Ship of the Damned Page 4

  Impressed, Wes warmed to Monica.

  “Originally we did work with the hierarchical feature detector model and there is good evidence this is how people make sense of their environment. For example, if you show a person a horizontal line tilted at an angle, a single neuron will respond. Tilt it a little more and a different cell responds. Another cell will respond to the width of the line, another to its length. These individual cells then send their signals to other cells called complex cells, which then respond only to certain combinations of width, length, and angle. The signals from the complex cells are sent to hypercomplex cells, which again only respond to certain combinations from the complex cells, and so on through a network of billions of cells with trillions of combinations. However, our work at this level didn’t take us where we wanted to go.”

  “You disproved the hierarchical model?” Monica asked.

  “No, we decided it was irrelevant,” Wes said.

  Elizabeth interrupted, asking if they were ready to map the auditory cortex. Shamita nodded, and Elizabeth turned on a CD player which played a variety of sounds, Shamita watching her monitor for Ronald’s neural responses.

  “We were able to isolate hierarchical cell structures that fit the model in both the visual and auditory cortexes, but interactions between cells increase exponentially with each new level,” Wes continued. “It’s difficult enough to track cell activity among a dozen cells, let alone millions. It finally dawned on us that we needed to be working at a macro level, not the micro level. It was like trying to appreciate the Mona Lisa by looking through a microscope at the molecules of paint.

  “When we treated brain waves as complex wholes and stopped trying to disassemble them, we made rapid progress. Now we look at the brain waves as functioning much like FM-radio broadcasts. In order to broadcast stereo, frequency-modulated radio combines several waves into a compound wave that can carry more information than the individual waves—it’s called multiplexing. The signal is split again at the receiver back into the original waves. The cortex functions in much the same way, by compounding signals and then compounding the compounds—that’s multiplexing. With our equipment we intercept the multiplexed signals and re-route them through fiber optic lines and then back to the cortex.”

  “Or to another cortex,” Monica said.

  “We don’t do that anymore,” Wes said, remembering the disaster that had resulted from his first experiments with integrating minds. Using autistic savants, he and his team had integrated the fragments of genius from four savants, creating a single mind with amazing abilities. Unfortunately, his team had been infiltrated by someone with psychokinetic abilities whose power had been magnified by linking with the savants. People had died—Len had nearly been killed. In a perverse way the experiment had been an overwhelming success, but the cost had been too great. The fact that Monica didn’t ask why they stopped integrating minds made Wes suspect that Elizabeth hadn’t kept any secrets from her.

  “I’m surprised your computer can keep up with the brain,” Monica said.

  “Actually, neural activity is relatively slow. It’s based on chemical diffusion across a semipermeable membrane. Single neurons are microscopic, so the process is sufficiently rapid for mental activity, but remember we’re working at a macro level involving millions of neurons.”

  “Isn’t your computer supercooled?”

  “It’s a cryogenic computer. We use the liquid nitrogen to supercool our CPU. The superconducting chip processes the information faster than the brain itself, which allows us to keep up with the multiplexed brain waves. The light-wave transmission through the fiber optic lines is much faster than that of the neurons—the speed of light, actually. As long as we keep the length of the transmission lines short enough, and we work at a multiplexed level, it works.”

  Elizabeth finished the audio sequence and began tactile stimulation. Using Wes’s software, the computer displayed a model of Ron’s brain from three perspectives on Wes’s screen. Elizabeth and Shamita worked together, mapping Ronald’s sensorimotor functions; the results were displayed on Wes’s monitor.

  “See the schizophrenic bleed, Wes?” Shamita said.

  “Yes, especially visual to auditory.” Then, explaining for Monica, Wes, added, “Schizophrenics tend to confuse sensory information—hear colors, feel sounds, that sort of thing.”

  “I’ve had some experience with schizophrenics,” Monica said.

  Monica said it as if it was important, and Wes briefly caught Elizabeth’s eye. She was up to something.

