Free Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer Page B

do.
    Peter lay there, enduring the pressure in his bladder. He wished he knew whether she was sleeping soundly. Maybe she was even already awake, but just had her eyes closed.
    And then it hit him — a completely different use for his monitoring technology. The product appeared fullblown in his mind. A panel on the wall opposite the bed, with two clusters of readouts, one for each person in the bed. In each cluster, there’d be a big LED and a small one. The big one would indicate the person’s current sleep state, and the small one would indicate the state he or she was moving into. There’d also be a digital counter indicating how long until the transition between one state and the next would take place — after just a few nights’ training, the unit would have the individual users’ sleep cycles down pat.
    The LEDs would change color: white would mean the person was awake; red would mean the person was in a light sleep and would definitely be disturbed by any noise or movement. Yellow would mean the person was in a medium sleep, and so long as care was taken, one could get up and go to the bathroom, or cough, or whatever, without disturbing one’s partner. Green would mean the person was in deep sleep, and you could probably do limbo dancing in the bed without disturbing him or her.
    It would be pig-simple to read: a big yellow light with a small green one, and 07 showing on the counter would mean if you got up now, you might disturb your partner, but if you could hold off for seven minutes, she would be fast asleep and you could slip out without waking her.
    As the urinary pressure gave Peter a typical early-morning erection, he realized something else. He’d often awoken horny at 2:00 or 3:00 A.M. and wondered if his wife was awake, too. If she had been, they’d probably have made love, but Peter would never dream of waking her up for that. But if the monitor happened to show white lights for both of them, well, then, what had started out as the Hobson Baby Monitor might end up being responsible for lots of new babies…
    As time went by, Peter refined his system. All the telephones in the Hobson house were now hooked up to a Hobson Monitor, and from there to the household computer. Whether the phones rang at all, or just signaled incoming calls with flashing lights, depended on Peter and Cathy’s sleep states.
    At 3:17 A.M., a call was indeed detected. Moments before, Peter had been asleep, but he was now heading to the en suite bathroom, which had a small voice-only telephone. As he entered, its indicator started to flash. Peter closed the door, sat down on the toilet, and picked up the handset.
    “Hello,” he said, his voice thick and dry.
    “Dr. Hobson?” said a man’s voice.
    “Yes.’
    “This is Sepp van der Linde at Carlson’s Chronic Care. I’m the head night nurse.”
    “Yes?” Peter fumbled for a drinking glass and filled it from the tap.
    “I think Mrs. Fennell is going to pass on tonight. She’s had another stroke.”
    Peter felt a small twang of sadness. “Thank you for letting me know. Is my equipment all set up still?”
    “Yes, sir, it is, but—”
    He fought to stifle a yawn. “Then I’ll come by in the morning to pick up the data disk.”
    “But Dr. Hobson, she’s asking for you to come.”
    “Me?” said Peter.
    “She said you’re her only friend.”
    “I’m on my way.”
    Peter arrived at the chronic-care facility about 4:00 a.m. He showed his pass to the security guard and took the elevator to the third floor. The door to Mrs. Fennell’s room was open and the incandescent light directly above her head was on, although the main overhead fluorescents were out. A row of four green LEDs pierced the gloom beside the bed, showing that Peter’s equipment was working properly. A nurse sat on a chair next to the bed, a bored look on her face.
    “I’m Peter Hobson,” Peter said. “How is she?”
    Mrs. Fennell stirred slightly. “Pe-ter,” she said, but the effort of