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Kate was happy with the way it had gone: they'd made preparations for the next
day, and then Gary took her out to dinner. She insisted it be
Dutch because, she said playfully, she didn't want to be beholden to anybody.
"You can buy mine," Gary said. "I wouldn't mind being beholden to you."
She peered at him. "Hey, what's wrong? I just meant that as a joke."
"I know." He didn't see any reason to hide how he felt. "I just don't like
your being on the ebony table, that's all."
"The table trip?" She was surprised and looked at him for a long moment before
she put a hand on either side of his head and kissed him.
"You're worried about me. Maybe I should let you buy my dinner after all.
It would be such a pleasure paying you back because I intend to come back."
She looked steadily into his eyes. "I saw how it was with you this afternoon."
"It just suddenly dawned on me what it meant," he confessed. "I
wouldn't want you to go like Ralph."
"
You wouldn't! How about me? You think I would want to?" She leaned back in her
chair and said rather harshly, "I'm not about ready to let
Ralph die for nothing. Whoever handles the methylphenidate is going to have to
be right there at the first sign of trouble. I'm not being heroic, I
just want us to get on with it." Then she softened, leaned forward and looked
down at her salad. "I want you to know something, Gary. I'd feel the same way
if you were going to be the first to jump up on the ebony table."
"Then you understand. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you,
Kate."
"Me either," she said with an attempt at a laugh.
Then she put a hand on his. "Now, not another word, okay? We've covered the
ground enough. On with our salads." She plunged her fork into her lettuce.
In the morning, Kate lay on the table, nervously awaiting the injection.
When everything was ready, with Sam at the console and Casimir handling the
monitors, Gary injected the trinopterine. Easton started the holograph
recording.
Kate drifted toward sleep quickly, the electrical pattern of her brain
changing. Gary watched the volleys of slow, large-amplitude alpha waves appear
on the EEG monitor, to be followed by a downward shift to sleep
spindles, the loose, jagged patterns very pronounced. She was in Stage 2.
Quickly the EEG picture changed to great peaks and valleys. Kathleen's blood
pressure dropped, her heart rate went from 70 to 52, her body temperature from
98.6 to 95.
Then came the slow waves. Stage 4. And finally the paradoxical sleep they
wanted: Fast EEG activity, loss of muscle tone, doubled blood volume in the
brain, heart rate increase, erratic blood pressure, stress hormones evident,
fatty acid level up.
Kathleen's eyes beneath her closed lids began darting about frantically.
Gary slipped into his helmet monitor and saw what the others had been
following. Kathleen was at a beach, it was a sunny day, and she was on one
blanket talking animatedly to a young man on another blanket nearby.
The sky kept changing colors, and the ocean was sometimes smooth, sometimes
rough. There were a few other people on the beach but
Kathleen didn't have eyes for them. She was interested in the young man who
was wearing white trunks. She wanted to move over to him, onto his blanket,
but she was too shy to suggest it.
Gary could understand why her heart was beating so fast and why her blood
pressure was so erratic. It was ridiculous of him, he knew, but he was feeling
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jealousy, though he knew the young man was merely a dream person.
Kathleen's attention was jerked away from the young man by a cry from the
waves. It was a girl, a young girl, and she was calling for help. Kathleen
became very frightened, got up and ran toward the ocean, the young man calling
after her in alarm.
She dashed into the waves. The girl who'd been crying for help was nowhere to
be seen. Kathleen dove beneath the waves and touched flesh. It was the girl.
She brought her to the surface, struggling for air. She started for shore with
her.
Just as Kathleen pulled the girl out of the water, Easton called, "Shunt!"
and punched the mechanism for it.
Nothing happened. In the dream the young man came over. Kathleen was giving
the girl artificial respiration. The young man ran off for help.
The girl Kathleen had rescued began to stir.
Later, when they evaluated the dream, they learned something they thought was
significant.
"I thought surely the hooded figure would come running," Gary said. "I
had the stimulant ready if he had."
Easton shook his head. "I don't understand it. Why should the shunt get a
reaction one time and not another? We've increased the power."
Everyone thought about it but initially nobody had the answer. Then, suddenly,
Kathleen brightened and said, "I know why the girl didn't react!" She shook
her head. "How dumb can you get! That girl was my sister, Agnes, and I was
reliving an episode. It wasn't exactly like that it was a lake and there was a
dam but once I did rescue my sister from drowning."
Casimir said, "But the girl in the dream, even if she was your sister, should
have reacted to the shunt."
"No, don't you see? My sister is still alive. She couldn't have been shunted
here to the colloid tank."
Easton frowned. "Then you are saying that if we dream about people who are
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