Permafrost(21)

No: Cho was right. The problem had always been how to guarantee that the quench occurred. Preventing or delaying it could have caused all sorts of dangerous upstream ramifications.

At least now we were still on track.

The other pilots were gathered around the dental chair. I could sense their emotions, the mixture of frustration, jealousy and comradely concern. It rankled them that I’d been the first to go into time. But I was also one of them now, and they had protective feelings toward me.

“She needs a longer rest than this,” Antti said, directing her remark at Cho. “It’s not good to send her in so soon after the last immersion. She hasn’t eaten or slept!”

“I’m all right,” I said, smiling back my reassurance. “I rested in the hospital, and I’m not really hungry.”

“She’s getting mixed signals from the host,” Vikram said. “Thinking she’s rested, thinking she’s had a decent meal.”

“I know what I can take,” I insisted.

“I am willing to let her go back,” Dr. Abramik said. “But if this immersion lasts as long as the one before, I’ll insist on a twenty-four-hour rest interval afterward.”

“I am in complete agreement,” Cho replied. “Our pilots are a precious resource, and we must treat them well. Equally, we must obtain data on the downstream situation. The Brothers confirm that they are still reading neuro-telemetry from the host. That means that whatever happened in the MRI theatre, Tatiana Dinova is still alive, still receptive. Are you prepared, Miss Lidova?”

“I’m ready,” I said.

“The link is now reinstated,” Margaret said. “You should immerse almost . . .”

Immediately.

Lights were strobing. I was looking up at a pale surface, which was being periodically lit and unlit by a blue-white light. I stared at it for a few moments, gathering my orientation. Something hard was pinching my face, and a woman in a uniform was leaning over me, steadying herself against an overhead rack full of medical devices.

Movement under me. The rumble of wheels and a motor. The blue-white lights were streetlamps, whisking by outside.

The woman loosened my mask so I could talk, then held up her hand.

“Good—you’re awake. How many fingers?”

“Five,” I said, trying to sound groggy but present. “Four and a thumb.”

“That’s excellent. And can you tell me your name?”

“Tatiana,” I answered sluggishly, and not merely because I was putting on an act, but because I also had to make an effort to keep our two names separated in my head. Of all the people I could have jumped into, why had fate given me a woman with a name whose rhythm and sounds were so close to my own? “Tatiana Dinova.”

Welcome back, Valentina whatever - the - hell - you’re - called. My head feels like someone opened it with an axe. I suppose you know what happened back there?

I broke the MRI machine. Released all the helium inside it. Something went wrong, though, and the helium built up inside the control room. You were unconscious. I was inside you, and nobody else was home. I crawled you out, and some paramedics came. Now we’re in an ambulance.

Going where?

I have no idea.

“Tatiana? Are you still there?”

You’d better answer the lady. She might start thinking one of us has brain damage.

“I’m here.”

“And where are we now, Tatiana?”

“I don’t know. You’re driving me somewhere.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Radiology. The MRI theatre. Then something . . .” I shook my head, aware that there was something squatting in it like a heavy black thundercloud. Tatiana must have had a monstrous headache after being unconscious. I was getting the ragged edges of it, not the thing itself, but it was enough to earn my sympathy. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything after getting there.”

“There was a screwup. By the time we got there four of you were on the floor, already suffocating.”

“Why am I in an ambulance, if I’m already in a hospital?”

Now that is a very good question. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

“Because it’s a big mess in that whole wing. Everything’s locked down while they vent the helium. Can’t get a crash cart through, and even if we could, it’s still quicker to drive you around the perimeter road to emergency admissions, just as if you’d had an accident outside the hospital. Anyway, it looks as if we got you onto oxygen in good time. You probably don’t feel all that great, but you’re giving me clear, coherent answers, and that’s what I want to hear.”

Tell her my head feels like an axe split it open.

“What about the others . . . the young doctor?” I fought to recall his name, the name I’d heard the MRI technician mention. “Dr. Turovsky, and Igor. The man in the theatre.”

“They’ll be getting all the care they need. Worry about yourself for now. You’re the patient, the one who’s been messed around by this accident.”

I felt an empathic connection with this woman, moved by her kindness and devotion to public care. I didn’t know the first thing about her, not her name, not her time of birth or death, what had happened to her in the difficulties, what sort of life she’d led, but in that moment I knew that she was a good and decent person, that the past was full of people like her, that it was just as valid to think of history being stitched together out of numerous tiny acts of selflessness and consideration, as it was to view it as a grand, sweeping spectacle of vast impersonal triumphs and tragedies.