A Man Obsessed

by Alan Edward Nourse

"So what are you doing here?"

"I want a hundred and fifty thousand dollars too."

The doctor's eyes met Jeff's squarely. "And you are a liar too."

Jeff reddened. "What do you mean—"

"Look, let's get this straight right now. Don't lie to me. I'll catch you every time." The doctor's eyes were hard. "I see a man who's eaten well for a long time, wearing dirty but expensive clothes, who doesn't drink, who doesn't use drugs, who is young and strong and capable. He tells me he wants to join the Mercy Men for money. He tells me a lie. Now I'll ask you again: why are you here?"

"For money. For one hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

The doctor sighed and leaned back. "All right, no matter. We'll go into it later, I suppose. But I think you'd better understand certain things. It's no accident that your information on the Mercy Men is so vague. We've been careful to keep it that way, of course. The more vague the stories, the fewer curiosity-seekers and busybodies we have to contend with. Also, the more distasteful the stories, the more desperate people will become before they come to us. This we particularly desire. Because the work we do here requires a very desperate man to volunteer."

As he talked, the doctor brought out a pack of cards from the desk and began riffling them nervously in his fingers. Jeff's eyes caught them and a chill went down his back. They were curious cards, not the regular playing variety. These were smaller, with a peculiar marking system in bright red on the white faces. Jeff shivered and he was puzzled at the chill that gripped his body. He shifted in his chair in growing tension and tried to take his eyes from the cards.

The doctor snubbed out his cigar, leaned back in the chair and gave the cards a riffle and regarded Jeff closely. "We've done a lot here since the Center opened—work based on years of background research. A century or more ago there were terrible medical problems to be faced: polio was a killer then; they had no idea of cancer control; they were faced with a terrific death rate from heart disease. All those things are beaten now, a thing of the past. But as the old killers moved out, new ones took their place. Look at the half-dozen NVI plagues we've had in the past few years—neurotoxic virus infections that started to appear out of nowhere twenty years ago. Look at the alky-sikys you see in every bar today, a completely new type of alcoholism-psychosis that we haven't even been able to describe, much less cure. Look at the statistics on mental disease, rising in geometric progression almost every year."

The tall doctor stood up and walked to the window. "We don't know why it's happening, but it is. Something's on the march, something ghastly and evil among the people. Something that has to be stopped." He gave the cards a sharp riffle and tossed them onto the desk with a sigh. "We can't stop it until we know something about the human brain and how it works, and why it does what it does, and how. We don't even understand fully the structure of the nervous system, much less understand its function. And we've learned all we can from cats and dogs and monkeys. Any further study of a monkey's brain will give us great insight into the neuroses and complexes of monkeys, no doubt. But it won't teach us anything more about men." His voice was very soft. "You can see where this leads, I think."