Page 51 - Effable Encounters

Good and Dead

sister, Allison Wunderlander, of my condition. Her number is (640)
703-4218.”
“Excellent!” Dr. Feinfedder’s rejoinder conveyed enthusiasm
tonelessly. “You have very good retention. I’ll bet you’ve lost very
little from the death-trauma. Not that I’ve anything to bet, of
course.”
Link was slow to respond.
“I am a logical person. I believe I am awake, ergo not dreaming.
Can I prove that? Not definitively. But nightmares never last this
long without waking me in a sweat, pulse pounding. I have no bodily
sensation at all, indicating a spinal injury. I can perceive your words
despite being unable to determine if I am seeing or hearing them, and
I have been replying to you with no awareness of operating any vocal
apparatus. The conclusion might be that I am on some new life-
support system that enables me to communicate via brainwaves with
the outside world. That, however, does not jibe with what you are
saying, and I cannot believe a competent physician would tease a
helpless invalid with such nonsense. That brings me back to
dreaming—or the possibility that I have fallen into the hands of an
unethical medical practitioner.”
“Better and better, Mr. Link—may I call you Bob? Your
professional career will be of interest to us: you are not an
uneducated spelunker. Now despite the cogency of your analysis, you
left out one possibility; to wit, that I am telling you the truth. You are
provisionally on death-support, thanks to my invention. I suggest we
continue our conversation on that basis.”
Again Link hesitated.
“One more explanation: hallucination. All of this is my own
creation. Like the dream, it would be difficult to disprove. But I will
listen to or read whatever you want to tell or show me. I have no
choice. You have access to my attention and I cannot block it.”
“Very well, Bob. Please try to understand this: the two of us are on
either side of the surface of a sphere of emanation, you on the inside.
You will not last long where you are, and only I can help you across
the boundary. Here is why. My career in life was bioelectronics. My
heroes were Galvani and Tesla, but I happened to be around in the
nineteen-fifties when analogue computers gave way to digital
processors, first the silicon microchip, then optical switches. Like

50