Passage (97 page)

“But when you
do
find out how it works,” she persisted, “and when you
do
develop a treatment, it could help patients who’ve coded. Like Maisie.”

“No—Mrs. Nellis—” he said, feeling like someone trying
to stop a runaway train, “At some point in the far-distant future, the information that we’re gathering might possibly be put to some practical use, but what that use might be, or whether, in fact, it will even turn out that—”

“I understand,” she said. “I know how uncertain and time-consuming medical research is, but I also know that scientific breakthroughs happen all the time. Look at penicillin. And cloning. Amazing new treatments are being developed every day.”

Not a runaway train, a pyroclastic flow, he thought, seeing Maisie’s photo of Mount St. Helens in his mind’s eye, the black cloud roaring unstoppably down the mountain, flattening everything in its path, and wondered if that was where Maisie had gotten her original interest in disasters. “Even if there were a breakthrough in understanding near-death experiences,” he said, knowing it was useless, “it wouldn’t necessarily result in a medical application, and even if it did, there would have to be experiments, tests, clinical trials—”

“I understand,” she said.

No, you don’t, he thought. You don’t understand a thing I’ve said. “Even if there were a treatment, which there’s
not
, there has to be hospital approval and clearance by the research institute’s board—”

“I know there will be obstacles,” she said. “When amiodipril was approved for clinical trials, it took
months
to even get Maisie on the waiting list, but my lawyer’s very good at overcoming obstacles.”

I can imagine, Richard thought.

“That’s why it’s critical to have Maisie in your project now, so all the problems can be worked out in advance. Of course, it’s all just precautionary. Maisie’s doing
extremely
well on the ACE-blocker. She’s completely stabilized, and she may not even need the treatment. But if she does, I want everything to be in place. That’s why I came to see you as soon as Maisie told me about your coding cure. If she’s in your project, she’ll already be approved and the paperwork all completed when the treatment becomes available, and there won’t be any unnecessary delays in administering it,” she said, but he had stopped listening at “as soon as Maisie told me.”

Maisie had told her mother? That he could bring people back from the dead? Where would she have gotten an idea like that? The only person she would ever have talked to about the project was Joanna, and Joanna had always been completely honest with her. She would never have given her false hopes.

And even if she had told Maisie there was a miracle cure (which Richard refused to believe), Maisie wouldn’t have believed it. Not hardheaded Maisie, who wore dog tags around her neck so they would know who she was if she died while she was down having tests. If the
Hindenburg
and the Hartford circus fire and the
Lusitania
had taught Maisie anything, it was that there weren’t any last-minute rescues. Her mother might believe in miracle cures, but Maisie didn’t. And even if she did, she wouldn’t have told her mother, of all people.

Joanna had said Maisie never told her mother anything. She hid her books from her, her interest in disasters, even the fact that he’d told her about Joanna’s death, and her mother only allowed upbeat discussions. She would never even have let Maisie bring up the subject of coding. Something else must have happened. Maisie must have accidentally mentioned his name, and, to cover, so her mother wouldn’t find out he’d been there telling her about Joanna, she’d said something about the project, and her mother had confabulated it, through her powers of positive thinking, into a miracle cure.

“You’ll need a copy of her medical history,” Mrs. Nellis said, busily planning. “I’ll pick up the project application from Records. Maisie will be so pleased. She was so excited when she was telling me about your project. The possibility of coding again’s really worried her, I know. I told her her doctors won’t let anything happen to her, but she’s been fretting about it.”

But she had coded twice without a quiver. And she had known about the transplant when he and Kit saw her and hadn’t seemed frightened. Her only thought had been to help them find out where Joanna had gone.

“Of course I realize a cure for coding will be tremendously in demand, and that there will be many patients competing for it. That’s another reason I want Maisie in on the project at this stage,” Mrs. Nellis said. “I’ll talk to my lawyer about arranging
a waiver for participation by a minor. I’m on my way there now, and I’ll ask him about any other possible obstacles.”

Why would Maisie have told her? She had to know she’d take even a casual mention of a possible treatment and turn it into an accomplished fact. So why had she told her? She had to have known she’d do exactly what she had done, come roaring up to the lab and—

That’s it, he thought. That’s why Maisie told her. So she’d come up here. So she’d insist on my going to see Maisie. Maisie’s found out where Joanna was, he thought, and this is her way of telling me. But why hadn’t she just called? Or had him paged?

“I’ll need to talk to Maisie before I make any decisions regarding the project,” he said.

“Of course. I’ll notify the CICU. Maisie doesn’t have a phone in her room, but I’ll tell the sector nurse to let you speak to her.” Maisie doesn’t have a phone, he thought, and she couldn’t get anyone to carry a message for her. This is her way of paging me.

“ . . . and if you have any trouble getting through, just have the CICU call me,” she said. “I’ll go straight down there from here and have you put on the approved visitors list, and after I’ve seen my lawyer, I’ll talk to Records about the application process. And I’ll leave
you
to work on your project. I
know
your breakthrough’s going to happen soon!” she said, smiled brightly, and was gone.

He waited till he heard the elevator ding, then grabbed his lab coat and his name tag, picked up an official-looking clipboard for good measure, and took off for the CICU, taking the stairs to seventh and crossing the walkway, thinking, All those hours of mapping paid off. I can get anywhere in this hospital in five minutes flat.

He ran up the stairs to sixth and down the hall to CICU, where a volunteer at a desk guarded the door. She glanced briefly at his name tag and smiled. He strode through the ward to Maisie’s room. The nurse at the desk outside her door stood up. “Can I help you?” she asked, moving so she was blocking the door.

