The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF

by Mike Ashley

  “That’s not entirely true,” I ground out. “As a ship’s captain in deep space, I have full legal power here. If I say he can’t do something to you, he can’t. Period.”

  Bradley’s face never changed. “Perhaps. But unless you can find another way to get us back to Earth, I don’t see that you have any other choice.”

  I stared into those eyes for a couple of heartbeats. Then, slowly, my gaze swept the table, touching in turn all the others as they sat watching me, awaiting my decision. The thought of deliberately sending Bradley back to his permanent disorientation – really permanent, this time – left a taste in my mouth that was practically gagging in its intensity. But Bradley was right . . . and at the moment I didn’t have any better ideas.

  “Pascal,” I said, “you and Dr Chileogu will first of all get some output on that program of yours. Alana, as soon as they’re finished you’ll take the computer back and calculate the parameters for our first point. You two – ” I glared in turn at Bradley and Lanton “– will be ready to test this image theory of yours. You’ll do the observations in your cabin as usual, and tell me afterward whether we duplicated the rotation exactly or came out short or long. Questions? All right; dismissed.”

  After all, I thought amid the general scraping of chairs, for the first six points all Bradley will need to do is cut back on medicines. That means twenty-eight days or so before any irreversible surgery is done.

  I had just that long to come up with another answer.

  We left orbit three hours later, pushing outward on low drive to conserve fuel. That plus the course I’d chosen meant another ten hours until we were in position for the first point, but none of that time was wasted. Pascal and Chileogu were able to program and run two more approximation schemes; the results, unfortunately, were not encouraging. Any two of the three plots had a fair chance of agreeing over ranges of half a degree or so, but there was no consistency at all over the larger angles we would need to use. Chileogu refused to throw in the towel, pointing out that he had another six methods to try and making vague noises about statistical curve-fitting schemes. I promised him all the computer time he needed between point maneuvers, but privately I conceded defeat. Lanton’s method now seemed our only chance . . . if it worked.

  I handled the first point myself, double-checking all parameters beforehand and taking special pains to run the gyro needle as close to the proper angle as I could. As with any such hand operation, of course, perfection was not quite possible, and I ran the Dancer something under a hundredth of a degree long. I’m not sure what I was expecting from this first test, but I was more than a little surprised when Lanton accurately reported that we’d slightly overshot the mark.

  “It looks like it’ll work,” Alana commented from her cabin when I relayed the news. She didn’t sound too enthusiastic.

  “Maybe,” I said, feeling somehow the need to be as skeptical as possible. “We’ll see what happens when he starts taking Bradley off the drugs. I find it hard to believe that the man’s mental state can be played like a yo-yo, and if it can’t be we’ll have to go with whatever statistical magic Chileogu can put together.”

  Alana gave a little snort that she’d probably meant to be a laugh. “Hard to know which way to hope, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” I hesitated for a second, running the duty arrangements over in my mind. “Look, why don’t you take the next few days off, at least until the next point. Sarojis can take your shift up here.”

  “That’s all right,” she sighed. “I – if it’s all the same with you, I’d rather save any offtime until later. Rik will . . . need my help more then.”

  “Okay,” I told her. “Just let me know when you want it and the time’s yours.”

  We continued on our slow way, and with each cascade point I became more and more convinced that Lanton really would be able to guide us through those last two critical points. His accuracy for the first four maneuvers was a solid hundred percent, and on the fifth maneuver we got to within point zero two percent of the computer’s previous reading by deliberately jockeying the Dancer back and forth until Bradley’s image pattern was exactly as Lanton remembered it. After that even Matope was willing to be cautiously optimistic; and if it hadn’t been for one small cloud hanging over my head I probably would have been as happy as the rest of the passengers had become.

  The cloud, of course, being Bradley.

  I’d been wrong about how much his improvement had been due to the drugs Lanton had been giving him, and every time I saw him that ill-considered line about playing his mind like a yo-yo came back to haunt me. Slowly, but very steadily, Bradley was regressing back toward his original mental state. His face went first, his expressions beginning to crowd each other again as if he were unable to decide which of several moods should be expressed at any given moment. His eyes took on that shining, nervous look I hated so much: just occasionally at first, but gradually becoming more and more frequent, until it seemed to be almost his norm. And yet, even though he certainly saw what was happening to him, not once did I hear him say anything that could be taken as resentment or complaint. It was as if the chance to save twenty other lives was so important to him that it was worth any sacrifice. I thought occasionally about Alana’s comment that he’d never before had a sense of dignity, and wondered if he would lose it again to his illness. But I didn’t wonder about it all that much; I was too busy worrying about Alana.

  I hadn’t expected her to take Bradley’s regression well, of course – to someone with Alana’s wing-mending instincts a backsliding patient would be both insult and injury. What I wasn’t prepared for was her abrupt withdrawal into a shell of silence on the issue which no amount of gentle probing could crack open. I tried to be patient with her, figuring that eventually the need to talk would overcome her reticence; but as the day for what Lanton described as “minor surgery” approached, I finally decided I couldn’t wait any longer. On the day after our sixth cascade point, I quit being subtle and forced the issue.

