Analog Science Fiction and Fact 04/01/11 Read online

  She had been awakened that morning from a damp bench in Golden Gate Park by a nice policeman who actually offered to drive her somewhere. Only she had nowhere she could tell him, since Mr. Wong’s restaurant didn’t unlock until 11:00 A.M. It had been a long, slow walk through a maze of streets, once she reached what they used to call the Tenderloin, an area of layers of lost dreams. It had always been a place where poor people lived. Betty had been told she was born there, in one of the second-floor apartments in a row of tenements. She no longer remembered which one, not even certain any longer of the exact street.

  Somewhere here, among the layers of failed renovation, her mother had laid her in a dumpster in an alley. A Vietnamese girl, doing dope in the alley between Johns, had heard her squeals and kept her like a pet until she was five. The Catholic Charity people took her away then, and she stayed in a clean place where they fed and tested her. The other children her age teased and tormented her, and she came to hate it there. At about age seven she found her moment and ran away, to live in the streets and sleep in the parks, to steal food and live by her wits. At thirteen she had learned to sell herself; at fifteen she joined a brothel. At nineteen she was a specialist for discerning clients with special tastes.

  The voices had started then, though she tried to ignore them. Some clients would get spooked by her, and she fought the voices, but they always came back. She was labeled a “head case,” for those with predilections for the bizarre. At twenty-eight she was dead-weight for the house, and they let her go—in the rain, with a toothache. She pulled the tooth herself with a rusted pair of needle-nosed pliers and somehow survived. The voices made her do odd things. She was arrested and then put in a hospital. They gave her the patches that made the voices . . . go behind, like they could be ignored. She’d been on the patches now for more than forty years. Every three months the clinic gave her a packet. They helped. They were her lifeline.

  When the voice came she checked her shoulder and found that the patch was still there. You think you’re so smart! it said. But I’m on to you. Show that diploma to a carnival freak show! This was new. Usually, men’s voices told her little secrets about people she knew or saw, but this was loud and angry, and in a woman’s voice. It felt real, like a reproof for something she had done.

  The cart hit an uneven spot in the sidewalk, and Bob, the bear with the missing eye, went flying into a storefront. She retrieved him quickly. You and your grad school friends! the voice yelled in her head. Coming over here, talking down to me, like I don’t belong in my own house!

  Betty stopped and leaned on her cart, a trickle of the old fear running through her. She was in front of a locked and boarded tattoo parlor. She hated the familiar painted sign, “Screaming Skull Tattoos,” that had once whispered to her when she forgot her patches. But now the skull had a different voice. You’re getting nothing tonight, it said. Go sleep in the cellar!

  VIII

  It was early afternoon, and lunch had been an elegant Dungeness crab salad and a sherry-laced chowder. They were sipping a Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame champagne, and Friel was relating the last of a dozen stories.

  “You can’t help ascribing human motivations to them,” he was saying, “but you’re almost always proven wrong.” He rubbed a finger on the condensed moisture on the tulip glass. “Just think of the distance between us,” he said. “We’re more closely related to an earthworm, or a . . . rosebush than we are to them. The Neighbors’ genetic system developed under a different sun, with an entirely different basis.”

  Tomma Lee was feeling lightheaded and set her glass down half drained. “Why do you think they came here?” she asked. “And what did they hope to gain?”

  Friel nodded. “It’s been asked a hundred times. With a hundred different answers. I asked it once. There was a Neighbor who worked closely with us. Its name came through the translator as just a number. A lot of them have numbers—I don’t know why. But anyway, our people had developed a kind of rapport with it, discussing a lot of chemistry—comparing concepts, that kind of thing. I got the impression that, like a lot of our other Neighbor contacts, it was kind of an outcast. I had thought, well, they’re expecting to get something in return for all the technological gifts they were bestowing on the human race. So I went ahead and asked the anthropocentric question: ‘What are you getting out of this?’”

  Tomma Lee looked up expectantly as Friel drained his glass. “There’s a move they make,” he said. “It’s something like a sudden bow. It was to show me an egg case on its back.” Friel seemed agitated, and his good eye glared at her. “Humans are preternaturally selfish, Miss Evans, including our self-sacrificing martyrs who die for a heavenly reward. My question was full of implied meaning. But the Neighbors are nothing like that. Their distinction between the discrete individual and collective society is less rigid than our own. They seem to live for future generations, possibly a future beyond their own understanding. Their immediate goal is an archive, part of which is locked in that forbidden area of the Hive.”

  “What’s in the archive?”

  Friel nodded, his gaze now vacant. “That’s the key question. Nobody knows. This low-caste chemist pointed with a feeler to that mass of slime on its back. The voice synthesizer said, ‘They will see and know.’”

  “That’s all?” Tomma Lee said. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “The Neighbors seem to think centuries ahead, expending great efforts for unborn generations. I gathered that they came to our solar system as part of a massive campaign to gather knowledge. I imagine thousands of Hives searching for inhabited worlds within some sphere of space near their home system. ‘Near,’ of course is the relevant word.”

  “They still haven’t . . .”

