The compleat collected s.., p.376
The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 376
Certainly no one had shown him a picture of the improbably marked pink and gray nightmare that had been the young allosaurus which had attacked and ultimately killed him.
To dream the lifetime of a brontosaurus—which could cover anything up to a couple of centuries—in such detail indicated a very fertile imagination. Considering the paucity of material available to him and the many, many years of cold dreaming that stretched ahead, the thought of what might happen in his dream future scared him stiff.
The dreams were supposed to keep his mind alive in an otherwise dead and deep-frozen body, but if the dreams were to become centuries-long nightmares the mind they kept alive might not remain sane.
He wondered if it would be possible for the dreamer to exercise more control over his dream, to make it more pleasant and to shut out the nightmarish aspects. In the last dream he, personally, had been aware of what had been going on. He had viewed the events and experienced the sensations as an intelligent being, even though the giant saurian, with two rudimentary brains to control its far-flung limbs and musculature, had not had enough intelligence to learn by observation rather than experience to avoid danger.
But if Devlin had taken a more active part in the dream he should have been able to make his enormous, brainless and insubstantial monster avoid the allosaurus, or he should at least have made it stay where it was—on dry ground—for a couple of days while the sunlight and fresh air healed the wounded leg, instead of dragging it through that stinking swamp ...
A DULL shock, unpleasant but not painful, jolted his body and instinctively he opened his eyes.
DUE TO SLOW RESPONSE YOUR AWAKENING HAS BEEN STIMULATED ELECTRICALLY. IF THERE IS ANY DISORIENTATION OR OCCLUSION OF MEMORY REGARDING EARLY BASIC INSTRUCTIONS PRESS FIRMLY ON PEDAL BELOW LEFT FOOT FOR BASIC REORIENTATION MATERIAL.
IF PEDAL IS NOT DEPRESSED IN TEN SECONDS IT IS ASSUMED THAT NO DISORIENTATION OR MEMORY IMPAIRMENT IS PRESENT AND CURRENT MISSION INFORMATION/INSTRUCTIONS WILL FOLLOW.
"You think," said Devlin drily, "of nearly everything."
GOOD MORNING DEVLIN. SHIP STATUS THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE YEARS INTO MISSION. SHIP PERSONNEL CURRENTLY AWAKE—ONE POSSIBLY TWO. IDENTITIES JOHN DEVLIN AND YVONNE CALDWELL.
Only forty-one years since his last cooldown. It could hardly be another fly-by—and the Caldwell girl was one of the colonists.
REASONS FOR AWAKENING. TO CHECK ON POSSIBLE ORGANIC MALFUNCTION IN CUBICLE THIRTY-ONE BLUE MODULE. TO CHECK FUNCTIONING OF DEVLIN MUSCLE SYSTEMS, CIRCULATION, SPEECH ORGAN AND MEMORY.
PERIOD OF AWAKENING DEPENDENT ON TIME NECESSARY TO CHECK MALFUNCTION. NO FOOD INTAKE UNLESS PERIOD EXCEEDS TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
Devlin had already begun the initial exercises when the display flashed another message.
CARRY OUT INSTRUCTIONS SPEAK, EXERCISE, REMEMBER AND CHECK MALFUNCTION.
And another.
ADDITIONAL TO INSTRUCTION EXERCISE. COMPLY WITH THIS INSTRUCTION ON WAY TO CONTROL CENTER AND TO SITE OF MALFUNCTION. INSTRUCTIONS SPEAK AND REMEMBER TO PROCEED IN CONJUNCTION WITH INSTRUCTIONS EXERCISE AND CHECK MALFUNCTION. INFORMATION REGARDING MALFUNCTION IS AVAILABLE IN THE CONTROL CENTER.
ADDITIONAL TO INSTRUCTION REMEMBER. AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE TO BE SPENT IN RECALLING DAY IN DEVLIN RECENT PAST. RECALL SHOULD BE COMPLETE AND ACCURATE. IF TIME BEFORE COOLDOWN PERMITS, RECALL ASSOCIATED MEMORIES AND CHECK FOR GAPS.
"If the malfunction is serious," said Devlin angrily, "I might not be able to think of anything else."
