by M. A. Foster
The process continued inexorably, returning her mind to its entropic ground state, but as it moved, it caused ripples of pseudoknowledge to form in the central void, a logiclike action that seemed to her to be sudden flashes of insight. These momentary new forms were diverse as their origins: some were obviously invalid, others incomprehensible and alien. And some had the ring of truth. She did not know how she knew this. These last she tried to hold on to. One in particular, a towering edifice, permutating wildly. For an instant, she saw: and relief flooded through her, for she had seen the future. No fantasy, no paradream, no pseudoknowledge. Real. And that future was both true and good: There would be sorrows, caused by the very thing she had just done, but not her fault, her blame, but another’s. And they would succeed in the Great Work. It would be. She saw and was happy, but she did not understand, nor did she know why the thought had pleased her. Then it was gone. And also gone was the memory that something had pleased her.
She fixed on his image. Him. Her deepest. Cool and distant at first, there had been something about him which she had not liked . . . or disapproved of. She couldn’t remember. It had soon ceased to matter. And then she had discovered that he could do something she did, something . . . that was gone too. No matter. The memory of him as he had been was clear and uncluttered. If anything, the clarity of the image had been increased by the removal of the background in which they had met, and the growth of the emotional tangle which had sprung up between them, and soon tied them together. She could see him clearly: slender, wiry, almost delicate; but strong and quick. Precise movements, no wasted motions or mannerisms. A little younger than herself, but by less than a year. His hair, cut in the relaxed bowl cut common to all adolescents, was much lighter in color than hers. In a distant way, he reminded her of . . . whom? A younger child, related to her, but she couldn’t remember whom. Thin, precise facial lines; tense, but not overbearing. No, not that. He had been the most tender of creatures. She knew.
She sank deeper into the memory, feeling in it a wholesome refuge from a growing dark emptiness outside it. Everything beyond this memory seemed dim, obscure, fading. That was her spatial orientation. In time, it was no better: it began with a blank and ended with one. Now she could not remember anything except the last time they had been together.
They had gone down eastward into the deep woods, in the autumn, recently. To their own secret place they had built, a treehouse. It had grown too intense between them, and they did not want others (or were afraid of them?) It had been their last time, just before she had somehow arrived in this nonplace. They had been lovers, more than that, they had touched and kissed each other’s bodies, clasped one another closely with their limbs. She thought she felt a pain in her heart, wetness in her eyes. Were they real? Something oppressive was preventing her from feeling what she knew she must feel. All gone soon. Was real? Will hold this until it is all gone. So good then. Did it in a beam of sunlight, we did. Thought my heart would burst. She fell utterly into the memory, letting it take her, merging with the recent past, dimly sensing that somewhere she possessed a now-body which was at last beginning to respond to the then-body, as the difference between the two evaporated to her consciousness, the strength of the impulse now so strong that it was beginning to override whatever it was that had prevented her before. It had not been designed for this. Felt the yearning take her; she let it flow, unresisting, the undertow of the intense single-mindedness of desire, and the memory took over; in the now, in the box, she responded as one with it, synchronized with the memory, reaching, reaching, one last fractional effort and now the focus passed through her and for one single burning instant everything was crystal clear, gestalten, the sum of the universe and all its parts, playing over her, fire and light. She flew. Body centered, her hands wielded power. Then there was no desire, no need. She had one last thought in coherent forms, in wordlike concepts, then the words fell away. She had lost that. There were only pictorial images: She had a vision. As from outside herself, she saw herself floating in space, looking back at her. The figure met her gaze, looking down on her from slightly above; it was wearing her own special pleth, the one to be used only for high ceremonies, with an abstract design embroidered down the front panel, odd little dots arranged in a mysterious but sensible pattern. The figure was barefoot. The sleeves dropped loosely halfway between elbow and wrist. All around outside the figure a bluish space seemed to enclose her, a cruciform shape but with an additional arm to the front and the back, precisely delineated, and everywhere with ninety-degree angles. Made up of eight cubes. The figure had extended its arms into the cubical spaces by the shoulders. And behind it, dimly in the background, there was something else, a curved screen, a large panel, immense, its true size distorted by perspective. She could not tell how far away it was. Patterns similar to the design on the pleth, but infinitely more involuted and complex, filed the screen, living, moving, changing in a way that wrenched at her mind. The girl was herself, that she knew. And now, the self she watched, who had been gazing sorrowfully back at her, turned her head slowly to the right, as if to look back just once at the design in the background. The face turned away. The pattern stopped moving, and a deadly stillness filled her mind. The vision was now lifeless, fixed forever. It lost contrast, then color, then winked out. There was only darkness absolute.
