When we got inside the cottage Carol asked whether I had successfully “carried the seed.” I told her that it had been very much the other way around-and offered to demonstrate. The effects of the last pill hadn’t quite worn off, and I still had two of them left. She thought it sounded interesting.
Two days later I was so exhausted she had to go swimming without me. Mark Twain once wrote to the effect that there wasn’t a woman alive who couldn’t defeat any ten men at the ultimate battleground between the sexes. When I first read that I thought he was exaggerating. (And I probably would’ve envied the seven male captives of Starbase.)
We did other things while we were in the Islands: went to a festival, sailed in an ancient windjammer, swam and skindived all the time. Sunned and rested and read some good books. Will write more tomorrow morning. Can’t put off this stack of reports any longer.
I was glad to hear that Dr. Jameson lived. Vivian says he claims the bridge made him do it. Maybe it’s in this stack somewhere.
27 – Touch Me Not
Text of postoperative interview between Dr. Raymond Sweeney (Chief, Psych Group) and Dr. Philip Jameson, 2 September 2051.
(Thirty seconds of introductory politeness)
JAMESON: Are you recording this, Ray?
SWEENEY: What makes you-
J: Come off it, Ray. I’m not being paranoid. We’ve worked together for over ten years, and I’ve never seen you wear a coat. You needed it to carry the recorder . . . because one shirt pocket has your cigarettes, and the other—
S: All right, Sherlock, I’m recording. You mind?
J: Why should I? It’s like I told the orderly-you talked with the orderly?
S: He didn’t understand what you said.
J: You mean he thought it was crazy.
S: Well…
J: Sounds crazy to me, too. But it is true. I didn’t try to commit suicide. That god-damned creature, that bridge, had control of me, made me cut my throat.
S: It did an expert job.
J: (Fingering scar) That it did. Right under the ear and then straight across the carotid, deep. Lucky I can talk.
S: The work of a skilled surgeon…
J: Bullshit, Sweeney. It obviously had access to my mind. (Pause) If I were going to commit suicide, I could do it more successfully, a thousand different ways. Not by opening an artery in a roomful of doctors, next door to a hospital.
S: Phil, most suicides don’t want to die. They want to be saved.
J: All right, I know that. But don’t you think it’s quite a coincidence? With what happened to poor Willard?
S: But Willard didn’t attempt suicide; he-
J: Had a heart attack, sure. Path of least resistance. (Pause) The creature tried for my heart, too, Ray. Just before I blanked out, I felt this tightness, squeezing in my chest. But my heart’s strong. It was easier for the creature to control my arm.
S: Blanked out?
J: That’s right. Just as I went to make the first incision. I felt dizzy and . . . thick, I don’t know. Then every thing went white and I woke up being prepped for surgery.
(Pause) Have they done an autopsy on Willard?
S: Yes.
J: Well?
S: It was inconclusive. We’re having specialists-
J: In other words, his heart stopped and nobody knows why.
S: We have to wait-
J: I rest my case, damn it! Ask your cardiac specialists what sort of heart ailment would cause a robust man to sit down and die quietly in seconds. That thing had control of him. It found the weakest part of his body and squeezed the life out of him.
S: That’s awfully dramatic.
J: What happened to me was pretty god-damned dramatic. I was there, Sweeney; I felt the thing take over. It just didn’t do as good a job on me as it did on Bob. And that first Tamer, the Chinese boy. . . . Has anyone talked to the two Tamers who were in contact when we tried to dissect it?
S: One of them’s on a mission. The other said that the bridge functioned normally up to the time when Willard or you touched it. Then it didn’t function at all.