The Best of Bova

by Ben Bova

  It was Michael.

  Jason’s knees almost buckled when he saw his brother. He was older, but not that much. His hair had gone white, but his face seemed almost the same, just a few more crinkles around the corners of his eyes and mouth. Mike’s light blue eyes were still clear, alert. He stood erect and strong. He looked a hale and vigorous sixty or so, not the ninety-some that Jason knew he would have to be.

  “Mike?” Jason felt bewildered, staring at this man in the white robes of the Pope. “Mike, is it really you?”

  “It’s me, Jace.”

  For a confused moment Jason did not know what to do. He thought he should kneel to the Pope, kiss his ring, show some sign of respect and reverence. But how can it be Mike, how can he be so young if fifty years have gone by?

  Then Pope Michael I, beaming at his brother, held out his arms to Jason. And Jason rushed into his brother’s arms and let Mike embrace him.

  “Please leave us alone,” said the Pope to his entourage. The phalanx of priests and guards flowed out of the room, silent except for a faint swishing of black robes.

  “Mike? You’re the Pope?” Jason could hardly believe it.

  “Thanks to you, Jace.” Mike’s voice was firm and strong, a voice accustomed to authority.

  “And you look—how old are you now?”

  “Ninety-seven.” Michael laughed. “I know I don’t look it. There’ve been a lot of improvements in medicine, thanks to you.”

  “Me?”

  “You started things, Jace. Started me on the road that’s led here. You’ve changed the world, changed it far more than either of us could have guessed back in the old days.”

  Jason felt weak in the knees. “I don’t understand.”

  Wrapping a strong arm around his brother’s shoulders, Pope Michael I led Jason to the French windows. They stepped out onto a small balcony. Jason saw that they were up so high it made him feel a little giddy. The city of Rome lay all around them; magnificent buildings bathed in warm sunshine beaming down from a brilliant clear blue sky. Birds chirped happily from the nearby trees. Church bells rang in the distance.

  “Listen,” said Michael.

  “To what?”

  “To what you don’t hear.”

  Jason looked closely at his brother. “Have you gone into Zen or something?”

  Michael laughed. “Jace, you don’t hear automobile engines, do you? We use electrical cars now, clean and quiet. You don’t hear horns or people cursing at each other. Everyone’s much more polite, much more respectful. And look at the air! It’s clean. No smog or pollution.”

  Jason nodded numbly. “Things have come a long way since I went under.”

  “Thanks to you,” Michael said again.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You revitalized the Church, Jace. And Holy Mother Church has revitalized Western civilization. We’ve entered a new age, an age of faith, an age of morality and obedience to the law.”

  Jason felt overwhelmed. “I revitalized the Church?”

  “Your idea of entrusting your estate to the Church. I got to thinking about that. Soon I began spreading the word that the Church was the only institution in the whole world that could be trusted to look after freezees—”

  “Freezees?”

  “People who’ve had themselves frozen. That’s what they’re called now.”

  “Freezees.” It sounded to Jason like an ice-cream treat he had known when he was a kid.

  “You hit the right button, Jace,” Michael went on, grasping the stone balustrade of the balcony in both hands. “Holy Mother Church has the integrity to look after the freezees while they’re helpless, and the endurance to take care of them for centuries, millennia, if necessary.”

  “But how did that change everything?”

  Michael grinned at him. “You, of all people, should be able to figure that out.”

  “Money,” said Jason.

  Pope Michael nodded vigorously. “The rich came to us to take care of them while they were frozen. You gave us half your estate, many of the others gave us a lot more. The more desperate they were, the more they offered. We never haggled; we took whatever they were willing to give. Do you have any idea of how much money flowed into the Church? Not just billions, Jace. Trillions! Trillions of dollars.”

  Jason thought of how much compound interest could accrue in half a century. “How much am I worth now?” he asked.

  His brother ignored him. “With all that money came power, Jace. Real power. Power to move politicians. Power to control whole nations. With that power came authority. The Church reasserted itself as the moral leader of the Western world. The people were ready for moral leadership. They needed it and we provided it. The old evil ways are gone, Jace. Banished.”

  “Yes, but how much—”

  “We spent wisely,” the Pope continued, his eyes glowing. “We invested in the future. We started to rebuild the world, and that gained us the gratitude and loyalty of half the world.”

  “What should I invest in now?” Jason asked.

  Michael turned slightly away from him. “There’s a new morality out there, a new world of faith and respect for authority. The world you knew is gone forever, Jace. We’ve ended hunger. We’ve stabilized the world’s population—without artificial birth control.”

  Jason could not help smiling at his brother. “You’re still against contraception.”

  “Some things don’t change. A sin is still a sin.”

  “You thought temporary suicide was a sin,” Jason reminded him.

  “It still is,” said the Pope, utterly serious.

  “But you help people to freeze themselves! You just told me—”

  Michael put a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Jace, just because those poor frightened souls entrust their money to Holy Mother Church doesn’t mean that they’re not committing a mortal sin when they kill themselves.”

  “But it’s not suicide! I’m here, I’m alive again!”

  “Legally, you’re dead.”

  “But that—” Jason’s breath caught in his throat. He did not like the glitter in Michael’s eye.

  “Holy Mother Church cannot condone suicide, Jace.”

  “But you benefit from it!”

