“Twenty seconds,” said Klugman.
“In 1936, the Russian scientists Nemtsova and Shatenshteyn, working with weights and a bicycle ergometer, found clear metabolic evidence to support Nicholson’s observations, by measuring oxygen consumption, pulse rates and chronaxia.”
“Jesus! What’s that?” asked Valenti.
“Chronaxia relates to the response of muscles to an electric current. The minimum amount of current that produces a measurable response in a given muscle is known as the threshold stimulus. Chronaxia is the time a current of twice this strength takes to produce a response.”
“One minute,” said Klugman.
“You give the dame electric shocks?” Valenti inquired.
Lee shook his head. “I didn’t say that. I was describing the Russian experiment.”
“Trust the goddamned Reds to think of something like that,” said Valenti. “Hey, she’s holding up good. Keep it going, chick. What’s the record?”
“One minute twenty,” called Klugman.
“Running on a treadmill isn’t an activity for which records are kept,” answered Lee. “She is moving at a speed equivalent to an eight-hundred-meter run in two minutes, which would have won each Olympic title up to 1972, but she has not trained for eight-hundred-meter running.”
“One forty,” called Klugman. “Keep going.”
Signs of stress were starting to appear in Goldengirl. Her intake of breath was stertorous and her face was pink.
“The Russian girl Kazankina, who won the 1976 Olympic eight hundred meters, could probably manage something better than two minutes twenty at this tempo,” said Lee. “We shan’t see anything of that caliber today.”
“One fifty,” interjected Klugman. “Can you hold on?”
Goldengirl’s feet were drumming heavily on the rubber. Her head was going back. She closed her eyes. Suddenly the stride shortened, and she was carried back. She stumbled, tottered forward and finished on her knees beside the still-moving belt.
“One fifty-four point six,” announced Klugman.
“Check,” said Valenti.
“Check,” said Dryden. Actually, he had omitted to press the stop button on the Accusplit.
“So what does it prove?” asked Valenti.
“Nothing yet,” said Lee.
Klugman said to Goldengirl, “Take a ten-minute rest.”
She moved obediently to a rubber mat and lay on her back. The sweat was breaking through her pores and her legs were trembling.
“She has to do something else?” said Valenti.
“The same exercise, but with ergogenic motivation,” answered Lee.
“You sure it won’t louse up her chances tomorrow?”
“Quite sure,” said Lee. “If she wasn’t on the treadmill, she would be doing this on the track.”
It seemed a short ten minutes later when Klugman tersely ordered, “On your feet. Take up your position.”
She sprang upright and ran toward them as she had the first time, the only indication of her effort a deeper coloration at points where the leotard was moistened by sweat.
Lee gave the instruction this time. “You are to try again now. First, let us be clear why we are doing this. You are going for gold. I want you to repeat that: “I am going for gold.”
She repeated the words with a conviction that would have paralyzed any rival who overheard.
“I am going to give you a tablet that will eliminate fatigue,” Lee went on. “I shall then count to five and it will begin to take effect. You will be able to stay on the treadmill until I tell you to step off. Instead of fatigue, you will have a sensation of weightlessness. You will feel your body grow lighter as the tablet is absorbed into your bloodstream. Are you ready?”
She nodded.
Lee handed her a white pill, which she swallowed. He counted to five and started the treadmill.
Dryden swiftly reset his timer to zero. Goldengirl was on the moving band of rubber again, steadily raising her stride rate.
“Now,” said Lee, and they started their timers.
“This sort of thing won’t get by in Moscow,” said Valenti with a sniff. “They’re going to be right down on anyone using dope.”
“We have no intention of using this at the Olympics,” Serafin assured him. “It is an aid to training, nothing more. If you eliminate fatigue, the quality of the athlete’s workout is improved, and this will obviously assist her performances on the track.”
They watched in silence except Klugman calling the intervals. With a minute gone, Goldengirl was showing no obvious strain. Valenti put his timer on a bench and lit a cigar.
