“Well, sir? Is it a real time difference? Or is it just relative?”
“You’re using the wrong words. But it’s ‘real,’ so far as the word means anything. The ratio right now is about 99.9%.”
“To put it exactly,” added Mr. O’Toole, “Bartlett’s slippage-that’s a technical term I just invented-his ‘slippage’ in time rate from that of his twin has now reached twelve parts in ten thousand.”
“So you would make me a liar for one fiftieth of one per cent?” Babcock complained. “O’Toole, why did I let you come along?”
“So you would have some one to work your arithmetic,” his assistant answered smugly.
Pat told me he did not want me around when they operated, but I came anyway. I locked myself in my room so nobody could disturb me and stuck with him. He didn’t really object; whenever I spoke he answered and the it got to the deadline the more he talked… a cheerful babble about nothing and everything. It did not fool me.
When they wheeled him into surgery, he said, “Tom, you should see my anesthetist. Pretty as a sunny day and just lap size.”
(“Isn’t her face covered with a mask?”)
“Well, not completely. I can see her pretty blue eyes. 1 think I’ll ask her what she’s doing tonight.”
(“Maudie won’t like that.”)
“You keep Maudie out of this; a sick man is entitled to privileges. Wait a sec, I’ll ask her.”
(“What did she say?”)
“She said, ‘Nothing much,’ and that I would be doing the same for a few days. But I’ll get her phone number.”
(“Two gets you five she won’t give it to you.”)
“Well, I can try… uh uh! Too late, they’re starting in … Tom, you wouldn’t believe this needle; it’s the size of an air hose. She says she wants me to count. Okay, anything for a laugh… one … two… three…”
Pat got up to seven and I counted with him. All the way through I kept winding up tighter and tighter to unbearable tension and fear. I knew now what he apparently had been sure of all along, that he was not coming out of it. At the count of seven he lost track but his mind did not go silent. Maybe those around the operating table thought they had him unconscious but I knew better; he was trapped inside and screaming to get out.
I called to him and he called back but we couldn’t find each other. Then I was as trapped and lost and confused as he was and we groped around in the dark and the cold and the aloneness of the place where you die.
Then I felt the knife whittling at my back and I screamed.
The next thing I remember is a couple of faces floating over me. Somebody said, “I think he’s coming around, Doctor.” The voice did not belong to anyone; it was a long way off.
Then there was just one face and it said, “Feeling better?”
“I guess so. What happened?”
“Drink this. Here, I’ll hold up your head.”
When I woke up again I felt fairly wide awake and could see that I was in the ship’s infirmary. Dr. Devereaux was there, looking at me. “You decided to come out of it, young fellow?”
“Out of what, Doctor? What happened?”
“I don’t know precisely, but you gave a perfect clinical picture of a patient terminating in surgical shock. By the time we broke the lock on your door, you were far gone-you gave us a bad time. Can you tell me about it?”
I tried to think, then I remembered. Pat! I called him in my mind. (“Pat! Where are you, boy?”)
He didn’t answer. I tried again and he still didn’t answer, so I knew. I sat up and managed to choke out, “My brother … he died!”
Dr. Devereaux said, “Wups! Take it easy. Lie down. He’s not dead … unless he died in the last ten minutes, which I doubt.”
“But I can’t reach him! How do you know? I can’t reach him, I tell you!”
“Come down off the ceiling. Because I’ve been checking on him all morning via the m-r’s on watch. He’s resting easily under an eighth grain of hypnal, which is why you can’t raise him. I may be stupid, son-I was stupid, not to warn you to stay out of it-but I’ve been tinkering with the human mind long enough to figure out approximately what happened to you, given the circumstances. My only excuse is that I have never encountered such circumstances before.”