by Thomas Page
Nurse Raskin jumped. The cable waved toward her like seaweed lazing in a soft underwater current. She wondered if it went all the way through the wall and emerged in the hall outside. She walked out of the ward and peeked round the corner down the hall.
“Ooops, sorry,” she gasped at the man standing with his back to her in the hall. He was tall and blond with a blue blazer coat. He did not seem to hear her. He was looking up at the fluorescent light.
She watched him step forward until his head passed in front of the ceiling light. Nurse Raskin assumed something was wrong with her eyes or the angle, for it seemed as though the ceiling light shone clear through the stranger’s head. She said, “Excuse me. This ward is closed to visitors. Sir?”
He did not respond.
Then Nurse Raskin noticed the cable again. It came out of the ward wall, snaked along the floor and went up the man’s back, disappearing in the blond hair on back of his head. What she was witnessing was impossible. A wire of light was attached at one end to a machine and the other to this man’s head.
Nurse Raskin felt her gorge rise. She stepped backward to look down the hall at the main desk console. She heard a squeal and saw the lights blink off, indicating Forrester’s heart had started again. When she looked back, the intruder was gone, cable and all.
Nurse Raskin checked the power meters, the capsule, and the ward console to insure that everything was in order before calling Jones.
“Yes, Miss Raskin?”
To her mortification, she could not speak.
“Miss Raskin?” Jones’s voice rose in alarm.
“Sir, his heart’s beating again. . . . Sir, I saw something unusual. . . . Can you get up here with something, please? Thank you, sir.”
Jones solicitiously settled her in Evan Branch’s own contoured leather swivel chair and poured her a tremendous shot of brandy in a paper cup from a bottle Branch kept in his cupboard. He refused to let her speak until the brandy had relaxed her, and when she did talk, he listened raptly. When she finished, he asked, “This cable, Miss Raskin, was it silver?”
“More like an off-white, Doctor. But silver will do.”
“You said you felt a current passing through it. From or to the capsule?”
“From the capsule, Doctor. What was it? What did I see?”
Jones rested his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee. “Miss Raskin, do you believe in UFOs?”
“No. sir.”
“Astrology?”
“Not really.” She smiled. “I do read my horoscope though.”
“How about Atlantis?”
“No, sir. I wish I did.”
“Do you believe in ghosts, Miss Raskin?”
Nurse Raskin opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she said, “Yes, sir.”
“Fascinating. I’ve learned that people confidently believe in one set of myths and just as confidently reject others. Those who believe in ghosts, demons, devils, and goblins scoff at Martians. And those who swallow the most incredible slop about extraterrestrial invaders and flying saucers throw up in contempt at the mere mention of Jesus, Mohammed, or God. Extraordinary, Miss Raskin.”
“I suppose they do, sir, but I know what I believe,” Nurse Raskin answered sharply.
“How about life after death?”
Carefully, very carefully, Nurse Raskin answered, “Within certain limits, I am inclined to.”
“Do you believe the universe consists of particles exceeding the speed of light which go backwards in time and lose or gain mass? The Einstein universe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Miss Raskin, what do you believe you saw?”
Nurse Raskin sipped at her brandy. “Was it a ghost?”
“To be safe let’s say you saw nothing and go on from there, all right? It’s not a ghost yet but it will be soon. What you described has an honorable history, especially the cord.”
Nurse Raskin felt the brandy incinerate inside her, the warmth relaxing her muscles, peace spreading with alcoholic efficiency throughout her body. “Yes, sir.”
“It sounds to me like you saw Daniel Forrester’s etheric body.”
Nurse Raskin felt old pains threaten to surface. “I’ve heard of this thing. I’ve seen patients die in all kinds of ways and I’ve never seen it. I don’t believe in it.”
“Not many people do see it, Nurse Raskin. However, not many people are sealed in a Stendhal Holmes Life Support System. The etheric body is one of those little conceits that’s been with the human race since it looked at death. Most cultures believe in it at one time or another. St. Paul believed a spiritual body existed with the natural one. The names vary for it: to the Egyptians it was Ka, the Hebrews called it Nefesh, the Greeks the Eidolon, the Germans the Doppelgänger, the Norwegians Thankhi. My favorite is the Roman word—Larva. Very suggestive, don’t you think? Soul is too restrictive a word. Unfortunately there are no mediums in Clayton.”
The word “mediums” shook Nurse Raskin badly. “There’s so much fraud . . .” she began, then bit her lip to keep from crying.
“I forgot. You had a death in the family, didn’t you?”
“Two, Doctor.” The wound was almost open again. Nurse Raskin told him about the year of grief following the deaths of her son and husband, the money she’d spent on mediums, the crushing, cold bitterness of being swindled. They were dead, and dead meant gone. Erased. Nonexistent. “I don’t believe in mediums.”
“But you do believe in ghosts.”
“I never saw one.”
“It is rare, Miss Raskin. You did not find your son or husband but you saw something suggestive with this stranger. I believe it’s because of the LS capsule.”
“Why, sir?”
