Engineman - Eric Brown [182]
Caroline's question about the time-lapse suggested that she knew something about his condition. He wondered - presuming his illness was a side-effect of the flux - if she was aware of the irony of his appeal for help.
One hour later Thorn boarded a flier. Drunk and unable to hear his own words, he had taken the precaution of writing the address of the hospital on a card. He passed this to the driver, and as the flier took off Thorn sank back in his seat.
He closed his eyes.
Aurally, he existed in the past now, experiencing the sounds of his life that were already one hour old. He heard himself leave the recliner, cross the room and type the code on the keyboard. After a while he heard the crackle of the screen and Caroline's, "Doctor Da Silva..." followed by an indrawn breath of surprise.
"I need you, Carrie. I'm ill. I can't hear. That is-" Thorn felt ashamed at how pathetic he had sounded.
Then he heard Caroline's spoken reply, more to herself, before she bethought herself to use the keyboard and ask him if his hearing was delayed. "Black's Syndrome," she had murmured.
Now, in the flier, Thorn's stomach lurched. He had no idea what Black's Syndrome was, but the sound of it scared him.
Then he heard his one-hour-past-self say, "What the hell's wrong with me, Carrie? Is it something serious?" The words came out slurred, but Caroline had understood.
She had answered: "I'm afraid it is serious, Max. Get yourself here in one hour, okay?"
And she had cut the connection.
Caroline Da Silva's surgery was part of a large hospital complex overlooking the bay. Thorn left the flier in the landing lot and made his way unsteadily to the west wing. The sound of the city, as heard from his apartment, played in his ears.
He moved carefully down interminable corridors. Had he been less apprehensive about what might be wrong with him, and about meeting Caroline again after so long, he might have enjoyed the strange sensation of seeing one thing and hearing another. It was like watching a film with the wrong sound-track.
He found the door marked 'Dr Da Silva', knocked and stepped inside. Caroline was the first person he saw in the room. For a second he wondered how the flux had managed to lure him away from her, but only for a second. She was very attractive, with the calm elliptical face of a ballerina, the same graceful poise. She was caring and intelligent, too - but the very fact of her physicality bespoke to Thorn of the manifest impermanence of all things physical. The flux promised, and delivered, periods of blissful disembodiment.
Only then did Thorn notice the other occupants of the room. He recognised the two men behind the desk. One was his medic at the Line, and the other his commanding officer. Their very presence here suggested that all was not well. The way they regarded him, with direct stares devoid of emotion, confirmed this.
A combination of drink, shock and fear eased Thorn into unconsciousness.
He awoke in bed in a white room. To his right a glass door gave onto a balcony, and all he could see beyond was the bright blue sky. On the opposite wall was a rectangular screen, opaque to him but transparent to observers in the next room.
Electrodes covered his head and chest.
He could hear the drone of the flier's turbos as it carried him towards the hospital. He sat up and called out what he hoped was: Caroline!...Carrie!
He sank back, frustrated. He watched an hour tick by on the wall-clock, listening to the flier descend and his own footsteps as the Thorn-of-one-hour-ago approached the hospital. He wondered if he was being watched through the one-way window. He felt caged.
He looked through the glass door and stared into the sky. In the distance he could see a bigship climb on a steep gradient. He heard himself open the surgery door, and Caroline's voice. "Ah...Max."
Then - unexpectedly, though he should have been aware of its coming - silence. This was the period during which he was