At one minute forty, she was moving smoothly.
Dryden listened to the metronomic beat on the treadmill and watched the illuminated digits replacing each other on the Accusplit display. One fifty-four, her previous performance, flickered by. When two minutes registered, he glanced up at Goldengirl. Her cheeks were flushed and the muscles were flexing round her neck, but she looked capable of enduring it longer.
“Two ten,” called Klugman.
“That will do,” said Lee. “Stop now.”
Goldengirl clipped her stride, allowing the treadmill to take her back and off the belt like a skater leaving the rink. She leaned forward with her hands resting on her knees a few seconds, then walked to the mat and stretched out.
“What was she on — Dexie?” asked Valenti.
Lee shook his head. “As it happens —”
“Bennie, then?”
“The tablet was not an amphetamine,” said Lee. “It had no stimulant properties at all.” He took a wrapped tube of the tablets from his pocket. “They’re called Sweetbreathers. I bought them from the coffee stand at Los Angeles Union Terminal. In other words, I gave her a placebo. Try one. It gave no chemical assistance to the metabolism.”
Valenti cautiously touched the tablet Lee had given him with the tip of his tongue. “How d’you do it, then?”
“By motivational suggestion,” said Lee. “Goldengirl is a good hypnotic subject.”
“That was a trance?” said Valenti in disbelief.
“Correct.”
“You could have fooled me. Don’t you have to dangle a locket or something?”
“She is trained to respond to a phrase which induces a deep trance within seconds. You heard her repeat it.”
“About going for gold?”
“Scientists have known for years — as I indicated just now — that physical performance can be improved under certain motivation,” said Lee. “The existence of untapped energy that we use only in extremis is commonly acknowledged. A man pursued by a savage animal will clear an obstacle he would not attempt in less critical circumstances. A mother has been known to lift the side of a car to free her trapped child. There is a psychological barrier that tends to limit our aspirations. When that is removed, the physiological possibilities open up, as the demonstration indicated.”
“Does she run her races under hypnosis?” asked Dryden.
“No,” said Lee emphatically. “Nor will she. This has a limited application. We use it to enhance the quality of her training in strength and endurance exercises. It is a way of tapping hidden sources of energy, but we apply the method with caution. She is limited to two sessions a week, and then we are careful to set tasks not much beyond her performances in the waking state. We cannot run the risk of overstrain.”
Valenti started speculating. “But if she could run faster —”
“The point is that she almost certainly could not,” Lee cut in. “All the best results have been achieved in tests involving strength and endurance. Research has shown that this won’t improve her basic speed, but it will help her build strength for the twelve races she has in five days of competition in Moscow. I’m sure you appreciate, gentlemen, that it would be sheer madness to contest an Olympian final in trance.”
“Shit stupid,” Klugman confirmed.
“This is strictly a technique for use in training,” Lee
reiterated. “When Goldengirl goes to her mark at San Diego tomorrow, she won’t be in trance. She’ll need to be sharp.”
“She will,” promised Klugman.
Serafin brought his hands together with a small clap and rubbed them energetically. “Gentlemen, Mr. Klugman still has to put Goldengirl through the rest of her routine for this session, and I don’t think we should delay them any longer. The demonstration is complete. I hope it has helped to enlighten you as to what we mean by ergogenics — a small but significant element in our program.”
As Lee led the way to the door, Serafin drew Dryden aside. “I’ve told Goldine you would like to speak to her, and she’s agreed. She’ll meet you after the workout with Klugman. The door at the end of the gym — the one she came from — leads to her quarters. Go through now and wait in her changing room. She’ll talk to you as she showers.”
“As she showers?” repeated Dryden. “That’s no good to me. I asked for a conversation. I want to see her as we talk, not shout things over a shower wall.”
“So you shall,” Serafin said, putting a placating hand on Dryden’s shoulder. “The shower in Goldengirl’s quarters is open-fronted.”
Dryden smiled, shaking his head. “Oh no, I’ve no intention of embarrassing the girl. Let’s arrange it later.”
