Eric Flint: 1635: The Eastern Front

"James. Please. This is not a time for all the complexities and all the details and all the maybes and the we-don't-know-yets and all the caveats or any of that stuff. I need whatever you've got right now, down and dirty. Give me your best guess, if you don't like the word 'diagnosis.' What is wrong with Gustav Adolf's brain?"

Nichols sighed. "I think his right temporal lobe is damaged."

"And that results in…?"

"Assuming Gustav Adolf survives the next few weeks, he might make a complete and quick recovery." He took a deep breath. "What's more likely, though, is that it will take him months to recover, possibly years, and he may never recover completely. Probably won't, in fact, with that bad of an injury."

Mike sagged a little in his chair. "That's…?about what I was afraid of. Would one of the symptoms be that he says things that make no sense at all?"

"Gibberish?"

"No, not gibberish. They sound like complete sentences, but it's as if all the words are scrambled. I'll give you an example. At one point when I looked in on him in the litter, he was awake and stared at me as if he had no idea who I was. Then he said-I think I'm remembering this right: 'I ate my tree but the horse will not open the stirrup.'?"

James ran fingers through his short, kinky hair. "Yes, that's a symptom of temporal lobe injury. One of the major functions of the temporal lobes is handling speech. What you're describing is a form of aphasia, which can manifest itself in many ways. People suffering from aphasia might be able to speak but not write, or write but not speak. Or they might be able to sing, but can't speak or write. Gustav Adolf's failure to recognize you is because the right temporal lobe is also involved in the visual content processed by the brain. Sound, too. Even if he recovers-this is just one example of what can happen-Gustav Adolf may have so much trouble with tonal recognition that music means nothing to him any longer."

Mike winced. The king of Sweden adored music.

"What else?" he asked.

James spread his hands. "There could be a lot of things, Mike. He might start having seizures."

"He hasn't had any so far," Mike protested. "I'm sure I'd have noticed or been told by one of his attendants if I wasn't there at the time."

"Doesn't matter. Seizures don't have to develop right away, with something like this. He might start having them a week from now, a month from now, a year from now-or never at all. And if he does start having them, they might last for a short while or the rest of his life. The brain's still a very mysterious organ, Mike."

"What else?"

"He's almost certainly going to have problems with memory retrieval. The problems may be mild, moderate or severe, and it's impossible to know ahead of time how long they might last. His behavior might become childish and/or irritable. He might have sudden unprovoked rages. He might sink into depression. He might find it difficult to concentrate on anything for very long. He might completely lose any sense of humor. His language skills could be chaotic. He might be able to speak but have no understanding of what he is saying. Or he might-for Christ's sake, Mike, how long do you want me to go on? Don't you get the picture yet? I repeat: the brain is still mostly a mystery. There's usually not much you can do with an injury like this except take care of the patient's bodily needs and wait and hope for the best. You want to know my diagnosis? Ask me in six months. Better yet, ask me five years from now."

He drained the rest of his liquor and extended the glass to Mike. "Now why don't you do something useful and pour me some more of this godawful stuff? Did I tell you some sainted soul in Bamberg is trying to distill sourmash whiskey? Of all the things I miss about Ye Olde Up-time, Jack Daniels is right at the top of the list."

Magdeburg, central Germany

Capital of the United States of Europe

When Rebecca finished her analysis, there was silence around the table for a moment. Then, Anselm Keller cleared his throat.

"Are you sure you are not…?ah…"

Rebecca smiled. "Overinterpreting my husband's radio messages?"

The member of Parliament from the Province of the Main made a face. "Ah, yes. You did give us the exact working of the messages, after all. Most of it seemed…?well…"

"Personal? Innocuous?"

"Well, yes."

Constantin Ableidinger had been slouched in his chair. Now, he sat erect. "Don't be naive, Anselm. How else should we interpret phrases such as 'Axel seems extraordinarily vigorous despite the king's condition,' and 'I've noticed the prime minister and the chancellor are spending a lot of time together'?"

Matthias Strigel grunted. "Not to mention: 'Lennart seems to share some of my misgivings, but the council feels we are obliged to respect Gustav Adolf's last wishes. So it's off to Bohemia I go. As soon as possible, the prime minister has instructed me.'?"

Melissa Mailey spoke. "You're all missing the key phrase. Even Becky."

Everyone looked at her. "Which is?" asked Rebecca. She was simply curious, not offended.

Melissa looked down at the sheets of paper in her hand and shuffled through them. "It's…?this one. On page four." Her voice got that little singsong pitch people often fall into when they quote something. "Wilhelm seems in quite good health. But I can't help notice how much he's starting to look like my uncle Billy Conn as he gets older."

Rebecca nodded. "Yes, I did wonder about that. He's never mentioned this relative to me before. Or any relative with that surname, in fact."

Melissa chuckled. "Mike Stearns doesn't have an uncle by that name. It's an allusion he must have figured would escape any down-timer's notice-even yours-but I guess he figured I'd be able to decipher it. Although why"-she drew herself up a little-"he would imagine for one moment that I would be familiar with the sordid details of the history of such a brutal so-called sport is quite beyond me."

Rebecca smiled. "Perhaps he assumed Ed Piazza would be here. He has quite low tastes, you know." Her smile widened. "But since you apparently do know these sordid details-this particular one, at least-why don't you share it with us?"

Melissa looked slightly embarrassed. "Well…?It happened back up-time at some point during the 1930s or 1940s, I don't remember the exact date, and, yes, I realize how preposterous it seems to refer 'back' to a year that won't come for another three centuries, but there it is. Anyway, the heavyweight champion boxer at the time was a man by the name of Joe Louis. He was, among other things, a tremendously powerful man who ended most of his fights by knocking out his opponents. Ah, that means punching them so hard that they are knocked down for a while, and sometimes unconscious.'?"

She took a breath. "Billy Conn, on the other hand, was a smaller boxer-what they called a 'light heavyweight'-and one whose great skill was boxing itself. He would often win bouts by outscoring his opponents rather than knocking them out."

Ableidinger frowned. "How do you score something like that?"

"Never mind. Just take my word for it. Billy Conn challenged Joe Louis for the heavyweight title. To everyone's surprise, he won the first twelve rounds-there are fifteen rounds to a championship match, by the way-by outmaneuvering Louis, avoiding his powerful punches and scoring many points with his own much lighter punches. Coming into the thirteenth round, he was far ahead on points and on the verge of winning the match."

She took another breath. "But then Billy Conn got overconfident. He decided he could win the match with a knockout-always the more prestigious method. So he started mixing it up with Louis, as the expression goes. Trading punch for punch, blow for blow."