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Title: Bramble Bush
Author: Alan E. Nourse
Release Date: September 14, 2019 [EBook #60291]
Language: English
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BRAMBLE BUSH
BY ALAN E. NOURSE
_There was a man in our town, and he was wondrous wise;
He jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes.
And when he saw what he had done, with all his might and main
He jumped into another bush and scratched them in again._
MOTHER GOOSE
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Dr. David Lessing found Jack Dorffman and the boy waiting in his office
when he arrived at the Hoffman Center that morning. Dorffman looked as
though he'd been running all night. There were dark pouches under his
eyes; his heavy unshaven face seemed to sag at every crease. Lessing
glanced sharply at his Field Director and sank down behind his desk
with a sigh. "All right, Jack--what's wrong?"
"This kid is driving me nuts," said Dorffman through clenched teeth.
"He's gone completely hay-wire. Nobody's been able to get near him
for three weeks, and now at six o'clock this morning he decides he's
leaving the Farm. I talk to him, I sweat him down, I do everything but
tie him to the bed, and I waste my time. He's leaving the Farm. Period."
"So you bring him down here," said Lessing sourly. "The worst place he
could be, if something's really wrong." He looked across at the boy.
"Tommy? Come over and sit down."
There was nothing singular about the boy's appearance. He was thin,
with a pale freckled face and the guileless expression of any normal
eight-year-old as he blinked across the desk at Lessing. The awkward
grey monitor-helmet concealed a shock of sandy hair. He sat with a mute
appeal in his large grey eyes as Lessing flipped the reader-switch and
blinked in alarm at the wildly thrashing pattern on the tape.
The boy was terrorized. He was literally pulsating with fear.
Lessing sat back slowly. "Tell me about it, Tommy," he said gently.
"I don't want to go back to the Farm," said the boy.
"Why?"
"I just don't. I hate it there."
"Are you frightened?"
The boy bit his lip and nodded slowly.
"Of me? Of Dr. Dorffman?"
"No. Oh, no!"
"Then what?"
Again the mute appeal in the boy's eyes. He groped for words, and none
came. Finally he said, "If I could only take this off--" He fingered
the grey plastic helmet.
"You think _that_ would make you feel better?"
"It would, I know it would."
Lessing shook his head. "I don't think so, Tommy. You know what the
monitor is for, don't you?"
"It stops things from going out."
"That's right. And it stops things from going in. It's an insulator.
You need it badly. It would hurt you a great deal if you took it off,
away from the Farm."
The boy fought back tears. "But I don't want to go back there--" The
fear-pattern was alive again on the tape. "I don't feel good there. I
never want to go back."
"Well, we'll see. You can stay here for a while." Lessing nodded at
Dorffman and stepped into an adjoining room with him. "You say this has
been going on for _three weeks_?"
"I'm afraid so. We thought it was just a temporary pattern--we see so
much of that up there."
"I know, I know." Lessing chewed his lip. "I don't like it. We'd better
set up a battery on him and try to spot the trouble. And I'm afraid
you'll have to set it up. I've got that young Melrose from Chicago to
deal with this morning--the one who's threatening to upset the whole
Conference next month with some crazy theories he's been playing with.
I'll probably have to take him out to the Farm to shut him up." Lessing
ran a hand through sparse grey hair. "See what you can do for the boy
downstairs."
"Full psi precautions?" asked Dorffman.
"Certainly! And Jack--in this case, be _sure_ of it. If Tommy's in the
trouble I think he's in, we don't dare risk a chance of Adult Contact
now. We could end up with a dead boy on our hands."
* * * * *
Two letters were waiting on Lessing's desk that morning. The first was
from Roberts Bros., announcing another shift of deadline on the book,
and demanding the galley proofs two weeks earlier than scheduled.
Lessing groaned. As director of psionic research at the Hoffman Medical
Center, he had long since learned how administrative detail could suck
up daytime hours. He knew that his real work was at the Farm--yet he
hadn't even been to the Farm in over six weeks. And now, as the book
approached publication date, Lessing wondered if he would ever really
get back to work again.
