Passage

by Connie Willis

  “No cute little nurses, huh?” Davis said. “That’s because you’re in the wrong specialty. I got ’em lined up out the door.” Knowing Davis, he probably did. “Of course, there’s another explanation.”

  “For having women lined up out the door?” Richard said.

  “No,” Davis said, “for everybody associated with NDE research suddenly becoming true believers. Maybe it’s all true, the tunnel and heaven and the soul, and there really is an afterlife.” He began humming again, the same weird nontune as he had hummed on the answering machine.

  “What is that ungodly sound supposed to be? The Twilight Zone?”

  Davis snorted. “It’s the theme from The X-Files. It’s a possibility, you know. The NDEers are right, and when we die we end up surrounded by Precious Moments figurines. In which case, I for one am not going.”

  “Me neither,” Richard said, laughing.

  “And I’d appreciate you calling and warning me so I can get started on immortality research right away.”

  “I will,” Richard promised. There was a knock on the door. Richard looked up eagerly. “Gotta go,” he said, hung up, and hurried across the lab to open the door.

  “Ah, Dr. Wright,” Mr. Mandrake said, coming into the lab, “I was hoping you’d be here. We didn’t have a chance to talk yesterday.”

  Richard resisted the impulse to look wildly around for an exit. “I’m afraid now isn’t a good time—”

  Mr. Mandrake walked over to the RIPT scan. “Is this what you hope to capture the NAE with?” he asked, peering underneath its arch-shaped dome. “You won’t be able to, you know. The NAE can’t be photographed.”

  Like ghosts? Richard thought. And UFOs?

  “Any number of researchers have already tried to find a physical cause that can explain the NAE, you know,” he said. “Carbon-dioxide buildup, endorphins, random firing of synapses.” He gave the RIPT scan a dismissive tap and walked over to the EEG. “There are a number of NAE phenomena that science cannot explain.”

  Name one, Richard thought.

  “How do you explain the fact that every person who has experienced the NAE says that it was not a dream, that it really happened?”

  Subjective experience is hardly proof of anything, Richard thought.

  “And how could endorphins or CO2 buildup confer knowledge on the subject experiencing the NAE?” Mr. Mandrake asked. “Knowledge that scientists agree the subject could not have attained by normal means?”

  What scientists? Richard thought. Dr. Foxx? Dr. Seagal?

  “A number of my subjects have reported seeing a relative on the Other Side whom they thought was alive and being surprised to see them there,” Mandrake said. “When the subjects returned, they telephoned family members and were informed that the relative had just died. In each of these cases, there was no way the subject could have known about the relative’s death in advance.”

  “Do you have a list of their names?” Richard asked.

  “It would be highly unprofessional for me to release the names of the subjects of my studies,” Mr. Mandrake said disapprovingly, “but there have been numerous documented instances of the phenomenon.”

  “Really?” Richard said. “In which journals?”

  “The scientific establishment is unfortunately extremely narrow-minded when it comes to publishing the results of near-death research,” Mr. Mandrake said stiffly. “Except for a few brave pioneers like Dr. Seagal and Dr. Lander, they cannot see the greater realities which lie around them.”

  At the mention of Joanna’s name, Richard glanced at the clock again. Ten-thirty.

  “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ ” Mr. Mandrake said. “There have also been numerous cases of returned NAEers displaying paranormal gifts. One of my subjects—”

  “This really isn’t a good time,” Richard said. “I have a phone call I need to make, so if you’ll excuse me—” He picked up the phone.

  “Of course,” Mr. Mandrake said. “I must go see Mrs. Davenport. I’ll be eager to discuss your findings with you.”

  He exited. Richard started to put the phone down and then picked it up again and began punching in Amelia Tanaka’s number as Mr. Mandrake reappeared. “I wanted you to have a copy of The Light at the End of the Tunnel,” he said, reaching for Richard’s pen. “No, no, don’t let me interrupt your call.” He waved to Richard to keep dialing. “It’s Wright with a W, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Richard said, punching in the rest of the number. It began to ring. Mandrake scrawled something on the title page. “Ms. Tanaka?” Richard said into the phone. “This is Dr. Wright.”

