Lab lights sprang to life, dimmed, steadied as the relays adjusted.
It was 7:22 P.M. by the wall clock when he soldered the final connection. Eric estimated a half hour delay before the little generator had taken over, put the time actually at near eight oâclock. He found himself hesitant, strangely unwilling to test the completed machine. His one-time encephalorecorder was a weird maze of crossed wiring, emergency shielding, crowded tubes, crystals. The only familiar thing remaining in the tubular framework was the half-dome of the head-contact hanging above the test chair.
Eric plugged in a power line, linked it to a portable switchbox which he placed in the machine beside the chair. He eased aside a sheaf of wires, wormed his way through, sat down in the chair. He hesitated, hand on the switch.
Am I really sitting here? he wondered. Or is this some trick of the unconscious mind? Perhaps Iâm in a corner somewhere with a thumb in my mouth. Maybe Iâve torn the teleprobe apart. Maybe Iâve put the teleprobe together so it will kill me the instant I close the switch.
He looked down at the switch, withdrew his hand. He thought, I canât just sit here; thatâs madness, too .
He reached up to the helmetlike dome, brought it down over his head. He felt the pinpricks of the contacts as they probed through his hair to his scalp. The narco-needles took hold, deadening skin sensation.
This feels like reality, he thought. But maybe Iâm building this out of memory. Itâs hardly likely Iâm the only sane person in the city. He lowered his hand to the switch. But I have to act as though I am.
Almost of its own volition, his thumb moved, depressed the switch. Instantly, a soft ululation hung in the laboratory air. It shifted to dissonance, to harmony, wailing, half-forgotten music, wavered up the scale, down the scale.
In Ericâs mind, mottled pictures of insanity threatened to overwhelm his consciousness. He sank into a maelstrom. A brilliant spectograph coruscated before his eyes. In a tiny corner of his awareness, a discrete pattern of sensation remained, a reality to hold onto, to save himâthe feeling of the teleprobeâs chair beneath him and against his back.
He sank farther into the maelstrom, saw it change to gray, become suddenly a tiny picture seen through the wrong end of a telescope. He saw a small boy holding the hand of a woman in a black dress. The two went into a hall-like room. Abruptly Eric no longer saw them from a distance but was again himself at age nine walking toward a casket. He sensed again the horrified fascination, heard his motherâs sobs, the murmurous, meaningless voice sounds of a tall, thin undertaker. Then, there was the casket and in it a pale, waxed creature who looked somewhat like his father. As Eric watched, the face melted and became the face of his uncle Mark; and then another mask, his high-school geometry teacher. Eric thought, We missed that one in my psychoanalysis . He watched the mobile face in the coffin as it again shifted and became the professor who had taught him abnormal psychology, and then his own analyst, Dr. Lincoln Ordway, and thenâhe fought against this oneâDr. Carlos Amanti.
So thatâs the father image Iâve held all these years, he thought. That meansâ That means Iâve never really given up searching for my father. A fine thing for an analyst to uncover about himself! He hesitated. Why did I have to recognize that? I wonder if Pete went through this in his musikron? Another part of his mind said, Of course not. A person has to want to see inside himself or he never will, even if he has the opportunity.
The other part of his mind abruptly seemed to reach up, seize control of his consciousness. His awareness of self lurched aside, became transformed into a mote whipping through his memories so rapidly he could barely distinguish between events.
Am I dying? he wondered. Is it my life passing
It was 7:22 P.M. by the wall clock when he soldered the final connection. Eric estimated a half hour delay before the little generator had taken over, put the time actually at near eight oâclock. He found himself hesitant, strangely unwilling to test the completed machine. His one-time encephalorecorder was a weird maze of crossed wiring, emergency shielding, crowded tubes, crystals. The only familiar thing remaining in the tubular framework was the half-dome of the head-contact hanging above the test chair.
Eric plugged in a power line, linked it to a portable switchbox which he placed in the machine beside the chair. He eased aside a sheaf of wires, wormed his way through, sat down in the chair. He hesitated, hand on the switch.
Am I really sitting here? he wondered. Or is this some trick of the unconscious mind? Perhaps Iâm in a corner somewhere with a thumb in my mouth. Maybe Iâve torn the teleprobe apart. Maybe Iâve put the teleprobe together so it will kill me the instant I close the switch.
He looked down at the switch, withdrew his hand. He thought, I canât just sit here; thatâs madness, too .
He reached up to the helmetlike dome, brought it down over his head. He felt the pinpricks of the contacts as they probed through his hair to his scalp. The narco-needles took hold, deadening skin sensation.
This feels like reality, he thought. But maybe Iâm building this out of memory. Itâs hardly likely Iâm the only sane person in the city. He lowered his hand to the switch. But I have to act as though I am.
Almost of its own volition, his thumb moved, depressed the switch. Instantly, a soft ululation hung in the laboratory air. It shifted to dissonance, to harmony, wailing, half-forgotten music, wavered up the scale, down the scale.
In Ericâs mind, mottled pictures of insanity threatened to overwhelm his consciousness. He sank into a maelstrom. A brilliant spectograph coruscated before his eyes. In a tiny corner of his awareness, a discrete pattern of sensation remained, a reality to hold onto, to save himâthe feeling of the teleprobeâs chair beneath him and against his back.
He sank farther into the maelstrom, saw it change to gray, become suddenly a tiny picture seen through the wrong end of a telescope. He saw a small boy holding the hand of a woman in a black dress. The two went into a hall-like room. Abruptly Eric no longer saw them from a distance but was again himself at age nine walking toward a casket. He sensed again the horrified fascination, heard his motherâs sobs, the murmurous, meaningless voice sounds of a tall, thin undertaker. Then, there was the casket and in it a pale, waxed creature who looked somewhat like his father. As Eric watched, the face melted and became the face of his uncle Mark; and then another mask, his high-school geometry teacher. Eric thought, We missed that one in my psychoanalysis . He watched the mobile face in the coffin as it again shifted and became the professor who had taught him abnormal psychology, and then his own analyst, Dr. Lincoln Ordway, and thenâhe fought against this oneâDr. Carlos Amanti.
So thatâs the father image Iâve held all these years, he thought. That meansâ That means Iâve never really given up searching for my father. A fine thing for an analyst to uncover about himself! He hesitated. Why did I have to recognize that? I wonder if Pete went through this in his musikron? Another part of his mind said, Of course not. A person has to want to see inside himself or he never will, even if he has the opportunity.
The other part of his mind abruptly seemed to reach up, seize control of his consciousness. His awareness of self lurched aside, became transformed into a mote whipping through his memories so rapidly he could barely distinguish between events.
Am I dying? he wondered. Is it my life passing
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