The other letter cheered him a bit more. It bore the letterhead of the
International Psionics Conference:
Dear Dr. Lessing:
In recognition of your position as an authority on human Psionic
behavior patterns, we would be gratified to schedule you as principle
speaker at the Conference in Chicago on October 12th. A few remarks in
discussion of your forthcoming book would be entirely in order--
They were waiting for it, then! He ran the galley proofs into the
scanner excitedly. They knew he had something up his sleeve. His
earlier papers had only hinted at the direction he was going--but the
book would clear away the fog. He scanned the title page proudly. "A
Theory of Psionic Influence on Infant and Child Development." A good
title--concise, commanding, yet modest. They would read it, all right.
And they would find it a light shining brightly in the darkness, a
guide to the men who were floundering in the jungle of a strange and
baffling new science.
For they were floundering. When they were finally forced to recognize
that this great and powerful force did indeed exist in human minds,
with unimaginable potential if it could only be unlocked, they had
plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening
bramble bush of contradictions and chaos. Nothing worked, and
everything worked too well. They were trying to study phenomena which
made no sense, observing things that defied logic. Natural laws came
crashing down about their ears as they stood sadly by and watched
things happen which natural law said could never happen. They had never
been in this jungle before, nor in any jungle remotely like it. The
old rules didn't work here, the old methods of study failed. And the
more they struggled, the thicker and more impenetrable the bramble bush
became--
But now David Lessing had discovered a pathway through that jungle, a
theory to work by--
At his elbow the intercom buzzed. "A gentleman to see you," the girl
said. "A Dr. Melrose. He's very impatient, sir."
He shut off the scanner and said, "Send him in, please."
* * * * *
Dr. Peter Melrose was tall and thin, with jet black hair and dark
mocking eyes. He wore a threadbare sport coat and a slouch. He offered
Lessing a bony hand, then flung himself into a chair as he stared about
the office in awe.
"I'm really overwhelmed," he said after a moment. "Within the
stronghold of psionic research at last. And face to face with the
Master in the trembling flesh!"
Lessing frowned. "Dr. Melrose, I don't quite understand--"
"Oh, it's just that I'm impressed," the young man said airily. "Of
course, I've seen old dried-up Authorities before--but never before
a brand spanking new one, just fresh out of the pupa, so to speak!"
He touched his forehead in a gesture of reverence. "I bow before the
Oracle. Speak, oh Motah, live forever! Cast a pearl at my feet!"
"If you've come here to be insulting," Lessing said coldly, "you're
just wasting time." He reached for the intercom switch.
"I think you'd better wait before you do that," Melrose said sharply,
"because I'm planning to take you apart at the Conference next month
unless I like everything I see and hear down here today. And if you
don't think I can do it, you're in for quite a dumping."
Lessing sat back slowly. "Tell me--just what, exactly, do you want?"
"I want to hear this fairy tale you're about to publish in the name of
'Theory'," Melrose said. "I want to see this famous Farm of yours up in
Connecticut and see for myself how much pressure these experimental
controls you keep talking about will actually bear. But mostly, I want
to see just what in psionic hell you're so busy making yourself an
Authority about." There was no laughter in the man's sharp brown eyes.
"You couldn't touch me with a ten foot pole at this conference,"
snapped Lessing.
The other man grinned. "Try me! We shook you up a little bit last year,
but you didn't seem to get the idea."
"Last year was different." Lessing scowled. "As for our 'fairy tale',
we happen to have a staggering body of evidence that says that it's
true."
"If the papers you've already published are a preview, we think it's
false as Satan."
"And our controls are above suspicion."
"So far, we haven't found any way to set up logical controls," said
Melrose. "We've done a lot of work on it, too."
"Oh, yes--I've heard about your work. Not bad, really. A little
misdirected, is all."
"According to your Theory, that is."
"Wildly unorthodox approach to psionics--but at least you're energetic
enough."
"We haven't been energetic enough to find an orthodox approach that got
us anywhere. We doubt if you have, either. But maybe we're all wrong."
Melrose grinned unpleasantly. "We're not unreasonable, your Majesty. We
just ask to be shown. If you dare, that is."
Lessing slammed his fist down on the desk angrily. "Have you got the
day to take a trip?"
"I've got 'til New Year."
Lessing shouted for his girl. "Get Dorffman up here. We're going to the
Farm this afternoon."
