Hamelin watched the table go out of the huge cavern with visibly mixed emotions. He said: "This process—it's painful?"
"No, not exactly," Carson said. The motive behind the question interested him hugely, but he didn't dare show it. "But any fooling around with the immunity mechanisms can give rise to symptoms—fever, general malaise, and so on. We try to protect our subjects by giving them a light shock anesthesia first."
"Shock?" Hamelin repeated. "You mean electroshock? I don't see how—"
"Call it stress anesthesia instead. We give the man a steroid drug that counterfeits the anesthesia the body itself produces in moments of great stress—on the battlefield, say, or just after a serious injury. It's fast, and free of after-effects. There's no secret about that, by the way; the drug involved is 21-hydroxypregnane-3,20 dione sodium succinate, and it dates all the way back to 1955."
"Oh," the under-secretary said. The ringing sound of the chemical name had had, as Carson had hoped, a ritually soothing effect.
"Gentlemen," Hamelin said hesitantly. "Gentlemen, I have a—a rather unusual request. And, I am afraid, a rather selfish one." A brief, nervous laugh. "Selfish in both senses, if you will pardon me the pun. You need feel no hesitation in refusing me, but...."
Abruptly he appeared to find it impossible to go on. Carson mentally crossed his fingers and plunged in.
"You would like to undergo the process yourself?" he said.