Irvane, who had said nothing, turned away from the darkness beyond the perimeter and gave me a look full of uncertainty. «I'm going in,» he said in a voice taut with incipient hysteria. «I intend to sleep late, and without any other bad dreams.»
As he returned to his shelter, he held his oversized gun ready in both hands.
«Leeson,» said Jang. «Thank you for your assistance.»
I nodded, grateful for his kindness. «Well,» I said. «Good night.»
In the morning the sunlight seemed treacherous, something that only hid the darkness. I went out to the site, the mapping robot trundling obediently at my heels. Jang was already there, still armored and armed. He pushed up his visor to greet me.
«Good morning,» he said. Despite the affectless manner in which he spoke, he always managed to give the impression of courteous attention. I suppose even if you are a creature as dangerous as Jang, it's usually better to avoid conflict. It's a puzzle why ordinary humans, so much softer, so much more vulnerable, often fail to behave as sensibly. But of course, I can only speculate in a fairly limited way. I'm certain that my imagination is not entirely destroyed, because how could a person be human without some bit of creative capacity? How could I even wonder about these things, if I were entirely unable to imagine something other than what I see and hear? But so many things puzzle me now. I wonder if I were more certain, before the treatments. It seems to me that I must have been, but I don't know if that was really a good thing.
I set the mapping robot to work in its assigned sector. Jang waited until the robot had begun its pattern, and then he gestured for me to join him under the canopy that protected the sifters and other machinery. I wondered what he could want with me, but I was willing to be distracted from my thoughts. We sat on a bench and I stared out at the site, as if I were greatly interested in the slow careful movements of the robot.
«Leeson,» he said. «Tell me what you saw last night.»
«I saw a dead giant. She walked and screamed. Isn't that what you saw?»
«It was,» he answered. «Everyone else saw her, too. I wanted to ask you because of your special circumstances. If we were all imagining her, I thought it possible that you had seen something else.»
«You're diplomatic,» I said.
He ignored this, but after a moment, he spoke again. «If you will not think me discourteous, I would like to know how you came to be modified.»
«'Modified'?» I said this with unintended bitterness. The loss was still close to the surface, even though in the strictest sense I hadn't been deprived of anything I was still using.
«If you would find it distressing to talk about, then never mind,» said Jang.
«No,» I said. «I don't really mind telling you. Sometimes it helps a bit to whine, and hardly anyone ever asks to hear the whole sordid tale.» I summoned a smile. I suppose it was a weak one.
«I was an artist, though probably not a very good one. But my pictures sold often enough to keep me fed, so I can't complain. Better painters have starved. I've known a few.
«Anyway, I had a bad experience, on Noctile. I loved something that couldn't love me... a story as old as the universe, I guess. When I returned, I felt less satisfaction with my work, though I was never that confident of its value. It got worse; I drugged myself, I used stemstim, I acquired the most beautiful lovers I could find and discarded them at a fairly offensive rate. But I still painted enough to pay my bills, so... no problem.
«Then I had another little adventure, trying to recapture the pleasure I'd once taken in making pictures. The adventure showed me how far from significance my work really was, and I found this difficult to accept. I gave myself over entirely to dissipation. I didn't paint anymore. It was fun for a while, I guess.»
Jang nodded, as if he understood. Which was unlikely, of course, but I gave him credit for good manners. «And then?» he asked.
I shrugged. «The usual story. When I'd sunk deep enough in debt, my creditors had me committed to a rehabilitation clinic. The staff concluded that my troubles stemmed from my drug dependencies, so they cured me.»
«Hence your disability?»
«Yes. The human response to many psychoactive drugs– the ones I liked anyway– is linked to the creative process. If you take away one, you take away the other. Drugs aren't fun anymore. You can take all you like and... nothing.»
«It's not really like brainburning, I understand,» Jang said.
«No, no. There's no physical damage to the brain; I'm not an icicle. I have a nanomonitor in my head, a system of sensors, taggers, and phages. My production of neurochemicals is kept strictly within certain parameters. Only so much serotonin, for example, and each molecule is tagged with an authorized code, so that only my own native neurochemicals are allowed to bind with my receptors.»
I laughed nervously. «There are advantages, I suppose. I'm never too sad or too happy.»
«What does that mean...'too happy'?» Jang's emotions were rarely visible on his face. But I thought I detected a faint edge of amusement in his gaze.
«There's sometimes a thin line between joy and mania.» I spoke sharply, and instantly regretted it. Jang was really my only friend on this empty world.
«Oh, yes,» he said, and I could detect no irritation in his tone. «In fact I've heard that the only difference is that mania lasts longer than joy. And of course I know that those who suffer only from mania often resist treatment.»
I laughed again, this time with genuine pleasure. «There you have it. I'm protected from the excesses of chemical ecstasy, as well as the excesses of artistic inspiration.»
«Your doctors... they weren't concerned that they were taking your livelihood?»
I shrugged. «A civilized society needs its citizens to pay their bills. Much more than it needs yet another mediocre artist. But I suppose they decided it was moot. As I said, I wasn't painting anymore. Anyway, most folks have a lot more imagination than they really need, they say.»
«Is that what they say?» Jang asked with just the faintest hint of skepticism.
«Yes.» I noticed that my fists were clenched. «Yes.» I try never to think too long about that very bad time, oddly memorable, when I was drowning myself in chemical distractions. I suppose I had to stop. And they insisted that my death as an artist was just an unavoidable side effect of my treatment. Though sometimes I think that isn't true, that it was a punishment. Sometimes I think that the «side effect» was developed along with the treatment in order to frighten artists into responsible drug use. We, after all, seem to be the segment of the population most flamboyantly attracted to excessive stimulation.
I'd thought myself brave and clever and fashionably cynical, making jokes about my inability to paint, back when it was only weakness and self-pity that stopped me from working. I suppose I thought it was temporary. Now that my inability is real and permanent, I see what a fool I was.
«This nanomonitor,» Jang asked. «Will it always be with you? Does it ever require adjustment or other maintenance?»
«Occasionally,» I said. «Every six months, standard, I develop a deep yearning to revisit my benefactors. Recalibration time. They tell me that bad things can happen if I somehow avoid this compulsion. Program drift, odd obsessions, possible madness.»
«I'm sorry for your loss,» Jang said.
I took a deep breath and shrugged. «Well, it's not so bad. I can't really tell that anything is missing. That's how it is, they tell me. And they gave me a new name and face, to spare me any embarrassment, should I ever run into my old cronies. Disengagement from the addictive circumstances, they call it. All part of the treatment.»
«I see,» said Jang. «What of your skills, your technical training? Did the process take them away, too?»