Prison of Night

"You've been under for a week subjective," said the doctor. "I used hormone salves and gave you a complete blood-wash to remove the toxins. Forced growth of injured tissue and, naturally, intravenous feeding. I've had you resting under micro-current induced sleep for a while-I'm not fond of jerking my patients awake directly from slow-time unless there's a good reason. You're hungry, of course."

"And thirsty. Some water?" Dumarest drank, greedily. "Thank you. What happened?"

"You were unconscious when found. I was summoned and fortunately was able to get there in time. I gave you emergency treatment, had you brought into town and here you are." The doctor frowned as Dumarest helped himself to more water. "Do you always have such a thirst?"

"Recently, yes."

"Strongly recurring? By that I mean you drink, wait, feel an intense thirst and then have to drink again. All in short intervals. Too short to be normal. Yes?" His frown deepened as Dumarest nodded. "Any vomiting, signs of nausea, double vision?"

"No. Why?"

"Persistent thirst is a symptom of brain damage. A symptom, mind, not conclusive evidence that such damage exists. Coupled with difficulty in moving and a general torpor it could signal a lesion in the base of the brain." His eyes narrowed at Dumarest's sudden tension. "Is anything wrong?"

"No. Can you test for such damage?"

"Of course. If you wish I'll make an appointment for you to come in later."

"Now." Dumarest threw his legs over the edge of the cot and sat upright. He wore only a thin hospital gown. Rising he felt a momentary nausea which was the natural result of a body which had rested too long and had been too quickly moved. "I want you to do it now."

As the doctor readied his instruments there was time for thought. The dominant half of the affinity twin which he had injected into himself had nestled at the base of the cortex. When Chagney had died it should have dissolved and been assimilated into his metabolism. But-if Chagney had not died?

The concept was ridiculous. He had forced the body to step into space. He had seen through the borrowed eyes the naked glory of the universe. Had felt them burst, the lungs expand, the tissue yield to the vacuum. All had died, brain, bone, body-all dehydrated in the emptiness of the void, drifting now and for always in the vast immensity of space.

Dead.

Totally erased.

Then why did he continue to hear the crying? The thin, pitiful wailing of a creature trapped and helpless and knowing he was to die?

"Are you all right?" The doctor was standing before him, leaning forward over the chair, his eyes anxious. "Here!" His hand lifted bearing a vial, pungent vapors rising from the container to sting eyes and nostrils. "Inhale deeply. Deeply."

Dumarest pushed it aside. "Doctor, how long can a brain live?"

"Without oxygen about three minutes. After that time degeneration of tissue begins to set in and any later recovery will be attended by loss of function."

"And if it could be preserved in some way? Frozen, for example?"

"As it is when you travel Low?" The doctor pursed his lips. "Theoretically, in such a case, life is indefinite. In actual practice the slow wastage of body tissue will result in final physical breakdown and resultant death. I believe, on Dzhya, they have criminals who have lain in the crytoriums for two centuries and who still register cerebral activity on a subconscious level. In theory, if a brain could be thrown into stasis, residual life would remain."

In a brain suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space? One dehydrated and frozen before any cellular disruption could have taken place?

Was the subjective half of the affinity twin still alive?

"You're sweating," said the doctor. "You don't have to be afraid."

Not of the machines and instruments ringing the chair but there was more. Was he still connected to Chagney? Would he continue to hear the man crying? Had he locked himself into a prison from which there could be no escape?

How to find a drifting body in the void? How to destroy it?

"Steady," said the doctor. "Just relax and close your eyes. I want to insert a probe and take some measurements. Just think of something pleasant."

A dead man drifting, ruptured eyes scars in the mask of his face, blood rimming his mouth with a long-dried crust, his heart a lump of tissue, stomach puffed, lungs a ruin- but his brain? His mind? The thing it contained?

"Easy," said the doctor. "Easy."

A probe silling into his mind. Dumarest could imagine it, the slender tool plunging deep, touching the artificial symbiote nestling at the base of the cortex, stimulating it, perhaps, building a strengthened bond with its other half.

Would his mind fly to that other body? Live again in dead and frozen tissue? Know nothing but the silent emptiness, the unfeeling void?

A chance, but a risk which had to be taken. He had to know.