  Mr. Mandrake shut the book and handed it to Richard. “I think you’ll find it useful,” he said and started out.

  “Just returning your call, Ms. Tanaka,” Richard said to the continued ringing. “Yes. Eleven o’clock.” And I hope you’re passing your anatomy exam, he thought. “Right. No, that won’t be a problem.”

  Mr. Mandrake went out, shutting the door behind him. Richard hung up the phone and looked at the clock. Ten forty-five. Joanna definitely wasn’t coming.

  He opened the book to see what Mandrake had written. “To aid you in your journey,” it read, “into death and beyond.” Is that supposed to be a threat? Richard wondered.

  There was a knock on the door. No doubt Mandrake, back to tell him some other reason CO2 buildup couldn’t cause an NDE. He snatched up the phone again and called, “Yes, come in.”

  Joanna opened the door. “I’m sorry I’m late—oh, you’re on the phone.”

  “No, I’m not,” he said and hung up. “Come in, come in.”

  “I am sorry I’m late,” she said. “Did you get my message?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, well, I left you a message, but I fully intended to be here at ten to talk to you.” She’s not going to do it, he thought. She just came to tell me she’s not interested. “But I had to go see Maisie, and I had trouble getting away from her.” She shook her head, smiling. “As usual.”

  “She still talking about the Hindenburg?” he asked. It was only delaying the inevitable, but maybe if they talked, she’d change her mind.

  She nodded. “Did you know a number of children who’d come to the airfield to meet their parents saw them plunge burning to their deaths?”

  “I was not aware of that,” Richard said. “She really goes for the gory details, doesn’t she? Is that what she wanted to see you about?”

  “No,” Joanna said. “She found me an account of an NDE connected to the Hindenburg, and I needed to ask her about it. I wanted to know if the account of it was secondhand and if it was written at the time or sometime after.”

  “Did Maisie know?”

  She shook her head. “Her books didn’t say anything about the circumstances, or the name of the crewman, but she said she’d try to find out.”

  “And this NDE was a crewman on the Hindenburg? He coded during the crash and had an NDE?”

  “No, a vision,” Joanna said. “He had it while he was hanging on to the metal framework up inside the burning zeppelin.”

  “But he saw a tunnel and angels?”

  “No, a whale and a birdcage. It doesn’t have any of the standard imagery, but that’s why it’s interesting. It predates Moody and company, so the imagery hasn’t been contaminated, and yet there are definite correspondences to the typical NDE. He hears a sound—the scream of tearing metal—and sees his grandmother and a dazzling white light that he interprets as snowfields. And there are a number of images that parallel the life review. It could be really useful, but I don’t want to get my hopes up until I know how and when he gave his account. It could all be confabulation, especially if he gave the account several weeks or months after the crash.

  “Anyway,” she said, pushing her glasses up on her nose, “getting away from Maisie took a while, and then, as I was on my way here, I saw Mr. Mandrake headed for your lab.”

  And you duc
ked into the nearest stairway, Richard thought. “What did he want?” she asked. “Did he try and pump you about your project?”

  “No. He was more interested in telling me why it was doomed to fail.”

  “Which speech was it? His ‘Mere science cannot explain the NAE’ speech, his ‘If it looks real, that proves it’s real’ rant, or the ‘more things in heaven and earth’ speech?”

  “All of the above,” Richard said. “He told me there were documented cases of people receiving knowledge during NDEs they couldn’t have known otherwise.”

  She nodded. “One of the people waiting to greet them is Aunt Ethel, and when they’re revived they call Minnesota and discover that, in fact, Aunt Ethel was just killed in a car accident.”

  “So there are cases?”

