Walking Dead by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page B

know about that? A professional cartoonist once told me that it’s often possible to anticipate the need of editors to exercise their editorial power by submitting a drawing containing some deliberate error—a sixth finger on someone’s hand, for example—and the editor will be content with telling the artist to put that right instead of making him alter essential elements in the drawing.”
    â€œI see. You got a telex?”
    â€œYes, indeed, and you have only twenty minutes. There is never enough time for talk, is there. One day you must come fishing with me … Now, this is a typical bit of head office security-mania, to do with the safe-keeping of your report …”
    â€œI haven’t begun on that yet. The figures are all still in the computer.”
    â€œGood. What is your timing? You have a reputation for quick work.”
    â€œNot this time.”
    â€œUh? David, my instructions were that this was to be a very straight-forward exercise. And from what I saw when Doctor Trotter was there you seemed to be establishing a clear difference in performance …”
    â€œExactly. I thought at first that it was a bit odd to ask me to take on something like this. I mean, I wasn’t given much latitude—I was even supplied with the mazes, ready-made. Maze-work is a slightly old-fashioned technique, but … well that didn’t bother me, much. I wasn’t actually told not to alter the mazes—in fact I didn’t care for some of the gate-release mechanisms and I did change them. On the other hand the mazes made no provision for error-counting and my briefing said nothing about it, so I didn’t bother with that. I came to the conclusion that somebody in one of the other research labs had come up with a set of figures which the Company weren’t happy about. They wanted them checked, and they didn’t want this first chap to know, so they arranged for the work to be done out here. Anybody could have done it, almost, but I happened to be free and my Director at Vienna thought I needed a holiday … That all made sense of a sort, though I wasn’t exactly pleased …”
    â€œOne moment, David. My watch has been losing. Do you mind if I get a time-check?”
    Foxe was too astonished to be outraged as Dreiser, who had half-settled onto the arm of one of the chairs, rose, crossed to a side-table and turned on a large transistor radio at high volume. He twiddled knobs till Caribbean pop filled the room with its tinny thumps and twangles, then returned and pulled his chair closer to Foxe’s.
    â€œTime check in about six minutes,” he muttered, looking at his watch. “I’ll have to turn it off then for plausibility.”
    Foxe restrained a shrug. In his experience most Directors had obsessions, and it was less inconvenient if these were directed at the external world than inward at the laboratory staff.
    â€œOK,” he said. “Now, you remember that you dug up a couple of sheets of one-way mirror for me, so that Doctor Trotter could actually see the rats running? Before that the maze-covers had been wood, so that day was the first time I myself saw the animals perform too. Of course all the counting and timing is done electronically in the logic-room. Now, about five years ago there was some publicity about a learning-enhancement drug which all blew up when somebody pointed out that the rats which were doing their tasks so much more quickly than the control rats were still making just as many mistakes, if not more. You see what that means?”
    â€œIt’s not my field, David.”
    â€œWell, put it this way. They then installed counting devices in the rats’ cages, and discovered that the dosed rats were moving around on average twice as much as their controls.”
    â€œAh. I see. The drug simply enhanced activity. The rats were going through their mazes, or whatever, faster simply because they were moving