Engineman - Eric Brown [183]
Thorn tried not to think about his future.
Caroline arrived thirty minutes later. She carried a sketch pad and a stylus. She sat on a plastic chair beside the bed, the pad on her lap. She tried to cover her concern with smiles, but Thorn was aware of tears recently shed, the evidence of smudged make-up. He had seen it many times before.
How long will I be in here? he asked.
Caroline chewed her lower lip, avoiding his eyes. She began to speak, then stopped herself. Instead, she wrote on the sketch pad and held up the finished product:
A week or two, Max. We want to run a few tests.
Thorn smiled to himself. What exactly is this Black's Syndrome? he asked, with what he hoped was the right degree of malicious sarcasm.
He was pleased with Caroline's shocked expression.
How do you know it's Black's? she scribbled.
You mentioned it over the vidscreen, Thorn told her. I didn't hear it until I was coming here... What is it, Carrie?
She paused, then began writing. Thorn read the words upside down: Black - an Engineman on the Taurus Line out of Varanasi. After fifty shifts he developed acute sensory time-lapse. It's a one-in-a-thousand malady, Max. We don't know exactly what causes it, but we suspect it's a malfunction in the tank leads that retards interneuron activity.
She paused, then held up the message.
Thorn nodded. I've read it. So...?
She turned to a blank page, stylus poised.
How long did he last? Thorn asked, bitterly. When did the poor bastard die?
Quickly she wrote: He's still alive, Max.
Thorn was surprised, relieved. If the present condition was the extent of Black's Syndrome, then what was to prevent him fluxing again?
He wondered at Caroline's tears. If his disease was only this minor, then why all the emotion?
Then he thought he understood.
When can I leave, Carrie? When can I get back to the flux?
He was watching the pad, waiting for a reply. When he looked up he saw that she was crying, openly this time.
He laughed. You thought you had me, didn't you? Discharged from the Line, your own little invalid to look after and pamper. You can't stand the thought that I'll recover and flux again, can you?
Despite her tears she was scribbling, covering page after page with rapid, oversized scrawl.
When she came to the end she stabbed a vicious period, ripped the pages out and flung them at him. She ran from the room, skittling a chair on the way. Thorn watched her, a sudden sense of guilt excavating a hollow in his chest.
His gaze dropped to the crumpled pages. He picked them up and read:
Acute sensory time-lapse. Not just hearing. Everything. In a few days your taste and smell will go the same way. Then your vision. You'll be left only with the sensation of touch in the 'present'. Everything else will be lapsed...
It went like this for a few more pages, the handwriting becoming more and more erratic. Most of it reiterated the few known facts and Caroline's observations of Black's decline. On the last page she had simply written: I loved you, Max.
Thorn smoothed the pages across his lap. He called for Caroline again and again, but if she heard she ignored him. He wanted to apologise, ask what might happen to him. He tried to envisage the sensation of having all his senses time-lapsed save for that of touch, but the task was beyond his powers of perception.
He lay back and closed his eyes. Later he was startled by the sound of his voice, his cruel questions. He heard Caroline's breathless sobs, the squeak of the stylus, a murmured, "I loved you..." to accompany the written assurance. He heard her run crying from the room, the chair tumble, the door slam shut.
Then all he could hear was the sound of his breathing, the muffled, routine noises of the hospital. For the first time in hours the sounds he heard were synchronised with what he could see.
He slept.
On the morning of his third day in hospital, Thorn's senses of taste and smell went the way of his hearing. This further time-lapse dashed