Permafrost(3)

My point of view had swooped down, my eye-level more like a child’s. There was a smooth flow of movement on either side, instead of the gently shifting eye-level of a walking gait.

I was being pushed along in a wheelchair, my hands folded in my lap.

Not my hands, exactly: someone else’s: still female, but much less wrinkled and age-spotted. Ahead of me—me and whoever was pushing the chair—loomed a pair of red double doors, with circular windows set into them.

Above the doorway was a sign. It said RADIOLOGY. On the double doors were many warning notices.

I stumbled, back in my own body—my own self. Tightened my hand against my cane.

My own, old hand.

“Are you all right?”

“It happened,” I said, almost breathless. “It just happened. I was there. I was time-embedded.”

“Really?”

“It was a corridor. I was in a wheelchair, being pushed along.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a flashback to something that happened to you after your stroke?”

“Totally. I was never in a place like that. Anyway, the hands, her hands . . . they weren’t mine. I was in someone else’s body.”

Margaret clapped in delight. She lifted her head to the ceiling, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. Her fringe fell back from a smooth, childlike brow.

She looked jubilant, transfixed in a moment of pure ecstasy.

“We need to speak to Director Cho. Now. Before you forget the tiniest detail. You’ve done it, Valentina. The first of any of us. The first person to go back in time.”

*

He pressed a button on his intercom, set to one side of his desk, next to a squat, black, military-style telephone. For a habitually neat man, Director Cho’s desk was full of technical clutter: bits of machines, instrumentation, disassembled monitors and circuit boards. Despite his administrative role—the one that he had accepted over the care of his ailing wife—he was still an inveterate tinkerer, gifted with restless fingers. When things broke down, it was rumoured to be quicker to send them up to Cho than go through the regular workshops. He would grumble about the imposition on his time, but he still wouldn’t be able to resist making something work again.

“I’m piping your testimony through to the Admiral Nerva,” Cho said. “The Brothers need to hear this. Keep it as clear and concise as you can—you can always add any ancillary detail when you produce your written report.” Cho coughed, clearing his voice. “Brothers, are you listening?”

“We are listening,” said the smooth, calm voice of Dmitri.

“I have a testimony from Valentina Lidova. I’m confident she just experienced a few seconds of time-immersion. Visual only. I will ask her to give a brief account of what happened, so that you may begin correlation-matching.”

“Please proceed, Miss Lidova,” Dmitri said.

Cho slid a microphone over to my side of the desk, its flared base sweeping aside clutter like a snow plough.

I went over what had happened, trying not to embroider any of the details. Margaret had been right to rush me here, with the details still fresh. Cho allowed me to speak without interruption for a minute or two, only breaking in when he could no longer contain himself. I told them what I remembered of the green and grey corridor, the wheelchair, looking down at my own lap.

Next to me, Margaret nodded as I reiterated the details of my experience.

“Skin tone?” Cho asked.

“Pale.”

“And are you certain the hands were female?”

“It was just a glimpse, but I’m as sure as I can be.” I made a vain attempt at levity. “I don’t remember any big hairy knuckles, no anchor tattoos. Aren’t we already agreed that you’ve dropped me into a woman?”

“That’s just our best guess, based on imperfect data,” Cho said. “Also that we’ve probably dropped you back around fifty years, give or take—not too far from 2030. You say you were being wheeled into the radiology section, not away from it?”

“It was just a sign over the door. I can’t know what they were planning for me once we went through.”

“You could read this sign?” Margaret cut in. “It was definitely in Cyrillic?”

“Yes.” I had to think for a moment, conscious that the memory of reading something is very distinct from the act itself. But I straightened up, emboldening myself. “There’s no doubt. The words were Russian, but in quite an old-fashioned font. It had to be a hospital, somewhere in Russia or a Russian-speaking state.”

“Definitely radiology?” Cho pushed.

“What it said over the door.”

Alexei’s voice came through the intercom. “While we are gratified about the success of the time-embedding, Director Cho, this is nonetheless a concerning development.”

Cho took off his round, molelike glasses and rubbed at his scalp. “Yes—it’s very worrying. Of course, the flash is a sign that we’ve had success, and that’s good, very good—it means the control structure is embedding, the protocol functioning—but that also means we’re entering a period of extreme vulnerability.”

“What should Valentina do?” Margaret asked.

“There’s not much she can,” Cho answered. “Not until she has complete sensorimotor dominance over the host. Until she can walk and talk for herself, she’s entirely at the mercy of the people around her. We’ll just have to trust that nothing bad happens in the radiology section. Brothers?”