by Scott Mackay
‘‘Your eyes . . .’’
He looked down at his body and saw that he had an IV drip in his arm and ECG sensors taped to his chest. He turned to the window. ‘‘The sun . . .’’
She at last understood. ‘‘Yes, we’re back.’’
‘‘Will you marry me?’’
Her face was momentarily shocked into immobility. It was a simple question, yet full of quantum potential. It was a yes-or-no question, a proposition like the Builders and the Wreckers, but within each fecund egg of a response lay a whole future, a path to follow, a territory to chart, a continuum in which to exist. He had a better understanding of what the Builders meant by the binary nature of the universe. Yes or no. And all the maybes that made up the gray areas of the universe were just way stations to either answer.
The answer had to wait. Ochoa peered around the door. When he saw Cam, he rushed forward.
‘‘Dr. Conrad?’’
‘‘Hello.’’
‘‘You’re awake.’’
‘‘I am.’’
Ochoa did the basic neurological battery. Months of the year. Backward from a hundred. Touch my finger. Touch your nose. Then he got on a special pager, even as Lesha wandered away and thumbed digits into her cell. Yes or no. The answer to his question remained unanswered for the time being. Dr. Cormier, the cardiologist, came in. Heart. Lungs. Breathe in. Breathe out. Can you sit up? He was a little shaky, his muscles a little atrophied, but wonder of wonders, he could.
Pages went out to lab personnel, diagnostic imaging techs, Rhona Lindsay, and a number of other allied health professionals.
For the next several hours he was surrounded by these professionals. They rolled in like a peculiar white-coated weather front, and behind them, Lesha, with her beautiful blond surfer-girl aura, peered at him, poised between trepidation and bliss. Between negative and positive. Between one step forward and one step backward.
The arrival and departure of these people was like so many thespians entering and exiting a stage; and when he and Lesha were at last alone together, it was like she had forgotten the question.
She gave him a history of the world, and of himself, for the last several days.
‘‘You’ve had two heart attacks and a stroke, but we believe Builder nanogens are repairing the damage, and that you should have a complete recovery. As for the red giant, hydrogen levels in the sun have increased dramatically.’’ He was still foggy, half his mind skittering along the edges of higher dimensions, and sometimes what she said seemed out of context. ‘‘Also, the Earth’s polarity reversed itself for a few days, then righted itself, and after that, the Van Allen belts regenerated.’’
One of the strangest things she told him about, and what took him a long time to understand, concerned the Earth’s orbit.
‘‘It seems that as the Builders were tinkering with the sun, stoking it, its gravitational pull weakened, and Earth lost a bit of its grip. This resulted in the widening of Earth’s orbit. Mean distance from the sun went from one hundred and fifty million kilometers to two hundred and twenty-five million. The Builders then purposely kept the Earth at this greater distance as they reestablished a main-sequence phase in the sun. The extra distance cooled the Earth considerably, and reestablished the cold trap. In fact, it got so tremendously cold at the poles that significant portions of both ice caps have reformed. We haven’t seen ice caps like these since 1950. Some long-defunct glaciers are advancing again. The reformed ice caps are reflecting sunlight back into space, and this has significantly reduced the effects of global warming. Now they’ve pushed Earth back into position.’’
The president called him via video-conference line. ‘‘You’ll be pleased to know that units of the PRNC Army still loyal to Po Pin-Yen have been defeated in most outlying provinces, and that the new DRC-SUPPORTED government has established firm control. Much of the credit goes to you, Dr. Conrad. The new government backed you, and now that you’ve won the day, it’s paying them dividends in popular support. That’s great news for America. It seems you’ve given us some concrete political gains after all. Your country thanks you.’’
As Cam stared at the pugnacious little leader, he realized that the president might belong to the Wrecker side. Millions of people had died, not only in the Worldwide Crash, but also in the August nuclear exchange. Everyone on the planet was now at risk for radiation-related illness at some point in their lives. Personally, he had lost two great friends, Jesus and Mark, as well as his house. And the president was still playing politics? He understood better than ever why the Builders might have been so hesitant.
Dr. Ochoa collected all the test results the next day. ‘‘Your scans are normal. The stroke-affected part of your brain has been completely repaired by the Builder-introduced nanogens, and any damage from your two myocardial infarcts is gone as well. Your cardio workup is unremarkable. I want you to wear a Holter monitor for the next forty-eight hours, just to be on the safe side, but I think you have to be grateful to the Builders, Dr. Conrad. They’ve completely restored you.’’
He was left to sleep after that.
When he woke, he found Lesha by his side. ‘‘Yes.’’
He nodded. There it was. The answer he had been waiting for.
In the fecund egg of her response lay a whole future, a path to follow, a territory to chart, a continuum in which to exist. The choice had finally been made.
And he knew it would add to the positive outflow of the universe.