She let it go, knowing almost nothing now. She had seen, but she had not understood. She felt fatigue, exhaustion, but completed, satisfied. She was sleepy. She had no more desires, no needs. The darkness was close, but she did not fear it; it was a friend, something she had called for. She had now forgotten a lot, and there were no more confusing images. Only some random percolating fragments. She ignored them. She had no interest in those fragments at all. She was sleepier than she had ever known, heavy, sinking. It was like swimming in a shallow summer pond at night, under an overcast sky. The warmth waited. All she had to do was kick off and flow. It was so easy. There was no longer any time, no more duration. Now that was gone, too. She was free. The universe collapsed to a point, one point, undimensional. She no longer knew who she had been. There was no past, there was nothing, and what fragments remained seemed to make little difference either way.
Either way.
Either.
Clane Oeschone, medical technician of the fourth grade, abbreviated MT4, had been working his first midnight shift of the new cycle in the Nondestructive Evaluation Facility appended to Building 8905; this was a new assignment for him, one which could be regarded as a tentative promotion. But so far his assigned duties had been absurdly simple: he was merely to attend to certain laboratory equipment, which appeared to be various Instructional Environment Enclosures. His responsibilities were limited and clearly specified, befitting to a technician of the fourth grade, although rather more than what might have been expected of the ordinary fourth. Indeed, as Oeschone thought. There was, after all, something to the acceptance of a programmed name. He had casually forgotten his old name. That person no longer existed. So one accepted, and became a cut above the average earner. It opened the doors to special assignments, and in his own case, out of the Sectional Palliatory.
However it had come to pass, his present task was simplicity itself: all he had to do was monitor the manual override panel, be alert for alarms, and tend the recording instruments, changing the paper as required, adjusting the current flow to the electrostatic needles as indicated by technical orders, and other related functions. Oeschone had received a thorough briefing on his duties here in 8905 from the evening-shift technician, including a description of patterns to watch for on the multiencephalograph, normal patterns as well as some abnormal ones. He also had, close to hand for reference, an operating manual with hundreds of conditions and responses listed, which he was also at liberty to use. He had glanced through it; it was a heavy tome of several hundred pages. To be absolutely candid, he had not memorized all that he had seen therein; but he had noted the section dealing with emergency procedures, particula
rly those pages dealing with specific patterns on the graph paper: these conditions called for the standby medtech. Those called for the duty medic.
Oeschone glanced idly at the machine. It was the only one in the room he had been assigned to. Before him, needles scratched with a faint but annoyingly repetitious sound, regular as clockwork. The paper was fixed on a huge drum easy of access. It passed under the needles, and thence to an equally bulky collection reel. Oeschone made a gesture of attentiveness to the markings being made on the graph paper, although he was quick to admit privately to himself that of the data they were recording, he could interpret only the most simple and primitive portion. However his limitations, the knowledge of them did not disturb him, for Oeschone was a modest man, sure now of his career progress to come. He had no burning ambitions which could be vitalized in his day-to-day routines. He also knew that it never counted what one actually did, but rather how it was perceived. And here, a programmed name was a coin that spent well.
