“It is not, as you say,” Wells mildly protested, “bullshit to me. It is an area open to question. Subjectively, pain is real. So long as the nerve endings are functional there can be pain. When the nerve endings are blocked, physical damage results but there is no signal sent to the brain. Instinctive protection no longer exists. In your case you now have nerve endings of some sort. Whether or not the brain will accept the signals as they did before is open to question.”
Steve said no more, waiting for him to go on to the legs. Wells looked at Steve.
“The legs are simpler than the arm. The articulation is less complicated. The knee itself has minor sideways articulation. Fore-and-aft movement is mechanically simple.” The pointer moved along the chart. “The ankle fits in the same category. The fore-and-aft articulation is much the same. Both elements, of course, have some sideways motion, but this is restricted by the limitations built into freedom of the ball-socket, or hinge, joints. In terms of opting for greater strength, we restricted the artificial tendons to provide the limited elasticity needed for, as an example, rounding through a running turn.”
Steve gestured impatiently. “Let’s get to the power amplification, Rudy.”
Wells nodded, shifted to new charts. “All right. The energy for articulation—the electrical impulse sent along the nerve network by brain command—isn’t great enough to cause the bionics limb to react through muscle contraction and movement. The voltage is far too low, and we can’t avoid the fact that we’re working with different systems. Different materials, in fact. The body provides electrochemical reaction throughout the entire system. That’s impossible with the bionics elements.
“So we compensate for this.” He held up a model of a leg section. “What the electrical impulse originating from the brain must do, then, is to trigger another energy source within the bionics limb. In this case we provide additional energy. The best way to do this is not through solenoids, which could result in a staccato or jerking movement, but through the latest advances in electrical motors. Art?”
Fanier moved closer to Steve and held up a metal cylinder barely an inch long by a half inch in diameter. “This came directly from the stabilization system of a military-reconnaissance satellite TV system, intended for long life. Necessary to maintain a specific attitude over the earth’s surface for the cameras. There’s nothing else in the world like it. Once it’s brought to speed, it spins at better than thirty thousand revs per minute. The sealed environment is as close to being free of friction as you can get. Of course, we’ve got to be able to sustain the inertia of spin and we use a plutonium isotope, but with something less than the half-life of ninety years. The cardiac pacemakers that have been used for a couple of years now use the longer-lived isotope. We needed to alter the system and, well, you can break down the details later if you want, Steve, but the main point is that we have this tremendous frictionless spin. There’s enough inertia in this system to provide immediate translation of the energy to what we need to move. In your case, the bionics limb. I mean, this provides energy for articulating whatever part of the limb is involved.”
Fanier moved the small motor housing into a breakaway model of the bionics arm that was now a part of Steve’s body. “This has a pressure-sensing system, of course. When the message is received to grasp or to pick up an object, the motors apply energy to the pulley system of the arm. This makes rigid certain areas of the limb, applies pressure to the fingers—”
“How?”
“Well, the amount of pressure is decided by the electrical impulses that originate from the brain. These are fed the pressure from the sensory pads in the fingertips—the pressure is converted to an electrical signal, the intensity of which varies with the situation—and we have a constant feedback. The result of this feedback is exactly the same as with a natural arm. It’s translated into energy demand, energy supply, and motion.
“This means,” Fanier said, “that the body itself isn’t being called upon to provide the constant energy. It couldn’t do it. We could implant dissimilar metals in tissues of your body that contain salt water and the metals would function as batteries. A lifetime source, I guess you could call it, since the body provides a natural source of fresh electrolyte. But the body produces only about one-half volt, and even the simplest instruments implanted in the body, such as the pacemakers, need at least one and a half to two volts. But the nuclear sources change everything. With these power sources, Steve, a man can run—a steady, pacing run—just so long as he remains conscious and his other body systems are working. If his heart and circulation and brain and respiration are working, a man could run for days and nights. His legs are—your legs—are motivated simply through the miniscule electrical charges of the brain’s impulses. But the key, the driving energy, comes from these internal power systems. Internal to the bionics limb, I mean. It’s . . . it’s really incredible.”
He came to with his heart pounding, the perspiration streaming down the sides of his face. What a dream . . . Something almost psychedelic. He saw a figure silhouetted against a horizon. The foreground absolutely dark, above the horizon line a gleaming, pale orange, intensely bright glow, and that running figure stark against the orange. The figure was running, a methodical pounding beat, breathing deeply and evenly. Tremendous breath control . . .
“You’ve been having a nightmare,” Jean said quickly, to bring him back to the moment. “You’re strapped down, Steve. You must have been trying to turn and you had this nightmare.”
He sank back in the pillow, nodding. It was cold, soaked from his sweat. He was already back into the dream.
Nightmare? Or wish fulfillment? He didn’t know. If the legs worked. He laughed at himself. If the legs worked as advertised . . . the key to long-distance running is breath control. Enriching and keeping the system saturated with as much oxygen as possible. What had Rudy Wells told him? “Your legs won’t be consuming chemicals, electricity, or oxygen. Your blood flow is reduced because the circuitry has been so drastically altered. Where you need oxygen now you’ll get it, far more than you ever had. There isn’t even any way for us to guess what your endurance will be. You’ll be a superior man, a super normal man. You may even be the start of a whole new breed . . .”