“I was intrigued when Bickel told us about the machine being able to send a current through nerves. Electricity, Miss Raskin, means human electrical fields and electrical fields mean magnetism. When Forrester dies, some kind of energy departs. Since the total amount of energy and matter remain constant in the universe, we assume they change form. I believe the LS has amplified this energy somehow.”
“Yes, sir,” she sighed.
Jones paced the office lost in his own thoughts, hands clasped behind him. He glanced out the window at the woods.
Nurse Raskin prodded him. “Magnetism, sir?”
“Yes. The most mysterious force in the universe. Did you ever meet a water dowser?”
“Yes. They should form a union with mediums.”
“Very amusing. There are streams of magnetism which course beneath the earth like underground rivers. Ancient man, unconfused by modern rationalism, was aware of them. Dowsers are sensitive to them. The dowsing stick is like an antenna focusing magnetic fields upon their skin. Where water interrupts this flow of magnetism, they’ve hit pay dirt.”
“I had no idea medical schools were so advanced today.”
“Established science barely touched on such things, Miss Raskin. In Great Britain and China, unmarked paths connect places over distances of hundreds of miles. In Britain they’re called lea lines; in China, dragon paths. Chinese citizens are warned not to walk on them. They predate roads and were undiscovered until aircraft enabled people to look down on them. Do you know what they are?”
“Magnetic streams,” she guessed.
Startled, Jones nodded his head. “Yes, indeed. And both countries are absolutely crawling with ghosts. The lands of lea lines and dragon paths have more spirits per square yard than anywhere else in the world.”
Nurse Raskin wondered how to disentangle herself from this character. However, she was in no hurry to go upstairs to the other character who was trying to get out of his body. “I didn’t know that, sir. No, I didn’t.”
“Do you realize the traditional witching hour has a counterpart in physics?”
“No, sir.”
; “Midnight to four is when the graveyards crack and hell yawns forth, in Shakespeare’s phrase. It is also the time of the Schumann Resonance. That is when the earth’s magnetic field is at its strongest. And during solar activity, when it increases, people crawl all over each other trying to get into insane asylums.”
Nurse Raskin thought she heard a monkey wrench in the doctor’s clanking theory machine. “Sir, it’s not midnight.”
Jones blinked in surprise. “What’s not midnight?”
“Unless I misunderstand you, sir, with all respect, the patient’s etheric body showed up at nine-thirty.”
“Nurse Raskin, he’s in an LS system, which is currently swallowing enough electricity to run the state of Colorado. His body is encased in a tremendous magnetic field and by God I saw a small concentration of it coming out of his forehead. It happens everytime he arrests!” Jones plopped down in a chair.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered, sir.” Nurse Raskin killed her brandy and held out the cup, which Jones refilled.
“Miss Raskin, tomorrow I shall witness a miracle on that machine and I shall be the only one in the country who will understand it.”
“What, sir?”
“Tradition states it takes three days for the cord connecting the etheric body to separate from the physical one. Tomorrow will be the third day Forrester has been in that machine. After the cord breaks, Forrester will be truly dead. After that, things might become very interesting.”
Nurse Raskin did not like the sound of that at all. “How so?”
“Technology. Today we have machines that can bring people back from death.”
“I assume Forrester will be buried like most dead people are.”
“Nurse Raskin. The third day. Doesn’t that ring a bell? Who came back from the dead on the third day?”
Nurse Raskin did not want to answer. “Sir. Please,” she murmured.
“Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day. Or was it a ghost? A ghost looks as real as anyone else.” For a moment it seemed as if Jones boggled at the momentousness of the thought. His hand stroked his cheek. Yet, having spoken, he had no choice but to press on. “Eternal life,” he mumbled. “That was the promise. And the fact, too, maybe . . . the Holy Ghost . . .”
“Sir,” interrupted Nurse Raskin, her voice sheathed in steel. “Stop it.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Jones shook his head and smiled at her. “Forbidden thoughts. Unspeakable ideas. I would appreciate it if you did not mention this lunacy to the others.”
“Not me. No, sir.”
“You’re welcome to stay on until he arrests again . . .”
“No, sir,” replied Nurse Raskin, rising to her feet. “I can live without some miracles.”
Jones escorted her to the door. She tottered back to her post, thinking it best not to check the other patients just yet.
Dutton’s beeper lay inside his clothes piled on the floor. When it went off, he awoke instantly, shut off the machine, and ran into the hall to call the clinic.
“Dutton? Jones here.”
“Yes, Jones, I know your voice. Why do you always have to introduce your . . .”
“According to the computer, Forrester’s going to arrest in forty-five minutes.”
Dutton groaned and looked outside at the sun trying to cut through the morning mist. “Is that why you woke me up? He arrests all the time.”
“I think this is the big one. I think we’re going to lose him for at least an hour.”
“If we lose him for an hour, we lose him for eternity. What do you expect that machine to do?”
“Dutton, please come over.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the third day. Thank you. Good-bye.”
As he dressed, Dutton sifted his memories to see if Jones or anyone else had made any assertions about what was supposed to happen. Three days, Jones had suggested, was the time limit for watching Forrester on the machine. Apparently Jones was expecting something big to happen.
