Mindscan

Porter had given me a dark brown, wooden cane. It was leaning against the wall; I gestured to it. Karen handed it to me, and I managed to make my way out of the room into a long corridor. Fluorescent light panels covered its ceilings, and I also spotted tiny camera units hanging down at intervals. Doubtless Dr. Porter or one of his minions was watching.

"All right," said Karen, standing in front of me and facing toward me. "Remember, you can't hurt yourself by falling; you're way too durable for that now. So, let's give it a try without the cane."

I propped the cane against the corridor wall, but no sooner had I done so than it fell to the floor; not an auspicious start. "Leave it," said Karen. I lifted my left foot, and immediately teetered forward, slamming it back into the ground as I did so. I quickly lifted my right leg, swinging it around stiffly, as if it lacked a knee. "Pay attention to exactly how your body is responding," said Karen. "I know walking is something we normally do subconsciously, but try to recognize exactly what effect you get with each mental command."

I managed a couple more steps. If I'd still been biological, I'd have been breathing deeply and sweating, but I'm sure there was no external indication of my exertion.

Still, it was enormously hard work, and I felt as though I was going to tumble over. I stopped, standing motionless, trying to regain my balance.

"I know it's hard," said Karen. "But it does get easier. It's all a question of learning a new vocabulary: this thought produces that action, and — ah! Look, see: your upper leg moved just fine that time. Try to reproduce that mental command exactly."

I tried again to move my left leg forward, putting my weight on it, then I tried moving my right leg. This time I got a little bending to occur at the knee, but it still swung widely as it came forward.

"There," said Karen. "That's right. Your body wants to do the right things; you just have to tell it how."

I would have grunted, but I didn't know how to make my new body do that yet, either. The corridor looked frightfully long, its sides converging at what might as well have been kilometers away.

"Now," said Karen, "try another step. Concentrate — see if you can keep that right leg more under control."

"I am trying," I said testily, lurching forward once more.

Her drawl was kind. "I know you are, Jake."

It was hard work mentally — like the frustration you feel when trying to recall a fact that's just out of reach, multiplied a thousand fold.

"You're doing great," she said. "Really, you are." Karen was walking backwards, a half-step at a time. I briefly wondered how many years it had been since she'd walked back-wards; an old woman, desperately afraid of breaking a hip or a leg, doubtless took small, shuffling steps most of the time, and forward — always forward.

I forced myself to take another step, then one more. Despite all of Immortex's best efforts to exactly copy the dimensions of my limbs, I was conscious that the center of gravity in my torso was higher up, perhaps due to my lack of hollow lungs. No big deal, but it did make me even more prone to falling forward.

And, at that moment, I realized I'd been thinking about something other than planting one foot in front of another — that my subconscious and conscious were now at least in some degree of agreement about the mechanics of walking.

"Bravo!" said Karen. "You're doing just fine." Beneath the fluorescent lights, she looked particularly artificial: her skin had a dry, plastic sheen; her eyes, not really moist, like-wise looked plastic — although, as I now could appreciate, they were a really lovely shade of green.

We continued on, lurching step after lurching step; I imagined if I looked back over my shoulder, I'd see the villagers chasing me with their torches.

"That's it!" said Karen. "That's perfect!"

Another step, and—

My right leg not moving quite the way I intended—

"God—"

My left ankle twisting to one side—

"—damn—"

My torso tipping farther and farther forward—

" — it!"

Karen surged forward, easily catching me in her outstretched arms, before I could fall flat on my face.

"There, there," she said, soothingly, her new body having no trouble supporting my weight. "There, there. It's okay."

I felt humiliated arid furious — at Immortex, and at myself. I pushed hard against Karen's arms, forcing myself back into a standing position. I didn't like asking for help — but I liked even less to fail when someone else was watching; indeed, it was doubly bad, since we were surely also being observed on closed-circuit video.

"That's enough for just now," she said, moving in next to me, and slipping an arm around my waist. She led me in a half-turn, and with her support, I hobbled back and got my cane.

8

When I was a kid, I never thought Toronto would have a spaceport. But now almost every city did, at least potentially. Spaceplanes could take off and land on any runway big enough to accommodate a jumbo jet.