The girl nodded, then hesitated. "But what about your lunch?"
"Bother lunch." He gave Melrose a sidelong glare. "We've got a guest
here who's got a lot of words he's going to eat for us...."
* * * * *
Ten minutes later they rode the elevator down to the transit levels
and boarded the little shuttle car in the terminal below the
Hoffman Center. They sat in silence as the car dipped down into the
rapid-transit channels beneath the great city, swinging northward in
the express circuit through Philadelphia and Camden sectors, surfacing
briefly in Trenton sector, then dropping underground once again for the
long pull beneath Newark, Manhattan and Westchester sectors. In less
than twenty minutes the car surfaced on a Parkway channel and buzzed
north and east through the verdant Connecticut countryside.
"What about Tommy?" Lessing asked Dorffman as the car sped along
through the afternoon sun.
"I just finished the prelims. He's not cooperating."
Lessing ground his teeth. "I should be running him now instead of
beating the bushes with this--" He broke off to glare at young Melrose.
Melrose grinned. "I've heard you have quite a place up here."
"It's--unconventional, at any rate," Lessing snapped.
"Well, that depends on your standards. Sounds like a country day
school, from what I've heard. According to your papers, you've even
used conventional statistical analysis on your data from up here."
"Until we had to throw it out. We discovered that what we were trying
to measure didn't make sense in a statistical analysis."
"Of course, you're sure you were measuring _something_."
"Oh, yes. We certainly were."
"Yet you said that you didn't know what."
"That's right," said Lessing. "We don't."
"And you don't know _why_ your instruments measure whatever they're
measuring." The Chicago man's face was thoughtful. "In fact, you can't
really be certain that your instruments are measuring the children at
all. It's not inconceivable that the _children_ might be measuring the
_instruments_, eh?"
Lessing blinked. "It's conceivable."
"Mmmm," said Melrose. "Sounds like a real firm foundation to build a
theory on."
"Why not?" Lessing growled. "It wouldn't be the first time the tail
wagged the dog. The psychiatrists never would have gotten out of their
rut if somebody hadn't gotten smart and realized that one of their new
drugs worked better in combatting schizophrenia when the doctor took
the medicine instead of the patient. That was quite a wall to climb."
"Yes, wasn't it," mused Melrose, scratching his bony jaw. "Only took
them seventy years to climb it, thanks to a certain man's theories.
I wonder how long it'll take psionics to crawl out of the pit you're
digging for it?"
"We're not digging any pit," Lessing exploded angrily. "We're
exploring--nothing more. A phenomenon exists. We've known that, one way
or another, for centuries. The fact that it doesn't seem to be bound by
the same sort of natural law we've observed elsewhere doesn't mean that
it isn't governed by natural law. But how can we define the law? How
can we define the limits of the phenomenon, for that matter? We can't
work in the dark forever--we've _got_ to have a working hypothesis to
guide us."
"So you dreamed up this 'tadpole' idea," said Melrose sourly.
"For a working hypothesis--yes. We've known for a long time that every
human being has extrasensory potential to one degree or another. Not
just a few here and there--every single one. It's a differentiating
quality of the human mind. Just as the ability to think logically in a
crisis instead of giving way to panic is a differentiating quality."
"Fine," said Melrose. "Great. We can't _prove_ that, of course, but
I'll play along."
Lessing glared at him. "When we began studying this psi-potential, we
found out some curious things. For one thing, it seemed to be immensely
more powerful and active in infants and children than in adults.
Somewhere along the line as a child grows up, something happens. We
don't know what. We do know that the child's psi-potential gradually
withdraws deeper and deeper into his mind, burying itself farther and
farther out of reach, just the way a tadpole's tail is absorbed deeper
and deeper into the growing frog until there just isn't any tail any
more." Lessing paused, packing tobacco into his pipe. "That's why we
have the Farm--to try to discover why. What forces that potential
underground? What buries it so deeply that adult human beings can't get
at it any more?"
"And you think you have an answer," said Melrose.
"We think we might be near an answer. We have a theory that explains
the available data."
The shuttle car bounced sharply as it left the highway automatics.
Dorffman took the controls. In a few moments they were skimming through
the high white gates of the Farm, slowing down at the entrance to a
long, low building.