  “This is auditory function here,” Wes said, pointing to the temporal lobe of the brain, about halfway down the side. “There are auditory regions on both sides of the brain.” Then, pointing to the back of the brain, he said, “This is where visual information is received. Notice the sharp increase in electrical activity in both auditory regions as Elizabeth plays the tape, and notice this activity connecting the two regions.”

  “We can also get infrared images,” Wes said, typing on the keyboard and calling up a new view of Ron’s cortex. “The EET helmet Ron’s wearing also detects temperature differences. As neural activity increases, temperature increases. The red and orange colors indicate the highest levels of activity.”

  Wes pointed to the color image on the screen. It showed green and yellow in most regions, but orange with red centers in the visual and auditory regions. Then, tracing with his finger, he said, “Notice this activity connecting the different regions. This kind of flow between regions is unusual, even for schizophrenics.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Monica said, studying the screen intensely. “The flow seems … forced.”

  “Exactly,” Wes said. “Ron is very unusual. It’s like he’s picking up sensations his brain doesn’t know how to process—they’re not visual or auditory. That’s why we’re interested in him.”

  “We’re interested in helping him, too,” Elizabeth said suddenly.

  “Of course, I didn’t mean …” Wes sputtered, embarrassed by his tendency to get absorbed by technical problems and forget the person involved.

  Wes typed on the keyboard again, and the electrical activity of Ron’s brain reappeared on the screen.

  “Here’s where we can do some good,” Wes said. Then to Shamita he said, “Patch auditory, visual, olfactory, and haptic regions.”

  The wave pattern changed only slightly, but Wes’s trained eye could see a decrease in the flow between regions, and the brain waves approximate a normal pattern.

  “His respiration is slowing, Wes, heart rate too,” Len said. “Galvanic skin resistance is increasing.” Then, looking at Monica, Len said, “This is pretty interesting, Monica, you might want to come look at this.”

  “It means he’s relaxing, Len,” Monica said. Then to Wes she said, “Why the reduction in anxiety?”

  “The world makes more sense to him now. It’s not as cluttered and confusing.”

  “I thought he was asleep.”

  “It’s more like a hypnotic trance than sleep. He’s both conscious and unconscious. We can communicate with him, at least if he’s coherent. Let’s begin, Elizabeth. Shamita, give him full audition and restore speech function.”

  “I’m getting some pretty interesting readings here, Monica,” Len said.

  “No, Len,” Monica said.

  “I’ll let you push some of the buttons,” Len said.

  Monica laughed, shaking her head.

  “Ignore him,” Elizabeth advised. “Just like you would a family dog.”

  “Until it starts humping your leg,” Len said, then hummed to himself.

  Shamita laughed, but didn’t look up from her monitor.

  “Elizabeth, talk to Ron,” Wes told her.

  “Ron, can you hear me?” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel, Ron?”

  “I feel … I feel tired.”

  “Too tired to talk to me?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I feel go
od.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “The university.”

  “That’s right. Do you know who I am?”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “That’s right—”

  “You have beautiful red hair.”

  “Thank you, Ron, now do you—”

  “Green eyes. You have green talking eyes.”

  “Talking eyes, Ron?” Elizabeth prodded.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean when you say my eyes talk?”

  “They say things I don’t understand.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “I don’t understand them. I can’t explain.”

  “Try.”

  “Redaudable circlingology compounded by the violet voice of green smell.”

  Everyone in the room exchanged glances, Len shrugging and saying, “His vitals are picking up.”

  “Relax, Ron, you’re safe here. We’re your friends,” Elizabeth said, waiting for him to repeat his mantra—he didn’t.

  Monica leaned close to Wes’s ear. “Is his response what you were looking for?”

  “Yes. Many schizophrenics try to verbalize concepts that can’t be grasped. We’re trying to help him make sense of them.”

  Actually, the work with Ron was just the first step in an ambitious project, and Wes suspected Elizabeth had shared the details with Monica.