“She has no inhibitions,” Serafin said in a way that challenged Dryden to examine his own. “She suggested this herself. If it makes you feel better about it, Ingrid, her chaperon, will be in attendance.”
“Chaperon?” said Dryden, with a determined effort not to seem facetious.
Serafin nodded as seriously as if showers and chaperons went naturally together. “I had better warn you about Ingrid. She is not communicative. A mute. Devoted to her duties, however, and powerful enough to carry them out efficiently. Keep on the right side of her, Mr. Dryden, and there should be no problems.”
Chapter 7
Goldengirl was already back in action as Dryden walked the length of the gym to the door leading to her quarters. She was wearing a leather harness attached to the wall by two long steel springs. Urged on with quiet insistence by Klugman, she was repeatedly running forward, meeting their resistance and returning for another try.
He passed through a small corridor to her changing room, if that was the word, because it looked like a combination shower room and boudoir. The forepart was carpeted in white, and the walls were varnished pine. There was a dressing table no different in its jumble of pots and bottles from any other girl’s, but the schedule of training was prominent on the wall above it. As well as the mirrors of the dressing table, there was another, full-length, attached to the adjacent wall. So, too, was a framed photo of a young woman in the uniform of an airline stewardess — by the length of skirt and style of hair, of sixties vintage. Keenly as Dryden examined it, he could trace nothing of Goldengirl in the face.
Opposite the dressing table was a tiled recess, half enclosed by a frosted-glass screen on runners, with a shower-bath sunk a few inches below floor level. To its left was a built-in wardrobe, the door open, displaying a collection of a dozen or more warm-up suits. He wondered whether Serafin’s adopted daughter had ever worn a dress.
Studying the schedule again, he ran his finger down the column on the right, the last session of the day, from 2015 to 2130, with the entries he remembered registering before as inconsistent with the rest: FACIAL on Monday, SAUNA Tuesday, HAIR Wednesday, REWARD Thursday and UV RAY Friday. Goldengirl was conceded a few of the vanities due to her sex. Somebody in the setup spared a thought for her feminine needs. Melody? Dryden doubted that: she was too obviously jealous. More likely Lee. He would be clever enough to see it as a support to the psychological indoctrination.
Each end-of-day session was listed GQ — Goldengirl’s Quarters. Logically, somewhere nearby were a sauna room and a massage parlor. More to occupy himself than from inquisitiveness, he started toward one of the two doors opposite. He had not taken two steps when something soft caught on his shoe: a pair of nylon panties Goldine must have discarded when she changed into the leotard. Her tracksuit was lying across the stool in front of the dressing table. With a grunt of amusement, he lifted his leg and retrieved the panties from the toe of his shoe. It was reassuring to see they were white in color; Serafin’s propagandizing hadn’t penetrated to that layer of intimacy. But first appearances can deceive. On the front a small circular motif was imprinted in gold, with the Olympic rings surmounted by the letter M and two stars, and the words Mockbá, 1980.
He was shaking his head incredulously, dangling the panties from one finger, when the nearest door opened and Ingrid confronted him. She was black and very big. The outsize red warm-up suit she had on testified graphically to the strength of wool and polyester. Her bulk was mainly muscle. Her eyes widened and then narrowed as she took in the spectacle. She emitted a snort of fury, took a step toward Dryden, swung out an arm and snatched the panties away, stuffing them deep in her tracksuit pocket.
Dryden started speaking in a rush. “I’m the guy who’s meeting Goldengirl,” he blurted out. “Dr. Serafin sent me. Told me to wait. Those got attached to my shoe. They were on the floor. You understand? I found them on my shoe.” Ridiculously, he was lifting his foot and pointing.
Serafin had said she was a mute. Did he mean she was deaf as well?
He backed away as Ingrid lurched toward him, heaving stertorous, outraged breaths. There was no chance of cover if she turned violent. Dodging into the shower could only make his predicament absurd. The glass shower door was no defense against a woman built on this scale. His eyes caught the stool, but Ingrid, too, had seen it and veered sideways.