  “It’s one of their cardinal rules. They have never revealed where they came from. I gather they’re afraid we’ll eventually build a star drive, hunt them down, and exterminate them.” Friel reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. “I don’t blame them,” he said. “We just might.”

  IX

  Mrs. Cunningham had decided that what she really needed was a nice glass of iced tea. The yellow curtains above the sink were rippling gently with a slight early afternoon breeze. She found herself humming an old tune as she filled the kettle.

  That business earlier with the strange voice in her head had really been very upsetting. She thought for a while that what people were saying about her was really true. Maybe she was more than a little crazy. Maybe somebody who talks to her husband six years after he was gone is apt to lose hold one day.

  Still, she had heard that voice. And not at all like she heard Louis. Louis was with her in a sense because he had always been with her. But that voice, that other, had sounded strange. And frightened. It was trying to hide from something.

  She carried the kettle over to the old gas range and clicked on the flame. That voice had sounded desperate. I wonder what Louis would say about it?

  For God’s sake, Peg! For the last time—there’s nobody downstairs! Now get some sleep!

  She took down the can of Twinings and the small green-glazed teapot. Sugar. A nice lemon. Oh, my! I wonder if there’s any ice? Yes. She’d filled the trays yesterday.

  The whole business was silly, now that she thought about it, letting that strange voice upset her. People imagine lots of strange things when they live alone.

  She spooned the Earl Grey into the pot and cut several slices of lemon, wrapping the rest in plastic and returning it to the refrigerator bin. You’re just a foolish old woman, she thought.

  For God’s sake! They’re right outside, you’ve got to hide me!

  Peg, don’t listen to him!

  “I won’t, Louis.” Mrs. Cunningham put her hands on her hips and stamped her foot on the kitchen tiles. “Get out of here,” she said. “Right now!”

  But . . .

  “I mean it! Right now! Go!”

  She heard it go then, the pleading voice fading.

  That’s my girl, Peg.
That was a brave thing you did.

  “Thank you, Louis.”

  On the stove the tea kettle began its high, merry whistle.

  * * *

  X

  Back in Seattle in her apartment, Tomma Lee found Adrian’s return call among a list of recent messages. There were several obsessive reminders from Cliff about details she’d already handled, some ads she’d forgotten to deselect, a dues notice from a journalists’ society, and a surprising job offer from Scott Narvick, a old schoolmate and one-time boyfriend who was launching a web journal with the unlikely name, Spare the Messenger. She hadn’t thought about Scott in years. They had played Romeo and Juliet in Theater Arts class. Scott had been sweet but always a little wild—just the sort to pour his last penny into a politically incorrect soapbox for rabble-rousers. Adrian’s message had been entered at 10:15 A.M. this morning, about twenty hours after the time he had promised. The playback was about what she had expected: simpering apologies for the delay in responding, sincere-sounding pledges of help where needed. Tomma Lee felt a real need for information and would have to hold him to those promises. She froze the recording of the apologetic, now fully clothed Adrian while she quickly dialed the real one.

  He was in his lab office at the Institute, looking disheveled amid a clutter of papers and molecular models. “Tomma Lee . . . I called . . . ”

  “I was in San Diego.” She hadn’t yet managed to inure herself to speaking with her former spouse. A clipped, businesslike approach helped a bit but didn’t conceal her disgust. “I’m calling for information. I’m working on a Neighbors feature.”

  “Sure, anything.” Adrian ran a hand through his hair. “You’re looking lovely as always, Tomma Lee.”

  She gritted her teeth at the compliment. “Has your group handled any part of the clinical testing of the Somnomol sleeping pill?” she said, hoping for a link with the “Doc Challenger” column. Friel had been dismissive when she had asked about the product. “A marginal profit market,” he had told her; it was evidently not one of the highly lucrative “Neighborly gifts” that his cartel had marketed.

  Adrian arched an expressive brow. “Somnomol? That was about five years ago. No, just the initial screening. The Fidelis Group outbid some Pacific Rim big pharma interests and ran it through the USFDA trials. They usually do a pretty thorough job.”

  “So how does it work?”

  Adrian shuffled through a pile of stacked files but quickly gave up. “It worked on a distinct brain region. That was one of its unique features. All the over-the-counter and prescription pills we had before were just GABA-receptor agonists, like alcohol and barbiturates, although pharmacologically more similar to benzodiazepine tranquilizers.”

  “You’re losing me.”

  “Okay, GABA stands for gamma aminobutyric acid. Around 1950 it was discovered to be an essential feature of all mammalian nervous systems, bonded to trans-membrane receptors in nerve cells. It regulates the flow of ions into and out of the neuron, which in turn controls the electrical potential at the synapse. The old sleep-aids worked by binding to the GABA receptor complex, which allowed some chloride ions to flow into the nerve cell producing hyperpolarization.”

  Tomma Lee frowned at the screen.

  “All that means is that it inhibited the firing of the neuron. The GABA receptors are all through the body. Bind enough of them and you go to sleep.”

  “Bind too many?”

  Adrian nodded. “Right. You die. Overdose and synergetic effects with alcohol and other drugs were dangers that were never eliminated.”

  “Until Somnomol,” Tomma Lee offered.

