He worked on doing just that the rest of the day and the next morning. He mapped the frames before and after the NDE, and then went back over the scans of Mrs. Troudtheim’s other sessions. He found an identical pattern in her second set of scans. There were none in the other sessions, but the RIPT images were a hundredth of a second apart. If the NDE-state was shorter than that, it would only show up part of the time, and the frames immediately succeeding the two NDE frames were identical to frames in the others.
He mapped them. They didn’t match those of the other subjects. They showed sharply decreased acetylcholine and elevated norepinephrine, both consistent with arousal. Mrs. Troudtheim was right. She’d jerked awake. When he compared them with the other subjects’ arousal frames, the levels were identical.
He looked at the other neurotransmitters. High cortisol, no alpha- or beta-endorphins, traces of carnosine, amiglycine, and theta-asparcine. Carnosine was a variety of peptide, but he’d never heard of amiglycine or theta-asparcine. He’d need to talk to a neurotransmitter expert. He called Dr. Jamison, who had an office up on eighth, and made an appointment to see her, but she wasn’t much help. “Amiglycine is present in the anterior pituitary gland. It acts as an inhibitor. Theta-asparcine is an endorphin that seems to primarily be involved in digestion.”
Digestion, Richard thought. Wonderful.
“It’s been produced artificially,” she said helpfully. “I think someone did a study on it recently. I’ll see if I can find it. It may have other functions. Endorphins frequently have multiple functions.”
And maybe one of them is inhibiting NDEs, Richard thought, going back to the lab, but when he looked at the other NDEs, theta-asparcine was present in one of Mr. Sage’s and two of Amelia Tanaka’s, and he didn’t find any other anomalies in the neurotransmitter analysis or the bloodwork that might explain its instability.
He spent the next two days going over the scans again, but to no avail. When Mrs. Troudtheim arrived the next day, he still had no idea what the problem was.
She oohed and ahhed over the crocheted marigold. “Well, isn’t that the cutest thing?” she said to Joanna. “You don’t have the pattern, do you?”
“Sorry, I don’t,” Joanna said. “I bought it at a bazaar.”
“I’ll bet I could take a pattern off it,” Mrs. Troudtheim said, leaning over the console to examine the yarn flowers. “This is just double crochet with a shell stitch—”
“You can take it home with you if you like,” Richard said, handing her the pot.
“Are you sure?” Mrs. Troudtheim said.
“I’m sure. Keep it as long as you like. You can have it.”
“Well, how nice,” she said, pleased. “Look, Tish, isn’t it the cutest thing?”
Tish oohed and ahhed, too, and they all examined the petals. Maybe the problem’s nothing but simple anxiety, Richard thought, and talking like this will calm her down to the point where she can sustain the NDE, but it didn’t. She was in the NDE for the space of a single, perfect frame, and then wide awake.
“I feel so embarrassed that I can’t do this,” she said. “I don’t know what my problem is.”
I don’t either, Richard thought, looking at the scans after she left with her crocheted marigold. The NDE frame was a dead-on match for Mr. O’Reirdon’s.
Joanna came in. “Mrs. Haighton just called,” she said. “She can’t come Thursday after all. Emergency Friends of the Ballet meeting.”
“Did you reschedule her?”
“Yes,” she said. “For Friday after next. Listen, I’ve been thinking about what we talked about, and there’s another reason you should send me under. It would make me a better interviewer. The accounts are all so vague, even from good observers like Amelia Tanaka, and I think the reason is that I simply don’t know what to ask. It’s like if you were asking someone to describe a painting without knowing whether it was a Monet or a Salvador Dalн. No, worse, it’s like if you were trying to get them to describe a painting without ever having seen a painting yourself. Right now I have no idea what they’re experiencing. They all say it’s not a dream, that it’s real. What does that mean?
“If I went under and
He shook his head. “I haven’t given up on Mrs. Troudtheim yet, and we’ve still got Amelia Tanaka. We do still have Amelia Tanaka?”
She nodded. “At eleven.”
