Again seeming to sense his thought, Derham said, “We will give priority to explorer crews when we expand the project, since they are among those to whom the training will be most useful. But what I’m telling you isn’t just a matter of medical emergencies. I can’t say any more now—in due course you will understand.”
There was a great deal he didn’t yet understand, Terry thought, and he had begun to suspect that there was a lot more to the project than had been revealed to him. He might be a fool to walk into it so blindly. And yet he trusted these two men, Admiral Derham and Dr. Aldren, above all others he had ever known. . . .
“You don’t need to give me an answer right away,” the CO said. “You can have some time to think about it.”
“I don’t need to think about it, sir,” Terry declared. “I’m in.”
“Okay, then. There’s an opening in tonight’s schedule, so report to Dr. Aldren at 2300, and don’t eat anything beforehand, starting now.” Admiral Derham added, “The first part is hell, but once you’re past that, most of the training’s fun. Good luck, Lieutenant.”
~ 4 ~
The time until 2300 dragged, and having been ordered to skip mess call, Terry was hungry. Why, he wondered, had he been told to report so late at night? The corridor lights had been lowered and he took a wrong turning before locating the remote office again. It occurred to him that with a secret project underway, they might indeed have hidden it deliberately.
He was greeted not by the doctor but by the silver-haired woman. “Hello, Terry,” she said with warmth. “Welcome to the Flame project. We didn’t meet officially when you came before, but my name is Roanna—I’m Aldren’s wife.”
Taking a closer look at her face, he realized that the silver hair, and Dr. Aldren’s, might actually be due to old age, healthy and fit though they both appeared. Admiral Derham said that people who’d had the special training didn’t decline—but that meant this couple must have received it long ago.
“Later, you’ll be working with me as well as with Aldren,” Roanna went on. Why, Terry wondered, would his wife refer to him by his surname when not including “Doctor”? Misinterpreting his puzzled expression, she added, “Both of us are qualified neurofeedback instructors.”
“Neurofeedback?” He knew what it was, the real-time observation of data about one’s own brain activity, but he had thought it was a therapy for specific medical disorders or, sometimes, for stress reduction.
“Yes, didn’t Admiral Derham tell you? That’s the technology we use, though of course there’s more involved than technology. Most of our equipment is standard, but our input is more detailed and our software is far more sophisticated.”
That was interesting. He had caught up on recent software development during his free hours on Titan, and had not encountered any techniques more sophisticated than what he’d been familiar with during his hacking days. If the innovative training had existed long enough for people to grow old, how could the software it required be advanced?
Roanna smiled. “You’ll see what I mean when the output’s shown to you. Right now, I’m going to take you back to the private lab—it’s not quite as accessible as our main ones, which are next to the office.”
The private lab proved to be not only relatively inaccessible but a mere cubicle with metal walls that looked all too solid. “Is that lead shielding?” Terry asked, growing more apprehensive by the minute as he noted the two large reclining chairs, equipped with straps, that nearly filled the space.
“Yes, but we don’t use radiation,” Roanna said. “This used to be part of the medical radiology department before that was expanded. It’s ideal for the project because it’s soundproof and has a control booth, so that someone can operate the computer without overhearing confidential conversations.” She motioned for him to sit in one of the chairs. “Aldren will be with you in a few minutes,” she told him, and left the room, closing the lead-lined door firmly behind her.
The few minutes turned out to be more like a few hours. There was no clock in the room and Terry had not looked at his watch when entering, but it was past 0130 by the time it dawned on him that his nerve was being tested.
That thought was a relief; he had been close to panic at the thought that he might have been forgotten and would remain trapped in this isolated cell forever. Well, if such tactics were to be used, he would be a good sport about it. He was sure, from his one short contact with Dr. Aldren, that whatever ordeals he was required to undergo would turn out well.
