Connie Willis - Passage

He did a superimpose with Mr. O’Reirdon’s scan to make sure, but it was already obvious. Mrs. Troudtheim had had an NDE.

The pattern only lasted a single frame, but it changed the whole nature of the problem. He had been focused on what was preventing Mrs. Troudtheim from achieving the NDE-state, but she had had one. The problem was that she hadn’t been able to sustain it. Why not? Why had she immediately bounced out of it and into a waking state? And had this happened before?

He began mapping the NDE frame, looking for anomalies that might explain the NDE’s nonsustainability. Nothing. It showed the same red-level activity in the right anterior temporal lobe, the amygdala, and the hippocampus, the same random scattering of orange- and yellow-level activity in the frontal cortex.

Joanna came back, her hair windblown and her cheeks pink from the cold and handed him an orange-and-yellow-green crocheted thing in a small clay pot. “From the Spring Fling,” she said.

“What is it?” he said, turning the pot around.

“A marigold. A crocheted marigold. I thought of you as soon as I saw it. I know how fond you are of orange and vile green.”

“Did you see Mrs. Haighton?”

“Yes, and interviewed her, and she’s fine, no secret supernatural beliefs, and she’s scheduled to come in Thursday afternoon. I know, that’s Mr. Sage’s slot, but between the Philharmonic Guild and the charity fashion show, it was the only time she was available, so I decided it was worth moving him. I’m going to call him now.”

“Wait a minute,” Richard said. “I want to show you something.” He showed her the side-by-side of the standard and Mrs. Troudtheim’s NDE frame.

“She had an NDE?” Joanna said. “Do you think she’s lying to us about not remembering it?”

That idea hadn’t occurred to him. “No,” he said. “It only lasted a tenth of a second, if that. I doubt if she’s even aware it happened. If she is, it’s probably only as a flicker of light. Or darkness. But it changes the nature of the problem. She’s achieving the NDE-state, but something’s short-circuiting it. I’ve got to find out what that something is.”

He worked on doing just that the rest of the day and the next morning. He mapped the frames before and after the NDE, and then went back over the scans of Mrs. Troudtheim’s other sessions. He found an identical pattern in her second set of scans. There were none in the other sessions, but the RIPT images were a hundredth of a second apart. If the NDE-state was shorter than that, it would only show up part of the time, and the frames immediately succeeding the two NDE frames were identical to frames in the others.

He mapped them. They didn’t match those of the other subjects. They showed sharply decreased acetylcholine and elevated norepinephrine, both consistent with arousal. Mrs. Troudtheim was right. She’d jerked awake. When he compared them with the other subjects’ arousal frames, the levels were identical.

He looked at the other neurotransmitters. High cortisol, no alpha- or beta-endorphins, traces of carnosine, amiglycine, and theta-asparcine. Carnosine was a variety of peptide, but he’d never heard of amiglycine or theta-asparcine. He’d need to talk to a neurotransmitter expert. He called Dr. Jamison, who had an office up on eighth, and made an appointment to see her, but she wasn’t much help. “Amiglycine is present in the anterior pituitary gland. It acts as an inhibitor. Theta-asparcine is an endorphin that seems to primarily be involved in digestion.”

Digestion, Richard thought. Wonderful.

“It’s been produced artificially,” she said helpfully. “I think someone did a study on it recently. I’ll see if I can find it. It may have other functions. Endorphins frequently have multiple functions.”

And maybe one of them is inhibiting NDEs, Richard thought, going back to the lab, but when he looked at the other NDEs, theta-asparcine was present in one of Mr. Sage’s and two of Amelia Tanaka’s, and he didn’t find any other anomalies in the neurotransmitter analysis or the bloodwork that might explain its instability.

He spent the next two days going over the scans again, but to no avail. When Mrs. Troudtheim arrived the next day, he still had no idea what the problem was.

She oohed and ahhed over the crocheted marigold. “Well, isn’t that the cutest thing?” she said to Joanna. “You don’t have the pattern, do you?”

“Sorry, I don’t,” Joanna said. “I bought it at a bazaar.”

“I’ll bet I could take a pattern off it,” Mrs. Troudtheim said, leaning over the console to examine the yarn flowers. “This is just double crochet with a shell stitch—”

“You can take it home with you if you like,” Richard said, handing her the pot.

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Troudtheim said.

“I’m sure. Keep it as long as you like. You can have it.”

“Well, how nice,” she said, pleased. “Look, Tish, isn’t it the cutest thing?”

Tish oohed and ahhed, too, and they all examined the petals. Maybe the problem’s nothing but simple anxiety, Richard thought, and talking like this will calm her down to the point where she can sustain the NDE, but it didn’t. She was in the NDE for the space of a single, perfect frame, and then wide awake.

“I feel so embarrassed that I can’t do this,” she said. “I don’t know what my problem is.”

I don’t either, Richard thought, looking at the scans after she left with her crocheted marigold. The NDE frame was a dead-on match for Mr. O’Reirdon’s.

Joanna came in. “Mrs. Haighton just called,” she said. “She can’t come Thursday after all. Emergency Friends of the Ballet meeting.”

“Did you reschedule her?”

“Yes,” she said. “For Friday after next. Listen, I’ve been thinking about what we talked about, and there’s another reason you should send me under. It would make me a better interviewer. The accounts are all so vague, even from good observers like Amelia Tanaka, and I think the reason is that I simply don’t know what to ask. It’s like if you were asking someone to describe a painting without knowing whether it was a Monet or a Salvador Dalí. No, worse, it’s like if you were trying to get them to describe a painting without ever having seen a painting yourself. Right now I have no idea what they’re experiencing. They all say it’s not a dream, that it’s real. What does that mean?

“If I went under and saw that painting for myself, I’d know. I’d know if dark meant dark as in Carlsbad Caverns or the hospital parking lot at nine o’clock at night. I’d know if peaceful meant ‘tranquil’ or ‘anesthetized.’ And I’d know what they’re experiencing that they’re not even mentioning because they don’t realize it’s important, and I don’t know how to ask them about it. I think you should do it. I think you should send me under.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t given up on Mrs. Troudtheim yet, and we’ve still got Amelia Tanaka. We do still have Amelia Tanaka?”

She nodded. “At eleven.”

“That means I’d better get things set up.” He turned his attention back to the console. “I want to lower the dosage again. The lack of detail you’re worried about may not have anything to do with your questions. It may be due to endorphin levels, and if it is, it’s simply a question of finding the right level, and even Mr. Sage will turn into a fountain of observation.”

“And if it doesn’t? What then?”

“We’ll deal with that when it happens. Right now, you need to call Tish and tell her to get up here. Amelia will be here any minute.”

“There’s plenty of time,” Joanna said. “Amelia’s always late. She won’t be here for at least fifteen minutes.”