  “Ron, I want you to open your eyes,” Elizabeth said. “Now look at my eyes, Ron. Are my eyes speaking now?”

  “No. They are pretty eyes.”

  “Thank you.”

  With a hand-slice across her throat, Elizabeth signalled Shamita to cut off Ron’s hearing.

  “Wes, let’s gradually reinstitute the sensory bleed. He’s high-functioning; if we can keep him from being overwhelmed he might be able to make sense out of his perceptions.”

  Wes agreed, and Shamita slowly widened the parameters, allowing limited sensory overflow.

  “Tell me when my eyes begin to talk, Ron.”

  “Can I blink? My eyes are dry.”

  “Blink whenever you need to, Ron,” Elizabeth said.

  “They’re talking.”

  “What are my eyes saying, Ron?”

  “It’s something I can’t understand. Something like violet … maybe blue, shifting, around and around until the color green smells triangular. Circles within circles feeling brown until they fly apart smelling like cinnamon.”

  There was more, all recorded digitally, none of it making any sense. When Ron became agitated they relaxed him, then brought him out slowly. As soon as the helmet was off he sat up, rubbing his face, finger-combing his greasy hair, saying over and over, “Yeah, gonna be okay, everything’s gonna be okay.”

  “Thank you for helping us, Ron,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yeah, gonna be okay, everything’s gonna be okay.”

  Elizabeth helped him from the room to where his wife was waiting outside. He was rubbing his face and hair as he walked out the door. A few minutes later Elizabeth was back.

  “The change was remarkable,” Monica said. “A portable version of this machine could change his life.”

  “That’s an interesting idea,” Len said, coming to stand by Monica. “We could talk about it over coffee?”

  “You can’t let someone walk around with a liquid nitrogen backpack,” Wes said. “Besides, the program isn’t self-monitoring.”

  “We thought at first schizophrenics like Ron would benefit from repeated sessions,” Elizabeth added, “but they always revert. It’s as if their systems can’t be trained to process in any other way.”

  “Or something external is forcing that pattern on them,” Monica said.

  “You told her, didn’t you?” Wes glared at Elizabeth.

  “You can trust Monica,” Elizabeth assured him, smiling.

  “If I understand it,” Monica said, “you’ve identified a small group of schizophrenics who are anomalous. They don’t respond to drug therapy or psychotherapy and they are characterized by peculiar perceptions. You’re pursuing the hypothesis that they are receiving psychic transmissions from somewhere—maybe another solar system.”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Wes apologized.

  “Not at all,” Monica said.

  “It sounds nuts to me,” Len said, “and I’m part of the project.”

  “It’s creative,” Monica said. “Elizabeth said you were open to new ideas.”

  Now Elizabeth and Monica exchanged looks, and Wes steeled himself for what was coming.

  “Do you know much about dreaming, Wes?” Monica asked.

  “He never dreamed someone as good-looking as Elizabeth would ever go out with him,” Len said.

  “I understand the neurology of dreaming,” Wes said quickly, to stop the chuckling.

  “What about dream interpretation?” asked Monica.

  “It’s nonsense,” Wes said, not caring if he offended Monica. Something was coming and he didn’t care if he discouraged her. “I’ve read Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, and I don’t accept the idea of manifest and latent content of dreams. If you dream of walking upstairs you’re not dreaming about sex, you’re dreaming about walking upstairs. An umbrella is an umbrella, not a penis.”

  “You said penis,” Len said, then snorted and laughed.

  “Most dreams reflect day-to-day worries and are made up of people you know and everyday events,” Wes continued. “Nothing mysterious about them.”

  “Do you dream, Wes?” Monica asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Ever dream the same dream more than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “How often?”

  “Several times, I suppose.”

  “What would you think about someone who dreams the same dream every night?”

  Now Wes paused, looking for the trap.

  “I don’t know if that’s unusual—”

  “It’s very unusual,” Monica said. “I’ve analyzed dreams as part of my practice for years and I’ve never met anyone who dreams the same dream night after night without variation.”

