Chapter 15
God, just let me die, Heather thought. She hugged the sides of the commode, hurling her stomach’s contents into its porcelain interior with such force it splattered her face. If not for the ongoing bout of vomiting, she would have screamed. As it was, she shook so violently she could hardly stay upright over the toilet bowl.
Her mother’s concerned voice preceded a knocking on the bathroom door. “Sweetheart, are you all right?”
“Fine, Mom. I’m just fine.” That was what she intended to say, but the words never made it to her lips, as another bout of violent nausea overwhelmed her. The room swam before her: the toilet, the sink, the shower curtain, the tile floor, the ceiling, and then her mother’s terrified face looking down at her. And swimming next to it all, an endless stream of numbers and equations.
Then, as her mother cradled her head in her lap, yelling for Gil, Heather’s world went black.
“Give me that back, you wascally wabbit.”
The sounds that greeted her return to consciousness could not have been more reassuring. Surely Elmer Fudd could not have made it to heaven or hell, so perhaps she was still alive.
The bed didn’t feel right. When she tried to move, she found a needle imbedded in her left forearm, secured by white tape. Without opening her eyes, she knew that the needle was attached to the end of a long rubber IV tube, into which fluid dripped from a bag dangling from a mobile steel rack.
Moving her right hand across her body, she confirmed that her assumption was correct. She took a deep breath through her nose. Hospital smell.
Heather kept her eyes firmly closed, unwilling to face the possibility that upon opening them she would see, not only the physical things that occupied the room, but also the accompanying equations. The thought of going through her life with that dual view terrified her. Better to be blind than that. Better to be dead.
Savant. The thought came unbidden into her brain. Three months ago the whole family watched a PBS special on a British man, a high-functioning autistic savant. He had the uncanny ability to answer all sorts of mathematical questions without doing any calculations, at least not in any way most people thought of calculations.
While his abilities were incredible, they left him so distracted and impaired that he had great difficulty performing the day-to-day tasks that give normality to life. Heather did not want to live like that.
From the way someone had stuffed her mouth with cotton and pasted her lips together, she guessed it had been a good while since any liquid had made it over those lips. With effort, she managed to work up enough saliva to wet them with her tongue. God, she was thirsty.
Screwing up her courage, Heather slowly opened her eyes. At first she thought that the equations and numbers were gone. Then, as she thought about it, they materialized, a set of three-dimensional symbols that swam through her brain, near whatever object she focused on. Heather squeezed her eyes shut tight, trying to calm her hammering heart.
Afraid that the rising panic would overwhelm her, Heather fought it with a tide of anger. Why was she just giving up without a fight? Several years ago, her parents had encouraged her to take the Myers-Briggs personality type test, and the results had been most enlightening. She was a rare bird, an INTP personality, a type that loved theory, problem solving, and scientific work. INTPs were normally risk takers, blissfully uncaring of what others thought of their chances for success.
Whatever the reason for her fear, she wasn’t going to allow herself to curl up into a fetal ball and surrender. It was a problem. Problems had solutions. Simple as that.
Clearly this was connected to her breakthrough on the ship. It could be that her initial connection had activated the neural pathways that made such thinking possible and that on her last trip she had merely discovered the trick to turn it on. If so, then it should be possible to turn it off.
She opened her eyes, holding her dread firmly in check and setting her mind to experimentation. As she looked at the bedside lamp, she could clearly visualize the equation describing its three-dimensional shape. She changed her focus, thinking about the lamp’s volume, and the symbols in her head morphed to create the equation for volume. Even that small change left her feeling empowered.
Once more, she changed her thoughts—this time to surface area—and again the equations changed. In her mind, she imagined the lamp rotating, and a set of rotation matrices cascaded through her brain.
Encouraged, she again focused upon the lamp. She let herself relax and unquestioningly accepted its physical existence and appearance. The symbols faded. Then, as she was about to congratulate herself, they reappeared.
The effect was very similar to subvocalization, she thought. Like when a person looks at a chair and thinks the sound “chair.” Or when a person reads the symbols c-h-a-i-r, but sees a picture of a chair and hears the sound of the word “chair” in her mind. Heather could look at something and know the equation for it in much the same way.
Apparently, quieting her inquisitive mind was going to take some effort and a good bit of practice. But she had managed to do so, even if it had been for just a short time, which relieved her immensely.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of her mom and dad.
