Bears Discover Fire полностью

Dr. DeCandyle was waiting for us in the lobby, eager to get started, but first I had to stop by his office to “sign” the voiceprint contract; that is, affirm our agreement on tape. I was to join them on five “insertions into LAD space” one week apart. National Geographic (which already knew my work) was to get first reproduction rights to my paintings. I was to own the prints and the originals and get a first-use fee, plus a fairly handsome advance.

I signed, then said: “You never answered my question. Why a blind artist?”

“Call it intuition,” DeCandyle said. “I saw the Sun article and said to Emma—that’s Dr. Sorel—‘Here’s our man!’ We need an artist who is not, shall we say, distracted by sight. Who can capture the intensity of the LAD experience without throwing in a lot of visual referents. Also, quite frankly, we need someone with a reputation; for the Geographic, you understand.”

“Also you need somebody desperate enough do it.”

His laugh was as dry as his palms were moist. “Let’s just say ‘adventurous.’”

Sorel joined us in the hall on the way to what DeCandyle called the “launch lab.” I could tell by the rustling sound of her walk that she had changed clothes. I later learned that she wore a NASA-type nylon jumpsuit on our “LAD insertions.”

I was pleased to find myself in the driver’s seat again. Sorel strapped herself in beside me this time.

My left hand was free but my right hand was guided into an oversized stiff rubber mitten.

“The purpose of this glove, which we call the handbasket,” DeCandyle said, “is to join our two LAD voyagers more closely together. We have learned that through constant physical contact, some perceptual contact is maintained in LAD space. The name is our little joke. To hell in a handbasket?”

“I get it,” I said. Then I heard a click and realized he had not been talking to me but into a tape recorder. “How long will this trip last?” I asked.

“Insertion,” DeCandyle corrected. “And we have found it’s best not to discuss duration; that way we avoid clashes between objective and subjective time. As a matter of fact, we prefer that you not verbalize your experiences at all, but commit them strictly to canvas. You will be driven home immediately after retrocution, or reentry, and not expected to participate in any debriefings with Dr. Sorel and myself.”

Click.

“Now, if you have no further questions—”

If I had any further questions, I couldn’t think of them. How much can you want to know about getting yourself killed?

“Good,” DeCandyle said. I heard his footsteps walking away, and then I heard the drawing of the curtain that meant the trip—insertion—was about to begin.

“Ready, Dr. Sorel?” The car’s monitoring systems started up with a low hum, like an idling engine.

Sorel said, “Ready.” Her hand joined mine in the glove. It felt awkward. Rather than hold hands, we turned them so that only the backs of our hands touched.

“Series forty-one, insertion one.” Click.

Again I felt the tiny sting; the sudden sense of shame and then the wind from somewhere else; and I was floating once more upward toward the lattice of light. This time, alarmingly, I could “see” a dark shape below that could only be the car, with two bodies slumped forward hideously, one of them mine—But I was gone. Then far off I saw the Blue Ridge, and Mount Mitchell, which I had painted from every side in every season, even though I knew it was not visible from Durham. The mountains are lost forever to the blind and I felt a sharp sorrow; then my sorrow, with my mountain, was lost in the light. The light! A shadow, chasing from below, drew closer and flowed into me, and then out again as light. I felt it as an other: a presence not quite separate, womanly yet part of me, linked to me like two fingers on one hand as under the lattice of light we spun. Again I felt the sweet warmth like unending orgasm—only there was no “again”: each moment was as the first. The lattice of light stayed always at the same distance, almost close enough to touch, and yet as distant as a galaxy. Space was as indistinct and undifferentiated as Time. The presence linked with me somehow doubled my own ecstasy; I felt, I was, twice everything.

Then something pulled me downward, and I was alone, unlinked (unwhole?) again, spinning away from the light, feeling the warmth fade behind. Life from here looked as dark and lonesome as the grave. As before, there was the shock, the insult of pain, the agony as the cooled blood with its cold understandings rushed in…

Bringing another darkness.

“Retrocution at five thirty-three P.M.” Click.

I was on the gurney again. Sorel must have revived (or “retrocuted”) first, for she was helping DeCandyle. I sat dazed, silent, numb, while they recorded my vital signs. Her fingers felt familiar and I wondered if we had held hands while we were dead.

“How long?” I asked, finally.