He could see the room, the watching scientists, and Illia carefully
checking his heartbeat and respiration. He could see himself lying
still with eyes closed. Curiously, he could not identify the point
of view. He thought for a moment that he was up near the ceiling
somewhere, looking down, but that wasn't right, either, because he
could see the ceiling just as well as the floor or the four walls. The
scene was like a picture taken with a lens having a solid angle of
perception of three hundred and sixty degrees.
He wondered if he could go beyond the limits of the room, tried it
and found it quite easy to do. There was some clumsiness due to
inexperience and conditioning that stopped him at the walls, where
he had a moment's claustrophobic fright of being trapped between the
metal panels, but it was over in an instant and he was through. He
went toward the control room and found it occupied only by Dreyer, who
remained placidly smoking a cigar in the navigator's chair.
Underwood wanted to communicate with the semanticist, only he wasn't
sure how to go about it. It was like trying to talk with a mouth full
of dry crackers.
But Dreyer stared around with a sudden start. He removed the cigar from
his mouth and looked agape for an unseen speaker.
"Dreyer, can you hear me?"
"Underwood! You succeeded!"
"After a fashion. So far it's like walking around in deep mud, but I'm
getting used to it gradually."
"This is wonderful--_wonderful_!" Dreyer breathed. "I hadn't dared hope
that I would ever hear your voice again. Where are you?"
"That's a tough question. Theoretically, I'm unconscious back in sick
bay with a shot of neo-morph that will keep me out for twenty-four
hours. Illia and the others are back there watching me. The _abasic_
senses aren't at all affected by the drug. I seem to be able to wander
anywhere I wish about the ship. The funny part is that I can't pin down
a point of view. I don't seem to be anywhere. Nevertheless, my
senses perceive distant sounds and objects--including my own corpus."
"Can you detect my thoughts when I don't speak? Jandro didn't seem able
to do that."
Underwood laughed. "I don't know whether I can or not. I try, but all
I get is a fuzzy static. I'm sure that these organs have dozens of
functions that we haven't even dreamed of yet. I hope that I can learn
to use them all."
"What do you plan now? Do you need a period of exercise and study?"
"Some, but not nearly as much as I would have needed if it hadn't been
Jandro's mature organs that were grafted into me. There is something
that we never thought of before, though."
"What is that?"
"We can still search for the Dragboran weapon we came here for. I can
go outside the ship with these new senses. I don't know whether I can
cover the whole planet or not, but if not, we can move to keep in range
of my powers. It will be slow because I am the only one who can do it,
but it may be faster in the end because I can get around more quickly."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account