The pilot project was code-named Flame, Admiral Derham had told him, a name that had been chosen by Aldren. What was the significance of that? Probably none; code names were unrelated to the work to which they referred so as not to hint at what was going on. It was a clear indication that the pain ahead of him would involve neither actual flames nor heat of any kind. He swallowed, realizing that he was about to find out what it did involve.
Another hour passed before the doctor appeared, less casual than before, yet with the same underlying warmth. A thrill of confidence spread through Terry, close to what he always felt when about to lift off in a ship. The gloom of the past week fell away. It was all right that he was on Titan! Fate had brought him here to gain abilities he would never have acquired elsewhere.
“You’ve had time to reconsider, and so I needn’t ask whether you’re volunteering because you really want to,” Dr. Aldren said. His voice was calm, but there was emotion back of it. As before, there was a connection between them, the thing he had never been able to feel with other people, the element that had been missing—as if their minds somehow touched.
“I know you’re wondering what’s going to happen to you,” the doctor went on. “I can’t tell you all of it yet. Part of it’s secret even from participants, and besides that, there are phases of the initial instruction that depend on surprise. But I’ll explain some of the theory. You may not be in a mood to absorb it right know; later we’ll go over it in more detail.”
“I’m aware that there’ll be pain,” Terry said. “You don’t need to talk me into going through with it.”
“The first few lessons are unavoidably harsh, and you have a right to know why.” Aldren sat down in the other chair and continued soberly, “Terry, most of the things we wish our bodies weren’t subject to—fear, sickness, and pain—are protections supplied by nature. They evolved because without them, animals and young children, and even primitive adults, wouldn’t be able to avoid injury. There are rare cases of children born without pain receptors, and usually they don’t live long; sometimes they even mutilate themselves. As for illness, most of what leads to it evolved because it was protective against more rapidly fatal illness, or is the result of processes vital in emergencies being continued when not needed. And so the physical reactions we experience as unpleasant are deeply embedded in our genes. Are you familiar with the concept of biological programming?”
“Yes— It’s something like a computer program, I guess, though I don’t know much about biology.” He had almost said “Yes, sir,” before remembering that with Aldren he was supposed to be informal.
“The point is that programming can be altered. Our biological programming, derived from our genes, determines our brains’ reaction to stimuli—what neurotransmitters they produce, and so forth—and ordinarily we can’t change that. But a way has been found by which we can learn to do it. How or when this happened I’m not at liberty to tell you, but it has been thoroughly proven. It is not experimental in itself; the only experiment here concerns its practicality for use in Fleet. The training you’re about to undergo will teach you to override your biological programming consciously.”
It made sense. “You mean so that my brain won’t produce pain or sickness?”
“That’s right. Suffering occurs wholly in the mind; it’s an emotional alarm that makes injury impossible to ignore. It is not the same thing as the physical sensation produced by the injury. You will continue to feel the sensation, but it won’t
bother you any more than touching something harmless does. You’ll be able to turn off the automatic alarm. And once you have learned to do that, you will be able to turn off other automatic reactions, such as a rapidly beating heart, when there is no good reason for them to continue. As a human adult, you can watch out for your body’s safety without the built-in protections evolution gave to organisms that aren’t equipped to judge.”
“But if this is possible, why haven’t adults been doing it for centuries?”
“There have been exceptional people who did do it—some yogis and shamans, for instance, and other practitioners of spiritual disciplines. And there have been cases where it happened spontaneously if a person had to function with seemingly superhuman endurance during a crisis, when action had priority over self-protection. That’s the key factor—initially, it only happens during a crisis. So we have to create a crisis in order for you to learn.”
“Pain?”
“Yes. In principle there are other ways of producing extreme stress, but pain is the fastest and safest. It can be stopped instantly when it has served its purpose, without lingering aftereffects. And since you’d want to be able to turn off pain eventually anyway, you have nothing to lose by dealing with it at the beginning.”
“Will I really be able to turn it off? Permanently, I mean?
