The Secretary said, "Aah!"
"I knew you would be far from indifferent," said Carroad.
Carroad pointed a finger downwards. Cramer, slowly, his jaws set, twisted the flexible neck of Cervus so that the pronged head pointed directly at Jane's distended stomach. He adjusted controls on the board. Immediately the oscilloscope danced with many intricate figures that were so different from the previous forms that even the untutored eyes of the Secretary could perceive the change.
"Citizens," said Carroad, "for some time after we'd discovered the rho waves in the adult and infant, we searched for their presence in the brain of the unborn child. We had no success for a long time. But that was not because the rho waves did not exist in the embryo. No, it was because we did not have delicate enough instruments. However, a few weeks ago, we succeeded in building one. I experimented upon my unborn child, and I detected weak traces of the rho waves. Thus, I demonstrated that the ability to form words is present, though in undeveloped form, even in the eight-month embryo.
"You're probably wondering what this means. This knowledge does not enable us to make the infant or the unborn speak any sooner. True. But what it does allow us to do is...."
Jane, who had been getting more tense with every word, became rigid. Would he allow this to be done to his own son, his own flesh and blood? Would he permit his child to become a half-robot, an obedient slave to the State, incapable in certain fields of wielding the power of free will? The factor that most marked men from the beasts and the machine?
Numbly, she knew he would.
"... to probe well-defined areas in the undeveloped mind and there to stamp into it certain inhibitory paths. These inhibitions, preconditioned reflexes, as it were, will not, of course, take effect until the child has learned a language. And developed the concepts of citizen and State.
"But, once that is done, the correlation between the semantic waves and the inhibitions is such that the subject is unable to harbor any doubts about the teachings of the State. Or those who interpret the will of the State for its citizens.