It still seemed incredible to Lewis, that the military psychologists had decided among themselves that, for the sake of security, all intercommunication between the Project and the outside was to be cut off. No news, no television, no radio, no nothing. For security, and also on the theory that scientists could work better completely cloistered up like medieval monks. Not even a phone-call. Absolute, one-hundred percent isolation. Legalized catatonia.
They had choked this Project to death, and he wondered how many others were dead, and where they were. He didn't know where this Project was, except that it was on the desert. He didn't even know for sure what desert. He had been drugged when he was brought here two years ago, for security you know.
Nemerov never mentioned his wife and kids any more. From the behavior of Nemerov and most of the others, you would think the outside no longer existed.
Cardoza, the cybernetic genius, came up, his eyes glazed with the effects of some new narcotic that Oliver Dutton, world renowned biochemist, had cooked up for want of anything better to do.
The wives of two other scientists hung on Cardoza's arms, their bodies mostly bare, their eyes dulled as they wandered about the room like radar for the promise of some emotional oasis in the wasteland.
"How you fellas like my robotic barkeep?" Cardoza yelled.
"It pours a nice glass of whiskey," Lewis said.
"This is only the beginning," Cardoza said, his mouth glistening and wet under his hopped-up eyes. "That barkeep's a perfect servant and can never make a mistake. Spent the last year building it. It can mix anything."
"It'll practically win the war for us," Lewis said. Nemerov wiped at his sweating face. The two straying wives stared dumbly.
Cardoza winced. "Don't be cutting, my friend," he said to Lewis. His mouth turned down at the corners. "I tried, just as the rest of us tried. To go on and develop what I was sent here to develop, I need "Q" clearance. I can't get it because when the war started I wasn't a citizen. Is that clear, Lewis?"