Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, December 1955 — page 88: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

86 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION you do if you found out that one of your white rats was not only intelligent but had found out what you were doing to it?” “Well—”’ Bellarmine looked out the window at the gathering dusk. “l’m no monster, Lewis. I'd probably turn it loose. No—” He scratched his chin. ““No, maybe I wouldn’t at that. But I wouldn’t infect it anymore. I think I’d put it through some tests to find out just how smart it was. The rat would no longer be a simple test animal. Its usefulness would be in the psychological field, to tell me things about myself.” “That’s about the way I had it figured,” said Lewis. “How much longer am I going to be in this bed?” “Why?” “I’ve figured a way for the guinea pigs to tell the researchers the jig’s up.” PceHOw? We don’t even know their language. We’ve only seen one speci- men and that one’s dead. We can’t be sure they’d react the same way we would.” “Yes they would,” said Lewis. ‘““How can you say that? They must already know we’re sentient.” ‘“So’s a rat sentient—to a degree,” said Lewis. “It’s all in the way you look at it. Sure. Compared to us, they’re vegetables. That’s the way it’d be with—”’ “We don’t have the right to take risks with the rest of humanity,” pro- tested Bellarmine. ‘‘Man, one of them tried to kill you!” “But everything points to that one being defective,’ said Lewis. ““He made too many mistakes. That’s the only reason we got wise to him.” “They might dump us into the incinerator as no longer useful,” said Bellarmine. *““They—” Lewis said, ‘““They’d have to be pretty much pure scientists. Johnson was a field man, a lab technician, a worker. The pure scientists would follow our human pattern. I’m sure of it. To be a pure scientist you have to be able to control yourself. That means you’d understand other persons’— other beings’—problems.. No, Doc. Your first answer was the best one. You’d put your rats to psychological tests.”’ Bellarmine stared at his hands. ““What’s your idea?’’ “Take a white rat in one of those little lab cages. Infect it with some common germ, leave the infecting hypo in the cage, put the whole works— rat and. all—in front of that silver grid. Distort—” ‘“That’s a crazy idea,’’ said Bellarmine. ““How could you tell a hypo- thetical something to look at your message when you don’t even know the hypothetical language—how to contact them in the first place.” ““Distort the field of that grid by touching the wires with a piece of metal,” said Lewis. ‘“Tie the metal to the end of a pole for safety.” “T’ve never heard a crazier idea,’’ said Bellarmine. “Get me the white rat, the cage and the hypo and I'll do it myself,” said Lewis. Bellarmine got to his feet, moved toward the door. “You're not doing anything for a couple of weeks,”’ he said. ““You’re a sick man and I’ve been talking to you too long already.” He opened the door, left the room coOmicbooks.e com