The Terminal Experiment - Robert J. Sawyer Page 0,6

chemistry. She would be finishing her final class of the day—polymers—in about twenty minutes. He hurried back to the campus and waited in the hall outside the classroom for her.

The class ended and Cathy came out, chatting animatedly with her friend Jasmine, who caught sight of Peter first. “Well,” she said, grinning, and tugging Cathy’s sleeve, “look who’s here. It’s Mr. Right.”

Peter smiled at Jasmine briefly, but really only had eyes for Cathy. Cathy had a heart-shaped face, long black hair, and enormous blue eyes. As always, she smiled radiantly when she saw Peter. Despite what he’d seen earlier in the day, Peter felt himself grinning, too. It happened every time. There was an electricity between them—Jasmine and their other friends often commented on it.

“I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” said Jasmine, still grinning. Peter and Cathy said goodbye to her, and the two of them came together in a kiss. In that brief moment of contact, Peter felt himself revitalized. They’d been dating for three years now, and still there was wonder in each embrace.

When they separated, Peter asked, “What are you doing for the rest of the day?”

“I’d been planning to drop by the arts department to see if I could get some kiln time, but that can wait,” Cathy said, her voice mischievous. Overhead, every other fluorescent tube had been removed to cut costs, but Cathy’s smile lit up the whole corridor for Peter. “Got any ideas?”

“Yes. I want you to come to the library with me.”

Again the wondrous smile. “Neither of us is that quiet,” said Cathy. “Even if we did it somewhere that’d likely be deserted—the Canadian Literature section, maybe—I suspect the noise would still disturb people.”

He couldn’t help grinning, and he leaned in to kiss her again. “Maybe afterwards,” he said, “but first, I need help with some research, please.”

They joined hands and began walking.

“Into what?”

“Into death,” Peter said.

Cathy’s eyes were wide. “Why?”

“I was doing some more of my practicum today— running an EKG during an operation to remove a heart for transplant.”

Her eyes danced. “That sounds fascinating.”

“It was, but …”

“But what?”

“But I don’t think the donor was dead before they started removing his organs.”

“Oh, come on!” said Cathy, letting go of his hand long enough to whap him lightly on the arm.

“I’m serious. His blood pressure went up when the surgery started, and his heart rate increased. Those are classic signs of stress—or even pain. And they anesthetized the body. Think about that: they anesthetized a supposedly dead person.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And when the surgeon sliced into the pericardium, the patient gasped.”

“My God. What did the surgeon do?”

“Called for more muscular paralyzers to be injected into the patient, then just went on with the operation. Everyone else seemed to think this was all perfectly reasonable. Of course by the time the operation was finished, the donor really was dead.”

They left the Lash Miller Building and started walking north toward Bloor Street. “And what do you want to find out?” asked Cathy.

“I want to find out how they determine that someone is dead before they begin carving out his organs.”

THEY’D BEEN SEARCHING for about an hour when Cathy came over to the carrel Peter was sitting in. “I’ve found something,” she said.

He looked up expectantly.

She pulled up a chair and balanced a heavy volume on her lap. “This is a book on transplant procedures. The problem with transplants, it says, is that they never take the body off life support. If they did so, the organs would begin to deteriorate. So, even though the donors are declared dead, their hearts have never stopped. As far as the electrocardiogram is concerned, the supposedly dead donor is as alive as you and me.”

Peter nodded excitedly. This was exactly what he’d been hoping to find. “So how do they decide if the donor is dead?”

“One way is to squirt ice-cold water into his ears.”

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“No. It says here that will completely disorient a person, even if they’re in a deep coma. And it often causes spontaneous vomiting.”

“Is that the only test?”

“No. They also rub the surface of the eyeball to see if the donor tries to blink. And they pull out the—what do you call it? That breathing tube?”

“The endotracheal ventilator.”

“Yes,” she said. “They pull that out for a short time to see if the body’s need for oxygen will cause it to start breathing again on its own.”

“What about EEGs?”

“Well, this is a British book. When it was written, their use for determining death wasn’t required