  “Yes, the Neighbors solved the potential for accidental or intentional abuse by developing an entirely new approach.” Adrian paused, searching his memory. “Did you ever hear of REM-atonia?”

  “Is that a disease?”

  He shook his head, knocking loose a dangling forelock. “No. Actually, it’s the normal state in Rapid Eye Movement sleep, when the release of neurotransmitters like adrenalin and serotonin is suppressed. The Neighbors came up with a drug that works on the pontene tegmentum region of the brain that is particularly active during REM sleep.”

  He paused again, looking for a response that showed understanding, but Tomma Lee continued to frown.

  “REM sleep,” he began, “is a deep phase of sleep in which dreaming occurs while the body is immobilized. Motor neurons are not being stimulated. If that didn’t occur, if you dreamt you were dancing say, your legs would be going through those motions. Sometimes, in fact, that does occur, especially in some animals. Did you ever see a sleeping dog moving its legs, like it was chasing a cat in its sleep? In humans that’s called REM Behavior Disorder.”

  Tomma Lee was jotting notes. “So this Somnomol produces REM-atonia?”

  “Yes, directly, and for precisely timed periods. The pills produce four hours of sleep, each including about an hour of REM sleep for average-body-weight adults. The amazing feature is that an overdose is impossible because the pills contain a nano-molecular antagonist that circulates in the bloodstream for twenty-four hours, scavenging any additional drug. After that time two—but only two—pills become effective again.”

  Tomma Lee didn’t look up as she scribbled on a notescreen. “So you can’t kill yourself with Somnomol?”

  “We checked that thoroughly before turning our work over to the USFDA and other nations’ regulatory agencies. About twenty pills will produce nausea and mild diarrhea and a general torpor, followed by a two-day period in which the drug is ineffective.”

  “So you gave Somnomol your seal of approval?”

  “We decided to let the national agencies check for genetic effects and confirm our studies for carcinogenic and teratological effects, but we found nothing that would prevent its release.”

  Tomma Lee looked up at Adrian, who was smiling back at her from the theater table. There was still something—perhaps those expressive brows—that touched her in a way that she now would no longer admit to herself. Just for a moment she wondered if there was anyone or anything that could affect him so deeply that he would forsake the next nubile target of opportunity. Then a new thought cleared her mind. “What about the Neighbors? There was an old news story that said they didn’t sleep. How could a race that never slept design a sleeping pill for humans?”

  Adrian nodded rapidly, “We thought about that too. You know, we actually understand very little about the Neighbors’ physiology.” He brushed his hair back, to no effect. “It’s certain that they don’t sleep over any time interval we have been able to measure. Some have speculated that they hibernate over periods unknown to us. But I suspect not. I think they don’t sleep at all. That led to some speculation on the purpose of sleep for humans and other mammals.”

  “So you got into that?”

  “A little. Philosophers and medical people have talked about the nature of and need for sleep for centuries. The metaphor used for a time was the ‘defrag’ process in computer memory, but sleep clearly involves more than sorting and arranging conscious experiences. The fact is that there has been a lot of both open and classified military research in the area for the last hundred years or so. We know a lot about the stages of human sleep but still only theories about their function.”

  Tomma Lee bit her stylus thoughtfully. “Give me a little of that. And what’s the interest of the military?”

  Adrian shrugged. “I’m not a specialist, but basically NREM—that’s non-rapid eye movement sleep—has four stages, each progressively deeper, characterized by electroencephalographic patterns and a sizeable list of other measurements. In stage one most people think they are just sleepy or ‘resting their eyes’ but the EEG trace shows the onset of the theta wave and the disappearance of the fully awake alpha wave. In the second stage the individual is asleep but easily awakened. Stages three and four are both termed ‘slow-wave sleep.’ These have the highest arousal threshold—that is, they are the deepest stages of NREM sleep. If you are awaken
ed here you will be groggy and possibly confused for a time. Dreaming occurs in the deepest stage—stage four—but dreams recollected from this stage are always vague and disconnected. Stage four appears to be the most needed period since deprivation of stage four produces a longer stage four in the next opportunity for sleep.”

  Tomma Lee looked up. “And what about REM?”

  Adrian blinked and nodded. “It seems to be very important. There are several periods of REM sleep—short ones early on and longer ones later, some as long as two hours. Vivid dreams occur during REM sleep. While the motor neurons are shut down, areas of the brain are engaged in dramaturgy based on procedural and spatial memories. REM sleep appears to be critical to brain development. Babies spend 80 percent of their sleep time in REM sleep, aging adults 20 percent or less.

  “And Somnomol produces an hour of REM sleep per pill?”

  “Apparently, along with three hours of NREM.”

  “So what’s the military interest in sleep research?”

  Adrian wrinkled his brow. “You know, that goes way back, long before the Neighbors. The old declassified studies had to do with sleep deprivation—studies for troop effectiveness and prisoner interrogation.”

  “And lately?”

  Adrian smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know much, and I can’t talk about what I’ve seen.”

  Tomma Lee tapped her lips with the stylus. “The Neighbors don’t sleep,” she said, trying for a response.