When he reached the control center the colonist status display for the Blue module told him that the colonists had all been awakened three times. All the lights were pale blue because the people in that, and in the other three modules, were not required to make observations or decisions or deal with emergencies. All they could do was exercise their minds and bodies on each awakening and very occasionally eat.
Three pale blue Exercise Awakening lights burned steadily against Blue 31, indicating three successful awakenings and subsequent cool-downs. But a fourth light winked off and on as if it could not make up its mind.
INFORMATION ON POSSIBLE ORGANIC MALFUNCTION IN BLUE THIRTY-ONE. ELAPSED TIME SINCE LAST WARMUP ONE HOUR TWELVE MINUTES. CUBICLE SENSORS INDICATED INCREASING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND SPEECH UNTIL FIVE SECONDS BEFORE COOLDOWN. SENSORS REGISTERED VIBRATIONS AND INTERMITTENT STRESS ON CUBICLE DOOR. NO STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. NO CIRCUIT DAMAGE. NO ACTIVATION OF EMERGENCY HOLD CONTROL. COOLDOWN INITIATED. DATA RECEIVED FROM ORGANIC SENSORS UNSATISFACTORY. ORGANIC DAMAGE SUSPECTED. EMERGENCY WARMUP OF CREW MEMBER DEVLIN INITIATED.
WARNING. HUMAN INVESTIGATION OF MALFUNCTION REQUIRES USE OF THERMAL SUIT.
Five minutes to don the thermal suit, Devlin estimated, and another five to strap on the air tank and heater and perhaps another minute to put the tools of his trade into an insulated container. The organic malfunction could be serious or trivial, but he did not want the organism concerned to complain later about being jabbed with a needle that had a temperature close to absolute zero. Then there would be another ten minutes getting from the control center to the Blue module and cracking the cubicle seal.
DOUBLE-CHECK THERMAL SUIT SEALING, AIR SUPPLY AND HEATING SYSTEM.
He lost another minute doing as he had been told, but made it up on the way to Blue 31.
As in the other colonist modules, heating was used only during the periodic awakenings and was confined to the cubicles. Devlin was not really aware of the absolute, killing cold outside his suit until he bent his arm to activate the seal release and the revivification Hold switch. The lining of his thermal suit creased in the fold of his arm, compressing the insulating foam, and for a moment he thought that his elbow joint would seize up and the blood in the area congeal.
AT FIRST glance it looked as though the girl were kneeling in prayer beside her casket. Her head and arms were inside, held there by the edge of the hinged flap which, for some reason, was in the closed vertical position. Obviously she had been trying to climb into the closed casket when cooldown began and the radiation had hit her. That radiation was potent stuff and was designed to achieve molecular arrest and plunge the subject to a temperature close to absolute zero so quickly that cell damage could not occur—and it was focused only on the contents of the casket. As a result her head, arms and body down to a level slightly below the waist had been reprocessed in the normal way while the rest of her had cooled not so rapidly.
Devlin swore and moved closer to carry out a quick visual examination.
She was small and slim and looked to be about eighteen. Her eyes were open and there were two thin patches of ice on her cheeks where tears had frozen. He saw indications of bruisings on the outside edges of her hands and on her knuckles, as if she had been beating at something with her fists, but no other outward signs of physical injury.
Very carefully he lifted her into the casket—in the cooled-down condition human tissue was brittle and highly susceptible to damage. She lay with her knees projecting above the edge while her arms reached grotesquely upward, like one of the undressed female window-display models he used to stare at as a growing boy when he thought his mother wasn't looking. They, too, had been cold and stiff and unbelievably lifelike, but none of the display staff had thought of giving them plastic tears. When he was sure that all of her body was in radiation focus he went outside and canceled the revivification Hold.
Like the cooldown treatment, the radiation designed to reverse the process was also potent stuff and deadly to anyone who was already revived.
When he went in again she was not yet conscious. He moved her into a more comfortable position and replaced the arm hanging over the edge of the casket. The heaters had raised the temperature sufficiently for him to do without his suit and by the time he had opened the helmet she was coming awake. He pulled off his gauntlets and put his hand to her forehead.
"Relax," he said gently. "Do not make any sudden movements."
