Between the Strokes of Night

by Charles Sheffield

  The corridor continued outside the main building, to become a long covered walkway. She took her first look at the mid-morning cloud pattern. It was still trying to rain. What was going on with this crazy weather? Since the climate cycle went haywire, not one of the forecasts was worth a thing. There was a low ground mist curling over the hills near Christchurch, and it was hotter than it was ever supposed to be. According to all the reports, the situation was as bad in the northern hemisphere as it was in New Zealand. And the Americans, Europeans, and Soviets were suffering much worse crop failures.

  Her mind went back to the first lab. Everything had been designed for less moisture. No wonder the air coolers were snowing on Jinx, the humidity outside must be close to a hundred percent. Maybe they should add a dehumidifier to the system, what they had now was working like a damned snow machine. Should she request that equipment at today’s meeting?

  The meeting.

  Charlene jerked her attention away from the lab experiments. Time to worry about them later. She hurried on. Up a short flight of stairs, a left turn, and she was at C-53, the conference room where the weekly reviews were held. And, thank God, there before JN.

  She slipped into her place at the long table, nodding at the others who were already seated: “Catkiller” Cannon from Physiology, de Vries from External Subjects, Beppo Cameron from Pharmacology (daffodil in his buttonhole — where did he get that in this wild weather?). The others ignored her and examined their open folders.

  Five minutes to eleven. She had a few minutes to review her own statement and to stare for the hundredth time at the embroidery on the wall opposite. It had been there as long as she had, and she could close her eyes and recite it by heart.

  “Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is: it is so inestimable a jewel that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour’s slumber, it cannot be bought: of so beautiful a shape is it, that though a man lie with an Empress, his heart cannot be quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the other: yea, so greatly indebted are we to this kinsman of death that we owe the better tributary, half of our life to him: and there is good cause why we should do so: for sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” — Thomas Dekker.

  And underneath the beautifully needle-worked quotation, in Judith Niles’ clear, bold cursive, was the recent addition:

  Nuts. In this Institute, sleep is the enemy.

  Charlene Bloom opened her own folder, leaned back, and eased off her black shoes, one foot tugging at the heel of the other. Eleven o’clock, and no Director. Something was wrong.

  At four minutes past eleven, the other door of the conference room opened and Judith Niles entered followed by her secretary. Late — and she looked angry. Peering past her into the adjoining office, Charlene Bloom saw a tall man standing by the desk. He was curly haired and in his early thirties, pleasant-faced but frowning now at something over on one of the walls. A stranger. But those wide-set gray eyes seemed vaguely familiar; perhaps from an Institute Newsletter picture?

  Judith Niles had remained standing for a moment instead of taking her usual place. Her glance went around the table, checking that all the department chiefs were already in position, then she nodded her greeting.

  “Good morning. I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” Her lips pouted on the final word and held that expression. “We have an unexpected visitor, and I have to meet with him again as soon as this meeting is over.” She at last sat down. “Let’s begin. Dr. de Vries, would you start? I’m sure everyone is as interested as I am in hearing of the results of your trip. When did you get back?”

  Jan de Vries, short and placid, shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the Director. Judith Niles and he saw the world from the same place, half a head lower than most of the staff. Perhaps that was what allowed him to relax with her, in a way that Charlene Bloom found totally impossible.

  “Late last night.” His voice was soothing, slow and easy as warm syrup. “If you will permit me one moment of tangential comment, the treatment for jet lag that we pioneered here at the Institute is less than a total success.” Judith Niles never took notes. Her secretary would record every word, and she wanted all her own mind concentrated on the pulse of the meeting. She leaned forward and looked closely at de Vries’ face. “I assume you speak from experience?”

  He nodded. “I used it on the trip to Pakistan. Today I feel lousy, and the blood tests confirm it. My circadian rhythms are still somewhere between here and Rawalpindi.”

  The Director looked across at Beppo Cameron and raised her dark eyebrows. “We’d better take another look at the treatment, eh? But what about the main business, Jan? Ahmed Ameer — is he fact or fiction?”

  “Regrettably, he is fiction.” De Vries opened his notebook. “According to the report we received, Ahmed Ameer never slept more than an hour a night. From the time he was sixteen years old — that’s nine years, he’s twenty-five now — he swore that he hadn’t closed his eyes.”

  “And the truth?”

  He grimaced and rubbed at his thin moustache. “I’ve got our complete notes here, and they’ll go in the file. But I can summarize in one word: exaggeration. In the six days and nights that we were with him, he went two nights with no sleep. One night he slept for four and a quarter hours. For the other three nights he averaged a little more than two and a half hours each.”

  “Normal health?”

  “Looks like it. He doesn’t sleep much, but we’ve had other subjects with less right here in the Institute.”

  Judith Niles was watching him closely. “But you don’t look like a man who wasted a week on a wild-goose chase. What’s the rest of it?”

  “My perceptive superior.” De Vries looked angelic. “You are quite right. On the way out I went through Ankara to check out a long shot — another one of the rumors from the Cairo labs, about a monk who keeps a vigil over the sacred relies of Saint Stephen. A vestment was stolen while he was on duty two years ago, and after that he supposedly swore he would never sleep again.”

