Firestarter(99)

Rainbird continued to stare at Hockstetter. "Don't call me a fool again," he said in a perfectly neutral voice. Hockstetter flinched... but only a little.

"Please, gentlemen," Cap said wearily. "Please."

There was a tape recorder on his desk. They had just finished listening to the conversation Rainbird had had with Charlie that morning.

"Apparently Dr. Hockstetter had missed the point that he and his team are finally going to get something," Rainbird said. "Which will improve their store of practical knowledge by one hundred percent, if my mathematics are correct."

"As the result of a totally unforeseen accident," Hockstetter said sullenly. "An accident you people were too shortsighted to manufacture for yourselves," Rainbird countered. "Too busy playing with your rats, maybe."

"Gentlemen, that's enough!" Cap said. "We're not here to indulge in a lot of recriminations; that is not the purpose of this meeting." He looked at Hockstetter. "You're going to get to play ball," he said. "I must say you show remarkably little gratitude." Hockstetter muttered.

Cap looked at Rainbird. "All the same, I also think you took your role of amicus curiae a little bit too far in the end."

"Do you think so? Then you still don't understand." He looked from Cap to Hockstetter and then back to Cap again. "I think,'both of you have shown an almost paralyzing lack of understanding. You've got two child psychiatrists at your disposal, and if they are an accurate representation of the caliber of that field, there are a lot of disturbed kids out there who have got big-time trouble."

"Easy to say," Hockstetter said. "This-"

"You just don't understand how smart she is," Rainbird cut him off: "You don't understand how... how adept she is at seeing the causes and effects of things. Working with her is like picking your way through a minefield. I pointed out the carrot-and stick idea to her because she would have thought of it herself. By thinking of it for her, I've shored up the trust she has in me... in effect, turned a disadvantage into an advantage."

Hockstetter opened his mouth. Cap held up one hand and then turned to Rainbird. He spoke in a soft, placatory tone that he used with no one else... but then, no one else was John Rainbird. "That doesn't alter the fact that you seem to have limited how far Hockstetter and his people can go. Sooner or later she's going to understand that her ultimate request-to see her father-is not going to be granted. We're all in agreement that to allow that might close off her usefulness to us forever."

"Right on," Hockstetter said.

"And if she's as sharp as you say," Cap said, "she's apt to make the ungrantable request sooner rather than later."

"She'll make it," Rainbird agreed, "and that will end it. For one thing, she'd realize as soon as she saw him that I was lying all along about his condition. That would lead her to the conclusion that I had been shilling for you guys all along. So it becomes entirely a question of how long you can keep her going."

Rainbird leaned forward.

"A couple of points. First, you've both got to get used to the idea that she's simply not going to light fires for you ad infinitum. She's a human being, a little girl who wants to see her father. She's not a lab rat."

"We've already-"Hockstetter began impatiently.

"No. No, you haven't. It goes back to the very basis of the reward system in experimentation. The carrot and the stick. By lighting fires, Charlie thinks she's holding the carrot out to you and that she will eventually lead you-and herself-to her father. But we know differently. In truth, her father is the carrot, and we are leading her. Now a mule will plow the whole south forty trying to get that carrot dangling in front of his eyes, because a mule is stupid. But this little girl isn't."

He looked at Cap and Hockstetter.

"I keep saying that. It is like pounding a nail into oak-oak of the first cutting. Hard going, don't you know; you both seem to keep forgetting. Sooner or later she's going to wise up and tell you to stick it. Because she isn't a mule. Or a white lab rat."

And you want her to quit, Cap thought with slow loathing. You want her to quit so you can kill her.

"So you start with that one basic fact," Rainbird continued. "That's Go. Then you start thinking of ways to prolong her cooperation as long as possible. Then, when it's over, you write your report. If you got enough data, you get rewarded with a big cash appropriation. You get to eat the carrot. Then you can start injecting a bunch of poor, ignorant slobs with your witch's brew all over again."

"You're being insulting," Hockstetter said in a shaking voice.

"It beats the terminal stupids," Rainbird answered.

"How do you propose to prolong her cooperation?"

"You'll get some mileage out of her just by granting small privileges," Rainbird said. "A walk on the lawn. Or... every little girl loves horses. I'll bet you. could get half a dozen fires out of her just by having a groom lead her around the bridle paths on one of those stable nags. That ought to be enough to keep a dozen paper pushers like Hockstetter dancing on the head of a pin for five years."

Hockstetter pushed back from the table. "I don't have to sit here and listen to this."