Free The City of the Sun by Brian Stableford Page B

We have to stay...at least for twenty days.”
    “And then?” said Conrad.
    I looked round to see if anyone wanted to argue that we should leave right away. Nobody did.
    “That depends what we find out in the meantime,” I said.
    “You’d seriously consider exposing one of us to infection by this thing?” asked Linda.
    “Why not?” I replied. “We can deal with the infection if need be. And their top man is right. The only way we’re likely to be able to understand, fully and accurately, what has happened here, is to experience it.”
    “You’re volunteering, I hope?” said Linda.
    “Maybe,” I said, refusing to be backed off. “If the situation seems right, maybe I will.”
    “You’re going too fast, Alex,” Nathan intervened. “Let’s not start squabbling over the short straw until the occasion presents itself. We have something much more important to decide.”
    “But surely we stay,” I said. “That’s already settled.”
    “Not that,” he said. “What we have to talk about now is how we can possibly go about trying to find out what we want to know. Put crudely, the question is: are we dealing with alien minds manipulating human bodies, or human minds that have been passively modified, or human minds in association with alien minds, or what? I’m not asking for guesses as to which one.... I’m asking how we could possibly find out. How do we test?”
    There was a pensive silence. This was, of course, the crucial question. How do you tell a puppet from a free agent? How do you tell passive modification from active control?
    “We’re not allowed to analyze any of the parasite material?” said Linda, asking for confirmation.
    “Nor harm any host,” I added.
    “In that case,” said Conrad, “all we have is indirect measurement and asking questions. Could we rig up something like an encephalograph to sound out electrical activity in the external bulk of the parasite?”
    I shrugged. “Suppose it is pseudo-nervous tissue...and electrically active. That won’t tell us whether it’s independent, let alone sentient.”
    “In that case,” said Conrad, shrugging in his turn, “all we have is guesswork...unless we’re prepared to believe what they tell us.”
    “There must be some way,” said Nathan.
    I thought hard. No startling inspiration materialized.
    “Without being able to experiment directly...,” I said, hesitantly, “...then I think Conrad’s right. We have to rely on question-and-answer. And our lie detector is, for once, just as likely to be fooled as we are.”
    “Perhaps their concessions aren’t quite so generous,” said Conrad. “They’re giving us time...but they’re also giving themselves time. They know we’ll stay for the twenty days—and that could give them twenty days to work out a method of infiltrating the ship, if that’s their aim.”
    Nathan scowled as he tried to concentrate on the intricacies of the situation. “It could be,” he said, “that letting the three of us come back here was no more than a shrewd ploy. If they’d held on to us Pete would have lifted the ship—eventually—and they’d have shown their hand for no real gain. This way, they could be giving themselves leeway to mount something rather more ambitious.”
    I didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking. Nathan had one hell of a suspicious mind. But under the circumstances, what other way was there for it to go? While we didn’t know what was what and couldn’t find out we had to guard against all eventualities. We had to assume that the worst was at least possible, and work out a strategy to cope with it.
    “How much information on this stuff is in the survey report, Alex?” asked Nathan. “Assuming, that is, that you’ve picked out the right candidate.”
    “I told you. Standard data.”
    “What I mean is: is there enough data for us to begin work on preparing something to attack it. Not necessarily a virus...a specific poison.”
    I shook my head.