Instead of lifting it to poleaxe Dryden, she picked off Goldengirl’s tracksuit, folded the trousers with concentration and carried them to the wardrobe, where she found a hanger and put them away. Then she motioned to him to sit on the stool.
The crisis was over.
“Thanks. I’m Jack Dryden. I don’t believe I mentioned my name.”
It made no impact on Ingrid. She took a last look round to check that no other personal items remained on the floor, and left as suddenly as she had arrived.
Goldengirl did not appear for another ten minutes. By that time, Dryden had ventured off the stool and as far as the schedule. The adjacent rooms could remain unexplored until he knew Ingrid better.
“Hi.” Goldine was pink from the workout. A pleasant yeasty smell came with her. She tilted her head and took stock of him with wide blue eyes.
He introduced himself.
“I heard about you. Would you turn on my shower, please?”
“Cold,” he inquired, going to the taps.
“You bet.”
When he turned, she had one arm out of the leotard.
“Would you like me out of the way?”
“Why so?” She was genuinely surprised. “I asked you to be here. You’d like to see me shower?”
His English upbringing had taught him the basics of chivalry. “If that’s an offer, I’m not turning it down.”
“Anyone ever tell you about leotards? They’re a lot of fun to wear, but hell to get out of. It’s the arms.” She gathered the thin fabric, persuaded it over her right shoulder and freed the other arm. With a wriggle of pleasure she peeled it to her waist. “Are they okay?”
“Superb,” he said, so quickly that the force of the compliment was lost. Jesus Christ, she wasn’t the first to flaunt a pair of breasts in front of him, but she was so casual with it for a first occasion that he was jumpy. Yes, they were charming, pink from the heat of her exercise, glistening damply, full enough to bob delightfully as she drew her shoulders back, but he had paid his tribute. If he added anything, she might take it for a pass. More crucially, Ingrid might, if she was listening through the door.
“I met your — er — companion just now.”
“Ingrid?” She slipped her fingers inside the leotard and eased it over her hips. “She was civil, I hope. She can’t speak, you know, but
she’s very protective. I told her to expect you.”
“Thanks. I wouldn’t care to be found here without an appointment. Isn’t she supposed to be in attendance when we …?”
“Sure.” She let the garment fall in a small heap at her feet. “There’s the rest of me — and Ingrid will come if I call her.”
“Cozy.” He hadn’t decided whether she was simply exhibitionistic, or under orders to reduce him to a slavering wreck. Either way, he would treat this like a minefield. He knew enough about the way the training camp was run to put sex with Goldengirl right out of the question. This was strictly an information-gathering exercise. He needed to satisfy himself that she was just as committed to the project as everyone claimed. It was pure chance that the first steps in securing confidences and making a sexual conquest were identical: humor the subject.
“Possibly Ingrid wouldn’t hear you with the shower going,” he suggested.
“It’s a hypothesis,” she said, passing so close as she crossed to the shower that he felt her warmth on his face. She pulled the shower guard fully open and stepped under the jets.
Dryden returned to the stool and talked from there, watching as she scooped her hair forward to let the water penetrate the back of her scalp. “I was looking at the schedule on the wall — before you showed up, that is. It looks tough to me. How do you stand it?”
She tossed the hair back, with the spray cascading on her neck and breasts. “This is a soft week. Taking it easy for San Diego tomorrow. I had three rewards and a facial.”
“What’s a reward?”
She grinned, half stepping out of the shower, so that it played only on her back. With a strand of blond hair, she flicked water from her nipples, pinched into prominence by the cold. “Do you want a straight answer to that? For me, it’s time off, an hour to do as I please.”
“I get the picture,” said Dryden. “But how do you earn the rewards?”
“Gee, you’re a suspicious guy!” said Goldine, turning her back to him. “I earn them by working hard in training, reaching objectives.”
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