Calindy gave a wistful smile; she recognized that old catch phrase. It brought back vividly to both of them those days together on Titan, a lifetime ago.
"Duncan," she said, so quietly that he could barely hear the words, "do you think it was all my fault?"
They were now sitting two meters apart on the divan, and he had to twist his body to face her. The
woman he saw now was no longer the self-assured executive and impresario he had met on the Titanic,
but an unhappy and uncertain girl. He wondered how long the mood of contrition would last, but for the moment it was genuine enough.
"How can I answer that?" he replied. "I'm still completely in the dark. I don't know what Karl was doing on Earth, or why he came here."
This was only partially true; Karl's Minisec had begun to reveal its secrets. But Duncan was not yet
prepared to discuss those with anybody, least of all with Calindy.
She looked at him with an air of faint surprise and answered: "Do you mean to say that he never told you — in fifteen years?"
"Told me what? " said Duncan.
"What happened on that last night aboard Mentor."
"No," replied Duncan, with painful slowness. "He never talked about it." After all these years, that betrayal was still a bitter memory. He knew now, of course, that it was absurd for two young adults like Karl and Calindy, obsessed by their own grief, to have given any thought to the feelings of the boy who adored them both. He could not blame them now; but in his heart he had never forgiven them.
"So you didn't know that we used a joy machine."
"Oh, no! "
"I'm afraid so. It wasn't my idea. Karl insisted, and I didn't know any better. But at least I had sense enough not to use it myself. Well, only at very low power..."
"They were illegal even in those days. How did one get aboard Mentor? "
"There were a lot of things on Mentor that no one ever knew about."
"I'm sure of that. What happened?"
Calindy got to her feet again and began to pace nervously to and for. She avoided Duncan's eyes as
she continued.
"I don't like to think about it. Even now, it frightens me, and I can understand why people get
hopelessly addicted. I'm sure your fingers have never touched anything as — well, I suppose palpable is the only word — as that tactoid. The joy machine is just the same; it makes real life seem pale and thin
— and Karl, remember, used it at full power. I told him not to, but he laughed. He was confident that he could handle it..."
Yes, thought Duncan, that would be just like Karl. Though he had never seen an emotion amplifier,
one was kept under proper supervision at the Oasis Central Hospital. It was a very valuable psychiatric tool, but when the simple, portable versions quickly christened ‘joy machines’ had become available
around the midcentury, they had spread like a plague over the inhabited worlds. No one would ever know how many immature young minds had been ruined by them. "Brain burning" had been a disease of the sixties, until the epidemic had run its course, leaving behind it hundred of emotional husks. Karl had been lucky to escape...
But, of course, he had not escaped. So this was the truth about his "breakdown," and the explanation of his changed personality. Duncan began to feel a cold anger toward Calindy. He did not believe her
protestation of innocence; she must have known better, even then. But part of his anger was not based on moral judgments. He blamed Calindy because she was alive, while Karl lay frozen in the Aden morgue,
like some splendid marble statue defaced by time and carelessly restored. There he must wait until the legal complications involved in the disposal of an extraterrestrial corpse were unraveled. This was
another duty that had fallen on Duncan; he had done everything he believed necessary before saying
farewell to the friend he had lost before his death.
"I think I see the picture," continued Duncan, so harshly that Calindy looked at him with sudden surprise. "But tell me the rest — what happened to then?"
"Karl used to send me long, crazy speeches — sealed, special delivery. He said he would never be
able to love anyone else. I told him not to be foolish, but to forget about me as quickly as he could, since we'd never be able to meet again. What else could I have said? I didn't realize how absolutely useless that advice was — like telling a man to stop breathing. I was ashamed to ask, and only discovered years later what a joy machine does to the brain."
"You see, Duncan, he was telling the literal truth when he said he could never love anyone else.
When they reinforce the pleasure circuits, joy machines create a permanent, almost unbreakable pattern of desires. The psychologists call it electroimprinting. I believe there are techniques to modify it now, but there weren't fifteen years ago, even on Earth. And certainly not on Titan."