  She shook her head. “Those stories have been around since the days of the Victorian spiritualists, but there’s no documentation. They’re all either thirdhand—somebody knew somebody who told him it had happened to his Aunt Ethel—or the whole thing was conveniently reported after the call from Minnesota reporting the death, and last names are always conveniently left out ‘for the privacy of the subjects,’ so there’s no way to verify or disprove the story. Plus, no one ever bothers to report seeing someone on the Other Side who later turns out not to be dead. Did Mr. Mandrake mention W. T. Stead?”

  “No. Who’s that?”

  “A famous spiritualist and psychic who wasn’t all that psychic, as it turned out, or he’d never have booked passage on the Titanic. Every other psychic and medium in the business later claimed they’d had visions or premonitions of his death, but not one of them thought to mention it until after the sinking hit the front page, with Stead listed among the lost. And the last person who spoke to Stead reported that when he was told the ship had hit an iceberg, he said, ‘I suppose it’s nothing much.’ ” She frowned. “Mr. Mandrake didn’t ask you about your project?”

  “He looked at the RIPT scan and the EEG, but he didn’t ask any questions. Why? Should he have?”

  She was still frowning. “He spends half his time snooping around trying to find out who my patients are so he can get to them first. He didn’t ask you anything?”

  “No. When he first came in, he said he wanted to discuss the project, but then he launched into how physical explanations couldn’t account for the NDE, and from there to the narrow-mindedness of the scientific establishment. Except for brave pioneers like you and Dr. Seagal.”

  “You didn’t tell him we were going to be working together, did you?” Joanna asked.

  “No,” he said, trying not to show the sudden uprush of delight he felt. “Are we?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “No, my answering machine—”

  “Oh, well, I said yes, I’d like to work with you on your project. Actually, I think I said, ‘All right, I’ll do it,’ or something equally cryptic. I left the message last night.”

  Not, “Ah, forget it.” “All right.” “Great,” he said, and grinned. “I’m delighted. It’s going to be great working together.”

  “I want to keep interviewing patients who come into the hospital, too,” she said, “unless you think that’s a bad idea.”

  “No, the more data we have on actual NDEs, the more we’ll be able to tell how ours compare. I only schedule one or two sessions a day, because of the time it takes to analyze the scans. I’m sure we can work around your schedule.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Great,” he said. “I’ll talk to the grants office this afternoon about making it official.”

  She nodded. “Great. Only don’t tell Mr. Mandrake. The longer we can keep it from him, the less time I’ll have to spend trying to avoid him. So,” she smiled at him, “you want to show me the setup?”

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ve got one of my volunteers coming in in about,” he glanced at the clock. A quarter past eleven. “Any time now. In the meantime,” he led her over to the console, “this is the scan console. The images show up here,” he said, pointing to the bank of monitors above the console. “This is the brain in a normal working state,” he said, typing instructions onto the keyboard, and the screen lit up with an orange, yellow, and blue image. He typed some more. “And this is the brain in a REM-sleep dreaming state. See how the prefrontal cortex—that’s the area of waking thought and reality-testing—and the sensory-input areas show almost no activity. And this,” he typed again, “is the brain in an NDE-state, or at least what I hope is an NDE-state.”

  Joanna pushed her glasses up on her nose and peered at the screen. “It looks similar to the dream state.”

  “Yes, but there’s no activity at all in the prefrontal cortex and increased activity in the anterior lobe, here,” he said, pointing to the red areas, “and in the hippocampus and amygdala.”

  “And those are the long-term memories?” she asked, pointing to a scattering of pinpoint red and orange in the frontal cortex.

  “Yes.” He blanked out the screens and called up Mr. O’Reirdon’s scan. “This is the template scan,” he said, typing, “and this is the scan from Mr. Wojakowski’s first session.” He superimposed them on a third screen. “You can see the pattern, except for the activity in the frontal cortex, is similar, but not identical. Which is one of the reasons I need you on the project.”