Her eyes opened and she said, "I'm cold. My legs are asleep and my hands—"
"That," lied Devlin quietly, "is because you woke up before they did."
Her respiration was normal and the partial and premature cooldown had not affected mentation, but, considering her position at the time, that was not surprising. He thought that her hands must have slipped over the opposite side of the casket during the cooldown instant and dropped back inside when she had slipped backward.
Suddenly she smiled and said apologetically, "I was stupid. It wasn't claustrophobia or anything—I just wanted to see Brian for a minute. The display said we were three hundred years older and I thought something might have happened to him in all that time. I wanted ... I even beat on the door with my fists before I realized how stupid that was. By then it was only a few seconds from cooldown and I rushed to the casket so quickly that my knee hit the flap and knocked it shut and the computer thought I was in it and—"
"So that's how it happened," said Devlin.
She nodded and said, "I'm still very cold."
"I'll get you some warm food," said Devlin, going to the dispenser. "Don't move. I'll feed you. But talk as much as you want to."
"The computer didn't say that I could eat—" she began doubtfully.
"Doctor's orders," said Devlin.
She obviously enjoyed the hot meal, even though she seemed to be increasingly ill at ease and her color was high. Apparently she had become aware of the fact that there was a man in her cubicle who was not her Brian—and that the suspension garment was little more than a collection of holes held together by fine wire. But the flush stopped short below waist level and a few inches above her wrists. And the areas of bluish white skin bordering these lines of demarcation were increasing perceptibly as he watched.
Circulation had already ceased at the extremities and she had only a few minutes to live.
"Brian is doing fine," said Devlin, keeping his eyes on her face. "If anything had gone wrong, in his cubicle I would have been awakened to deal with it, just as in your case. But I'm afraid all you'll be able to do is dream about him for a while."
She smiled again. "All I seem to dream about is being a lady dinosaur."
"They made you read that book, too?"
She shook her head slowly. "They told me to, but I didn't and read a historical romance instead. Learning about dinosaurs isn't useful to a colonist so I didn't bother, but I still dreamed about being one so clearly that—" She broke off. Her breathing became labored and uneven and she looked suddenly frightened. She said, "I'm terribly cold. What—what's happening to me?"
"You'll be all right," said Devlin reassuringly and put his hand on her forehead again. "You're doing fine."
A few minutes later he closed her eyes and left the cubicle.
HE TRIED not to let her face and figure and her manner register with him as he shut down the computer outlet and suspension equipment and for a while he thought that he had succeeded. In the old days he used to have no trouble forgetting that kind of thing—perhaps because there had been so much of it. But recently his memory had become unusually retentive—even when he was only remembering dreams—and he could no longer trust himself to forget.
By the time he had returned to central control and stowed the thermal suit, less than two hours had passed since his awakening. The status display for Blue 31 now read:
ORGANIC FAILURE.
Devlin tapped instructions for his own cooldown in one hour and returned to his cubicle.
His instructions were waiting.
REMAINING TIME BEFORE COOL-DOWN TO BE SPENT REMEMBERING ONE DAY IN DEVLIN RECENT PAST. RECALL SHOULD BE COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AND INCLUDE ASSOCIATED MEMORIES. IF TIME AVAILABLE IS INSUFFICIENT COOLDOWN HOLD SHOULD BE ACTIVATED UNTIL RECALL IS COMPLETE.
Chapter Five
EVERY day he awoke in a room not much larger than the star-ship suspension cubicle which, at that time, was still in his future. His room expanded considerably when the bed folded into its wall recess to become a set of well-filled bookshelves—glassed in, of course, to keep the books from falling out when it was being used as a bed—and contracted again when the dining table and stool came out. But he did not notice the cramped conditions or the pitifully few touches he had been able to give the place to express his individuality, or the taste of the food he pushed in the general direction of his face, because normally he did not come fully awake until he had been up and about for at least an hour.
By that time he had tidied up, converted the room to its daytime mode and unlocked the waiting room in readiness for morning surgery. The waiting room was the largest of the three, holding up to nine people uncomfortably, and his office was the smallest. Into this shoebox were fitted an examination couch, a combination desk and drug cabinet and a folding chair for patients who were well enough not to have to lie down.
