by Rob Grant
Oslo barks, 'Dr Morton!' with even more impatience than is her norm. Eddie turns. She has dug out some kind of hydraulic forklift trolley. 'I've had enough. Get on the trolley.'
Eddie shuffles up to the forklift. 'Shouldn't we help him?' He's beginning to grow alarmed at Styx's untempered tenacity, which is clearly starting to result in physical damage.
'Help him open a door?'
'He's bleeding, Oslo.' Eddie manoeuvres himself gingerly on to the blades of the forklift.
'So? Let him bleed. It's his blood.'
'He's not just bleeding slightly. Blood is pumping out of his nose and ears. Copiously.'
'He's a drone, Morton. If he gets broke, we'll grow another one.' And this callous dismissal being Oslo's last word on the subject, she engages the trolley's motor and steers Eddie off at an alarming speed.
More in pique, in frustration at Oslo's cold-bloodedness, than in a genuine attempt to straighten the record, Eddie shouts over the scream of the forklift's motor, 'And my name's not Morton!'
Oslo cuts the truck's power instantly, without warning. Eddie has to grab on with his pincers to stop himself hurtling down the corridor. Even so, he sways precariously on the forks. He doesn't know how strong his helmet's faceplate is, or what would happen if it were to smash and release his green gloop all over the floor, but he certainly doesn't feel ready to try it out. He notices his right pincer is bending the strut it's holding and, with a great effort of will, he relaxes the pressure on it.
Oslo strides round to face him, her features set in war mode. 'What?'
'I've told you already. My name's not Morton. And I'm not a doctor.'
'Well, who the hell are you, then?'
Ah. The tricky ones first, eh?
Who is he, in fact? He's not who he's supposed to be, twice removed. He's supposed to be Charles Perry Gordon, who's been mistaken for Dr Morton, but he isn't. He's Eddie O'Hare, posing as Charles Perry Gordon, who's somehow become confused with Dr Piers Morton.
The question is: which persona can Eddie viably sustain?
He's in a vulnerable position now, ever so slightly. Most of his working parts are ship issue. He's dependent on the continued good will of whoever's in charge here for his very existence. Not something to make a mistake about, for sure.
So Eddie does what Eddie does best.
Eddie dithers.
'Actually, I'm not completely sure who I absolutely am, I'm just fairly confident that I'm not, in fact, Dr Morton.' And because this sounds as hopeless as it dismally is, Eddie adds the even more hopelessly dismal: '... Probably.' And because Oslo leaves too long and uncomfortable a pause before responding, he makes it worse by tacking on the barely muttered meaningless: '... In many ways.'
Oslo waits until Eddie's clearly petered out, then places her palms either side of his helmet, as if she's squeezing his cheeks. 'All right, Dr Morton. I want you to listen to me, because this is very important. This is life-or-death important. I'm taking you to meet a man. He's our psychiatric counsellor. And his opinion is important. This man is going to have to pass you as fit for duty before we can use you, Dr Morton. So you're going to have to try and act sane, OK? And if you start saying you're someone else, especially someone else who isn't absolutely sure who he absolutely is, I don't think that will go down as an acceptable sanity level, even for this mission.' And she concludes the diatribe with a short slap of increasing force on the side of Eddie's helmet to punctuate each word: 'Are you with me, Dr Morton?'
The final slap results in considerable and disorienting slopping around Eddie's head space.
By the time he's asserted, 'All the way, Oslo,' the forklift's in motion again, and they're heading for the passenger transway.
Their destination clearly lies far away. That, or the transway system is functioning at a massively reduced efficiency. Or a third alternative: Oslo's intolerant, condemning silence makes the journey seem intolerably long.
Whatever the reason, he suddenly finds he has time to reflect, and this is probably not a good thing.