  He went over to the scan and put his hand on the arch-shaped dome. “And this is the RIPT scan. The subject lies down here,” he indicated the examining table, “under the scan, and then it’s positioned above the head. The tracer and then a short-term sedative and the dithetamine are fed in through an IV, and blood samples are taken before, during, and after the NDE. I have a nurse assist. I’ve been using a floater.”

  Joanna was looking thoughtfully at the arch-shaped opening. “Problem?” Richard asked.

  She nodded. “It looks like a tunnel. Is there a way to cover it, put something in front of it till the subject is in place? You want to eliminate any possible physical explanations for the vision.”

  “Sure. Can do.”

  She was looking up at the ceiling. “Do you need that overhead light during the procedure?”

  “No,” he said, “but the subject’s eyes are covered.”

  “With what?”

  “A black sleep mask,” he said. He got one out of the cabinet to show her. “They also wear headphones, through which white noise is fed.”

  “Good,” she said, “but I also think we should mask the light. Garland’s explanation for the bright light NDEers see is that it’s the light above the operating table, and the reason it’s blindingly bright is because their pupils are dilated.”

  Richard looked happily at her. “This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping you’d help me with. I’ll get some black paper over it right away. We’re going to make a great team.”

  Joanna smiled back at him, then walked over and looked at the gunmetal-gray supply cabinet and the tall wooden glass-doored medicine cupboard, left over from an earlier hospital era, her hands on her hips. “Is there anything else you want changed?” Richard asked.

  “No,” she said. “Added.” She reached in her cardigan pocket and pulled out an object wrapped loosely in newspaper. “This is our tennis shoe.”

  “Tennis shoe?” Richard said, looking at the newspaper-wrapped object. It was clearly not big enough to be a shoe, unless it was a child’s.

  “Hasn’t Mr. Mandrake told you about the shoe yet?” she said. “I’m surprised. He tells everybody how the shoe is scientific proof of the reality of NDEs. Even more than Aunt Ethel.”

  She stuck the newspaper-wrapped object back in her pocket and went over to his desk. “A woman named Maria coded during an operation.” She pulled his chair out. “Afterward, she reported floating above her body on the examining table, and she described the procedures they were doing to her in highly accurate detail.”

  “A number of patients have done that,” he said. “Described th
e intubation and the paddles. But couldn’t they have gotten that information from previous hospital visits?”

  “Or from an episode of ER,” Joanna said dryly. “Maria described something else, though, and it constitutes the ‘scientific proof’ Mr. Mandrake’s always referring to.” She pushed the chair over in front of the gunmetal cabinet. “Maria said that when she was up near the ceiling, she saw a shoe on a ledge outside the window, a red tennis shoe.” She stepped up on the chair, looked at the top of the cabinet, frowning, and stepped back down. “The shoe wasn’t visible from any other part of the room, but when the doctor went up to the next floor and leaned all the way out of the window, there it was.”

  “Which proved that the soul had actually left the body and was hovering above it,” Richard said.

  “And, by extension, that everything the subject experiences in an NDE is real and not just a hallucination.” She dragged the chair over to the wooden medicine cupboard and stepped up on it. “Pretty convincing, huh? The only problem is, it never happened. When researchers tried to verify it, it turned out there was no such event, no such patient, no such hospital.”

  She withdrew the newspaper-wrapped object from her pocket. “Of course, even if it had been a true story, it wouldn’t have proved anything. The shoe could have been visible from some other part of the hospital, or the patient or the NDE researcher could have put it there. If and when a subject tells us he saw this,” she said, holding up the object, “I’ll consider the possibility that he really was out of his body.”

  “What is it?” Richard asked.

  “Something no one’s likely to guess,” she said, leaning forward on tiptoe and stretching up to place it on top of the cupboard. “Including you. If you don’t know, you can’t accidentally communicate the knowledge to anyone.” She wadded up the newspaper and stepped back down. “I’ll give you a clue,” she said, dropping the crumpled paper into his hand. “It’s not a shoe.” She turned and looked speculatively at the clock on the wall.