“Once you’re past the learning stage, you’ll be free of pain for the rest of your life, provided that you don’t panic and fail to use the ability you’ve acquired. It’s not automatic—you have to consciously shift into a special state of mind. That’s because a person too sick or confused to do so might also be unaware of bodily harm.”
“I’m ready to start learning, I guess,” Terry declared, drawing a deep breath.
“I believe you are. But it’s going to be a lot worse than you think, Terry. Long ago, way back in the twentieth century, researchers tried treating chronic pain with a form of neurofeedback. Their primitive equipment made it impractical, but that wasn’t why the results weren’t more spectacular. They only did it with relatively mild pain. One might think that the way to learn such a skill would be to start with mild pain and progress gradually, but that’s not how it works. After all, for it to work with mild pain would defeat the purpose for which pain evolved.”
Terry shivered. He’d been warned, of course, that it wouldn’t be mild. . . .
“There are other things involved without which the earlier researchers couldn’t have succeeded,” Aldren went on. “Better brain scanning techniques, more advanced software, and some factors you’re not ready to understand yet that make it essential for us to maximize stress. But there’s no getting around the fact that the pain has to be truly extreme.”
“Well,” said Terry determinedly, “If other people have gotten through it, I can.”
“Many have, and so have both Roanna and I. I wouldn’t subject anyone to this if I hadn’t been through myself.”
That was what Admiral Derham had said. Despite himself, Terry was beginning to worry. He’d never questioned his own ability to face pain, and this would be a bad time to start. Nevertheless, he felt queasy and he was glad he hadn’t eaten.
After removing his shirt as instructed, he sat silent while Aldren attached sensors to his chest, fitted a complicated-looking helmet over his head, and then fastened the chair’s straps, immobilizing him. Finally, he brought forth an odd-looking metal device which he placed between Terry’s left arm and the armrest, binding it tightly with more straps, padded ones.
“This is a neural stimulator,” he said, “It’s harmless—it won’t injure you in any way. You’ll doubt that when you feel its effects, but I give you my word that your arm won’t be damaged.”
With a rush of fear Terry grasped the import of what he’d been told. Suffering occurred in the mind, Aldren had said. A crisis would also have to take place in his mind. He would not be able to simply grit his teeth and endure physical sensations. . . .
“There are two kinds of fear,” the doctor said. “There’s rational fear, which we feel when we know there is danger of being harmed. You know I will not harm you, so you’ve been thinking that you won’t be seriously afraid. But there’s also emotional fear, which isn’t dependent on real danger. All sorts of things can generate it; people with phobias, for instance, feel genuine, agonizing fear about things that don’t bother normal people at all. One way or another, their brains have gotten rewired to produce it in those situations, and with the right kind of therapy, that can be reversed. The fear of physical pain, however, is part of the biological programming we were talking about, entirely apart from the dangers from which it protects. It can’t be overcome just by deciding to be brave. You’re going to feel it much more intensely than you can imagine beforehand, and knowing that the pain is harmless isn’t going to help.”
Abruptly, Terry became sickeningly aware that this was true. A wave of fear struck as if rushing in from some external source; his stomach heaved and he felt sweat drenching him and dampening his pants. Or was it sweat? So far, maybe, but if he couldn’t get a grip on himself. . . . Oh, God, he thought. To be humiliated in the presence of the man whose opinion he most valued. . . .
Desperately he reached out with his mind, searching for the magical sense of a strange bond with Aldren—and it was not there. He felt a barrier more unbreachable than the one he felt with everyone else he knew. He was alone, confronted by terror he did not know how to combat. Surely it wasn’t supposed to be like this! His mouth dry, he barely managed to get out words: “You—you’re going to tell me some special way to deal with it, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely. But not tonight, Terry. First you have to go through the crisis.”
“It lasts all night?” He had assumed this instruction would be given to him at the height of the crisis, only a few minutes from now.
“I can’t say in advance how long it lasts. That depends on data about your brain that’s being recorded by the scanners in your helmet, and on the monitoring of your heart as a precaution. Of course it won’t last any longer than you’re willing to endure it. This training is entirely voluntary. I’ll be here with you, and you can end the pain at any time simply by telling me to stop.”