He bent and looked more closely, trying to see if he could read this one. He looked again; the patterns on the paper moving beneath the needles were by no means standard curves. He estimated that he could at least determine that the subject was conscious, but it appeared to be an extremely relaxed state of consciousness, almost an Alpha wave pattern. But not quite. He looked again. Yes, it was clear; he understood. He could read it: it was conscious, but there was a strong phi factor. That was one he had learned. It indicated hallucinations. Momentary, not yet of the obsessive variety. Oeschone felt uneasy, and consulted his operating instructions just to be certain. After a time, after reading the text and consulting the graph again, he relaxed. No action was called for. Abnormal, but not out of tolerances. He returned to his chair and settled himself comfortably.
So it was hallucinating, was it? Well, that was nothing to him. He did catch himself wondering briefly, without particular concern, why this one, whoever it was, had been put in the box, obviously on isolation. But after all, there was simply no telling, no telling at all. Isolation . . . Oeschone looked away from the box. This was an easy shift; nothing to it.
Even hallucinating as it obviously was, that one in the box could last for days more, weeks, before the symptoms became serious, or one of the alarms went off, and the medtech came to break open the box, carefully, of course, taking all the notes, warnings, cautions, and expansions of the operating manual in mind. But it was always the same whenever they opened up an isolation box: they invariably found an emotional beggar who would say anything, reveal any secret, no matter how trivial, just for an instant of personal contact. It was the ultimate fear, the fear of having to face the inescapable evidence of one’s unique loneliness, and they had exploited it further than any previous ruling order had exploited any fear. It was physically painless and left no marks. Outside. And one who had been in the box was completely trustworthy, perhaps more so than the higher grades, if rather meek. Oeschone had heard tales . . . that after isolation, many would beg for a little light torture, just for the stimulus. For reality, however degrading.
Pitiful, such persons. Why did they allow themselves to came to such a sorry pass? Oeschone was certain that he did not know. Or if he did, he did not want to. It all worked the same in the end. But they knew the rules, they did, the order and the consequences. And after they had done whatever it was such people did, it all ended up the same way: in the box. Oeschone looked at the box. A dark gray structure somewhat higher than his height, occupying the end of the room, large enough to be a small jitney bus, almost. Silent, motionless, clean, powerful. Oeschone turned and went to his chair, sat. He pulled the narrative scanner on its telescoping mountings toward him, turned it on. He did not look back to the isolator again for a long time. . . .
Some hours later, when he had become bored with the repetitious events being depicted on the scanner programs, Oeschone looked up, rather sheepishly, wondering what the time was and thinking about a cup of coffee. He stood up, stretched, looked about the room, more to rest his eyes than anything else. The room was silent, save for the whispering of air in the circulation vents, and the faint scratching of the needles on the graph paper. That reminded him of something, after a time. He thought guiltily that he should have been checking the readout every fifteen minutes. But he wasn’t particularly disturbed; it was simply a matter of adjusting his duty logs. He was sure nothing had happened worthy of note; nothing ever did. Oeschone walked over to the recording device, looked cursorily at the graph, straightened, nodding to himself. Nothing had changed.
He looked again, some subliminal cue tugging at his dimmed consciousness. He could not, however well he rationalized it, avoid the suspicion that something subtle, but not the less drastic for all that, had occurred while he had been looking at the entertainment-scanner. Oeschone looked closely, now, at the pattern still unrolling before him. There was something there, he was certain. Now he had to find it.
Each of the needles was tracing a unique pattern, and it seemed to be just as before. Just as before he had gone to his chair. Oeschone looked again, feeling that sinking feeling. No, it was not just like before. Now all of the wave-forms were perfectly regular, with no variation whatsoever being overlaid on whatever pure frequency they tapped. All of them. Regular wave-forms, as if they were being generated by a computer. He bent over the collection reel and began to unroll it frantically, looking desperately for the section in which the regular wave-forms had started. His heart leaped; then sagged again, in disappointment; he couldn’t find it. Oeschone reached for the alarm button, the one which would summon the duty medic. He would know what to do.