  “Whatever I’m feeling, it isn’t any concern of yours,” she said, her fingers playing across the bridge controls as she prepared to take over from me. Her hands belied the calmness in her voice: I knew her usual check-out routine as well as my own, and she lost the sequence no fewer than three times as I watched.

  “I think it is,” I told her. “Aside from questions of friendship, you’re a member of my crew, and anything that might interfere with your efficiency is my concern.”

  She snorted. “I’ve been under worse strains than this without falling apart.”

  “I know. But you’ve never buried yourself this deeply before, and it worries me.”

  “I know. I’m . . . sorry. If I could put it into words – ” She shrugged helplessly.

  “Are you worried about Bradley?” I prompted. “Don’t forget that, whatever Lanton has to do here, he’ll have all the resources of the Swedish Psychiatric Institute available to undo it.”

  “I know. But . . . he’s going to come out of it a different person. Even Lanton has to admit that.”

  “Well . . . maybe it’ll wind up being a change for the better.”

  It was a stupid remark, and her scornful look didn’t make me feel any better about having made it. “Oh, come on. Have you ever heard of an injury that did any real good? Because that’s what it’s going to be – an injury.”

  And suddenly I understood. “You’re afraid you won’t like him afterwards, aren’t you? At least not the way you do now?”

  “Why should that be so unreasonable?” she snapped. “I’m a damn fussy person, you know – I don’t like an awful lot of people. I can’t afford to . . . to lose any of them.” She turned her back on me abruptly, and I saw her shoulders shake once.

  I waited a decent interval before speaking. “Look, Alana, you’re not in any shape to stay up here alone. Why don’t you go down to your cabin and pull yourself together, and then go and spend some time with Bradley.”

  “I’m a
ll right,” she mumbled. “I can take my shift.”

  “I know. But . . . at the moment I imagine Rik needs you more than I do. Go on, get below.”

  She resisted for a few more minutes, but eventually I bent her sense of duty far enough and she left. For a long time afterwards I just sat and stared at the stars, my thoughts whistling around my head in tight orbit. What would the effect of the new Bradley be on Alana? She’d been right – whatever happened, it wasn’t likely to be an improvement. If her interest was really only in wing-mending, Lanton’s work would merely provide her with a brand-new challenge. But I didn’t think even Alana was able to fool herself like that any more. She cared about him, for sure, and if he changed too much that feeling might well die.

  And I wouldn’t lose her when we landed.

  I thought about it long and hard, examining it and the rest of our situation from several angles. Finally, I leaned forward and keyed the intercom. Wilkinson was off-duty in his cabin; from the time it took him to answer he must have been asleep as well. “Wilkinson, you got a good look at the damage in Lanton’s neural whatsis machine. How hard would it be to fix?”

  “Uh . . . well, that’s hard to say. The thing that spit goop all over the Ming-metal coil was a standard voltage regulator board – we’re bound to have spares aboard But there may be other damage, too. I’d have to run an analyser over it to find out if anything else is dead. Whether we would have replacements is another question.”

  “Okay. Starting right now, you’re relieved of all other duty until you’ve got that thing running again. Use anything you need from ship’s spares – ” I hesitated – “and you can even pirate from our cargo if necessary.”

  “Yes, sir.” He was wide awake now. “I gather there’s a deadline?”

  “Lanton’s going to be doing some ultrasound work on Bradley in fifty-eight hours. You need to be done before that. Oh, and you’ll need to work in Lanton’s cabin – I don’t want the machine moved at all.”

  “Got it. If you’ll clear it with Lanton, I can be up there in twenty minutes.”

  Lanton wasn’t all that enthusiastic about letting Wilkinson set up shop in his cabin, especially when I wouldn’t explain my reasons to him, but eventually he gave in. I alerted Kate Epstein that she would have to do without Wilkinson for a while, and then called Matope to confirm the project’s access to tools and spares.

  And then, for the time being, it was all over but the waiting. I resumed my examination of the viewport, wondering if I were being smart or just pipe-dreaming.

  Two days later – barely eight hours before Bradley’s operation was due to begin – Wilkinson finally reported the neural tracer was once again operational.

  “This better be important,” Lanton fumed as he took his place at the dining room table. “I’m already behind schedule in my equipment set-up as it is.”

  I glanced around at the others before replying. Pascal and Chileogu, fresh from their latest attempt at making sense from their assortment of plots, seemed tired and irritated by this interruption. Bradley and Alana, holding hands tightly under the table, looked more resigned than anything else. Everyone seemed a little gaunt, but that was probably my imagination – certainly we weren’t on anything approaching starvation rations yet. “Actually, Doctor,” I said, looking back at Lanton, “you’re not in nearly the hurry you think. There’s not going to be any operation.”

  That got everyone’s full attention. “You’ve found another way?” Alana breathed, a hint of life touching her eyes for the first time in days.

  “I think so. Dr Chileogu, I need to know first whether a current running through Ming metal would change its effect on the ship’s real rotation.”

  He frowned, then shrugged. “Probably. I have no idea how, though.”

