Goodwin: “No, you don’t. But okay, I’m calm. Perfectly calm now. So go right ahead, ask your questions. Only first I’d like you to answer one more of mine.”
Dr. S: “I will if I can, certainly.”
Goodwin: “I dunno, maybe you’re not qualified. I mean, sure you’re a mind doctor, but what I want to know is—I mean, it’s not of the mind, at least I don’t think so. It’s sort of—”
Dr. S: “What, some physical thing? Relating to your current infirmity, perhaps?”
Goodwin: “That’s right. It’s like…I mean…I’ve heard it said that if you lose something…or things, like that—”
Dr. S: “—that you can still feel them?”
Goodwin: “Yeah.”
Dr. S: “And can you?”
Goodwin: “No. Just the hurt, is all….”
Dr. S: “Well the hurting should stop—eventually. It’s not like the mind, Jim. You will heal in time—which isn’t to say that your mind won’t, except that once again it will take time. Me, I only wish we had time or that we knew how long we’ve got. As for your physical pain: there are pain-killers, drugs, if it continues to trouble you. But don’t let’s forget the prosthetic they’re working on; that will give you mobility and should help to take your mind off…things. You see, it’s not like you’re going to be helpless or confined or anything—not for too much longer, anyway.”
Goodwin: “But as you just pointed out, Doc, it’s not just a physical thing, not just physical pain. I mean, I remember now. When I relax and stop fighting it, I remember. You caused me to remember. And you know something? I should hate you for that. I should really fucking hate it that you’ve made me remember! You and your needles, and your questions, and all your fucking psychobabble crap, and—”
Dr. S: “Jim! Jim. you have to cut that out! We’re past that now. You have to stop thinking for yourself, start thinking for your world. What you’ve got locked up in your head, we need it, Jim! We need you to tell us about it. You’re an astronaut, Jim, one hell of a tough guy in a hell of a tough job. Which is why we know you can do this.”
Goodwin: “Get it right. I was an astronaut, past tense.”
Dr. S: “Well, I’m not going to lie to you; it must be obvious that we can’t give you that back. But it’s possible there’s something almost as satisfying; perhaps something that will put everything else—most of everything else—right for you.”
Goodwin: “Oh really? Like, you really think there is such a thing? Like what?”
Dr. S: “Like revenge! Why take it out on yourself, or on me and the others who are trying to help you, when you can take it out on them, the ones who did this to you?”
Goodwin, his voice suddenly shuddery, hoarse: “Them…. God, but you’ve never seen them! So cold, impersonal, inhuman, insensitive. We were—I don’t know—nothing more than specimens, that’s all. Bodies for biological or medical examination, dissection…except we were alive! You want me to remember? Oh, I remember all right! I only wish to God you would let me forget! I want to forget! But I can’t, because every time I talk to you it’s just like now. You make me…you make me…you make me fucking…rememmmmm….”
At which point Goodwin, traumatized, slipped back into what has become his safe haven, a comatose, psychoneurotic condition typified by severely restricted mental activity: a total neural shutdown. I am reasonably sure now that some unknown psychoactive agent has been introduced into Goodwin’s system to prevent him from speaking about his ordeal; perhaps they didn’t intend that he should talk about it. Nevertheless, I am encouraged to believe that we’re making some progress, and I’m sure that the anticipated early delivery of Goodwin’s prosthetic will accelerate the process.
Dr. Gardner L. Spatzer.
VII
From the Notebook of Michael Gilchrist,
exobioecologist aboard United Earth grav-drive vessel
Starspike Explorer, Earthdate 7th January, 2403.
“Knocked on the door of Laurilu’s bunk last night…. Don’t know why. Or maybe I do: wanted to apologize for what must have seemed my callous attitude out in the forest the other day. The fact is I’m not quite the unfeeling bastard she thinks I am.
“Anyway, and amazingly, she let me in! I thought maybe because she wanted to have it out with me—and that’s out with me, by the way, not off with me!—which she did, and so did I, though to tell the truth neither one of us knew where to start.
“She had just opened a can of strawberry flavored juice—colored water, of course, with some added fizz—and asked me if I would like a drink. I accepted; we drank. And seeing a way to get through to her, I told her that only the fizz was real.
“At first she didn’t know what I meant, then said, ‘Oh, you mean the strawberries?’
“‘Ain’t no sech thang,’ I said, ‘not anymore. This is artificial flavoring, chemicals, that’s all. Since the soft-fruit disease—what, seven years ago?—there aren’t any soft fruit; well, except for the blackberries. They’ve been around forever; we never much tampered with them, and they’re tough. But as for the rest of the soft fruit…you can forget it. It’s a bug, a killer virus in the soil. But no way to kill it without killing the soil, which is three-quarters dead anyway.’
“‘What?’ she said, sitting up straighter and looking really good in her ship’s uniform. ‘I didn’t know it was that bad.’
“‘Why would you?’ I said. “You’re the 2nd Engineer, not the expedition’s ecologist, or bioecologist, or exobioecologist.’
“‘Touché,’ she said, not a little ruefully. ‘But…you’re saying all the soft fruits—all the berries, with the exception of brambles—saying they’re gone forever? It’s like, where have I been? I mean, I thought I was well up on all that stuff. How come I missed that? I really didn’t know about it!’
“‘People don’t generally,’ I told her. ‘What, you think the World Health people, Calorie Control Council and food-rationing agencies—all the various Ministries of Agriculture, Farming, Fisheries, Hydroponics—you think they’re likely to advertise the fact that the Earth is not-so-slowly dying, the air full of shit, the seas and lakes polluted, the ground poisoned? I think not. That is why we’re out here, Laurilu. Er, if you don’t mind me calling you that?’
“‘No, that’s okay,’ she told me, ‘er, Mike?’ And then continued: ‘But that’s the Earth you were talking about, while this is Ophiuchus VIII. Which—’
“‘—which will soon be Earth II,’ I cut her off.
“‘Where we’ll start—have started—the whole rotten process all over again?’ She wasn’t any longer sounding off…she just seemed a little sad, or a lot sad, as she slowly shook her head and continued, ‘The destruction of a world, beginning with its inhabitants.’
“‘You mean the tree ferns? They’re just lettuces, cabbages, kale, Laurilu.’
“‘But they wail when they’re hurt!’
“‘It’s the wind in their fronds when they start in whipping them about, is all.’
“‘And they hurl their javelins.’
“‘Which is a result of them whipping their fronds! Because they evolved along with those meerrats or whatever you want to call them. But you know, if they could up roots and walk about, well! I wouldn’t be any too happy about it either. Hell, I’m not especially happy about it anyway! But they’re just plants—you even said so yourself.’