"All right, young man--come along," said Lessing. "I think we can show
you our answer."
* * * * *
In the main office building they donned the close-fitting psionic
monitors required of all personnel at the Farm. They were of a
hard grey plastic material, with a network of wiring buried in the
substance, connected to a simple pocket-sized power source.
"The major problem," Lessing said, "has been to shield the children
from any external psionic stimuli, except those we wished to expose
them to. Our goal is a perfectly controlled psi environment. The
monitors are quite effective--a simple Renwick scrambler screen."
"It blocks off all types of psi activity?" asked Melrose.
"As far as we can measure, yes."
"Which may not be very far."
Jack Dorffman burst in: "What Dr. Lessing is saying is that they seem
effective for our purposes."
"But you don't know why," added Melrose.
"All right, we don't know why. Nobody knows why a Renwick screen
works--why blame us?" They were walking down the main corridor and out
through an open areaway. Behind the buildings was a broad playground. A
baseball game was in progress in one corner; across the field a group
of swings, slides, ring bars and other playground paraphernalia was in
heavy use. The place was teeming with youngsters, all shouting in a
fury of busy activity. Occasionally a helmeted supervisor hurried by;
one waved to them as she rescued a four-year-old from the parallel bars.
They crossed into the next building, where classes were in progress.
"Some of our children are here only briefly," Lessing explained as
they walked along, "and some have been here for years. We maintain a
top-ranking curriculum--your idea of a 'country day school' wasn't
so far afield at that--with scholarships supported by Hoffman Center
funds. Other children come to us--foundlings, desertees, children from
broken homes, children of all ages from infancy on. Sometimes they
stay until they have reached college age, or go on to jobs. As far as
psionics research is concerned, we are not trying to be teachers. We
are strictly observers. We try to place the youngsters in positions
where they can develope what potential they have--_without_ the
presence of external psionic influences they would normally be subject
to. The results have been remarkable."
He led them into a long, narrow room with chairs and ash trays, facing
a wide grey glass wall. The room fell into darkness, and through the
grey glass they could see three children, about four years old, playing
in a large room.
"They're perfectly insulated from us," said Lessing. "A variety of
recording instruments are working. And before you ask, Dr. Melrose,
they are all empirical instruments, and they would all defy any
engineer's attempts to determine what makes them go. We don't know what
makes them go, and we don't care--they go. That's all we need. Like
that one, for instance--"
In the corner a flat screen was flickering, emitting a pale green
fluorescent light. It hung from the wall by two plastic rods which
penetrated into the children's room. There was no sign of a switch,
nor a power source. As the children moved about, the screen flickered.
Below it, a recording-tape clicked along in little spurts and starts of
activity.
"What are they doing?" Melrose asked after watching the children a few
moments.
"Those three seem to work as a team, somehow. Each one, individually,
had a fairly constant recordable psi potential of about seventeen on
the arbitrary scale we find useful here. Any two of them scale in at
thirty-four to thirty-six. Put the three together and they operate
somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred on the same scale."
Lessing smiled. "This is an isolated phenomenon--it doesn't hold for
any other three children on the Farm. Nor did we make any effort to
place them together--they drew each other like magnets. One of our
workers spent two weeks trying to find out why the instruments weren't
right. It wasn't the instruments, of course."
Lessing nodded to an attendant, and peered around at Melrose. "Now, I
want you to watch this very closely."
He opened a door and walked into the room with the children. The
fluorescent screen continued to flicker as the children ran to Lessing.
He inspected the block tower they were building, and stooped down to
talk to them, his lips moving soundlessly behind the observation wall.
The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he
was proposing. He walked to the table and tapped the bottom block in
the tower with his thumb.
The tower quivered, and the screen blazed out with green light, but the
tower stood. Carefully Lessing jogged all the foundation blocks out of
place until the tower hung in midair, clearly unsupported. The children
watched it closely, and the foundation blocks inched still further out
of place....
Then, quite casually, Lessing lifted off his monitor. The children
continued staring at the tower as the screen gave three or four violent
bursts of green fire and went dark.
The block tower fell with a crash.