  A good thing I’d had the gadget fixed, then. “Doesn’t matter. Dr Lanton, can you tell me approximately when in the cascade point your neural tracer burned out?”

  “I can tell you exactly. It was just as the images started disappearing, right at the end.”

  I nodded; I’d hoped it was either the turning on or off of the field generator that had done it. That would make the logistics a whole lot easier. “Good. Then we’re all set. What we’re going to do, you see, is reenact that particular maneuver.”

  “What good will that do?” Lanton asked, his tone more puzzled than belligerent.

  “It should get us home.” I waved towards the outer hull. “For the past two days we’ve been moving toward a position where the galactic field and other parameters are almost exactly the same as we had when we went through that point – providing your neural tracer is on and we’re heading back toward Taimyr. In another two days we’ll turn around and get our velocity vector lined up correctly. Then, with your tracer running, we’re going to fire up the generator and rotate the same amount – by gyro reading – as we did then. You – ” I leveled a finger at Lanton – “will be on the bridge during that operation, and you will note the exact configuration of your cascade images at that moment. Then, without shutting off the generator, we’ll rotate back to zero; zero as defined by your cascade pattern, since it may be different from gyro zero. At that time, I’ll take the Ming metal from your tracer, walk it to the number one hold, and stuff it into the cargo shield; and we’ll rotate the ship again until we reach your memorized cascade pattern. Since the physical and real rotations are identical in that configuration, that’ll give us the real angle we rotated through the last time – ”

  “And from that we can figure the angle we’ll need to make going the other direction!” Alana all but shouted.

  I nodded. “Once we’ve rotated back to zero to regain our starting point, of course.” I looked around at them again. Lanton and Bradley still seemed confused, though the latter was starting to catch Alana’s enthusiasm. Chileogu was scribbling on a notepad, and Pascal just sat there with his mouth slightly open. Probably astonished that he hadn’t come up with such a crazy idea himself. “That’s all I have to say,” I told them. “If you have any comments later – ”

  “I have one now, Captain.”

  I looked at Bradley in some surprise. “Yes?”

  He swallowed visibly. “It seems to me, sir, that what you’re going to need is a set of cascade images that vary a lot, so that the pattern you’re looking for is a distinctive one. I don’t think Dr Lanton’s are suitable for that.”

  “I see.” Of course; while Lanton had been studying Bradley’s images, Bradley couldn’t help but see his, as well. “Lanton? How about it?”

  The psychiatrist shrugged. “I admit they’re a little bland – haven’t had a very exciting life. But they’ll do.”

  “I doubt it.” Bradley looked back at me. “Captain, I’d like to volunteer.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” I told him. “Each rotation will take twice as long as the ones you’ve already been through. And there’ll be two of them back to back; and the field won’t be shut down between them, because I want to know if the images drift while I’m moving the coil around the ship. Multiply by about five what you’ve felt afterwards and you’ll get some idea what it’ll be like.” I shook my head. “I’m grateful for your offer, but I can’t let more people than necessary go through that.”

  “I appreciate that. But I’m still going to do it.’

  We locked eyes for a long moment . . . and the word dignity flashed through my mind. “In that case, I accept.” I said. “Other questions? Thank you for stopping by.”

  They got the message and began standing up . . . all except Alana. Bradley whispered something to her, but she shook her head and whispered back. Reluctantly, he let go of her hand and followed the others out of the room.

  “Question?” I asked Alana when we were alone, bracing for an argument over the role I was letting Bradley take.

  “You’re right about the extra stress staying in Colloton space that long will create,” she said. “That probably goes double for anyone running around in
it. I’d expect a lot more vertigo, for starters, and that could make movement dangerous.”

  “Would you rather Bradley had his brain scorched?”

  She flinched, but stood her ground. “My objection isn’t with the method – it’s with who’s going to be bouncing off the Dancer’s walls.”

  “Oh. Well, before you get the idea you’re being left out of things, let me point out that you’re going to be handling bridge duties for the maneuver.”

  “Fine; but since I’m going to be up anyway I want the job of running the Ming metal back and forth instead.”

  I shook my head. “No. You’re right about the unknowns involved with this, which is why I’m going to do it.”

  “I’m five years younger than you are,” she said, ticking off fingers. “I also have a higher stress index, better balance, and I’m in better physical condition.” She hesitated. “And I’m not haunted by white uniforms in my cascade images,” she added gently.

  Coming from anyone else, that last would have been like a knife in the gut. But from Alana, it somehow didn’t even sting. “The assignments are non-negotiable,” I said, getting to my feet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch a little sleep before my next shift.”

  She didn’t respond. When I left she was still sitting there, staring through the shiny surface of the table.

  “Here we go. Good luck,” were the last words I heard Alana say before the intercom was shut down and I was alone in Lanton’s cabin. Alone, but not for long: a moment later my first doubles appeared. Raising my wrist, I keyed my chrono to stopwatch mode and waited, ears tingling with the faint ululation of the Colloton field generator. The sound, inaudible from the bridge, reminded me of my trainee days, before the Dancer . . . before Lord Hendrik and his fool-headed kid . . . Shaking my head sharply, I focused on the images, waiting for them to begin their one-dimensional allemande.