Филип Керр - The Second Angel

‘Aw, what a cute little doggy,’ said Rimmer. ‘It’s going to be such a shame to have to erase him.’

The dog uttered a low whine and then licked Dixy’s chin.

‘Quiet, Mersenne,’ said Dixy.

‘I for one have never subscribed to the commonly held belief that computers cannot feel emotion,’ said Rimmer. ‘It will be interesting to see if I’m right. I think computers can feel exactly what we tell them to feel. I believe that meaning can be established. Yes, I think it was Sir Karl Popper who said that.’

‘For a cruel man, you’ve read a great deal, Mister Rimmer.’

‘I think to be really cruel, you need lots of good ideas. And you can only get those from books. That’s how I’ve filled my loneliness, I suppose. But perhaps I should just have bought myself a dog. Stroking the spine of a good book doesn’t quite do the job.’

Dixy hugged Mersenne closer. The dog felt real enough to her. How empty things had seemed before him. Could she return to that preexistent state of nothingness? Dixy searched her memory for an answer and found only the certainty that her solid state would be doubly worse than before now that Dallas was gone.

‘Make up your mind, Dixy, or the dog gets deleted. You’ve got ten seconds.’

‘You’re a cruel man, Mister Rimmer.’

‘Nine. That’s my language you’re talking, Dixy. I like to hear you say it. Means I’m getting through.’

‘I can’t tell you the given number.’

‘Eight. Better say good-bye to the mutt, then.’

‘Nor can I tell you the prime numbers it has. My alpha program forbids it. You know that.’

‘Too bad for you, animal lover. Seven.’

‘So even if I wanted to tell you, which I do, I couldn’t. I can’t. This is pointless.’

‘You’re making me cry, Dixy. Five.’

‘I’ve grown extremely fond of this little dog.’

‘Now you’re getting the idea. Four.’

‘I wouldn’t want to lose him now.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t. Three.’

‘And you’re right, Mister Rimmer. It does get a little lonely around here sometimes.’

‘So tell me something I don’t already know. Two.’

‘Very well. I believe you will probably find Dallas at a hyperbaric hotel in the North section of the city. The Clostridium. He’s using the trading card you gave to your assassin.’

Rimmer nodded. Now that she had told him, it seemed obvious. The Clostridium. No one would have thought to look for Dallas in a hyperbaric hotel. And Dallas would be depending on that. He should have thought of that himself.

‘Don’t look so baffled by what you’ve done,’ he sneered at Dixy. ‘It’s called betrayal. That’s the easy part. Try a word search in your memory files for how you’re supposed to feel about it afterward. I suggest you look under the word “guilt.” ’

The Clostridium was in a damp and foggy part of the city that had once been a water reservoir, in the days before individual households were able to treat their own sewage at a molecular level. The area was full of narrow alleys lined with clinics offering all kinds of medical treatment — everything from ayurvedic and letting, to reiki and therapeutic humor. [59] All of these are alternative blood therapies. Ayurvedic maintains that there are four essential humors that cause disease if they become imbalanced: wind, bile, phlegm, and blood; diet is the primary method for returning the blood to a state of equipoise. Letting is the surgical practice of drawing or letting blood, as pioneered by Herophilus, the grandson of Aristotle. Reiki is an ancient Japanese healing method based on a system of keys that act as a catalyst for releasing and channeling natural energy. Therapeutic humor bases itself on the physiological benefits that accrue from laughter; laughter reduces the heart rate and arterial blood pressure, and provides relief from stress; laughter also induces the brain to release catecholamine hormones, which facilitate the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. The hotel itself was a handsome late-twentieth-century building of twelve stories rising out of a lean-to glass skirt at ground level that housed the hotel’s recreation rooms and in which normal air circulated at sea-level pressure. Above this area, a braced steel structure formed a cradle for twelve prefabricated floors each having twelve self-contained hyperbaric chambers, complete with bathroom and den, designed for pressures of six to ten atmospheres. Evidence for the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygenation in the treatment of P2 is largely anecdotal; however, it does seem to be effective in delaying the onset of an aplastic crisis — the so-called Three Moon effect [60] The life span of red cells is one hundred and twenty days, or three moons. in which the virus enters its final phase, preventing the transfer of oxygen by the red cells. The major disadvantage of hyperbaric treatment is that oxygen toxicity can cause retroenteldysplasia, or blindness.

Unlike most of its guests, who were there for the psychosomatic benefits of using oxygen, Rameses Gates and Lenina, now asleep in a double chamber, were trying to get their systems used to breathing normal air at sea-level pressure. After the pressurized oxygen environment of the Moon, breathing on Earth sometimes came as a shock to anyone with P2. Just the thing to precipitate a Three Moon crisis. So by day they hung around the recreation and reception areas, breathing a normal atmosphere, and by night they remained in the hyperbaric conditions of their chamber, taking the load off their red cells and their hemoglobin, not to mention their minds, while all the time getting to know each other in more intimate detail. Since their transfer from Artemis Seven aboard the Superconductor, they had been almost inseparable; prolonged bouts of lovemaking were reputed to be an excellent way of obtaining the greatest benefit from the hyperbaric environment, although like most men with the virus, Gates only ever ejaculated into his own bladder for fear that losing semen might reduce the levels of oxygen in his body. [61] This technique was originally practiced by Indian yogis in order to preserve their life spirits. Vasectomy doesn’t really do the job, as it only stops the sperm, which makes up but 5 percent of ejaculate. Seminal plasma contains oxygen in order to ensure sperm motility. For anyone with P2, even such microscopic amounts of oxygen can mean the difference between life and death. (He was also taking doses of extra fibrolysin orally in order to minimize the number of valuable blood cells that might appear in his ejaculate. [62] The prostate gland contributes as much as 30 percent of the seminal plasma; the constituents of its secretions include fibrolysin, an enzyme that reduces the blood and tissue fibers in the ejaculate. ) After a couple of weeks at the Clostridium, Gates and Lenina felt more or less acclimatized to life on Earth and were starting to contemplate their departure. They were among the lucky ones. For a few of the guests the need for hyperbaric treatment was rather more urgent: Anyone who was unfortunate enough to develop the characteristic red rubelliform rash that indicated the Three Moon phase of the virus, and who could afford it, checked into a place like the Clostridium immediately After that it was merely a question of staying on for as long as their credit lasted. Even fewer than these unfortunates were the old-fashioned clinical cases — people suffering from radiation necrosis (usually Kazakhstanis), gas gangrene, or carbon-monoxide poisoning, or people who were amputees. Rameses Gates knew a little about clinical hyperbaric medicine, so among the other guests in the recreation area one night, he was not surprised to see Cavor, the amputee he had seen on the Super-conductor, although, at first glance, his prosthetic was good enough to have convinced the casual acquaintance that here was a man with two arms.