Moments later Lessing was back in the observation room, leaving the
children busily putting the tower back together. There was a little
smile on his lips as he saw Melrose's face. "Perhaps you're beginning
to see what I'm driving at," he said slowly.
"Yes," said Melrose. "I think I'm beginning to see." He scratched his
jaw. "You think that it's adult psi-contact that drives the child's
potential underground--that somehow adult contact acts like a damper, a
sort of colossal candle-snuffer."
"That's what I think," said Lessing.
"How do you know those children didn't make you take off your monitor?"
Lessing blinked. "Why should they?"
"Maybe they enjoy the crash when the blocks fall down."
"But that wouldn't make any difference, would it? The blocks still fall
down."
Melrose paced down the narrow room. "This is very good," he said
suddenly, his voice earnest. "You have fine facilities here, good
workers. And in spite of my flippancy, Dr. Lessing, I have never
imagined for a moment that you were not an acute observer and a
careful, highly imaginative worker. But suppose I told you, in perfect
faith, that we have data that flatly contradicts everything you've told
me today. Reproducible data, utterly incompatable with yours. What
would you say to that?"
"I'd say you were wrong," said Lessing. "You couldn't have such data.
According to the things I am certain are true, what you're saying is
sheer nonsense."
"And you'd express that opinion in a professional meeting?"
"I would."
"And as an Authority on psionic behavior patterns," said Melrose
slowly, "you would kill us then and there. You would strangle us
professionally, discredit anything we did, cut us off cold." The
tall man turned on him fiercely. "Are you blind, man? Can't you see
what danger you're in? If you publish your book now, you will become
an Authority in a field where the most devastating thing that could
possibly happen would be--_the appearance of an Authority_."
* * * * *
Lessing and Dorffman rode back to the Hoffman Center in grim silence.
At first Lessing pretended to work; finally he snapped off the tape
recorder in disgust and stared out the shuttle-car window. Melrose had
gone on to Idlewild to catch a jet back to Chicago. It was a relief to
see him go, Lessing thought, and tried to force the thin, angry man
firmly out of his mind. But somehow Melrose wouldn't force.
"Stop worrying about it," Dorffman urged. "He's a crackpot. He's
crawled way out on a limb, and now he's afraid your theory is going to
cut it off under him. Well, that's his worry, not yours." Dorffman's
face was intense. "Scientifically, you're on unshakeable ground. Every
great researcher has people like Melrose sniping at him. You just have
to throw them off and keep going."
Lessing shook his head. "Maybe. But this field of work is different
from any other, Jack. It doesn't follow the rules. Maybe scientific
grounds aren't right at all, in this case."
Dorffman snorted. "Surely there's nothing wrong with theorizing--"
"He wasn't objecting to the theory. He's afraid of what happens after
the theory."
"So it seems. But why?"
"Have you ever considered what makes a man an Authority?"
"He knows more about his field than anybody else does."
"He _seems_ to, you mean. And therefore, anything he says about it
carries more weight than what anybody else says. Other workers follow
his lead. He developes ideas, formulates theories--and then _defends
them for all he's worth_."
"But why shouldn't he?"
"Because a man can't fight for his life and reputation and still keep
his objectivity," said Lessing. "And what if he just happens to be
wrong? Once he's an Authority the question of what's right and what's
wrong gets lost in the shuffle. It's _what he says_ that counts."
"But we _know_ you're right," Dorffman protested.
"Do we?"
"Of course we do! Look at our work! Look at what we've seen on the
Farm."
"Yes, I know." Lessing's voice was weary. "But first I think we'd
better look at Tommy Gilman, and the quicker we look, the better--"
A nurse greeted them as they stepped off the elevator. "We called
you at the Farm, but you'd already left. The boy--" She broke off
helplessly. "He's sick, Doctor. He's sicker than we ever imagined."
"What happened?"
"Nothing exactly--happened. I don't quite know how to describe it."
She hurried them down the corridor and opened a door into a large
children's playroom. "See what you think."
The boy sat stolidly in the corner of the room. He looked up as they
came in, but there was no flicker of recognition or pleasure on his
pale face. The monitor helmet was still on his head. He just sat there,
gripping a toy fire engine tightly in his hands.
Lessing crossed the room swiftly. "Tommy," he said.