A lot of terrible things have befallen Eddie over the past couple of hours. Or, rather, he's become aware that a lot of terrible things have befallen him. Losing most of his body, for instance, including such old favourites as his heart, his lungs and his penis. Being ineptly wired up to an unremittingly ugly metal replacement body which would make his own mother run away from him screaming. Losing everything he ever had, not to mention everyone he ever knew, and suddenly finding himself several centuries away from his own lifetime. But of all the tragedies, ills and discomforts, the one that distresses him most is the green gloop. Not the gloop itself: he's resigned to a life submerged in mucoid slime. It's the relentless greenness of it. He finds himself wishing, more than anything, that it wasn't green. He finds himself longing for some technological miracle that might allow the green gloop to be substituted by, say, blue gloop. Or -- dare he even dream? -- by clear, transparent gloop.
It's strange that this small depressive hankering occupies his thoughts. There are many more important concerns that might engage him more urgently. Perhaps this ludicrous fixation with the particular tint of his new, monochrome world is Eddie's way of not addressing more pressing matters.
Such as how he came to be in this condition.
And more pressing still: who or what brought him to it.
Yet it's the monomaniacal obsession with an alternatively pigmented gloop that stays with him until Oslo speaks again. Out of the carriage, now. Standing at a door. A barked order: 'Off the trolley.'
Eddie concentrates on the pincers, releasing his grip gently, and steps down off the forks with comparative grace of movement. He hardly totters at all.
Oslo grabs his helmet again, twists it to face her and snarls a whispered question: 'One last time. Who are you?'
Eddie doesn't think his helmet is meant to twist over quite so far, and he's fighting a nightmare image of his gloop slowly oozing out of a crack in the neck joint, leaving him gagging like a landed blubbery fish. 'I'm Dr Piers Morton,'
Oslo almost smiles. 'And very pleased I am to meet you.'
She places her palm on the door pad and steps into the room. Eddie gives up trying to check if there's a breach in his helmet and follows her with his best attempt at a confident stride.
Not too bad an effort, either: he almost completely misses the doorframe.
A man, presumably the very man Eddie has to impress with his Dr Mortonism, is seated at a desk, his concentration somewhere below table level. He's obviously aware of their arrival, but he seems much more interested in his under-desk activity.
Even though Oslo knows he knows she's here, and knows he knows she knows it, she announces her presence with: 'Padre?'
Without looking up, the Padre holds up the forefinger of one hand. Oslo tries not to snort in exasperation, but falls short of her ambition.
The Padre speaks under the table: 'Almost... nearly... yes... go on, go on... you can... Yes! Oh yes! Magnificent! Bless you.' He sighs contentedly and looks up, wearing a beatific smile.
The thing where Eddie's heart would be experiences a powerful surge. He recognizes the man. Father Lewis. A friendly face. Someone Eddie actually likes. The sensation fades somewhat as Eddie's memory kicks in, and he recalls that the good Father doesn't care much for him -- thinks, in fact, that he is some kind of Ubermensch-nonsense-spouting ultra right-wing fascist nazi heartless scumbucket. It fades completely when logic kicks in, and Eddie realizes, given that centuries have passed, this can't be the same man, and on closer study, even through the green fug, his features, while similar, are subtly tweaked.
This man is a distant descendant of Father Lewis. Eddie was a contemporary of this man's ancestors. Eddie finds this thought disturbing. Time really has marched on. And on. He, himself, is a not very well-preserved antique.
'Bernadette.' The Padre pushes his chair back from the desk and smiles at Oslo. 'You have our revivee, eh?'
'That's right. Father Lewis, meet D
r Morton.' She turns to Eddie and adds through the gritted teeth of a Barbie smile: 'Dr Piers Morton.'
The Padre crosses in front of his desk and proffers his hand.
There is a small pause, like the distance between drips from a barely leaking tap in the dark hours of the morning, as both the priest and Eddie look down at Eddie's wretched pincers. But Father Lewis breaks the embarrassment by grabbing a pincer anyway, and shaking it warmly.
'And how are you coming along, Piers?'
With blatantly uncharacteristic enthusiasm, Oslo jabbers: 'He's fine. He's dandy. Way in excess of our most optimistic projections. He's totally accepted the situation, he's happy, and he's raring to go, aren't you? Doctor?'
'He can speak, I take it?'
'He can speak, he can move, he remembers his name -- everything. Can we go now?'
'Well, call me a stickler and nail my gonads to a griddle, Bernadette, but I'd like to hear it from the patient himself Lewis leans into Eddie's space and smiles with practised compassion. 'How are you feeling, Dr Morton?'