“I’m Dr. Wright,” Richard said. “I’m here to see Maisie Nellis.”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Nellis said you’d be down,” she said and led the way into the room. Maisie was lying against her pillows, watching TV. “Dr. Wright’s here to see you,” the nurse said, moving around behind the bed to look at her IVs. She pushed a button on the IV stand.

“Hi,” Maisie said listlessly, and looked back up at the TV. What if I’m wrong, and she wasn’t trying to send a message? Richard thought, watching her. What if I confabulated the whole thing?

The nurse straightened the IV line, pushed the button again, and went out, pulling the door nearly shut behind her. “Well, it’s about time,” Maisie said, pushing herself up to sit. “What
took
you so long?”

J
OANNA STARED
at the wireless operator’s blond hair, at his young, open face. The face that had laughed happily at her from the photo in Mr. Briarley’s library. “You’re Kit’s fiancé,” she said.

“You know Kit?” Kevin said, yanking the earphones off. “She’s not here, is she?” He leaped up, gripped Joanna’s shoulders. “Tell me she’s not here.”

“No,” Joanna said hastily. “She’s fine. She’s—” but he had already sat back down, was already sending again.

“I have to get a message to her,” he said, tapping out the code. “I have to tell her I’m sorry. It was my fault, I didn’t watch where I was going.”

“Neither did I,” Joanna said.

“I have to get the message to her that I love her,” Kevin said, his forefinger relentlessly tapping out the code. “I didn’t tell her. I didn’t even say good-bye.” He picked up the headphones and held the earpiece to his ear. “There isn’t any answer,” he said. “It’s too far.”

“No, it isn’t,” Joanna said, kneeling beside him, her hand on his arm. “The message got through. She knows you loved her. She understands you couldn’t say good-bye.”

“And she’ll be all right?” he asked anxiously. “I left her all alone.”

“She’s not alone. She’s got Vielle, and Richard.”

“Richard?” he said. An expression of pain crossed his face and was replaced by something sadder. “I was afraid she’d be alone. I was afraid it was too far for the message to get through,” and laid the headphones down on the table.

“It wasn’t,” Joanna said, still kneeling by him. “It isn’t. And I have to get a message through. It’s important. Please.”

He nodded, put his finger on the key. “What do you want to say?”

Good-bye, Joanna thought. I’m sorry. I love you. She glanced at the spark. It wavered, dimmed. “Tell Richard the NDE’s a distress signal from the brain to all the body’s systems. Tell him it—” she said, and was yanked brutally to her feet.

“The collapsibles weren’t there,” Greg growled, his hands gripping her shoulders. “Where are they?” He shook her. “Where
are
they?”

“You don’t understand,” Joanna said, looking frantically back at Kevin. “I have to send a—”

But Greg had let go of her, had grabbed Kevin’s arm. “That’s a wireless!” he said. “You’re sending out SOSs! There are ships coming to save us, aren’t there? Aren’t there?”

Kevin shook his head. “The
Carpathia’s
coming. But she’s fifty-eight miles from here. She won’t make it in time. It’s too far for her to come.”

Joanna sucked in her breath.

“What do you mean, too far for her to come?” Greg said, and Joanna understood finally what it was she had heard in his voice in the ER. She had thought it was despair, but it wasn’t. It was disbelief and fury. “Fifty-eight?” Greg said, jerking Kevin around to face him. “There has to be something closer than that. Who else are you sending to?”

“The
Virginian
, the
Olympic
, the
Mount Temple
,” Kevin said, “but none of them are close enough to help. The
Olympic’s
over five hundred miles away.”

“Then send the SOS to somebody else,” Greg said and pushed Kevin down into the chair. “Send it to somebody closer. What about that ship whose light everybody saw?”

“She doesn’t answer.”

“She
has
to answer,” Greg said, and jammed Kevin’s hand down onto the key. “Send it. SOS. SOS.”

Kevin glanced at Joanna and then bent forward and began to tap out the message. Dot-dot-dot. Dash-dash-dash. Above his head, the blue spark arced, flickered, disappeared, arced again.

It’s fading, Joanna thought, and pushed forward between them. “No! It’s too late for SOSs. Tell Richard
it’s
an SOS, tell him Mrs. Troudtheim’s NDEs are the key.”

“Keep sending SOS!” Greg said, his hand snaking out to fasten on Joanna’s wrist. “You, show me where they keep the lifejackets.”

She called to Kevin, “You have to get the message through to Richard. Tell him it’s a code, that the neurotransmitters—” but Greg had already pushed her out of the wireless room, onto the deck.

“Where are the lifejackets?” he demanded. “We have to stay afloat till the ship gets here! Where did they keep them?”

“I don’t know,” Joanna said helplessly, looking back at the door of the wireless room. Light radiated from it, golden, peaceful, and in the light Kevin sat, his golden head bent over the wireless key, the spark above his head like a halo. Please, Joanna prayed. Let it get through.

“Where did they
keep
them?” Greg’s fingers cut into her wrists.

“In a chest next to the officers’ quarters,” Joanna said, “but they won’t help. There aren’t any ships coming—” but he was already pushing her down the slanting deck toward the bow. Ahead, Joanna could hear a gentle, slopping sound, like water, like blood.

“Show me where the chest is—so I can see what I’m doing!” the resident saying, and Joanna flinching away from the scissors, afraid he had a knife, a knife! Vielle saying, “Hang on, honey. Close your eyes,” and the lights going off, the room suddenly dark, and then a door opening somewhere on light, on singing, “Happy birthday to you!,” the candles on the cake flaring into brightness, and her father saying, “Blow them out!,” and her, leaning far forward, her cheeks puffed with air, blowing, and the candles flickering red and going out, the deck lights dimming, glowing red, and then coming on again, but not as bright, not as bright.

Joanna was sprawled over a white metal chest. “What was that?” Greg said, on his hands and knees by the railing. “What’s happening?” His voice was afraid.