Bad Medicine | Page 4

consider these points: The feem desire is perfectly normal.
Never forget that. But it is usually replaced at an early age by the hovendish revulsion.
Individuals lacking in this basic environmental response--"
"I'm not absolutely sure I know what you're talking about," Caswell confessed.
"Please, sir! We must establish one thing at once. You are the patient. I am the
mechanotherapist. You have brought your troubles to me for treatment. But you cannot
expect help unless you cooperate."
"All right," Caswell said. "I'll try."
Up to now, he had been bathed in a warm glow of superiority. Everything the machine
said had seemed mildly humorous. As a matter of fact, he had felt capable of pointing out
a few things wrong with the mechanotherapist.
Now that sense of well-being evaporated, as it always did, and Caswell was alone,
terribly alone and lost, a creature of his compulsions, in search of a little peace and
contentment.
He would undergo anything to find them. Sternly he reminded himself that he had no
right to comment on the mechanotherapist. These machines knew what they were doing
and had been doing it for a long time. He would cooperate, no matter how outlandish the
treatment seemed from his layman's viewpoint.
But it was obvious, Caswell thought, settling himself grimly on the couch, that
mechanotherapy was going to be far more difficult than he had imagined.
-- -- -- -- --
The search for the missing customer had been brief and useless. He was nowhere to be
found on the teeming New York streets and no one could remember seeing a red-haired,
red-eyed little man lugging a black therapeutic machine.
It was all too common a sight.
In answer to an urgent telephone call, the police came immediately, four of them, led by a
harassed young lieutenant of detectives named Smith.
Smith just had time to ask, "Say, why don't you people put tags on things?" when there
was an interruption.
A man pushed his way past the policeman at the door. He was tall and gnarled and ugly,
and his eyes were deep-set and bleakly blue. His clothes, unpressed and uncaring, hung
on him like corrugated iron.
"What do you want?" Lieutenant Smith asked.

The ugly man flipped back his lapel, showing a small silver badge beneath. "I'm John
Rath, General Motors Security Division."
"Oh ... Sorry, sir," Lieutenant Smith said, saluting. "I didn't think you people would move
in so fast."
Rath made a noncommittal noise. "Have you checked for prints, Lieutenant? The
customer might have touched some other therapy machine."
"I'll get right on it, sir," Smith said. It wasn't often that one of the operatives from GM,
GE, or IBM came down to take a personal hand. If a local cop showed he was really
clicking, there just might be the possibility of an Industrial Transfer....
Rath turned to Follansby and Haskins, and transfixed them with a gaze as piercing and as
impersonal as a radar beam. "Let's have the full story," he said, taking a notebook and
pencil from a shapeless pocket.
He listened to the tale in ominous silence. Finally he closed his notebook, thrust it back
into his pocket and said, "The therapeutic machines are a sacred trust. To give a customer
the wrong machine is a betrayal of that trust, a violation of the Public Interest, and a
defamation of the Company's good reputation."
The manager nodded in agreement, glaring at his unhappy clerk.
"A Martian model," Rath continued, "should never have been on the floor in the first
place."
"I can explain that," Follansby said hastily. "We needed a demonstrator model and I
wrote to the Company, telling them--"
"This might," Rath broke in inexorably, "be considered a case of gross criminal
negligence."
Both the manager and the clerk exchanged horrified looks. They were thinking of the
General Motors Reformatory outside of Detroit, where Company offenders passed their
days in sullen silence, monotonously drawing microcircuits for pocket television sets.
"However, that is out of my jurisdiction," Rath said. He turned his baleful gaze full upon
Haskins. "You are certain that the customer never mentioned his name?"
"No, sir. I mean yes, I'm sure," Haskins replied rattledly.
"Did he mention any names at all?"
Haskins plunged his face into his hands. He looked up and said eagerly, "Yes! He wanted
to kill someone! A friend of his!"
"Who?" Rath asked, with terrible patience.

"The friend's name was--let me think--Magneton! That was it! Magneton! Or was it
Morrison? Oh, dear...."
Mr. Rath's iron face registered a rather corrugated disgust. People were useless as
witnesses. Worse than useless, since they were frequently misleading. For reliability, give
him a robot every time.
"Didn't he mention anything significant?"
"Let me think!" Haskins said, his face twisting into a fit of concentration.
Rath waited.