“Heather. Oh, thank God you’re awake. Your father and I have been worried sick.” Her mother moved to sit on the side of her bed, wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Good to see you back in the land of the living,” her father said, his own eyes glistening with moisture.
“How long have I been here?” Heather asked, her raspy voice reminding her of how thirsty she was. “Dad, could you get me some water?”
Her dad was out the door before she finished asking.
“You’ve been unconscious for three days,” said her mother. “We rushed you here when you passed out. The IV is to rehydrate you. So far they still have no idea what made you sick. At first we thought it was food poisoning, but the tests ruled that out. The doctors' best guess is some sort of allergic reaction, but it’s just a guess.”
At that moment, her father reappeared with two tiny, cone-shaped water cups in his hands.
He shrugged, causing some of the cold water to spill on Heather’s hand as she reached for a cup. “Sorry. It was the best I could do on short notice. I did ask the nurse to get you a tall glass of water, though. She was quite upset that she didn’t already have a jug in here.”
Heather downed both cupfuls of water, equations coming and going as she lost and regained her concentration. Smiling, she crushed the small cones of paper in one hand and handed them back to her father. “Thanks, Dad. That was so good.”
“You’re welcome. Glad to see you looking so much better—awake, for one thing. Mark and Jennifer stopped by several times, along with Fred and Linda. They wanted to stay, but we sent them home saying we’d send word once your condition changed.”
At that moment the doctor walked in. Heather’s mother moved aside as he leaned across the bed. Pulling a small penlight from his pocket, the doctor promptly began doing his best to blind Heather by holding her eyelids open and shining the bright light in first one eye and then the other.
“Good morning, young lady. I’m Dr. Johanson,” he said, pulling out his stethoscope. “You gave us quite a scare.”
Heather gasped as Dr. Johanson applied the stethoscope to her chest. Did he store it in the freezer between uses?
“Nice, deep breath. Now, give me another. Okay, again. Very good.” The doctor grinned and straightened up, revealing a handsome face complete with blue eyes and a shock of unruly blond hair. He looked not a day older than twenty-five, though Heather figured he had to be at least in his thirties.
If she had to have a doctor, Heather thought, it could be worse.
Doctor Johanson pulled the clipboard from the end of her bed and scribbled something down.
“I was going to schedule a CAT scan and an electroencephalogram today, but it looks like that’s no longer necessary. I’ll have the nurse swing by and get your vitals, and we’ll keep you around for another night. Barring something unusual, you’ll be home tomorrow.”
Heather pushed herself up into a seated position as her mom stacked pillows behind her. “Can’t I get out of here tonight? That gives you all day to watch me.”
Dr. Johanson smiled. “I don’t think one extra night here will hurt you. I like playing things safe.”
Her mother patted her hand. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll stay with you until they kick me out.”
“And I’ll pass word to the Smythes,” her father said. “After school, I’m sure Mark and Jennifer will camp out here.”
After a meal of the hospital's finest cuisine, something vaguely resembling a veal cutlet, Heather slept again.
The remainder of the day passed slowly. In those rare moments when her mother was not beside the bed chatting with her, Heather practiced controlling her visualizations. She found relaxing her mind to be a very tiring activity. Apparently, in its natural state, her mind was full of mathematical questions, which were now being automatically answered. She would have to work to make the natural tendency stop.
Luckily, by the time Mark and Jennifer swept into the room to deliver big hugs, Heather felt in better control. The vertigo effect was gone. Unfortunately, with parents and doctors constantly walking in and out of the room, any discussion of the starship was out of the question.
At last, as the twins turned to depart, Mark called over his shoulder, “We’ll see you at school tomorrow, right?”
“I’m planning on it,” Heather replied.
“Well, plan again,” her mother said. “You’re staying home for a couple of days. At least until I am satisfied you are fully recovered.”
“Mom!”
“That’s final.”
“Don’t worry,” Jennifer said. “We’ll stop in every chance we get.”
“Thanks.”
With a wave, the twins disappeared out the door.
As Heather’s parents prepared to leave for the night, the gorgeous Dr. Johanson stopped by and removed her IV. Then, after her mom and dad had kissed her good-bye, for the first time in a long while, Heather fell into a comfortable, deep, dreamless sleep.