They’d find out.
Starting in the morning.
He didn’t know whether he wanted that morning ever to come. The thought of failure, after all these months, would be too much to take. He—
He told himself to shut up. Sleep came quickly.
CHAPTER 12
“How about under the arms?”
Steve Austin lifted his arms, flexing the biceps, straining against the nylon webbing that passed beneath the armpits. He strained forward, bunching his back muscles, then leaned from side to side.
“It’s okay,” he said curtly. “Let’s get on with the rest of it.”
“Take it slow,” Rudy Wells told him. “We’ve waited a long time for—”
Steve was almost snarling. “Drop it,” he snapped. “Let’s just get it going.”
Wells didn’t reply. Instead he walked about Steve as he hung suspended in the harness, a close replica of the parachute harness with which Steve had been familiar for years. Wells stepped back several paces for a final examination of the harness and suspension rig. Steve was not only familiar with the webbing straps that encased his body, but he was experienced with the suspension rig. In his astronaut training he had used a variation of this same equipment to test his balance and walking capabilities under the one-sixth gravity of the moon. It would help; there was nothing here that was strange to him.
Wells glanced about the former gymnasium, converted to the testing center for Steve. He had cleared the room of all but a few people—himself, Dr. Killian, Art Fanier, Jean Manners, and two technicians. More than that would change a working team to an audience of gawkers. Besides, they had concealed cameras to record every moment. Steve’s bionics limbs as well as his own body were loaded with strain gauges
and instruments. They would have a complete record of temperatures, pressures, strains in every bending, twisting, pulling motion. It would all be recorded for later study and the beginning of the test profiles for the first cybernetic organism. The parachute harness and suspension rig went up a ball-socket travelway that followed the path on the floor that Steve would follow.
“Art, we’re ready,” he said to Fanier. The technician nodded, looked at Steve.
“Start at thirty percent,” Fanier said.
“Right.”
Fanier worked the controls and the harness lowered. Steve stood with his legs slightly apart, braced for the best possible support. The harness lowered until the gauges showed thirty percent of Steve’s weight resting on his legs. Wells watched him like a hawk, saw the perspiration beading on his face. He glanced at the medical console. Heartbeat, respiration, the other signs. All way above normal, as expected. Jean would monitor the console so that he could keep his attention on the man.
Steve rocked slightly and Wells felt a moment of panic as he saw the slight teetering. It was a false alarm. Steve was swiftly altering his own mood, once again becoming the test pilot, checking out his equipment, regarding everything with the finely trained senses and feel of the engineer. No one said a word or made a sound as Steve stood, stiff-legged, regaining balance, swiftly learning certain key sensations denied to him now for so many months. He leaned forward again, letting the harness take up the strain, then twisted from left to right, and back again the other way. He nodded to himself, judging, testing, ignoring them all. Wells felt a tremendous satisfaction and a sense of relief. At this moment Steve was the equivalent of a man back in the cockpit, the test pilot on his own.
“Give me fifty percent.”
Fanier was startled. “Too soon, Steve. The schedule calls for an hour at thirty and—”
“Fifty!” He leaned forward in the harness, twisted about, glared at the other man. “Now, Art, damn you, now.”
Fanier licked his lips, uncertain. He turned to Killian, who exchanged glances with Rudy Wells. Wells nodded and Killian moved his hand. “Fifty,” he said.
Fanier moved the controls. The harness lowered. Steve now had half his body weight on the legs. He stopped his twisting motion, taking in the feel. He was searching now, getting the sensations down pat, learning quickly the vices he might find, the differences he felt now that clashed with memory. Wells waited for him to move the legs. But not yet. Steve knew what he was doing, was going by instinct and experience combined.
Steve looked to his left and slightly down. Silence. They watched the muscles bunch inside his jaw.
The left arm moved. It went forward, then came up. But he could do that with the stump. It was something else that—
The arm bent at the elbow. Steve watched the limb with hypnotic fascination. It came down again. He rested for a moment, brought the arm forward and slightly across his body to his right. He bent the arm again at the elbow, added a twisting motion, continued the arm movement. He brought his hand—his new hand—to several inches from his face. His eye stared. Slowly the fingers closed into a fist. He held it that way, opened the fingers, spread them stiff and wide, closed and opened them again. He turned his hand through twisting motions. The arm went up, then backward. Abruptly he stopped, the arm straight at his side. Suddenly he snapped out the arm, straight out to his side, the fingers extended stiffly. Then back, forward. The arm went up, slowly, until it extended above him, as far as the harness would permit. He looked up and grasped the webbing. The fingers closed into a tight grip. He began to add pressure.
“Steve! Don’t! You’re not ready yet!” Fanier’s voice. Wells started forward, checked himself. Leave him alone, he told himself. It’s his life. He’s got to gamble.
