Fear, Pain and Suffering in Many Acts: Act 2
After my briefing with Khan, I calibrated the device. Khan asked me to use Corporal Uuugggh as a calibration control. He was mute, but not deaf, and Khan had learned that he not reported some kind of vocal exchange between the two prisoners that wasn't the chess game. It didn't matter that the exchange was entirely gibberish. He lived and even got to keep most of his toes. I got good performance data off the machine.
I hooked the Storviks up and started running tests to check my calibrations. I started to use "by the book" procedures like mental and physical responses to pain, heat, etc. It was clear that they both had some training to resist the treatments. Fine by me. Prolonging the procedure was part and parcel of the plan anyway. I took some detailed medical scans for later review.
After leaving the chamber, I left instructions for the standard prisoner's punishment rations. This should leave them dehydrated within a short period, mild hunger would set somewhat later. Malnourishment and starvation were a possibility if they remained this way for several weeks. I can only hope. While they were not likely to respond to this immediately, if at all, it would make them think we were starting on them without any real knowledge of the situation - a diversionary tactic. Useful for interrogations. And torture.
I went back to my office and started to go over the med scans. There was nothing terribly surprising in them. Expected responses to stimuli, changes in blood chemistry and brain function, and so on. It all pointed to well trained counter measures and a very prolonged interrogation. While the two were not identical, the readings couldn't yet be used to tell them apart. Maybe in time, but certainly not now.
Something struck me as I looked at the brain chemistry readouts again. Maybe it was my engineering and technical training, maybe something I picked up from Khan's books, maybe just some bit of random knowledge. It could have just been simple curiosity about that weird green blood. I wanted to make sure they weren't somehow taking drugs to foil the process.
"Computer. Start a quantitative analysis of blood samples Storvik A1 and Storvik B1."
I hooked the Storviks up and started running tests to check my calibrations. I started to use "by the book" procedures like mental and physical responses to pain, heat, etc. It was clear that they both had some training to resist the treatments. Fine by me. Prolonging the procedure was part and parcel of the plan anyway. I took some detailed medical scans for later review.
After leaving the chamber, I left instructions for the standard prisoner's punishment rations. This should leave them dehydrated within a short period, mild hunger would set somewhat later. Malnourishment and starvation were a possibility if they remained this way for several weeks. I can only hope. While they were not likely to respond to this immediately, if at all, it would make them think we were starting on them without any real knowledge of the situation - a diversionary tactic. Useful for interrogations. And torture.
I went back to my office and started to go over the med scans. There was nothing terribly surprising in them. Expected responses to stimuli, changes in blood chemistry and brain function, and so on. It all pointed to well trained counter measures and a very prolonged interrogation. While the two were not identical, the readings couldn't yet be used to tell them apart. Maybe in time, but certainly not now.
Something struck me as I looked at the brain chemistry readouts again. Maybe it was my engineering and technical training, maybe something I picked up from Khan's books, maybe just some bit of random knowledge. It could have just been simple curiosity about that weird green blood. I wanted to make sure they weren't somehow taking drugs to foil the process.
"Computer. Start a quantitative analysis of blood samples Storvik A1 and Storvik B1."