There's something about the earnest quality of the priest's expression that makes Eddie want to tell the truth. Something irresistible.
He tries to toe Oslo's line. He starts with upbeat enthusiasm.
'I'm feeling absolutely...' But he can't meet the priest's searching stare. He casts his eyes and his voice downwards. 'Not good, Father.'
Oslo turns away and kicks something.
The priest tilts his head sympathetically. 'In what way "Not good", Dr Morton? "Not good" how?'
'Well...' Eddie sucks in some gloop. 'For a start, I don't think I am Dr Morton.'
He hears Oslo's exasperated hiss, and the plaintive whine: 'Didn't I beg you not to mention that?'
Eddie looks up. He thinks, only thinks, he sees the priest's smile falter a tad. If so, it recovers quickly, and his voice still croons with the same understanding tenor: 'All right. If you're not Dr Morton, then who are you?'
'I'm...' Who? Who is he? Eddie O'Hare, talentless stowaway first class? Get back in the pickle jar, loser. 'I'm...' Who, then? Charles Perry Gordon, useless asshole, first class? Oh yes, they're probably in desperate need of his particular Achtung madness. Who then? Who? 'I'm... It's complicated.'
The priest's eyes flick over at Oslo then back at Eddie. 'It's complicated? How complicated can "who are you?" be, eh?'
Eddie wishes he'd fought the stupid urge to tell the truth. His amassed experience indicates irrefutably that telling the truth always causes problems. Always. For Eddie, it's truth that weaves a tangled web. 'Look, I'm... it's been a tough few hours. I need some space.'
'There's no time for that whimpering wet nonsense!' Oslo thumps something with considerable venom. 'You have to snap out of... whatever you're in!'
The priest holds up a placatory hand. 'Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. Try a little projection here. The poor man just arose from a chemically induced long-term coma lasting several lifetimes to find he has fewer body parts left than a gutted mollusc. I think we can expect him to be experiencing some small confusion. Don't you?'
'On the other hand, we have to entertain the increasingly likely probability that his brain is terminally pickled, and perhaps we might get more sense out of a gutted mollusc.'
Father Lewis leans his rear on his desk and folds his arms. 'Well, before we resort to that, slightly... defeatist diagnosis, I think we might try a little spiritual and philosophical guidance, eh?'
'Spiritual and philosophical guidance? From a man who installs spy cameras to watch women undress?' Oslo tips a knowing nod towards the monitor concealed under the desk.
The priest's tranquil smile doesn't waver. 'There are souls that need saving everywhere, Bernadette.' He rises and ushers them towards the door. 'Even in the ladies' shower room.'
20
Eddie doesn't know where they're heading, and he has to focus hard on every minute detail of each movement he makes. None the less, he finds some mental space to contemplate his companions. The priest is cooing predictable psychological platitudes, how Eddie shouldn't expect too much too soon, how the paths of his memory will realign themselves when they're ready, how movement will become second nature to him: nothing that demands too much attention or response, save the odd grunt and the occasional, though brutally difficult, nod.
He shares the curious accent of Bernadette Oslo; strangely elongated vowels and sharp, distinct Ts and K sounds that produce a staccato quality in mos-tuh sen-tuh-ences -- Eddie imagines the accent has evolved ship-wide. Eddie, being the chameleonic character he is, will no doubt be lapsing into it himself in short order, electronic larynx permitting.
There is a slightly disturbing facial similarity between Oslo and Lewis. Mostly around the nose and the high cheekbones. Odd, since the long-gone Mr Gordon's Mengelesian genetic diversification programme was designed to avoid such by-products of inbreeding. Then again, the programme was only intended to be effective over three generations; five at the very worst. It's probably inevitable that certain dominant characteristics will eventually prevail over the course of -- what? -- at least ten generations.
Thankfully there is no sign, in these two at least, of congenital stupidity. They both seem bright and motivated. And while there may be a question mark over the Padre's morality -- surely Oslo was joking about the hidden cameras? -- he has confidence and a quick mind.