  “Well?” Judith Niles tensed as she waited for his answer.

  “Not quite — but closer than we’ve ever come before.” De Vries was all sly satisfaction. “Would you believe an average total daily sleep of twenty-nine minutes? And he doesn’t sit in a chair and nod off for the odd few minutes when nobody’s looking. We had him hooked up to a telemetry unit for eleven days. We have the fullest biochemical tests that we could make. You’ll see my full report as soon as someone can transcribe it for you.”

  “I want it today. Tell Joyce Savin that it’s top priority.” Judith Niles gave de Vries a little nod of approval. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing good enough to tell. I’ll have my complete report for you tomorrow.” He winked across the table at Charlene. And she’ll never read it, said his expression. The Director depended on her staff to keep track of the details. No one ever knew how much time she would spend on any particular staff report. Sometimes the smallest element of data would engage her attention for days, at other times major projects would run unstudied for months.

  Judith Niles took a quick look at her watch. “Dr. Bloom, you’re next. Keep it as short as possible — I’d like to squeeze our visitor in before lunch if we can.” But at my back I always hear, Time’s winged chariot hurrying near… Charlene gritted her teeth. JN was obsessed with sleep and time. And most of what Charlene could offer was bad news.

  She bent her head over her notebook, reluctant to begin.

  “We just lost one of the Kodiaks,” she said abruptly. There was a rustle of movement as everyone at the long table sat up straighter. Charlene kept her head bowed. “Gibbs took Dolly down to a few degrees above freezing and tried to maintain a positive level of brain activity.”

  Now there was a charged silence in the room. Charlene swallowed, felt the lump in her throat, and hurried on. “The procedure is the same as I described in last week’s report for the Review Committee. But this time we coul
dn’t stabilize. The brain wave patterns were hunting, seeking new stable levels, and there were spurious alpha thresholds. When we started to bring the temperature back up all the body functions just went to hell. Oscillations everywhere. I brought the output listings with me, and if you want to see them I’ll pass them round.” “Later.” Judith Niles’ expression was a mixture of concentration and anger. Charlene knew the look. The Director expected everyone — everything — to share her drive toward Zero Sleep. Dolly had failed them. JN’s face had turned pale, but her voice was calm and factual.

  “Gibbs, you said? Wolfgang Gibbs. He’s the heavy-set fellow with curly hair? Did he handle the descent and ascent operations himself?”

  “Yes. But I have no reason to question his competence — “

  “Nor do I, I’m not suggesting that. I’ve read his reports. He’s good.” Judith Niles made a gesture to the secretary at her side. “Were there any other anomalies that you consider significant?”

  “There was one.” Charlene Bloom took a deep breath and turned to a new page of her notebook. “When we were about fifteen degrees above freezing, the brain wave patterns hit a very stable form. And Wolfgang Gibbs noticed one very odd thing about them. They seemed to be the same profile as the brain rhythms at normal temperature, just stretched out in time.”

  She paused. At the end of the table, Judith Niles had suddenly jerked upright. “How similar?”

  “We didn’t run it through the computer yet. To the eye they were identical — but fifty times as slow as usual.”

  For a fraction of a second Charlene thought she saw a look flicker between Judith Niles and Jan de Vries, then the Director was staring at her with full intensity. “That’s something I want to see for myself. Later today, Dr. de Vries and I will come out to the hangar and take a look at this project. But let’s run over it in a little more detail now, when we’re all here. How long did you hold the stable phase, and what was the lowest body temperature? And what about tryptophan settings?”

  Below table level, Charlene rubbed her hands along the side of her skirt. They were in for a digging session, she just knew it. Her hands were beginning to tremble, and she could feel new sweat on her palms. Was she well-prepared? She’d know in a few minutes. With the Director in the mood for detail, the visitor to the Institute might be in for a long wait.

  CHAPTER THREE

  For Hans Gibbs it was turning into a long and confusing day.

  When first suggested, a Downside visit to the U.N. Institute for Neurology in Christchurch had sounded like the perfect break from routine. He would have a week in full earth gravity instead of the quarter-gee of PSS-One. He would gain a batch of exercise credits, and he needed all he could scrape together. He’d be able to pick up a few things Downside that were seldom shuttled up as cargo — how long since anyone on PSS-One had tasted an oyster? And even though Christchurch was down in New Zealand, away from the political action centers, he’d be able to form his own impressions on recent world tensions. There were lots of charges and counter-accusations flying about, but chances are it was more of the same old bluster that the Downsiders mislabelled as diplomacy.

  Best of all, he could spend a couple of evenings with randy old Wolfgang. The last time they’d been out on the town together, his cousin had still been married. That had put a crimp on things (but less than it should have — one reason maybe why Wolfgang wasn’t married now?).

  The trip down had been a disaster. Not the Shuttle flight, of course; that had been a couple of hours of relaxation, a smooth re-entry followed by activation of the turbofans and a long powered coast to Aussieport in northern New Guinea. The landing had been precisely on schedule. But that was the last thing that went according to plan.

