“But I don’t. Who is Jesse? Why wasn’t he really there?”
“Judy works for Social Care,” Maurice said brusquely. “You know what that means, Edward? She takes MTPH to help her feel other people’s emotions. Sometimes that drug causes phantom personalities to arise in the mind. Jesse isn’t really there. He doesn’t really exist.”
“Oh,” said Edward.
Edward still didn’t understand, but Maurice was already moving on. “Well, Judy?” he said, impatiently.
“I’m sorry,” said Judy. “I was just thinking about something.” She closed her eyes. “I suppose I should start from when I woke up in my cabin.”
—Judy. Something’s wrong.
“I know, I can’t help it.”
—No, I mean with the ship.
Jesse was a shadowy shape at the edge of her consciousness. She could never quite make out his appearance. Sometimes he seemed far away, a man viewed at a distance; sometimes he was nothing but a child. Like Maurice had said, he was the phantom residue of the drug that she had once taken in her work as a Social Care operative, a construct of her imagination; he lived out his own life in time slices snatched from her brain and senses. He was stalking her cabin now, pressing his hands against the terra-cotta walls.
“I can’t feel any vibration,” he said. “I think the engines have stopped.”
Judy rose from her bed. She wiped the back of her hand across her face, which was still puffy from crying, and then pressed it against the wall. Despite appearances to the contrary, Jesse had no existence outside of her mind. For him to think the engines had stopped, Judy must have sensed the cessation of vibration for herself, and then Jesse would have acted out a scenario to illustrate this. Nonetheless…
“You’re right,” she murmured, “the engines have stopped. But we were Warping. I didn’t notice our reinsertion into flat space….”
—We didn’t reinsert, replied Jesse.
Judy raised her voice. “Ship. What’s going on?”
Jesse tilted his shadowy head when no reply came.
“Ship! Speak to me!”
Judy dived across the bed and snatched the loose rope belt that was the form currently assumed by her console. She ran her fingers along the chameleon device, raised it to her lips and called out again.
“Ship, I think there is a fault with the senses in my cabin.”
The console was dead. Jesse had pressed his ear to the wall again.
—Now I’m worried.
Judy pressed her hands together and concentrated. It was twelve years since she had given up working for Social Care, but the training was ingrained. In circumstances such as these she would automatically calm herself, center herself.
—I can hear something outside. I think someone is screaming.
“Let me dress.”
Quickly, she pulled on her black passive suit, the material tightening around her. A pot of white makeup sat by her bed and she dipped the first finger of each hand into it, touched them to her face. A white tide covered her skin as she breathed deeply.
—I think I know what is going on, said Jesse.
“Don’t say it! Do not say it!”