Why, then, is there still no evidence of technological progress? Any human who had slept for a hundred years or more since the sixteenth century would have awoken to an inexplicable new world. Here, they haven't even changed the direction signs.
And this observation triggers another. Many of the official signs in evidence carry a logo with the ship's name on it. Now, Eddie was seriously drugged up, in an artificial reality, but didn't the nymph and the satyr display surprise at the appellation Willflower?
Oslo and Father Lewis have stopped, and Lewis is looking querulously at Eddie, as if expecting a response. Eddie tries an ambiguous grunt. 'Unguh?'
Lewis sighs and repeats himself. 'I was saying that this may be a disturbing experience for you, but I think you should face up to it. This is the room in which you've spent your missing decades. I think it might be easier for you to accept your... status if you see it for yourself, first hand. Are you ready?'
Eddie looks at the sign over the door, SUSPENDED PERSONNEL STORAGE. Marvellous. Could it be more cold, clinical or impersonal? He thinks about nodding, then thinks again. 'I'm ready, Padre.'
Lewis swipes his palm over the door sensor, and steps into the darkened room.
As Eddie's eyes adjust, he perceives a strange, unreal light pervading the room. To Eddie, it looks a deep green, naturally, but it's probably blue.
Somebody flicks a switch, and a bright underlight picks out a glowing rank of large glass jars; cylindrical tubes rounding off at the top. Two dozen at first glance. There may be other ranks on other walls.
The jars are filled with a coloured liquid -- this time almost certainly green.
And there are heads in the jars.
Human heads.
This is not a room you'd want to visit before a big dinner. Or just before bedtime. Or, bluntly, ever.
The heads are floating in the liquid, each attached to a crooked spine tapering towards the base of the jar.
There's something about the faces... the expressions. They don't look as Eddie imagined, like medical specimens or cadavers. They look somehow realer, less waxworky. They look alive. And they're all wearing the same expression. Where has he seen that look before? That unhappy smile? Somewhere...
And the image flashes into his brain. A man hurtling towards the street from a great height. Harry? No. Harrison. Harrison Dopple. The expression: grinning surprise.
They all look surprised. Smiling agog, in the green mucal glow.
Lewis is speaking. 'This was you.'
Glad for the distraction, Eddie shuffles over.
Lewis is pointing out an empty jar. Several jars around it are em
pty. He's saying: 'See?'
The empty jar he's indicating is, in fact, labelled 'Dr Piers Morton.' As if this weren't evidence aplenty, Lewis passes his hand over the smart label, and a computerized voice confirms: 'Dr Piers Morton', and starts to list his qualifications and credits.
Eddie scans the other empty jars around it. Most of them are doctors. There are even a few other Dr Mortons, with different Christian names. He wants to ask what happened to them, but he suspects very strongly that he already knows. That they were all failed attempts at resuscitation, potential occupants of Eddie's own ugly body suit who didn't make it.
Which would explain why Oslo called him 'lucky'.
And then he spots another jar, an occupied jar, tucked behind his former abode. It's labelled 'Community Planner Charles Perry Gordon'. And the head inside is afflicted with a familiar patch of unnecessary male pattern baldness. It's the real Dr Morton.
Eddie should keep this to himself, but sedatives are still swilling around his brain, and he's excited by this recognition, by his first encounter with concrete evidence of his past existence. 'There! That's me!'
He tries to point at the jar, but he's following his natural instincts and, instead of raising his arm, his brain sends out signals that make his left knee shoot up in the air, and his right foot twist almost ninety degrees. And this ungainly combination of movements starts his entire body teetering towards the jars.
He struggles with his balance, trying to tilt this or that bit of him in the opposite direction, away from the unthinkable, the unspeakable collision, but it's much too little, much too late, and with a horrible inevitability he slowly lists forward past the point of no return and lurches into the helpless heads in the vessels.
When he opens his eyes, the remains of several jar-bound former crew members are scudding across the floor, still wearing their, now wholly appropriate, expressions of shock.
Mercifully, the containers are sturdy enough to survive the fall.
'I'm sorry.' Eddie calms himself and struggles to his feet. 'I'm sorry. I got excited. There.' He points, clumsily, but much less destructively. 'That's me. There.'