"But you realize that we must have food. Doesn't it make you feel important to grow more food so we can increase our population?"
"No! Why should I care? I want to go to Earth!"
Dr. Kalmar shook his head regretfully. He pushed a button on his desk. It was connected to a gravity generator directly under the girl's chair. Four gravities suddenly pushed her down into it and a hypodermic needle jabbed her swiftly with a hypnotic drug. She slumped. He released the button and the artificial gravity abated, but she remained dazed and relaxed.
"You're not going to hurt her, are you, Doc?" Mr. Emery begged.
"Certainly not. But I suppose you know Social Control's orders."
They nodded, the husband gloomily, the wife with a single sharp jerk of her head.
"You go right ahead and do it," she said. "I'm sick of working my fingers to the bone while she primps and preens and talks all the time about going to Earth."
"Come, Avis," Dr. Kalmar said in a low, commanding voice.
She stood up, blank-faced, and followed him out to the Ego Alter room. He closed the door, sat her down in the insulated seat next to the control console, put the wired plastic helmet on her and adjusted it to fit her skull snugly.
Running his finger down the treatment sheet of her Social Control file, he set the dials according to its instructions. The psychic areas to be reduced were sex drive, competitiveness and imagination, while the areas of reproductive urge and cooperation were to be intensified. He regulated the individual timers and sent the varying charge through her brain.