  “There must be some stressful event in the person’s life that is causing the dream,” Wes said.

  “Not that I can find,” Monica said.

  “You think there’s a neurological cause?” Wes asked.

  “I think the source of the dream is external, just like Ron’s confused perceptions.”

  “Someone dreaming the same dream over and over is interesting, but—”

  “It’s not just one person,” Monica said. “It’s seven.”

  “Then it’s not as unique as you led me to believe,” Wes said, feeling the mystery slip away.

  “You don’t understand. I have identified seven people who dream the same dream every night.”

  Shamita and Len were staring in wonder, and Wes knew he had missed the significance.

  “So they dream the same thing over and over. What leads you to believe the source is external?”

  “You’re not getting it, Wes,” Elizabeth said. “All seven people dream exactly the same dream every night. It’s one dream they all share.”

  “Well, there are many common dreams,” Wes said. “Most people have dreamed of forgetting they have a test at school or a presentation at work or of showing up somewhere naked. Is it that kind of dream?”

  “No,” Monica said. “When people dream they are naked, they are in a variety of places—where they work, in a park, at a concert. It’s a common theme but the details vary. That’s not the case with this dream. The details are identical for each dreamer. People in this group dream they are on a ship in the middle of a desert and there’s no way off.”

  “I dreamed I was on the Love Boat once,” Len said. “Fifteen hundred passengers and I was the only one that didn’t get laid.”

  Shamita elbowed Len and Wes glared at him, Len faking embarrassment.

  “All of them dream it every night?” Wes said, drawn by the strangeness. “How long ha
s this been going on?”

  “Years. For one of the dreamers, more than fifty years.”

  “What?” Wes was surprised.

  “It’s killing them, Wes,” Monica said. “That dream is killing the dreamers and I need your help to save them.”

  MYSTERY

  Elizabeth and Wes met for dinner two or three nights a week, adding fuel to the campus gossip that they were lovers. In reality they were somewhere between friends and lovers, taking their relationship seriously, but letting it develop at its own pace. They were both married to their work, Wes to his research and Elizabeth to counselling her clients, so making room for each other came slowly. Meals together, and occasional intimate moments, sufficed for now, but like an addict getting hooked on a narcotic, the more time Wes spent with Elizabeth, the more he needed to be with her.

  The University of Oregon was surrounded by mature neighborhoods on three sides, many of the stately old houses now sororities and fraternities. A moderate climate and ample rain made the lawns and campus verdant spaces grow a deep Oregon green. The original business district bordered the other edge of the campus, and beyond that the strip malls that housed the retail chains. Restaurants were sprinkled around the campus, most serving fast food and catering to the eat-cheap needs of the students, but mixed in were gourmet restaurants favored by the faculty and Eugene residents. Elizabeth had picked one of these, an old house remodelled into an intimate restaurant which served primarily vegetarian dishes with a few chicken entrees for the unconverted.

  Elizabeth was seated when Wes arrived, having come directly from her seven o’clock counselling appointment. She had ordered an Oregon wine, bottled in the Chehalem valley, and poured him a glass as he sat down.

  “Have you thought about the dreamers?” Elizabeth said, before he could get his glass to his lips.

  “There’s nothing I can do, Elizabeth. I don’t know what you told Monica, but she seems to expect more than she should.”

  “I told her you have experience dealing with the paranormal.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Wes started to argue, the waitress interrupting as he did.

  Elizabeth was a regular customer who was systematically working through the menu, sampling every salad they offered. Tonight Elizabeth chose a dinner-sized salad combining avocados and broccoli. Wes asked for the chicken and mushroom dish he always ordered, knowing the mushrooms would outnumber the chicken pieces two to one. As a scientist, Wes was attentive to details, and was sure there had been a lower mushroom-to-chicken ratio the first time he and Elizabeth had visited the restaurant. Slightly paranoid, he suspected that his diet was being monitored in the kitchen, the vegetarian staff gradually reducing the chicken in his food, slowly weaning him from his meat addiction.