A reader card was moved up to each of J.B.’s eyes while the test was conducted. Clarke then used a pocket pencil flash to see if his patient’s pupils responded properly by constricting.
“Mmm,” Clarke said. “Your left eye, which is your strong eye, isn’t responding according to procedure.”
“What does that mean?”
“I want you to be honest with me. Your future eyesight may depend on it. I need to know when you first noticed that your glasses perhaps weren’t as effective as before. Take firing with your blaster, for example. Are shots you were making previously now taking longer to line up? Are they as accurate as before?”
“Well, I suppose I noticed some vision loss a year back. Mebbe two. Hard to say.”
“I understand. On a day-to-day basis, one doesn’t notice such things,” Clarke replied. “Describe what you are seeing right now.”
J.B. snorted. “Well, I see you.”
“You’re looking directly at me. Use your peripheral vision. What’s to the left? No, dammit, don’t move your head!”
J.B. froze, angered by the doctor’s outburst, and angered by what the optician had stumbled onto, a deep secret the Armorer hadn’t even dared admit to himself.
“II Doc, I don’t know,” J.B. whispered. “I can’t see to the left all that well.”
Clarke kept his voice modulated, professional. “To the right?”
J.B. hesitated before answering, “Even worse.”
“Yet straight on?” Clarke stepped out and faced him.
“I see good. Perfect with those lenses you tried out.”
“The loss of some of your peripheral vision, is it like looking down a tunnel at times, Mr. Dix?”
“Yeah. Exactly. Some days it doesn’t bother me at all. Other times I have to be careful. Hasn’t been life-threatening yet.”
“I fear it will be depending on when it flares up and what your situation entails. Have you told anyone about the problem? Your lady companion?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why worry her? I use my eyes constantly. Last thing my friends need is a half-blind buddy doggin’ their heels,” J.B. said, and then he glared at the blurry image of Clarke he could see before him. “You know what this is, don’t you?”
The doctor hedged. “Without proper testing, I can’t be sure”
“So, do the test!” J.B. snapped.
“I can’t. I would need a measurement of the intraocular pressure of the eye to be able to say for sure. The process is called tonometry, and it involves a special probe and I don’t have the device. Even if I did, I’m not sure how to perform the test correctly. Your cornea would have to be anesthetized, for one thing, and such procedures are beyond me.”
J.B. sighed deeply, dreading what else the optician had to say and needing to hear it all the same. “So, what’s causing the problem?”
Clarke stood up and opened a cabinet, removing a well-worn green hardcover book with full-color illustrations of the human eye. He pointed to various ones as he explained. “High pressure inside the eye causes damage to the optic nerve, Mr. Dix. Understand, your eyes, all of our eyes, have a remarkable drainage system. Fluid comes in and goes out from within the eyeball, keeping the pressure consistent and higher than that of the outside atmosphere so the eye doesn’t collapse.”
“Like diving, when you’re underwater. Come up too fast, you get the bends.”
“Yes. Like that. What has happened here is that your drainage system has gotten clogged. Continual pressure creates a subsequent loss of the visual field, which is what is creating your ‘tunnel vision.'” Clarke hesitated, and licked his lips. “This condition is called glaucoma, and it sounds like you’ve progressed beyond the early stages.”
“Dark night.” When J.B. spoke the words, even he was aware of the black humor the epithet now held.
“It’s not your fault, Mr. Dix. The process is gradual and insidious. You might have decided your continual loss of sight was due to age or old glasses. It’s not like you woke up one morning completely blind and had to deal with the problem that way. From what I’ve read, and the other cases I’ve encountered, there isn’t a damn thing you could have done to stop it from happening.” J.B. stood up, pacing the room. “No cure?”