The unexplained, unmodulated wave-forms continued without any change or deviation until the duty medic arrived, some forty minutes later. A sizable group accompanied the medic, apparently standby personnel he had called out. Oeschone tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
Once he had taken stock of the general situation, the medic took charge of things in a stern manner at variance with his youthful appearance. That, at the least, did not surprise Oeschone; duty medics were a surly lot at best, and he had not yet heard of one who enjoyed being called out during his shift. It was widely believed that they napped on their shifts, and of course if they were awakened too quickly, they growled like bears. But, growling or not, Oeschone was secretly glad to have the medic here; the matter and the responsibility was now out of his hands. Perhaps there would be other circumstances as well to muddy the water and divert attention from himself.
The medic appeared to ignore Oeschone; an assistant dug into a voluminous carpetbag and extracted a weighty blue text, from which he read cryptic instructions and rejoinders, to which the medic either nodded assent or performed some action, such as turning a potentiometer, reading a meter, or flipping a toggle. They performed with an efficiency that bespoke both knowledge of the subject matter and considerable training. At several points in the sequence of actions, the medic would consult the multiencephalograph. At these occasions, he would also review Oeschone’s duty log, here turning to leer knowingly at Oeschone. But he said nothing. After considerable time had been spent on the preliminaries, they began to disassemble the box, proceeding carefully in accordance with instructions so as not to disturb out of sequence the delicate life-support mechanisms. Having completed most of his preparatory actions, the duty medic then climbed up onto the box, using cleverly concealed hand- and footholds. At the top, he opened a small inspection plate, and shining a small pocket flashlamp into the opening, looked inside intently.
Oeschone knew the routine, although he had never personally observed an emergence; the medic would now climb down from the box, take a few more actions, and then stand back, grumbling, while his crew completed disassembly. But Oeschone began to feel uneasy, for it did not proceed after that fashion. The medic, instead, remained atop the box, staring intently into the opening for what seemed to be an overly long time. Then he shifted his position, and looked into the opening from several differi
ng angles. At last, shaking his head, he climbed down from the box, very deliberately and calmly, and walked slowly over to Oeschone’s console. His face looked congested, angry, although controlled.
“You have an outside line?” Indeed there was something more than irritated inconvenience in the tone of the medic’s voice.
“Of course, Medic Venle,” Oeschone replied, remembering to read the man’s nametag so he could use the name. This always helped to allay hostility; even more so in this circumstance, since the medic was also the holder of a programmed name. Oeschone hoped that the medic would appreciate the gesture and recall that, after all, he and Oeschone alike were fellow-members of a privileged group. Oeschone also added, “Is there some problem?”
“Just get the line,” answered the medic impatiently.
Oeschone complied with his request. Shortly afterward, Venle was seated at the console, looking belligerently into the viewer. The other members of the recovery team looked expectantly at Venle, as if they expected further instructions, but he waved them off, signifying they were to wait for further instructions. At the console, the Operate light flashed on.
A voice spoke from a speaker. “Operator PZ. Go ahead.”
“I am Journeyman Medic Domar Venle, ranking four step C. I desire a priority conference be set up, connecting this terminal with those of, respectively, Acumen-Medic Slegele and Overgrade Eykor, the Chief of Regional Security. Precedence is flash, Authority Section B.”
“Medic Venle, I understand and will comply, but the time is oh-five-three-oh local. The officials you have enumerated are, in all probability, yet sleeping. They are, of course, both dayshifters.”
Venle said, calmly and deliberately, “Asleep, are they? Well, then, arouse them.” Then he added, maliciously, “Wake the bastards up.” While the operator hesitated, he added further, “I accept responsibility. Indeed, I demand it.”