  The Australian spaceport, servicing Australia, New Zealand and Micronesia, normally prided itself on informality and excitement. According to legend, a visitor could find within a few kilometers of the port every one of the world’s conventional vices, plus a few of the unconventional ones (cannibalism had been part of native life in New Guinea long after it had disappeared elsewhere). Today all informality had disappeared. The port had been filled with grim-faced officials, intent on checking every item of his baggage, documents, travel plans, and reason for arrival. He had been subjected to four hours of questioning. Did he have relatives in Japan or the United States? Did he have sympathies with the Food Distribution Movement? What were his views on the Australian Isolationist Party? Tell us, in detail, of any new synthetic food manufacturing processes developed for the outbound arcologies.

  Plenty was happening there, as he readily admitted, but he was saved by simple ignorance. Sure, there were new methods for synthetics, good ones, but he didn’t know anything about them — wouldn’t be permitted to know about them; they carried a high level of commercial secrecy.

  His first gift for Wolfgang — a pure two-carat gemstone, manufactured in the orbiting autoclave on PSS-One — was retained for examination. It would, he was curtly informed, be sent along to his lodgings at the Institute if it passed inspection. His other gift was confiscated with no promise of return. Seeds developed in space might contaminate some element of Australasian flora. His patience had run out at that point. The seeds were sterile, he pointed out. He had brought them along only as a novelty, for their odd shapes and colors. “What the hell has happened to you guys?” he complained. “It’s not the first time I’ve been here. I’m a regular — just take a look at those visas. What do you think I’m going to do, break into Cornwall House and have a go at the First Lady?”

  They looked back at him stonily, evaluating his remark, then went on with the questioning. He didn’t try any more backchat. Two years ago the frantic sex life of the Premier’s wife had been everybody’s favorite subject. Now it didn’t rate a blink. If much of Earth was like this, the climatic changes must be producing worse effects than anyone in the well-to-do nations was willing to admit. The less lucky ones spoke of it willingly enough, pleading for help at endless and unproductive sessions of the United Nations.

  When he was finally allowed to close his luggage and go on his way, the fast transport to Christchurch had already left. He was stuck with a Mach-One pond-hopper, turning an hour’s flight into a six-hour marathon. At every stop the baggage and document inspection was repeated.

  By the time they made the last landing he was angry, hungry, and tired out. The entry formalities at Christchurch seemed to go on forever, but he recognized that they were perfunctory compared with those at Aussieport — it seemed he had already been asked every question in the world, and his answers passed on to the centralized Australasian data banks.

  When he finally reached the Institute and was shown to Judith Niles’ big office it was one o’clock in the morning according to his internal body clock, though local time was well before noon. He swallowed a stimulant — one originally developed right here in the Institute — and looked around him at the office fittings.

  On one wall was a personal sleep chart, of exactly the same type that he used himself. She was averaging a little less than six hours a night, plus a brief lunchtime nap every other day. He moved to the bookcase. The predictable works were there: Dement and Oswald and Colquhoun, on sleep; the Fisher-Koral text on mammalian hibernation; Williams’ case histories of healthy insomniacs. The crash course he had received on PSS-One had skimmed through them all, though the library up there was not designed for storage of paper copies like these. The old monograph by Bremer was new to him. Unpublished work on the brain-stem experiments? That seemed unlikely — Moruzzi had picked the bones clean there, back in the 1940s. But what about that red file next to it, “Revised Analysis”? He reached out to take it from the case, then hesitated. It wouldn’t do to get off on the wrong foot with Judith Niles — this meeting was an important one. Better wait and ask her permission.

  He rubbed at his eyes and turned from the bookcase to look at the pictures on the wall opposite the window. He had been well briefed, but the more he co
uld learn by personal observation, the less impossible this job would be. Plenty of photographs there, taken with Presidents and Prime Ministers and businessmen. In pride of place was a picture of a gray-haired man with a big chin and rimless glasses. On its lower border, hand-written, were the words: Roger Morton Niles, 1941-2008. Judith’s father? Almost certainly, but there was something curiously impersonal about the addition of dates to a father’s picture. There was a definite family resemblance, mainly in the steady eyes and high cheekbones. He compared the picture of Roger Morton Niles with a nearby photograph of Judith Niles shaking hands with an aged Indian woman. Strange. The biographical written descriptions didn’t match at all with the person who had swept through the office on her way to her staff meeting and given him the briefest and most abstracted of greetings. Still less did it match the woman pictured here. Based on her position and accomplishments he had expected someone in her forties or fifties, a real Iron Maiden. But Judith Niles couldn’t be more than middle thirties. Nice looking, too. She was a fraction too thin in the face, with very serious eyes and forehead; but she made up for that with well-defined, curving cheek bones, a clear complexion, and a beautiful mouth. And there was something in her expression… or was it his imagination? Didn’t she have that look -

  “Mr. Gibbs?” The voice from behind made him grunt and spin around. A secretary had appeared at the open doorway while he was daydreaming his way through the wall photographs.

  Thank Heaven that minds were still unreadable. How ludicrous his current train of thought would seem to an observer — here he was, flown in for a confidential and highly crucial meeting with the Director of the Institute, and inside two minutes he was evaluating her as a sex object.