Engineman - Eric Brown [185]
How's he coping?
She paused, then wrote: Not very well. He was never very stable. He's showing signs of psychosis. But you're much stronger, Max-
He interrupted: What happens when his sense of touch retards?
Caroline shrugged. Thorn read: It hasn't happened yet. It's difficult to say. In a way, if it does occur, it will be easier for him as all his senses will be synchronised in the 'past'. But he'll be unable to mix with people, socialise. How could he? Their presence would be delayed subjectively by hours, days. There would be no way for him to relate...
He could still flux, Thorn said.
Caroline looked away. Tears appeared in her eyes. Then she scribbled something on the pad:
Is the flux all you think about?
It's my life, Carrie. The only reason I exist.
She shook her head, frustrated by this clumsy means of communication. She wrote out two pages of neat script and passed them to him.
I could understand your infatuation with the flux if you thought the experience had religious significance; that you were in touch with an afterlife. But you don't even believe that! To you it's just a drug, a mental fix. You're a flux-junky, Max. When you left me you were running away from something you couldn't handle emotionally because you'd never had to in the past. For most of your life, Max, the flux has provided you with a substitute for human emotion, both the giving of it and the taking. And look where it's got you!
Thorn sat without speaking. Some part of him - some distant buried, human part - was stunned by the truth of her insight.
You just feel sorry for yourself because you didn't get me, he said weakly, trying to defend himself.
Caroline just stared at him. She shook her head. With deliberation she wrote one line. She stood up and tore off the top sheet, handed it to him and left the balcony.
I'm not sorry for myself, Max. I'm sorry for you.
Thorn pushed the meeting with Caroline to the back of his mind. In the days that followed he dwelled on the hope that he might one day be able to flux again. If his sense of touch did retard, then, as Caroline had suggested, all his senses would he synchronised and his condition made considerably easier. He might not be able to socialise, but that would be no great loss. His only desire was to rejoin the Line.
On his ninth morning in hospital, Thorn opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. He called for the lights to be switched on, but instead someone spoon-fed him breakfast. He was unable to tell if it was Caroline who fed him; he could neither see, hear, or even smell the person. He asked who it was, but the only response - the only one possible in the circumstances - was a gentle hand on his arm. After his first breakfast in absolute darkness he lay back and waited.
His sensory delay had expanded to six hours now, and it was that long before the darkness lifted and he was able to see the sunlight slanting into the room. He had the disconcerting experience of lying flat on his back while his gaze of six hours ago lifted as the Thorn-of-this-morning sat up and prepared for breakfast. In his vision the nurse positioned his tray and fed him bacon and eggs. Thorn felt that he could reach out and touch the woman. He tried, and of course his hand encountered nothing.
He had no control over the direction of his gaze; his unseeing eyes of that morning had wandered, and he found himself trying to bring his errant vision back to the nurse, when all he saw was the far wall. His vision was interrupted by frequent, fraction-of-a-second blanks, when he had blinked, and longer stretches of total blackness when he had closed his eyes. The only benefit of this visual delay was that now his sight and hearing, taste and smell were synchronised. He saw the nurse lift a forkful of egg to his mouth, heard the sound of his chewing and tasted the food. The only thing missing was the egg itself; his mouth was empty.
"There we are," the nurse said, proffering him a last corner of toast. He wanted to tell