More spots swam before his eyes. There wasn't much time. His fingers touched small bottles, soft bandage packs. There was no air bottle. Damn! The bottles fell to the floor, and then something large and heavy landed on his foot with a thud. He bent down, touched the floor, felt a shard of glass cut his finger, paid no attention. His hand closed over a cold metal cylinder. It was small, hardly longer than the palm of his hand. At one end was some fitting, a nozzle. ...
It was a spray can - some kind of damn spray can. He threw it aside. Oxygen. He needed oxygen!
By the bed, he remembered. Wasn't there emergency oxygen by every bed in the habitat? He felt for the couch where Beth had slept, felt for the wall above where her head would have been. Surely there was oxygen nearby. He was dizzy now. He wasn't thinking clearly.
No oxygen.
Then he realized this wasn't a regular bed. It wasn't intended for sleeping. They wouldn't have placed any oxygen here. Damn! And then his hand touched a metal cylinder, clipped to the wall. At one end was something soft. Soft ...
An oxygen mask.
Quickly he pushed the mask over his mouth and nose. He felt the bottle, twisted a knurled knob. He heard a hissing, breathed cold air. He felt a wave of intense dizziness, and then his head cleared. Oxygen! He was fine!
He felt the shape of the bottle, gauging its size. It was an emergency bottle, only a few hundred cc's. How long would it last? Not long, he thought. A few minutes. It was only a temporary reprieve.
Do something.
But he couldn't think of anything to do. He had no options. He was locked in a room.
He remembered one of his teachers, fat old Dr. Temkin. "You always have an option. There is always something you can do. You are never without choice."
I am now, he thought. No choices now. Anyway, Temkin had been talking about treating patients, not escaping from sealed chambers. Temkin didn't have any experience escaping from sealed chambers. And neither did Norman.
The oxygen made him lightheaded. Or was it already running out? He saw a parade of his old teachers before him. Was this like seeing your life running before you, before you died? All his teachers: Mrs. Jefferson, who told him to be a lawyer instead. Old Joe Lamper, who laughed and said, "Everything is sex. Trust me. It always comes down to sex." Dr. Stein, who used to say, "There is no such thing as a resistant patient. Show me a resistant patient and I'll show you a resistant therapist. If you're not making headway with a patient, then do something else, do anything else. But do something."
Do something.
Stein advocated crazy stuff. If you weren't getting through to a patient, get crazy. Dress up in a clown suit, kick the patient, squirt him with a water pistol, do any damned thing that came into your head, but do something.
"Look," he used to say. "What you're doing now isn't working. So you might as well do something else, no matter how crazy it seems."
Chapter 22
That was fine back then, Norman thought. He'd like to see Stein assess this problem. What would Dr. Stein tell him to do?
Open the door. I can't; she's locked it.
Talk to her. I can't; she won't listen.
Turn on your air. I can't; she has control of the system.
Get control of the system. I can't; she is in control.
Find help inside the room. I can't; there is nothing left to help me.
Then leave. I can't; I -
He paused. That wasn't true. He could leave by smashing a porthole, or, for that matter, by opening the hatch in the ceiling. But there was no place to go. He didn't have a suit. The water was freezing. He had been exposed to that freezing water for only a few seconds and he had nearly died. If he were to leave the room for the open ocean, he would almost surely die. He'd probably be fatally chilled before the chamber even filled with water. He would surely die.
In his mind he saw Stein raise his bushy eyebrows, give his quizzical smile. So? You'll die anyway. What have you got to lose?
A plan began to form in Norman's mind. If he opened the ceiling hatch, he could go outside the habitat. Once outside, perhaps he could make his way down to A Cyl, get back in through the airlock, and put his suit on. Then he would be okay.
If he could make it to the airlock. How long would that take? Thirty seconds? A minute? Could he hold his breath that long? Could he withstand the cold that long?
You'll die anyway.
And then he thought, You damn fool, you're holding an oxygen bottle in your hand; you have enough air if you don't stay here, wasting time worrying. Get on with it.
No, he thought, there's something else, something I'm forgetting. ...
Get on with it!
So he stopped thinking, and climbed up to the ceiling hatch at the top of the cylinder. Then he held his breath, braced himself, and spun the wheel, opening the hatch.
"Norman! Norman, what are you doing? Norman! You are insa - " he heard Beth shout, and then the rest was lost in the roar of freezing water pouring like a mighty waterfall into the habitat, filling the room.
The moment he was outside, he realized his mistake. He needed weights. His body was buoyant, tugging him up toward the surface. He sucked a final breath, dropped the oxygen bottle, and desperately gripped the cold pipes on the outside of the habitat, knowing that if he lost his grip, there would be nothing to stop him, nothing to grab onto, all the way to the surface. He would reach the surface and explode like a balloon.
Holding the pipes, he pulled himself down, hand over hand, looking for the next pipe, the next protrusion to grab. It was like mountain-climbing in reverse; if he let go, he would fall upward and die. His hands were long since numb. His body was stiff with cold, slow with cold. His lungs burned.
He had very little time.
He reached the bottom, swung under D Cyl, pulled himself along, felt in the darkness for the airlock. It wasn't there! The airlock was gone! Then he saw he was beneath B Cyl. He moved over to A, felt the airlock. The airlock was closed. He tugged the wheel. It was shut tight. He pulled on it, but he could not move it.