sound sensitivity, were as nothing to the final pain-threshold jolt. She had heard about but never experienced the pain-threshold gamut—and hoped never to have to do so again.
Just as she was about to scream from the stimuli applied to her nerve centers the apparatus abruptly retracted. As her nervous system tingled with the aftereffect, she did groan and massaged the back of her neck to ease muscles that had tensed in that split second of measurable agony.
“Take this restorative now, please,” the meditech said, entering the room. He gave her a glass of carbonated green liquid. “Set you right. And if you’ll just sit here,” he added as a comfortable padded chair rolled to the center of the room while the medigear slid to the left. “When you are recovered, press the button on the right chair arm, and the psychological test will begin. A verbal address system is used. Responses are, of course, recorded, but I’m sure you’re familiar with the procedures by now.”
The drink did clear the last miasma of the threshold test from her senses, making her feel incredibly alert. All the better preparation for psychological testing.
Killashandra had always had mixed feelings about that sort of evaluation—so much might depend on one’s frame of mind at that particular hour, day, and year. She experienced her usual halfhearted desire to give all the wrong answers, but this was coupled with the keen awareness of self-competition. Too much depended on the exams. She had no need to play any of the games she might have risked at other levels and times. She could not, however, comprehend the purpose of some questions that had never been asked during any other evaluation session. Of course, she’d never applied to the Heptite Guild before, so their criteria were bound to be different. Nor had she undergone a computerized verbal address psych test before, which was generally conducted face to face with a human examiner.
Toward the last few moments of the session, the speed of questioning increased to the point where she was actually sweating to produce answers to the displayed questions in an effort to keep up the pace.
She could still feel her heart racing when the Guild man returned, this time bearing a tray with steaming food packs.
“Your aptitude tests will be presented after you’ve eaten and rested. You may request entertainment from the fax or sleep.” At his words, a contour couch appeared from a storage area. “When you are ready, inform the computer and the final examination will begin.”
Killashandra was ravenous and found the nutritious meal delicious. She sipped the hot beverage slowly and asked for soothing Optherian “balances” to clear her mind of the tensions caused by the last portion of the psych tests.
In her previous evaluation sessions, the manner of the human attendants had often indicated the level of her performance—and she was accustomed to scoring high. But the Guild tech had been so impersonal, she couldn’t guess how she was doing.
After she’d finished her meal, she elected to continue and signaled her readiness. Whereupon she was tested for pitch, the severest evaluation of that faculty she’d ever endured, including estimates of vibrational errors and unnerving subliminal noises below 50 and above 18,000 cycles. That recorded, the testing moved on to deceptively complex hand-eye coordinations that again left her drenched with sweat. She was run through a series of depth-perception exams and spatial relationships. The latter had always been one of her strong points, but by the time the session was over, she was wrung out with fatigue and was shaking.
Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, but when the meditech returned, she fancied something of respect in his glance.
“Killashandra Ree, since you have completed the first day’s examinations up to standard, you are now the guest of the Guild. We have taken the liberty of transferring your personal effects to more
Annie Murphy, Peter de Rosa