Behind his desk the imitation window was transmitting a picture of the surrounding apartment buildings, rising like bottomless pillars from the early morning smog. The clock on his office wall was showing six-thirty when the patients began to arrive—hobbling, sniffing, coughing and occasionally bleeding.
In a medium-sized block of apartments aggregating two thousand rooms and an average of three potential patients per room, infections of the upper respiratory tract were circulated like money. To these cases he dispensed a face mask, which the majority of them would not wear, with small doses of the indicated medication and sympathy. The sympathy was an optional extra—his option, not his patients—and the dosage varied in direct proportion to the amount of sleep he had had the previous night, the quantity of residual alcohol still in his system and various psychological factors.
When the patient was old and/or disturbed he tried to dispense constructive sympathy no matter how rotten he felt, because that was the only form of treatment available to him and he was always trying to bring down the suicide rate in the building.
The first of the walking wounded arrived on the arm of a girl who helped him on to the examination couch and returned to the waiting room without speaking. Devlin judged the patient to be in his early twenties, still partially in shock and, judging by the outraged expression on his face, a bystander. The right leg of his evening coveralls was bloodstained below the knee and had been ripped open to show an even more bloodstained towel knotted tightly around the wound. The pale green material of the coveralls toned with the greenish shade of the patient's face, but clashed horribly with the primary color soaking his leg and right slipper.
"D-don't cut the towel, please," said the patient as Devlin folded back the sodden material. "My mother—it's organic wool, she says, and very expensive."
Devlin nodded and began undoing the knot.
"I suppose," said the patient, "you're wondering how I got it."
On the contrary, Devlin thought, I am agog with disinterest. But it would do no harm for the medic of the building to be polite and pretend that this particular wound, out of the hundreds he had already treated this week, was unique in all its aspects. To the patient—especially if it happened to be his first such injury—it was unique.
Devlin nodded again and said, "Please lie face down."
While Devlin sprayed the area with painkiller and began probing the wound for traces of coverall material that might have been carried inside by the bullet, the patient outlined the circumstances that had led to his accident.
"IT WASN'T my affair, you understand," he began angrily, "and they were too old for it anyway. Besides, the old fools were practically in Lunar insertion on mix eighty-two—the rec hall bars had run out of everything else—and were incapable of telling the difference between an insult and a fair comment. You know that stuff—it's supposed to be a harmless euphoric, but hydraulic fluid flavored with fruit juice has the same effect. I don't think they were even talking clearly enough to be insulting, but they insisted on having an affair there and then just to show us young folks that—that—I couldn't quite follow their reasoning."
"If they were high on eighty-two I'm not surprised," said Devlin with feeling. "Move your foot up and down and flex your toes, please."
"This was three hours ago," resumed the patient. "It was still dark but there was enough moonlight to see a man the regulation thirty yards away. My girl and I went with them to act as official witnesses and to see that the Maxers didn't interfere. We didn't expect them to be able to hit each other and we were right, but one of them got me and—"
"You demanded satisfaction," said Devlin wearily.
"Well, no," replied the other. "They expected me to, of course, and I never saw two old boys sober up so fast, but the situation was complicated. One of them was my old man and the other was my girl's old man. My mother wouldn't approve of me having an affair with Dad—and this girl I'd like to keep permanently. If she called me out I wouldn't like it at all. I don't approve of affairs of honor between men and women," he said seriously.
Devlin squirted wide-spectrum antibiotics into the entry and exit wounds and began to tape a dressing in place before he spoke. "You are a believer in men's upholding the honor of women, but not in women's upholding their own?"
"No. Not exactly."
"Maybe it is just that you can't abide male property—the female of the species, in this case—being able to shoot back. Maybe you think that it is unfair to young—or even old—males."
The patient tried to turn his head to look at Devlin—despite the fact that it was physiologically impossible for the human neck to travel through one hundred and eighty degrees. He sounded angry as he asked, "Are you suggesting that I'm some kind of Maxer? Listen, Doctor. You belong to one of the few professions excused from wearing the belt and you don't suffer loss of status by not wearing it. But that doesn't give you the right to insult—"
