SCENE-WS/PDRef@5417

"Hello," he said.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Springfield West. I'm in Springfield West. The Warrens under the park. Where are you?"

"I don't know," she said. "I really don't. You seem so real."

"I am real," Peter said. "I am, I'm real. I live in Springfield West, in old Illinois. You seem so far away. Are you far away?"

"Vega," she said. "Vega Twenty Six. Does that mean anything?"

"A starship!" he breathed. "You're on a starship. When did it leave?"

"2050," she said. "In the summer. I left from Alice Springs. It was winter, there, of course, in Australia, but I don't remember much. How is it we can talk like this? I must be imagining it."

"You're in hibernation," Peter said. "It's the hypnagogics."

"The what?"

"Hypnagogics. That kind of twilight state between waking and sleeping. There's been lots of stuff come out the past few years, lots of research. Of course the really good stuff is proscribed; kids can't get at that information. But we get some training in the biopsych chambers. And I'm working on some new stuff, myself."

"Hypnagogics," she said slowly. "Yes, I remember. I slept a lot those last few years. It was the only way I could tolerate...my condition. What year is it?"

"2074. You've been gone for 24 years already. I could find out where you are, but I'll figure it out later. Listen, this is important. We've got to keep doing this."

Peter sensed a smile; he could feel her understanding, her amusement, her compassion for him. "You're young," she said. "I can tell. You must be fourteen or so."

"Fifteen. Almost sixteen."

"I'm...fifty now."

"No. You're the age you were when you left...twenty-four. You won't be any older than that, not much, anyway. But that's not important. The important thing is that I'm working on these...equations." He tried imagining the math for her, but he could feel her shrugging, mentally. "Never mind. You have to believe me. It's important that we keep doing this."

A wind blew, not fast but deeply cold, like static between them, like the hydrogen hiss of the whole universe at once. "Yes, Peter," she said finally. "It's important to me, too."

He was getting sleepy, and could feel his control slipping away. "No," he said, struggling to hold on.

"I'm so alone," she said. "And now I'm almost awake, and I'm frozen solid, and I can't move, and I can't scream or cry, and I'm alone. I need you now, Peter." She faded away. The last he heard was, "You must come back, Peter. Come back."

Keywords: peter, important, away, like, stuff, hypnagogics, springfield, come, years, must, feel, real, don, west, where, remember, lots, between, much, imagining, get, some, keep, doing, almost, last, course, working, alone, few, really, twenty, vega, seem

All text © 1986 Rob Swigart. "Portal : A Dataspace Retrieval" is available courtesy of the Author's Guild Backprint Programme. ISBN: 0595197841

Updated: Tue Dec 4 2001