran through the microfilm card
of Britten's record until he came to the examinations which Britten had
taken to get the post on the space station.
"Here we have the standard Jameson test for paranoid personality.
Obviously an important item in an examination of this sort. You
wouldn't send even an incipient paranoid into close quarters with a
group of people for two years. And so in the case of Jim Britten the
Jameson test gives a negative result--no evidence of any paranoia, and
in fact no evidence of any neurosis except the drive to do research."
Alma Heller lit a cigarette thoughtfully. "I see. No paranoia
predicted, yet the story he tells us now is a typical textbook example
of persecution psychosis. Of course...." She paused for a moment. "He
might be making up this story to hide his real motive."
Wolf shook his head vigorously. "No dice. Not under deep therapy. He
has to tell us the truth."
"So we have a paradox." Dr. Heller's methodical mind ticked off the
possibilities systematically. "Either the early exam was wrong, in
which case he was paranoid all the time, or the exam was right and he
turned paranoid later. Neither of which things are supposed to happen."
"Or," Wolf presented the third possibility, "he is withholding
information while in deep therapy. Also something that is not supposed
to happen. So this leads us to the second point that bothers me.
Britten talks about sitting up all night trying to figure out what his
experiment was leading to. Yet he never mentioned what conclusion he
came to. Apparently this is a crucial point which is buried in his mind
so deeply that we didn't touch it with our first try."
"Could be." Alma Heller seemed skeptical. "There are a lot of very iffy
questions running around in my head which could be settled simply if we
could get some concrete information. Do you think you could buzz the
AEC and ask them why Britten's project became classified? That would
settle a number of obscure points and at the same time give us a handle
with which to pry Jim open a little more."
Wolf shrugged. "We might get our heads chopped off, but we can try. My
contact at the AEC is Charles Wilford. He's the one who was so anxious
to know what Britten did the night of the 15th. Maybe he can trade us
some information."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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