Connie Willis - Passage

She shook her head. “They’re not the same. When they describe what they’ve seen, they’re vague, but they know what they’ve seen, even if they have trouble describing it. But with the sound, they don’t seem to have any idea what they’ve heard. I get the idea they’re just guessing.”

“You said she had three of the ten core elements,” Richard said. “Do most subjects have all ten?”

“Only Mr. Mandrake’s,” she said. “Most of my interview subjects have had between two and five. Some only had one. Or none,” she said, thinking of Maisie’s seeing fog and nothing else. “The three Amelia had, plus the sense of people or ‘beings’ being present, are the most common.”

“Was there anything you saw that indicated it wasn’t an NDE? You seemed concerned about Amelia’s sounding frightened. Is fear an indication it’s not an NDE?”

“No, twenty percent of the experiences I’ve recorded have had a negative element, such as feeling fear or anxiety or a sense of impending doom.”

“Understandable under the circumstances,” Richard said.

Joanna grinned. “Eleven percent report a completely negative experience—a gray, empty void or frightening figures. I’ve only had one who experienced a traditional hell—flames, smoke, demons.” She frowned. “But Amelia said she didn’t feel anything negative. And usually if they report a negative feeling, they don’t also report feelings of peacefulness or warmth.”

“That’s interesting,” Richard said. “It might mean that in some NDEs, the endorphin levels are lower and can’t completely mask anxious feelings. I want to look at the activity in Amelia’s endorphin receptor sites,” he said, going over to the console. “Was there anything else that made you think this wasn’t an NDE?”

“No, there weren’t any anomalous elements and nothing that indicated it was some other type of experience—a superimposed vision or a dream. In fact, her insistence that it wasn’t a dream is a common phenomenon among NDEers. Nearly all of my subjects say something to the effect that it’s real and become quite agitated if you suggest it might have been a dream or a vision. I can remember Mr. Farquahar shouting, ‘I was there! It was real! I know !’ ”

“So you definitely think it was an NDE?” Richard said.

“I think so, yes. Her account sounded just like the revived patients I’ve interviewed.”

“It wasn’t too close, was it?” he asked. “You don’t think she could be a spy for Mandrake and have faked it?”

She laughed. “If she were one of Mandrake’s spies, she’d have had all ten elements and brought back a message from the Other Side, telling us there are things science can’t explain.” She stood up. “I’d better get this transcribed before it gets cold. And I’ve still got to set up interviews with the other three volunteers,” she said. She gathered up the files. “I’ll be in my office if you need me. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” he said, surprised.

“Yes. Why? Was there something else you needed me for this afternoon?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “No. I’m going to look at the receptor sites and then check Amelia’s readouts to see what endorphins were present.”

Joanna went back to her office to transcribe the interview, but first she needed to call the rest of the volunteers. She set up interviews with Mr. Sage, Ms. Coffey, and Mrs. Troudtheim, calling Mrs. Haighton, who was apparently never home, in between. Vielle called at four. “Can you come over early?” she asked. “Say, at six-thirty?”

“I guess,” Joanna said. “Look, if you want to get to bed early, we can make this another night.”

“No,” Vielle said. “I just want to talk to you about something.”

“What?” Joanna said suspiciously. “That nail-gunner didn’t show up and shoot somebody, did he?”

“No. The nail-gunnee showed up, though, and you should have seen the police officer they sent over to arrest him. Gorgeous! Six foot three, and looks just like Denzel Washington. Unfortunately, I was cleaning pus out of an infected toe and didn’t get to meet him.”

“Is Denzel what you wanted to talk to me about?” Joanna asked, amused.

“Oops, gotta go. Van rollover. Wouldn’t you know it? Right as I’m supposed to get off.”

“If you’re going to be late,” Joanna began, “we could—”

“Six-thirty. And can you pick up some cream cheese?” she said and hung up.

And what was that all about? Dish Night was completely informal. Half the time they didn’t start the movies till halfway through the evening, so if Vielle wanted to talk, they could do it anytime. And earlier she’d done everything she could to avoid talking.

She’s found out what Greg Menotti was talking about, and it’s something terrible, Joanna thought, so terrible she couldn’t tell me in the ER.

But when she’d asked her, she’d genuinely seemed to have forgotten about him. She’s transferring out of the ER, Joanna thought. Oh, now she was letting her imagination completely run away from her.

She typed up Amelia’s account of her NDE with annotations. When she got to the “oh, no’s” on the tape, she stopped, rewound, and listened to it two more times. Fear, and despair, and something else. Joanna rewound again, and pressed “play.” “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no.” Knowledge, Joanna thought, like someone has just told her something she can’t bear to hear.

She went back to the lab, got Mr. Wojakowski’s file from Richard, and looked up the name of the nurse who’d assisted at Mr. Wojakowski’s session. Ann Collins. It wasn’t anybody Joanna knew. She called the hospital operator and found out what floor she was subbing on, but she’d gone off-shift at three. “You have several messages,” the operator said sternly.

“Sorry,” Joanna said. “What are they? I think there’s something wrong with my pager.” The operator told her. Mr. Mandrake, of course, and Mrs. Davenport, and Maisie. “She said to tell you she’d found out something important about…” she hesitated, “the Hildebrand?”

“The Hindenburg,” Joanna said. She looked at her watch. It was after five. If she went to see Maisie now, she was likely to get caught, and she still hadn’t transcribed her conclusions. She’d better finish the account first, and run by Maisie’s room on her way out.

Just before she left, she tried Mrs. Haighton one more time, and, amazingly, got an answer. “This is her housekeeper. Mrs. Haighton’s at her Symphony Guild board. Is this Victoria? She said to tell you she’ll be late to the meeting tomorrow because she has an Opera Colorado meeting.”

“I’m not Victoria,” Joanna said, and asked her to tell Mrs. Haighton to please call her tomorrow, gathered up her coat and bag, and started down to see Maisie. As she got out of the elevator next to the walkway on fifth, she saw Mr. Mandrake down the hall, expounding on the afterlife to a patient in a wheelchair. She stepped hastily back in the elevator, punched three, and took the third-floor walkway instead, cutting through Medicine and the Burn Unit, and up the service stairs to fourth.

Maisie was lying back against her pillows, reading Peter Pan. All very innocent, but there was an air of secretiveness, of hurried movement about the scene, as if she would have caught Maisie turning somersaults or swinging from the traction bars above her bed if she’d gotten there a moment earlier. “You rang, kiddo?” Joanna said, and Maisie instantly shut the book and sat up.

“Hi,” she said happily. “I knew you’d come. Nurse Barbara didn’t want to page you, but I told her you’d want to know this right away. You know the guy on the Hindenburg who had the NDE?”