The Complete Stories_ Volume 1 - Isaac Asimov [86]
When he removed the unfreezer, he found Dooley looking at him.
"Well, Mr. Weill, what do you think?" said Dooley, with an eager and proprietary air.
"Could be, Joe. Could be. He has the overtones and, for a ten-year-old boy without a scrap of training, it's hopeful. When the plane went through a cloud, there was a distinct sensation of pillows. Also the smell of clean Sheets, which was an amusing touch. We can go with him a ways, Joe."
"Good."
"But I tell you, Joe, what we really need is to catch them still sooner. And why not? Someday, Joe, every child will be tested at birth. A difference in the brain there positively must be and it should be found. Then we could Separate the dreamers at the very beginning."
"Hell, Mr. Weill," said Dooley, looking hurt. "What would happen to my job, then?" Weill laughed. "No cause to worry yet, Joe. It won't happen in our life-times. In mine, certainly not. We'll be depending on good talent scouts like you for many years. You just watch the playgrounds and the streets"— Weill's gnarled hand dropped to Dooley's shoulder with a gentle, approving pressure—"and find us a few more Hillarys and Janows and Luster-Think won't ever catch us. . . . Now get out. I want lunch and then I'll be ready for my two o'clock appointment. The government, Joe, the government." And he winked portentously.
Jesse Weill's two o'clock appointment was with a young man, apple-cheeked, spectacled, sandy-haired and glowing with the intensity of a man with a mission. He presented his credentials across Weill's desk and revealed himself to be John J. Byrne, an agent of the Department of Arts and Sciences.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Byrne," said Weill. "In what way can I be of service?"
"Are we private here?" asked the agent. He had an unexpected baritone.
"Quite private."
"Then, if you don't mind, I'll ask you to absorb this." Byrne produced a small and battered cylinder and held it out between thumb and forefinger.
Weill took it, hefted it, turned it this way and that and said with a denture-revealing smile, "Not the product of Dreams, Inc., Mr. Byrne."
"I didn't think it was," said the agent. "I'd still like you to absorb it. I'd set the automatic cutoff for about a minute, though."
"That's all that can be endured?" Weill pulled the receiver to his desk and placed the cylinder into the unfreeze compartment. He removed it, polished either end of the cylinder with his handkerchief and tried again. "It doesn't make good contact," he said. "An amateurish job."
He placed the cushioned unfreeze helmet over his skull and adjusted the temple contacts, then set the automatic cutoff. He leaned back and clasped his hands over his chest and began absorbing.
His fingers grew rigid and clutched at his jacket. After the cutoff had brought absorption to an end, he removed the unfreezer and looked faintly angry. "A raw piece," he said. "It's lucky I'm an old man so that such things no longer bother me."
Byrne said stiffly, "It's not the worst we've found. And the fad is increasing." Weill shrugged. "Pornographic dreamies. It's a logical development, I suppose." The government man said, "Logical or not, it represents a deadly danger for the moral fiber of the nation."
"The moral fiber," said Weill, "can take a lot of beating. Erotica of one form or another have been circulated all through history."
"Not like this, sir. A direct mind-to-mind stimulation is much more effective than smoking room stories or filthy pictures. Those must be filtered through the senses and lose some of their effect in that way." Weill could scarcely argue that point. He said, "What would you have me do?"
"Can you suggest a possible source for this cylinder?"
"Mr. Byrne, I'm not a policeman."
"No, no, I'm not asking you to do our work for us. The Department is quite capable of conducting its own investigations. Can