Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [332]
"Oh." He sagged back in bed, horribly disappointed.
"There is a possible short-cut," she added.
He surged back up again. "Wha'? Gimme!"
"There is a drug called fast-penta. One of its derivatives is a psychiatric sedative, but its usual use is as an interrogation drug. It's actually a misnomer to call it a truth serum, though laymen insist on doing so."
"I . . . know fas'pent'." His brows drew down. He knew something important about fast-penta. What was it?
"It has some extremely relaxing effects, and sometimes, in cryo-revival patients, it can trigger memory cascades."
"Ah!"
"However, it can also be embarrassing. Under its influence people will happily talk about whatever crosses their minds, even their most intimate and private thoughts. Good medical ethics requires me to warn you about that. Also, some people are allergic to the drug."
"Where'd . . . you learn . . . goo' med'cal ethics?" he asked curiously.
Strangely, she flinched. "Escobar," she said, and eyed him.
"Where we now?"
"I'd rather not say, just yet."
"How could that contam'nate m' mem'ry?" he demanded indignantly.
"I can tell you soon, I think," she soothed. "Soon."
"Mm," he growled.
She pulled a little white packet from her coat pocket, opened it, and peeled off a plastic-backed dot. "Hold out your arm." He obeyed, and she pressed the dot against the underside of his forearm. "Patch test," she explained. "Because of what I theorize about your line of work, I think you have a higher than normal chance of allergy. Artificially-induced allergy."
She peeled the dot away again—it prickled—and gazed closely at his arm. A pink spot appeared. She frowned at it. "Does that itch?" she asked suspiciously.
"No," he lied, and clenched his right hand to keep from scratching at the spot. A drug to give him his mind back—he had to have it. Turn white again, blast you, he thought to the pink splotch.
"You seem to be a little sensitive," she mused. "Marginally."
"Pleassse . . ."
Her lips twisted in doubt. "Well . . . what do we have to lose? I'll be right back."
She exited, returning shortly with two hyposprays, which she laid on the tray table. "This is the fast-penta," she pointed, "and this is the fast-penta antagonist. You let me know right away if you start to feel strange, itch, tingle, have trouble breathing or swallowing, or if your tongue starts to feel thick."
"Feels th'ck now," he objected, as she pushed up both his sleeves on his thin white arms and pressed the first spray to the inside of his elbow. "How d'I tell?"
"You'll be able to tell. Now just lie back and relax. You should start to feel dreamy, like you're floating, by the time you count backward from ten. Try it."
"Te'. Nan. Ei'. Seben. Si', fav, fo', tree-two-wun." He did not feel dreamy. He felt tense and nervous and miserable. "You sure yo' go' rat one?" His fingers began to drum on the tray table. The sound was unnaturally loud in his ears. Objects in the room were taking on hard, bright outlines with colored fringes. Rowan's face seemed suddenly drained of personality, an ivory mask.
The mask loomed threateningly toward him. "What's your name?" it hissed.
"I . . . I . . . yiyi . . ." His mouth clogged with stutters. He was the invisible eye, nameless. . . .
"Strange," the mask murmured. "Your blood pressure should be going down, not up."
Abruptly, he remembered what was so important about fast-penta. "Fas'pent'—maksmeyper." She shook her head in non-comprehension. "Yiper," he reiterated, out of a mouth that seemed to be seizing up in spasms. He wanted to talk. A thousand words rushed to his tongue, a chain-collision along his nerves. "Ya. Ya. Ya."
"This isn't usual." She frowned at