“You’re sure she won’t think I’m lying?”
“Yes. Besides, she’s Briveen. If you were lying, she’d be able to smell it.”
“Really?” His eyes got big.
“Yep. Let’s go.”
Brak clicked her teeth in agitation. “I wouldn’t have thought you were lying about remembering things. We need to get to the infirmary, now.”
Lim’s voice grew small. “You think I’m in danger?”
“No. But I don’t want to wait until tomorrow to figure this out.”
Since Brak still had temporary guest quarters on Deck One, the trip to the infirmary didn’t take long. Once there, Brak waved distractedly to the medical staff on duty and tersely explained that she needed the private room for her patient.
Fallon was impressed. She’d never seen Brak so driven. She backed into the corner of the room and made herself unobtrusive.
Brak guided Lim to the techbed. “Remain still. I don’t need to use restraints unless you get fidgety. Let me get a functional scan set up.” She paused on her way to the controls. “Don’t worry. This won’t hurt.”
“But…you already did a functional scan,” Lim said hesitantly. “What is there to see that you haven’t already?”
“I was focusing on your long-term and short-term memories, which are stored in different locations. This time I’m going to look at your entire brain.”
Lim seemed to want to ask more questions, but he fell silent. His obvious confusion brought Fallon out of the corner and to his side. She laced her fingers through his and smiled at him. It was an odd feeling for her to be so familiar with someone she barely knew. But it was something Wren would have done, which told her it was the right thing to do.
He smiled back, and the worry eased from his face.
“Okay.” Brak moved to where Lim could see her. She handed him an infoboard. “I want you to look at the images that appear. Each one will remain for a few seconds, then be replaced by another. Just relax and think whatever you want to think when you look at them.”
Fallon watched him look at pictures of animals, planets, body parts, blood, faces of people wearing various expressions and engaged in a variety of activities. Finally, instead of a picture, the sound of instrumental music came from the board.
“Fallon, please tell him something about your experiences of memory loss. How it felt, how you dealt with it. Something along those lines.” Brak stared at the techbed display.
“Uh, sure.” Fallon thought back to when she’d woken up with no memory. “When I didn’t know what was going on, I was on alert. Paranoid. I was willing to do whatever I had to do in order to get my life back. That hole inside of me made me feel like there was far more of me missing than whatever I had left.”
Lim nodded and she continued, “I know our situations are different, but your past isn’t the most valuable thing about you. Your future is far more important. Everything you do tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. You still have all that ahead of you. And you already have friends. So no matter what these tests show, there’s a lot of good stuff still to come. Okay?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Thanks.”
After a long silence Brak said, “Lim, please think about your escape from that station. Step by step, from the moment you first thought of getting away.”
Lim closed his eyes, and his mouth tightened.
Brak muttered something in Briveen, then growled. A moment later she growled again. Fallon looked at Lim’s curious expression and shrugged. Brak’s scents and body language were all muddled into an odd mix, making them difficult for her to interpret.
Finally, Brak left the controls to face Lim. “So we discussed brain anatomy before. That the memory cortex involves a number of different structures in the brain, which is why your long-term memory could be wiped and leave your short-term memory intact. It also explains why you might retain some skills and cultural awareness.”
Lim nodded.
“You’re missing nearly everything memory related in your frontal and temporal lobes except for your amygdala—which is the emotion center of the brain.”
She paused and Lim said, “Okay.” He looked entirely mystified.
“Both of you, come back here and take a look at Lim’s amygdala.” Brak waved them toward the techbed controls.
Fallon watched two almond-shaped blobs display a flashing sequence of activity.
“That’s what it looked like when Lim thought about his escape. Any other time, his amygdala exhibited normal activity. It seems like Lim used his fear and desperation, or whatever he was feeling at the time, to imprint specific high-emotion information into his amygdala. It’s brilliant. He hid a message to himself in his own brain.”
A strong cinnamon aroma wafted around Fallon. She’d never smelled cinnamon from Brak before. Clearly she was incandescently happy. Ecstatic.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. This is fantastic!” Brak patted Lim on the back as if congratulating him.
“Uh. Thanks?” Lim seemed underwhelmed. “I’m guessing this doesn’t change my memory situation, though.”
Brak toned down her enthusiasm. “No. But it could open up new avenues in the study of memory. Imagine if we could intentionally load our own brains with memory engrams. We could make certain we’d never forget something truly important. And this could lead to new therapies for memory-destroying diseases.”
Brak pressed her hand to her chest, looking emotional.
And Fallon thought she loved her work. “Did you need us for anything else?”
Brak pulled herself together. “No. But thank you both. I know this doesn’t help your situation, Lim, but you’ve made a significant contribution to science.”
He lifted his shoulder and let it drop, in a noncommittal gesture that looked a lot like the Briveen sign for contrition. “I’m glad if it helps someone. But for my own sake, it’s nice to know that I have friends who will believe me if I say something crazy.”
“Of course we believe you,” Brak said. “As to the upgrade to your new implant, I’ll be