Forty-five minutes was a little on the optimistic side. Daniel Forrester’s heart went into fibrillation just as Lawrence Dutton strode into the isolation ward. All of the other doctors were there and it was a notably unpleasant gathering. Jones sat hunched like a monk over the main console of the LS. Evan Branch, his craggy face sour and exhausted, sat in his usual chair with a leg resting on a second one. Jameson was in very high spirits, obviously relieved that Forrester was going to expire. “How’s tricks?” he greeted Dutton effusively.
“Why the party?” asked Dutton, standing behind Jones.
“His physical condition indicates the machine is about to have its acid test. I thought it best we witness this and kick our thoughts around afterwards.”
“Is his physical condition any worse than it was three days ago?”
Jones pushed his clipboard away. He did not seem to want to look directly at anyone. He was unsure of himself, behaving as though he had led them all to a dead end and did not know what would happen if he failed. “Well, each arrest has provoked more power from the machine. He has lost so much weight that I do not see how this thing can possibly revive him again. I want to observe how the machine behaves with something impossible.”
“What do you expect it to do?” asked Dutton, hands on hips.
“Logically I would expect it to scan the body thoroughly, then print out the words vital signs terminated. I’ve put in a little program of my own to one of the scanners, though. Remember that magnetism which showed up over his forehead? It was very faint but it was there. I want to amplify it.”
On the console the heartbeat line bent. Jones faced the desk and said, “Here we go, folks.”
After a few bursts of voltage failed to regularize the heartbeat, the LS capsule began cooling down. The blood pressure dropped down to near zero and the lung pump cut into action, gently inflating and deflating the chest. Data on the screen indicated which nerves in the heart were misfiring. Dutton watched the readouts showing activity in the autonomic nervous system which would tell them when Forrester’s body would begin working on its own again. The lights flashed red and the console squealed. The heart was still.
They waited. Adrenalin was injected into the heart and the effect noted by a scanning hoop. Nothing. One minute passed. Two minutes. Five, then six minutes. After twenty minutes ticked by, Daniel Forrester had surpassed his previous arrests. Then Dutton noticed the power meters rising. To Jones he whispered, “What’s it doing now?”
“Trying to start the heart. It’s gone to a very fine scanning program . . . whup! No. It’s doing my program. The magnetism. Look at that!”
Dutton stared wordlessly at a computer rendering of a balloon-shaped magnetic field suspended two feet above Forrester’s head and attached to it by a stringlike form. Dutton had seen that shape in etchings. It was the life force of legend leaving the dying body through the mythical third eye.
Jones punched out a closer scan of the shape but it was gone when the paper rolled out. He looked at the first sheet. “Dutton, that’s the stuff that myths are built on.”
“Where did it go?” asked Dutton.
“Away,” Jones replied softly.
Jameson paced so nervously that Branch barked, “Kindly sit down, Doctor.”
Jameson sat down but started crossing and uncrossing his legs. After another ten minutes, Branch pushed himself to his feet, walked over to the capsule, and squinted through the purple light into the canopy. He said, “Dr. Jones?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Forrester is dead.”
“So it seems.”
“Do the rest of you concur?”
Jameson nodded with alacrity. Small trickles of fatty substances were sinking through Forrester’s tissues to his back. Muscle tone indicated rigor mortis was setting in. “He’s had it. If we could see his back, we c
ould watch lividity appear.”
Dutton said, “Forty minutes without oxygen. No blood flow, no trace of activity anywhere in the nervous system. We’ve lost him.”
Branch turned to Jones. “How about it, Jones?”
“Yes,” Jones answered equably.
“Yes what? He’s unrevivable.”
“Sir, I believe Daniel Forrester’s dead right now. Religiously speaking, he has given up the ghost, gone to heaven, passed beyond the vale. Yes, sir. He has kicked the proverbial bucket. He has bought the farm.”
“Very well, shut the machine off.”
“However, sir, the lung monitor is still functioning. The capsule has its own cutoff program which will tell us when everything possible has been done.”
Branch angrily tapped his cane. “You just agreed he was dead. What’s the point?”
“The machine’s the point, respectfully, sir.”
Dutton kept his voice purposefully low and calm. “What can the thing do now except bury him?”
“It’s doing something!” Jones hunched in closer to the screen. “This is exactly what the company told us to watch out
for.”
Jameson exhaled in frustration and punched the console, knocking Jones’s clipboard to the floor. “This is nuts.”
Jones exploded. “Jameson, what is the matter with you! You’ve been acting like a pole’s up your ass ever since we got the machine.”
“I’m working in an insane asylum, that’s what’s wrong with me. You heard everybody. Shut the thing off.”
“What’s your hurry!” Jones’s face was flushed and his voice was rising.
“Haven’t you heard? Dead bodies are unsanitary.”
As their voices sharpened. Branch tried to douse the fuse by tapping his cane loudly on the floor. Helplessly he said to Dutton, “Lawrence. Hit somebody.”
Jones began rising from his chair. “Haven’t you all noticed Jameson here? He’s scared to death of Forrester.”