Дэймон Найт - Orbit 8

Levinson was reading a newspaper. He was a small man with black nervous eyes that seemed to be perpetually flinching away from something nobody else could see. They flinched as they wandered across the newspaper columns and they flinched as they looked up to greet Carpenter.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Carpenter said. “I went to see Horden.”

Levinson looked at his watch and dropped his newspaper to the floor. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said. “What did you see Horden about?”

“I wanted to know what we’re all supposed to be watching the Box for. Don’t you ever get curious?”

“I never think about it.” Levinson stood up, stretching himself.

“How long have you been here?”

“Three-four months. It’s only temporary, though. My uncle’s got a delicatessen out east. He’s going to die soon and leave it to me. Then I’ll pack up and take my family the hell out of here.”

“What’s wrong with your uncle?”

“Bad heart. He’s just going to fold up someday.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, he’s been like it for years. I’m over that now. He’s going to die soon though. Real soon.”

He left and Carpenter settled himself awkwardly in the chair. He picked up Levinson’s newspaper and began leafing through it. He glossed through articles on how the population growth curve was leveling out at last and on how the unemployment curve continued to skyrocket. There was an article on suicide as well but he didn’t bother to read that.

After ten minutes he put the newspaper aside. His back was stiff from the chair and he stood and walked over to the Box. He put a hand on its side. It was pleasantly cool and he thought he detected a slight vibration. He put his ear to the Box but could hear nothing.

The fungus was a green patch about the size of a hand. It appeared one morning on the wall above the prisoner’s pallet. The prisoner moved his pallet into the opposite corner of the cell and a cockroach fell from the bedding, scuttling about on the dusty floor of the cell, as trapped as he was. He watched it with interest. He formed barriers in its path, diverting it, making it trek from location to location in the cell. He shook his bedding and succeeded in dislodging a second insect. He picked a cotton thread out of his shirt and tied one end around the thorax of each of the cockroaches. The cockroaches circled about each other, weaving the cotton into complex knots, occasionally indulging in a comic, scrabbling tug-of-war that would leave them quiescent for a while, as if dazed.

The day passed quicker than usual. That night he allowed the insects to return to the safety of the bedding. He slept fitfully. It seemed colder than usual and he dreamt that cockroaches swarmed on his body. He wanted to run, to shake them off, but he was tied down and wore the insect bodies like a suit until it seemed to him that he himself had become an insect.

He awoke at dawn, sweating. When he shook his bedding seven chitinous bodies fell to the floor like dry leaves. He killed them all in a fit of disgust but regretted it almost immediately.

It was distinctly colder in the cell. The drop in temperature prickled his skin and made him shiver. He ate the warm soup greedily when it was served and hoisted himself up to the window slit. There seemed to be a change in the quality of the light outside. It was hazier, grey, the sky itself seemed colder. It was winter’s initial foray into a long, timeless autumn.

Days passed and the cell became a beachhead for the cold’s attack on his body. Everything he touched seemed dead and inert. Warmth drained quickly from the soup when it was served, and it was cold and unnourishing before he finished it. Only very rarely now could he muster the strength to pull himself up to the window slit, and when he did, the sight was never encouraging, merely the usual empty expanse of cold sky.

He begged through the dinner slit for extra clothing or a small stove to heat the cell, but there was never any response. The cold affected his feet worst of all. When he awoke in the morning, there was no sensation in them, and the skin always seemed pasty and colorless. He forced himself to walk to restore some feeling in them, dragging them across the icy stone floor until they bled.

Occasionally he heard the sound of rain blustering outside the cell. He would have liked to see it, to feel the water on his skin, but he had to save his strength for the endless automatic hobble from cell wall to cell wall.

Day followed day and he began to hope that during the night his frozen body would finally sink through the surface of sleep to death. He always awoke, however. There was always another day.

The fungus continued to spread. Now its mottled pattern covered one wall and half the ceiling.

Winter came suddenly, early, with a severe uncharacteristic blizzard that left the city snowbound for a day. The heating in his apartment was inadequate and Carpenter began to long for the controlled warmth of Chemitect. Anne called him to say she would come over. She lived on the other side of the city and he told her not to bother, traveling was impossible. But she said she had to see him. It was important.

She arrived two hours later with snow melting into beads of moisture on her hair. Carpenter kissed her. “You’re cold,” he said, touching her cheek. “You shouldn’t have come. What was so important?”

He helped her off with her coat and she opened her handbag and took out a newspaper clipping headed “The Loneliest Man in the World.” She gave it to him. “This.”

“Where did this come from?”

“I was clearing out some old newspapers and it caught my eye. It’s about six months old. Read it.”

He read: “Today Richard Crofton Keller enters an eight-foot square cell at the Chemitect Research Foundation to become the loneliest man in the world. Keller, a thirty-four-year-old, unmarried ex-bartender, will spend eighteen months in voluntary solitary confinement in an attempt to discover the effects of prolonged periods of isolation. Dr. Thomas S. Maynard, in charge of the project, explained: ‘Keller will be fed, nourished and cared for by completely automatic systems built into the cell and during the term of his confinement he will have no contact whatsoever with the outside world. Experiments of this nature have been carried out in the past, but we believe this will be the first time in which the subject will be isolated in any absolute sense. Keller won’t even possess what is popularly termed a “chicken switch.” He will have no means to curtail the experiment should he feel it is going badly. We are using body sensors and other devices to record his behavior and condition, but will have no means of monitoring these while the experiment is in progress. This may seem inhumane but we feel the step is psychologically necessary if the experiment is to have any validity at all. Because this is the first time anything like this has been attempted we’re naturally reluctant to discuss the possible results of the experiment. It is, however, basically intended to provide information of use in the treatment of a wide range of schizophrenic and other mental disorders stemming from isolation and alienation in society.’“

Anne took the cutting from him when he had finished it. “I don’t think you should go back there,” she said.

Carpenter found himself shivering and moved nearer the orange glow of the apartment’s electric heater. “What do you mean? I’ve got to go back. Horden must have known about this. He lied to me.”

“The job’s not important,” Anne said. “Not a job like that.”

Carpenter turned to her. “What do you mean the job’s not important? A couple of weeks ago you were glad I’d got it.”