“I can?” He had thought he was willing, but if it turned out to be really bad, maybe he should take a short break before continuing. . . .
“You can end it,” Aldren repeated. “But if you quit before it’s over, you’re out of the project. You won’t get a second chance.”
He had no choice, then. Terry felt almost glad. He was afraid of what he might say if given a choice.
The light in the little chamber dimmed, leaving only the bright glow of the LEDs on the remote in Aldren’s hand. Then the pain hit him. It was so overwhelming that Terry nearly shrieked aloud. Never, never had he imagined anything like this! He gasped for breath. It couldn’t be true that he would not be injured, because his arm felt seared to the bone—certainly it must be charred under the stimulator’s metal plate. He had been misled somehow . . . yet Dr. Aldren wouldn’t. . . .
Determinedly, he began a silent count. One . . . two . . . three . . . twenty-nine . . . thirty . . . By the time he reached sixty he could no longer keep the numbers straight in his head. There was a limit to the number of seconds this could go on, surely. Perhaps his time sense was distorted, perhaps he hadn’t been counting seconds—it seemed more like minutes.
The pain didn’t let up. It intensified.
Terry’s mind was hazy; he was close to passing out, and wished wholeheartedly that he would. Yet what if that was considered quitting? He would not quit! Though being in the project didn’t seem to matter anymore, his self-respect mattered. He knew he could not live with himself if he let this ordeal defeat him.
But in the next moment terror flooded his mind, because for the first time he realized that a time was coming when nothing would matter except stopping the pain. He wasn’t thinking clearly; he lost touch with his surroundings and he was falling, fal
ling into a dark whirlpool that was about to suck him in. In desperation he cried out silently, Please, please . . . don’t let me be destroyed this way, I can’t quit, but what good will it do if my mind is destroyed?
As if in reply, a new thought came to him. You will not be destroyed, only changed. A mind-altering crisis is what we’re aiming for.
For an instant Terry felt reassured. And then the pain intensified again, and he lost control of whether he was thinking or screaming, but in the next instant the burning stopped abruptly and he realized with despair that though he had not knowingly given in, he had gasped aloud that he’d had enough.
~ 5 ~
The aftermath was agonizing, not physically, for the pain was completely gone, but emotionally. At first Terry was conscious only of rage—rage at Dr. Aldren for betraying his trust, at Admiral Derham for talking him into volunteering for a manifestly inhuman experiment, at Fleet for sending him to a planet so deficient in scope for his abilities that boredom had led him to volunteer. But once he calmed down a little, he became aware that what he was really feeling was rage against himself.
He knew underneath where the blame lay, and it wasn’t with Aldren or Derham, both of whom had given him clear warning. Terry was engulfed by regret and shame. He hadn’t suspected that he might fail. It hurt to know that he had lost his chance to gain capabilities he now saw as infinitely desirable, and that he would no longer have the companionship or even the respect of Dr. Aldren. It was still worse to realize that his concept of himself had been false.
He had never doubted his own courage. He had been confident that he could do anything he set out to do, whether it was gaining entry to a secured Net installation, landing a spacecraft, or jumping a starship to an uncharted system. That confidence had been the only thing in his life he could count on—and now he could never count on it again.
He lay back on the now fully reclined second chair, on which he’d collapsed after using the sealed room’s screened-off lavatory facilities, unmoving, staring up at the low lead-lined ceiling. He had been left alone again, and he no longer cared if he was ever found. There was nothing ahead to hope for. He’d been told that neither success nor failure in the Flame project would go on his record, but whatever reason had caused him to be pulled off explorer duty still existed; he might never have been able to return to it in any case. Now, he was no longer sure he wanted to. He might not trust himself with command of an explorer now. There was no way of knowing what sort of crisis might arise on an explorer mission, and he had learned that he was not very good at getting through crises.
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 3