They surround me. The Debriefers. The inquisitorial troika: Pusher, Shaker, and Wizard.
Virgil reclined in the center of the spacious auditorium. Pale white light from indirect sources bounced off the soundproof blue walls. Chairs spread out from around the stage in ranks and files like soldiers at attention. On the stage stood a dais and the royal-blue sudahyde couch that supported Kinney. The ancient hospital smell of formaldehyde drifted in from somewhere outside, mixing unpleasantly with the scent of the imitation leather.
He wore a fresh test-pilot jumpsuit, with the added accent of a dashing white silk scarf thrown round his neck and tucked jauntily into the v-neck of the partially unsealed top. His blond hair lay combed back along his scalp, every strand in place. He gave the appearance of a cool, controlled personality, which was exactly the impression Trine wanted the medical board to receive. Virgil’s silent, narrow-eyed glances, though, easily belied the image.
Delia sat in a folding chair to the left of Kinney, her executive flight suit crisp and fresh, her hair immaculately coifed and twisted around her neck. She faced the questioners with Virgil, as much on trial as he.
Master Pharmaceutic Jared Thomas leaned forward in his elevated seat to Trine’s and Kinney’s right. In keeping with the Brennen Trust’s century and a half tradition of thrift, he also served as the organization’s Master Medic.
Virgil peered first at the physician. Pusher is so hometown looking. Clean nails, eyes bright behind regulation Guild eyeglasses that he doesn’t need. Lamb twist of gray hair on his head. Just the sort of controller who’d cram Duodrugs into misfits.
Master Algologist Winston Dephliny sat at the left hand space, where the seat had been removed to make way for his wheel-chair module. Gyros hummed subliminally, leveling the chair on its slender support column which was now fully extended so that the small man could see Virgil below him.
Virgil lay completely still, silent and unfathomable thoughts racing through him.
Shaker eyes me from his steel tower, the palsy returning now and then to his hand. He reaches up to adjust the switch in his skull and an agent of Master Snoop electrically soothes him, making abnormal and healthy what was normal and diseased. Shaker works with pain—it shows in his coal-black eyes.
Between the two sat a man who clearly was in charge of the meeting. His full head of wavy gray-black hair framed a strong, angular face and flinty gray eyes that gazed intently at the motionless figure on the dais.
In the center asking questions in an easy cipher towers Wizard, tall and proud. Dante Houdini Brennen, Master Trustee. Nightsheet, Master Snoop, agent and overlord.
They think they can get me to tell them everything. Master Snoop must have a thousand monitors running, measuring everything I do. Sphygmo, skinohm, breath vapor, eyetrace, EKG, EEG, all on remote, all tied in, all waiting to catch me lying. A test.
“Is he listening at all?” Dante Houdini Brennen looked away from Kinney’s motionless, wide-eyed form and gazed sharply at Delia.
“Yes, D.B. He’ll answer when he can interpret what you’re saying. He has to mull things over, check for hidden meanings.”
“Wish we’d get on with this,” Master Algologist Dephliny muttered, adjusting the microswitch implanted above his left occipital arch to quell the shaking in his right hand. “I have a full schedule of tests this afternoon.”
Aha! Virgil thought. Others share my pain!
“All we’re trying to find out,” Master Pharmaceutic Thomas said while fiddling his spectacles, “is just what sort of death illusion did he experience?”
“It was an ordinary death.” Virgil’s voice was calm, almost monotone. The four stared at him. He wiped a bit of saliva from the corner of his mouth to continue. “And yet it was quite extraordinary.”
“How so?” Brennen asked in a crisp tone.
Wizard’s interest is more than monetary, that much I can decipher. “It was the same as reported by people brought back from near death. Very similar to what I encountered every time before. It’s a real death, going through transference. I can see why Jord Baker mistakenly killed himself.”
“Why?” Brennen’s eyes narrowed.
Virgil narrowed his own eyes and stared back. “Death feels good.”
Master Algologist Dephliny nodded, light bouncing off his bald head. Master Pharmaceutic Thomas blanched.
Dante Houdini Brennen leaned back and stroked his square chin. “So they do save the best for last.” He mused on that for a moment, then said,
“You told us the effect was similar to what you encountered in your suicides. How was it dissimilar?”
Don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell don’t tell.
Virgil tried to squelch the trembling that began in the back of his mind. A roaring noise subsumed his thoughts for an instant. He fought it back.
“The. visions... I encountered in my suicide attempts differed in minor ways from the visions I saw during the transfer. This time was much more satisfying.”
For several seconds, no sound existed in the room but the barely detectable gyro hum from Dephliny’s wheelchair. Virgil twitched when Brennen spoke.
“Will other pilots try to kill themselves?”
You know they will, Virgil thought. Nightsheet takes all. He spoke in a relaxed tone. “I suspect that most of them won’t be able to withstand the allure of the death illusion and will long for—and try for—a real death. They’ll want to find out what’s at the other end of the corridor.”
Thomas nervously rubbed his fingers on the tabletop. “And you won’t?”
Virgil thought for a few moments, then answered cautiously. “Having first encountered the death vision that accompanies suicide, and then experiencing the transfer, I understand now that killing myself will not create the conditions of bliss that a real death will. Pilots who have not survived what I have survived will not know that. They’ll think—as Jord Baker no doubt thought—that they can regain what they saw during the transfer by means of suicide. In most cases, they’ll be dead before they realize their mistake.”
“And what,” Dephliny said slowly, “is this mistake?”
“That suicide and natural death are the same thing.”
Brennen leaned forward, his gaze piercing Virgil. “And just
exactly how are they different, tovar Kinney?” Too close, Wizard, too close. Shut up. Shut down.
“Well?”
“I think he’s gone out on us again.” Delia reached over to take Virgil’s hand, saying, “He doesn’t react well to questions about his motivation. He—”
“Well, at least get him sufficiently straightened out to answer one more question.” Brennen checked his wristscrim for messages.
“Ask,” Kinney said. At least I now know that Master Snoop can’t read my mind.
Dante Houdini Brennen looked down on the figure of Virgil Grissom Kinney and spoke slowly, with a soft authority that compelled a straight reply.
“Can you pilot a starship?”
“Yes,” Kinney replied as honestly as he could. “I can pilot anything.”
“I don’t understand why you won’t use this.” Delia held the Stirner interface in her hand. The headgear looked like an ancient flying helmet of deep-rust sudahyde surmounted by a ruby the color of dark blood. She offered it again. “Virgil, no one involved in the Circus Galacticus project has died recently, so you must use the direct interface with the ship’s computer or you’ll be forced to learn about the starship through much more time-consuming methods.”
Virgil shook his head. Master Snoop would dearly love to be inside my head, every thought as open to him as space is to the Valliardi Transfer. “The ship talks, doesn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Then that’s all I need.”