“A relic of my forays into alienism,” Doctor Faust explained, producing a power cable from among the wires and handing its end to Rosemary. “Plug this in, if you please. You’ll need an adapter. And raise the bed a little.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Rosemary said to Lamont, her tone betraying more mild exasperation than genuine apology. “Herr Doktor’s organizational method is quite—what’s a good word?”
“Byzantine?” Doctor Faust suggested mildly, taking the leather-bound case from the young medic with gnarled hands. He set it on the examination bed upon which Lamont was seated, his legs hanging over the side.
“Bonkers,” Rosemary corrected, pushing a strand of strawberry-blond hair behind her ear.
“The better part of my methods were well established before the end of the world,” Milo explained as he opened the lid of the case and began to examine its contents. “Alas, they are quite unlikely to change now.”
“I’m glad you decided to come by,” Rosemary admitted, making her way across the examination room to wash her hands in a small sink. “You were in a bad way when I saw you earlier.”
“I understand your nose was bleeding?” Faust asked, drawing a tangle of wires out of the case, along with what looked like a pair of pre-Epiphenal aviator goggles. The wires were thick and old-fashioned, lined with woven cloth.
“Yeah,” Lamont confirmed. “And I had a splitting headache behind my temples. What is that thing?”
“A relic of my forays into alienism,” Doctor Faust explained, producing a power cable from among the wires and handing its end to Rosemary. “Plug this in, if you please. You’ll need an adapter. And raise the bed a little.”
The young medic nodded and set to work finding an appropriate socket for the power cable in the wall of instruments and gauges behind the row of medical beds.
“Did you say ‘Alienism?’” Lamont asked.
“A branch of psychology,” Milo clarified, lifting the goggles and examining them. “I was experimenting with using this to calm patients who were in a hyper-aroused mental state. Its basic principle is not unlike that of the normalization visor, as I understand it.”
“Why not just put a visor on me?” Asked the newspaperman.
“Those are tied directly to the Escherspace system,” The old doctor explained. “They are entirely under Phobos’ control. Outside of a jump, they are little more than a questionable fashion accessory. Please lay back and try to get comfortable.”
“You’re not going to make me undress?” Lamont asked.
Rosemary shook her head, taking another cable from Milo and plugging it in next to a circular visual monitor on the wall console. “We only do that when we need to assert dominance.”
“I’m going to place this over your eyes and switch it on,” Milo explained. “The first thing we’ll do is establish the electrical pattern of your brain in a resting state.” He secured the goggles over Lamont’s eyes with a strap and tucked two metal discs beneath the strap so that they pressed cold against his temples. Through the glass of the goggles, the medical bay was greenish and hazy, bringing to mind the glass of absinthe he had shared with Captain Carter after their return from the planet. Inside the leather-bound case, he could see two needles tracing a line on graph paper that scrolled beneath a small viewing window.
“Very good,” Milo said after about a minute. “Now, I’m going to adjust the settings to simulate the effects of normalization. If you appear to be in any kind of distress, we’ll stop the process in due time.”
“Immediately,” Rosemary corrected from her place behind Lamont’s reclined head. “We’ll stop it immediately.”
“Didn’t I just say that?” The doctor asked absently. Then, without waiting for an answer, he asked: “Are we ready, Mr. Townsend?”
Lamont took a deep breath. “I’m ready. Go ahead.”
He heard the clicking of a toggle switch. A moment later, he heard it again. Faust was sliding the metal electrodes away from his temples.
“Is something wrong?” Lamont asked as the doctor lifted the goggles from his face. He blinked as his eyes readjusted to the bright lights of the medical bay.
“Everything is perfectly fine,” Milo said, placing the goggles back in the case on the bed. “Totally normal.”
“But you didn’t do anything,” Lamont protested. “You turned the machine on and immediately turned it off again. Nothing happened.”
He felt Rosemary’s small but surprisingly strong hand press against his chest as she emerged around the side of the examination bed, looking at him with an expression of thoughtful concern. “Don’t get up quite yet. We turned the machine on ten minutes ago, Monty. You were in a suspended mental state until we turned it off again.”
Lamont lifted an arm to look at his watch, incredulous. It was true. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since he had last checked the time. “But...That would mean...” He stammered.
Doctor Faust placed one hand in the pocket of his coverall and stroked his chin thoughtfully with the other. “It would mean that either there is some unknown element in the process of normalization employed by Phobos—something that has a different effect on your brain in particular.” He speculated.
“Or,” Rosemary suggested, leaning on the bed and biting her lower lip as she did when she was pondering something, “It could mean that your reaction isn’t to normalization at all.”
Lamont finished her suggestion in a whisper. “It’s to Escherspace itself.”
Next: The Strange and Unexpected
In unrelated related news, BABYLON 5 will be rebooted for the CW network, with original creator J. Michael Straczynski penning and producing again.
Well written. Makes the spine tingle with anticipation.