Benton didn't answer; his throat was too dry, even if he had wanted to speak. He sat down again and snapped on the detectors. Even if Urei intended to steal his memory, Benton might as well know what was going on until it happened. The meters remained inert, white pointers at zero and the red ones remaining at the highest reading they had attained before.
"This one is about the moon rocket," the doctor said. "I think we're wasting our time."
They were, as far as Dr. Albie was concerned. He went through his stack of papers, changing from subject to subject, but to him nothing happened. He apparently allowed Urei to scan the first half of a dozen articles, without a reaction. Albie was completely oblivious to the fact that each time he tried to lay down a paper containing information about any East-West friction, he invariably turned to the right page and let Urei finish the article.
Benton was breathing normally now, though he still had little hope that Urei wasn't on the qui vive. It was possible, however, and even a slight hope eased his tension. Urei might be too engrossed in his scanning to bother with anything else. Yes, and then again he mightn't. After all, Urei operated on dozens of circuits simultaneously; he wasn't merely one electronic brain. In fact nobody knew exactly how many subjects he could handle at one time. An unknown number of auxiliary circuits took up the load whenever repairs were being made on any of forty-eight main circuits connected to the operating positions on the problem panel. Urei could easily be scanning, reading Dr. Albie's mind, controlling his motor impulses, meditating on his future course of action with regard to the two physicists—and still having forty-four circuits left to handle routine matters.
Benton began to sweat again. His thoughts, as well as the capers of the white needles—which jumped every time Urei's scanner saw the words Eastern Alliance—weren't conducive to the maintenance of a philosophic attitude. He was, moreover, developing an acute case of jumping claustrophobia. Not only were the ceiling and the control panel menacing him, but the other three walls had definitely moved in on him. Urei, he remembered, was also back of those walls; he shuddered. There was a long corridor through which they had brought their apparatus to the control room, and from the time they had entered it they had been surrounded by Urei. Traversing that corridor now would be worse than walking the proverbial last mile to the electric chair.
Benton hadn't felt bad on the way inside; his mind had been too full of the forthcoming test to feel any sensations. Now, however, his foreboding was back, a thousand times stronger. And there was no choice but to endure it until Dr. Albie had finished. Urei certainly wouldn't permit them to leave while there were still some papers to be scanned. By staying, Benton might get out with his memory intact—a slim hope—but it wouldn't be a good policy to call attention to himself by persuading the master physicist to leave. Nor did it occur to him to leave alone.
Eventually the experiment ended. Dr. Albie laid the last newspaper on the pile on the floor and turned with a smile. "That's the crop," he said cheerfully. "Satisfied?"
Benton forced a smile in return. "My morbid imagination," he said; "let's pack up and go get a drink." He carefully disconnected the thought detectors, keeping his hands away from the knobs which reset the red needles, and snapped the lids over the cases. The doctor picked up his pile of newspapers and dumped them in a refuse can, then helped with the cases.
Benton didn't speak as they loaded them in the station wagon; he was anxious to get away from Urei before trusting himself. The doctor apparently noticed nothing wrong in Benton's manner which couldn't be accounted for by a feeling of chagrin that he had caused the eminent physicist to waste most of the day proving that he had imagined something. Dr. Albie, therefore, occupied himself with conversation calculated to put him at ease and make him forget the whole thing.