Permafrost(7)

Eventually—an hour or so after I climbed into the chair—it clicked.

As before, there was no warning. Just a sharp transition in my visual input—switching from the signals in my optic nerves to those in hers, intercepted and translated by the control structures.

I found myself in a room this time, not a corridor. I was reclining, but more fully than in the dental chair. I was in a bed, lying nearly horizontal but with my head propped up against pillows.

I could feel them. I’d been a disembodied presence during the first glimpse, seeing but not experiencing, but now there was a tactile component to the immersion. I registered a soft enclosing pressure around the back of my neck, as well as a faint scratchiness, not quite sharp enough to count as discomfort. Excited by this new level of sensory detail, I made an unconscious effort to alter the angle of my gaze. More of the room came into view, but out of focus, as if through foggy glass.

It was a hospital room. To the left was a wall with an outside window, blinds drawn and angled slightly to deflect daylight. In front of me, beyond the foot of the bed, was a blank wall with a blank rectangular screen attached via an angled bracket. To my right was a partition wall containing a door and a curtained window, which must face out into a corridor or ward.

I swivelled my gaze a bit more, moving her entire head. I felt a variation in the scratchiness, my head shifting on the pillow. Bedside cabinets to the left and right. A chair with padding coming out of its fabric. A fire extinguisher by the door.

Now came an auditory impression. It must have been there all along, but I was only now processing it. Low voices, coming from the other side of the door. Footsteps, doors opening and closing. Beeps and electronic tones. Telephone sounds, hospital noises. The ordinary, busy clamour of a large institution. It could be a school, a government building, our own project. It didn’t sound like the past.

I was able to move my head, so I tried my right arm. It responded, even if it felt as if I were trying to push my way through treacle. I lifted it as high as I could go. My sleeve fell back, exposing skin nearly all the way to the elbow joint. I spread her fingers, marvelling at the supreme strangeness of this moment. Whoever my host was, she was definitely younger than me, and all skin and bone.

We knew almost nothing about her, except that she was female. Even that was uncertain. When we dropped the initiating spore into her head via the time-probe, before the spore began to extend itself into a functioning control structure, the spore had run some basic biochemical tests on its immediate environment, and then sent the results of those tests back up to the present using the Luba Pair. The tests had indicated female blood chemistry, but it would have to wait until I was in the body before we had definite verification of gender, ethnicity, age and so forth.

A plastic bracelet had been fixed around the wrist. I twisted the hand, bringing a plastic window into view with printed details beneath it. Even though the room was out of focus, I could read the label quite easily. It said:

T. DINOVA.

Growing more confident in my control, I inspected both arms for signs of surgical monitors or drip-lines, just in case I was wired into some machine or monitor. But there was nothing. Cautiously, I pushed myself a bit higher in the bed. There was a tray in front of me, resting on a table that had been wheeled across the bed from one side. On the tray was a mostly finished meal, with a plate sitting under a transparent plastic heat-cover and a knife and fork set on the plate. I stared at the food for a few seconds, wondering how it compared with our rations, even the improved rations at the station. Somewhere in this hospital, I thought, there would be a huge, bustling kitchen where thousands of meals were prepared each day, where food was made and food wasted, and no one really cared.

Still, at least my host must have had an appetite.

I reached back with my left hand to explore my scalp. I found a bandage, quite a heavy one, but no wires or tubes.

There wasn’t anything to stop me from getting out of bed.

I felt I owed it to Cho to try. I had to give him something more than a scrap of a name. I folded back the sheets, gaining—it seemed to me—a little more fluency with each action.

I had on a hospital gown and nothing else. I swung my bare legs out of bed, steadying myself with both hands, then planted my feet on the floor. Cold. I smelled something, as well: a musty tang that clung to me as I pushed my way off the bed.

Me. My own unwashed self.

I tried to stand.

I pushed myself up, right hand against the bed, left using the bedside cabinet as a support. My knees were weak under me, but after using a cane for fifteen years I was accustomed to a certain unsteadiness. I risked a step in the direction of the window, deciding that it was my best option for immediate orientation. I made one unsteady footfall, my vision still not fully in focus, my head feeling swollen and top-heavy. But I was upright. I took another step, arms wide like a zombie tightrope-walker. Two more paces and I’d reached the window, grasping for the temporary support of the sill.

I paused to catch my breath and wait for a wave of dizziness to pass.

She must have been feeling me. That was a given, if she was conscious. Her eyes were open when I dropped into her, so she must have been at least semiawake. And then her body started doing things on its own. How frightening that must have seemed. She could still see through her own eyes, still experience sounds and impressions, but the control was mine. I decided what she did and what she looked at.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to say. “I promise this is only temporary.”