It didn’t matter, anyway. Steve wasn’t listening. He wouldn’t have heard a bomb going off next to him. His concentration was total.
The fingers closed tighter. They watched, hypnotized, as Steve’s bionics arm brought his weight away from his feet. Then, slowly, Steve lifted himself completely from the floor. His body turned slightly, swaying, as he kept the grip.
“The gauges,” he called to Fanier. “What do the gauges show?”
“You’re more than a hundred percent over the test criteria,” Fanier told him.
“To hell with the criteria, give me the reading on the arm.”
Fanier looked nervously at the others, saw Wells urging him on. “You’re . . . only thirty percent.”
There was a sudden shift of tone in Steve’s voice. “Tell me again,” he said, half shouting, disbelieving.
“Thirty percent.”
“It turns out,” Steve grunted with sudden effort, “you’re a pretty smart son of a bitch, after all.” Fingers knotted about the nylon, Steve pulled himself up even more, a slow and deliberate movement until his face was even with his hand. There was a flash of a smile and he lowered himself, still slowly and with control, back to the floor until the harness released half his weight again to his feet. He stood quietly, breathing deeply, the need for oxygen more psychological than physical. He forced himself to relax, and Wells, studying every move, was grateful for the superb self-control of this man. He had thrown away their test schedule, substituting his own, but it was still one of rigid self-discipline.
“Doc?”
“Right here, Steve.”
“Water, please.”
Wells brought the glass to him. A good sign. The way Steve was perspiring, they’d need salt tablets soon. He held out the glass, instinctively extending it toward Steve’s right arm.
Steve grinned at him. “Wrong hand, Doc.”
“You sure?”
“Hell, can’t you see me flying?” Steve laughed. He reached out for the glass, closed the fingers of his left hand. A sudden crack went through the room. Steve stared at the liquid splashing away from his hand, the glass hitting the floor.
“How about that shit?” he said to no one in particular.
One of the assistants hurried forward with a towel. Wells took it, wiped away the water, picked pieces of glass from Steve. “That’s what I meant,” he said finally. “It will take some time to fineness of control.”
“You should have told me.”
“I did tell you.”
“But not loud enough,” Steve laughed. Wells was thrilled by the spirit in his voice. It had been a very long time.
“Get me some metal glasses next time,” Steve said. “Then we’ll go to plastic.” He used his right hand to hold the glass now brought to him, and handed it to Wells.
“Hang in there, Doc,” he told Wells. “You look awfully worried.”
“Take it slow, Steve,” Wells cautioned him.
“You ever hear that new saying they got, Doc? Something about today being the first day of the rest of your life? It’s time to walk.”
It wasn’t as easy as he thought. The electrical patterns stayed almost precisely where predicted. But this was much more than a matter of simply assuring that the equipment would function. They were sure of themselves in that area. It was biological feedback that held uncertainties. How would the body receive the feedback from the bionics limb? That was the big question mark. The built-in safeguards, the flexibilities of the electrochemical systems of the body, couldn’t be duplicated wholly in the bionics equipment. This was the major unknown. But Steve had been going into the unknown for a long time.
He motioned for the others to step back, to give him room. And again, as he had done before, he slipped away from them into that special chamber of his mind where he became the expert technician, the engineer.
He stood with his bionics feet spaced well apart, one slightly farther forward than the other. They watched, fascinated, as he brought his hands to his hips, braced them, and began the movements that—Wells realized suddenly—he had been planning all this time. First he bent forward from the waist. His body jerked suddenly as the weight shifted and the knees tried to adjust for the change in mass. He pulled hi
mself back quickly, weaving, fighting for balance. Then, forward again, back; forward and back a dozen times. Next he began to bend backward, tilting his head and shoulders behind him slightly. A rotating motion followed, with his hands bracing him, the half-weight of his body in the harness greatly reducing unexpected shift and balance changes. He turned and twisted with slightly greater speed than before, motions fluid in their start, sometimes becoming erratic, exhibiting a sudden snapping movement, as he fought to carry his returning balance down through the legs. Finally he stopped, looked straight ahead.
“Art?”
“Right here, Steve.”
“Take the pressure off.”
“It’s already at fifty percent.”
“I know that. Take it down all the way.”
“It’s coming down,” Fanier called to Steve.
Silence again. Steve stood rock still, feeling the pressures. He kept his feet planted solidly to the floor and began moving the right knee. Slowly, bending it back and forth. Then, more carefully now, to the right and to the left. Again he stood still, reviewing in his mind the sensations. He repeated the motions with his right knee.
“There’s some pain,” he said finally, not turning around, knowing they would hear him and that the instruments would pick up every word. “It appears to be at the juncture of my leg and the plastiskin. I think you’d better take a look.”
He stood patiently as Killian and Wells examined the area where they had grafted the artificial skin to his own living tissue. Steve wore shorts so that the juncture remained exposed for such examination, and also for the cameras. Killian’s fingers kneaded the skin. “Feeling?” he asked Steve.
“Finger pressure.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
“Where was the pain before?”
“Along the back. Where the skin would bunch with full bending.”
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