The boy didn't even look at him. He stared stupidly at the fire engine.
"Tommy!" Lessing reached out for the toy. The boy drew back in terror,
clutching it to his chest. "Go away," he choked. "Go away, go away--"
When Lessing persisted the boy bent over swiftly and bit him hard on
the hand.
Lessing sat down on the table. "Tommy, listen to me." His voice was
gentle. "I won't try to take it again. I promise."
"Go away."
"Do you know who I am?"
Tommy's eyes shifted haltingly to Lessing's face. He nodded. "Go away."
"Why are you afraid, Tommy?"
"I hurt. My head hurts. I hurt all over. Go away."
"Why do you hurt?"
"I--can't get it--off," the boy said.
_The monitor_, Lessing thought suddenly. Something had suddenly gone
horribly wrong--could the boy really be sensing the source of the
trouble? Lessing felt a cold knot gather in the pit of his stomach. He
knew what happened when adult psi-contact struck a psi-high youngster's
mind. He had seen it a hundred times at the Farm. But even more--he
had felt it in his own mind, bursting from the child. Like a violent
physical blow, the hate and fear and suspicion and cruelty buried and
repressed in the adult mind, crushing suddenly into the raw receptors
of the child's mind like a smothering fog--it was a fearful thing. A
healthy youngster could survive it, even though the scar remained. But
this youngster was sick--
And yet _an animal instinctively seeks its own protection_. With
trembling fingers Lessing reached out and opened the baffle-snap on the
monitor. "Take it off, Tommy," he whispered.
The boy blinked in amazement, and pulled the grey helmet from his head.
Lessing felt the familiar prickly feeling run down his scalp as the
boy stared at him. He could feel deep in his own mind the cold chill
of terror radiating from the boy. Then, suddenly, it began to fade. A
sense of warmth--peace and security and comfort--swept in as the fear
faded from the boy's face.
The fire engine clattered to the floor.
* * * * *
They analyzed the tapes later, punching the data cards with greatest
care, filing them through the machines for the basic processing and
classification that all their data underwent. It was late that night
when they had the report back in their hands.
Dorffman stared at it angrily. "It's obviously wrong," he grated. "It
doesn't fit. Dave, it doesn't agree with _anything_ we've observed
before. There must be an error."
"Of course," said Lessing. "According to the theory. The theory says
that adult psi-contact is deadly to the growing child. It smothers
their potential through repeated contact until it dries up completely.
We've proved that, haven't we? Time after time. Everything goes
according to the theory--except Tommy. But Tommy's psi-potential was
drying up there on the Farm, until the distortion was threatening the
balance of his mind. Then he made an adult contact, and we saw how he
bloomed." Lessing sank down to his desk wearily. "What are we going to
do, Jack? Formulate a separate theory for Tommy?"
"Of course not," said Dorffman. "The instruments were wrong. Somehow we
misread the data--"
"Didn't you see his _face_?" Lessing burst out. "Didn't you see how he
_acted_? What do you want with an instrument reading?" He shook his
head. "It's no good, Jack. Something different happened here, something
we'd never counted on. It's something the theory just doesn't allow
for."
They sat silently for a while. Then Dorffman said: "What are you going
to do?"
"I don't know," said Lessing. "Maybe when we fell into this bramble
bush we blinded ourselves with the urge to classify--to line everything
up in neat rows like pins in a paper. Maybe we were so blind we missed
the path altogether."
"But the book is due! The Conference speech--"
"I think we'll make some changes in the book," Lessing said slowly.
"It'll be costly--but it might even be fun. It's a pretty dry, logical
presentation of ideas, as it stands. Very austere and authoritarian.
But a few revisions could change all that--" He rubbed his hands
together thoughtfully. "How about it, Jack? Do we have nerve enough to
be laughed at? Do you think we could stand a little discredit, making
silly asses of ourselves? Because when I finish this book, we'll be
laughed out of existence. There won't be any Authority in psionics for
a while--and maybe that way one of the lads who's _really_ sniffing out
the trail will get somebody to listen to him!
"Get a pad, get a pencil! We've got work to do. And when we finish, I
think we'll send a carbon copy out Chicago way. Might even persuade
that puppy out there to come here and work for me--"
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