“So Doc, what did I do?”

This greeting perturbed Dr. Drake. “I beg your pardon?”

Tristan smiled a crooked smile. “I figured we’d skip the formalities and cut to the chase. If you’ve read that dossier on your lap, you know that this isn’t my first encounter with the world of mental health. ”

Dr. Drake cleared his throat. “What makes you think you’re in a mental institution?”
Tristan’s smile gained an extra jag of crookedness. “Oh, come on, Doc. The soft lighting, the rounded corners on all the furnishing and fixtures, the carefully casual decor of this little rumpus room…. I know the signs. Not that I’m complaining. This is a lot nicer than some places I’ve woken up. Real cozy and comfortable.”

“Thank you. Er… ” Dr. Drake seemed to be having trouble regaining his equilibrium. He glanced at the dossier in his lap and shuffled a few papers around while he composed himself. With all his years of clinical practice, to be discombobulated by this scruffy little… then again, these were highly unusual circumstances. He cleared his throat once more. “What was the question again?”

Tristan laughed and shook his head. “What did I do, Doc? Must be something big, if I landed in a fancy joint like this and not the washout ward at the local lockdown. ” He turned on that crooked smile again, giving his distinctly unlovely face a bizarre charm. “Did I break something expensive?”

“Um no. That is, yes. In a manner of speaking. Um… ” He flipped through the dossier to re familiarize himself with the fact. Facts, yes. Facts always soothed him. You could do anything if you had a proper command of all the relevant facts.

Name, Tristan Isolde Wagner. Horrible. Why did Belt parents always give their children such terrible names? Occupation, Independent Grapple-Tug Operator. Same as every other rockhead, although it was somewhat impressive that he’d gone independent before the age of 40. As Dr. Drake understood it, that was rare. Reason for Admittance : Found in a state of catatonic amnesia, barely able to speak. Admitted for observation and analysis as to case and meaning of this state. And that was true, for as far as it went. But it didn’t begin to describe the true fact of the case, or the reason a 67-year-old seasoned clinical psychiatrist who had dealt calmly with murderers and raving lunatic demagogues was so nervous around an odd dumpy little man.

Suddenly aware that said dumpy little man was staring at him, expecting a reply, Dr. Drake gathered himself and, in his best professionally brisk tone, said “We’ll get to your reason for being here shortly, Mr. Wagner. ”

“Hey now, call me Tris, everyone does. Last names are for the government where I come from. ”

“Ah yes, I see. ” said Dr. Drake. “Well then, Tris, I’d like to start by asking you to describe your last memory before waking up here in the Home. ”

Tristan sat back in his recliner and stroked his scraggly beard thoughtfully. “Let’s see. I was working Inside… uh, that’s the side of the Belt closest to the Sun for you clodhoppers… and I wasn’t getting anything but a little tag work, and I remember seeing something big and red and wondering if it was worth checking out…. and then….. hmph. Then nothing. Nothing but a big wet blur until…. well, until a couple of minutes before you walked in, Doc. ”

Dr. Drake looked up from the detailed notes he was taking and hmphed as well. “Interesting. So you have absolutely no memory of the events that transpired during the three days in between?”

Tristan’s eyes went wide and he rocked back in his chair as though reeling. “Three days, Doc? Three DAYS? I mean, I’ve skipped an hour or two but… three DAYS? That’s…. that’s something else. ” He swallowed audibly, then asked in a hushed tone “Jeezus Doc… what did I do? ”

Dr. Drake nodded. “Something else indeed. ” He wasn’t proud of it, but he felt better now that Tristan’s bubble of confident ease and bonhomie had been punctured. The patient was, after all, merely a human being like any other. He simply had to keep that in mind.

“We’re getting to that… Tris. Now I want you to tell me, how would you describe your emotional state on the last day you remember?”

Tristan shrugged expressively and said “I don’t know, let me think…. the usual, I guess. I had gotten bored playing tag and pat-a-cake with the other tugs around Station Pink, so I went out to do some panning Inside to maybe find a payrock then call it a day after I’d brought it to Scale. I remember I was just started to get a little bored and frustrated with that when….. when whatever happened, happened. But for the most part, I was in a good mood…. I think. ”

“I see. So you don’t remember any feelings of fear, anxiety, or a-anger? ” Dr. Drake cursed himself silently for stammering on that last word. Hardly scientific, is it, Doctor? he said to himself.

Tristan’s face was ashen. All his flippant good cheer was gone and he stared at Dr. Drake with dawning horror. “Peter on the Rock, Doc, if this is all some trick to get me good and panicked, consider it a success. You have to tell me, Doc. What the hell did I do?”

Dr. Drake smiled. This part he’d rehearsed. “What you did, Mister Wagner…. Tris… was singlehandedly slaughter thousands of invading Teskre’et ships singlehandedly using only your tiny egg of a vessel. Apparently, you were screaming incoherent nonsense into your communicator the whole time. The best military minds in all of Human Space cannot figure out how you did it. The Teskre’et Imperium is quite anxious to know as well, and due to the nature of their warrior religion, are in the process of naming you as some sort of mad god. Apparently, they’ve quite a few of those. Earth, on the other hand, wants to give you a medal. In fact, I think they want to give you all of them. But others are, understandably, somewhat afraid of what you are capable of if let loose upon the Spaceway again. You are either the greatest hero the galaxy has ever known, or the most dangerous lunatic in the history of mental illness, and the purpose of your stay here at the Home is to allow me to make that determination. ”

Tristan looked as though his eyes were attempting to pop out of his head. He laughed weakly. “Gee Doc, can’t it be both?

Dr. Drake smiled thinly. “For your sake, Tris, we’d better hope it is not. ”

(Thus endeth Chapter One of “Long Night’s Dreaming”. To be continued!)