  “God moves in mysterious ways. We use the money that sinners bestow upon us to help make the world a better place. But they are still sinners.”

  A terrible realization was beginning to take shape in Jason’s frightened mind. “How . . . how many freezees have you revived?” he asked in a trembling voice.

  “You are the first,” his brother answered. “And the last.”

  “But you can’t leave them frozen! You promised to revive them!”

  Pope Michael shook his head slowly, a look on his face more of pity than sorrow. “We promised to revive you, Jace. We made no such promises to the rest of them. We agreed only to look after them and maintain them until they could be cured of whatever it was that killed them.”

  “But that means you’ve got to revive them.”

  A wintry smile touched the corners of the Pope’s lips. “No, it does not. The contract is quite specific. Our best lawyers have honed it to perfection. Many of them are Jesuits, you know. The contract gives the Church the authority to decide when to revive them. We keep them frozen.”

  Jason could feel his heart thumping against his ribs. “But why would anybody come to you to be frozen when nobody’s been revived? Don’t they realize —”

  “No, they don’t realize, Jace. That’s the most beautiful part of it. We control the media very thoroughly. And when a person is facing the certainty of death, you would be shocked at how few questions are asked. We offer life after death, just as we always have. They interpret our offer in their own way.”

  Jason sagged against the stone balustrade. “You mean that even with all the advances in medicine you’ve made, they still haven’t gotten wise?”

  “Despite all our medical advances, people still die. And the rich still wa
nt to avoid it, if they can. That’s when they run to us.”

  “And you screw them out of their money.”

  Michael’s face hardened. “Jace, the Church has scrupulously kept its end of our bargain with you. We have kept watch over you for more than half a century, and we revived you as soon as your disease became curable, just as I agreed to. But what good does a new life do you when your immortal soul is in danger of damnation?”

  “I didn’t commit suicide,” Jason insisted.

  “What you have done—what all the freezees have done—is considered suicide in every court of the Western world.”

  “The Church controls the courts?”

  “All of them,” Michael replied. He heaved a sad, patient sigh, then said, “Holy Mother Church’s mission is to save souls, not bodies. We’re going to save your soul, Jace. Now.”

  Jason saw that the six Swiss Guards were standing by the French windows, waiting for him.

  “You’ve been through it before, Jace,” his brother told him. “You won’t feel a thing.”

  Terrified, Jason shrieked, “You’re going to murder me?”

  “It isn’t murder, Jace. We’re simply going to freeze you again. You’ll go down into the catacombs with all the others.”

  “But I’m cured, dammit! I’m all right now!”

  “It’s for the salvation of your soul, Jace. It’s your penance for committing the sin of suicide.”

  “You’re freezing me so you can keep all my money! You’re keeping all the others frozen so you can keep their money, too!”

  “It’s for their own good,” said Pope Michael. He nodded to the guards, who stepped onto the balcony and took Jason in their grasp.

  “It’s like the goddamned Inquisition!” Jason yelled. “Burning people at the stake to save their souls!”

  “It’s for the best, Jace,” Pope Michael I said as the guards dragged Jason away. “It’s for the good of the world. It’s for the good of the Church, for the good of your immortal soul.”

  Struggling against the guards, Jason pleaded, “How long will you keep me under? When will you revive me again?”

  The Pope shrugged. “Holy Mother Church has lasted more than two thousand years, Jace. But what’s a millennium or two when you’re waiting for the final trump?”

  “Mike!” Jason howled. “For God’s sake!”

  “God’s a lot smarter than both of us,” Michael said grimly. “Trust me.”

  (With special thanks to Michael Bienes.)

  APPOINTMENT IN SINAI

  Of all the stories that were written about the first human flight to the Moon during science fiction’s “golden age” of the 1930s and ’40s (including Robert A. Heinlein’s script for the 1950 movie Destination Moon) not one author foresaw that the lunar landing would be televised back to Earth.

  Television was not a common household fixture when those tales were written. By the time broadcast TV became as commonplace as commercial radio, the major science fiction authors had moved on to the other subjects: The first lunar landing was old-hat in science fiction circles.

  When the first humans set foot on Mars, their landing will be transmitted back to Earth not only by television, but by virtual reality systems, so that people on Earth with the proper equipment will be able to see, feel, experience the thrill of setting foot on the red planet.

  “Appointment in Sinai” is about that moment, and although the tale is told from several different viewpoints, it is really the story of astronaut Debbie Kettering, who was passed over for the Mars mission, and her eventual realization that, as the poet John Milton put it, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

  Houston

  No, I am not going to plug in,” Debbie Kettering said firmly. “I’m much too busy.”

  Her husband gave her his patented lazy smile. “Come on, Deb, you don’t have anything to do that can’t wait a half hour or so.”

  His smile had always been her undoing. But this time she intended to stand firm. “No!” she insisted. “I won’t.”

  She was not a small woman, but standing in their living room next to Doug made her look tiny. A stranger might think they were the school football hero and the cutest cheerleader on the squad, twenty years afterward. In reality, Doug was a propulsion engineer (a real rocket scientist) and Deborah an astronaut.

  An ex-astronaut. Her resignation was on the computer screen in her bedroom office, ready to be e-mailed to her boss at the Johnson Space Center.

  “What’ve you got to do that’s so blasted important?” Doug asked, still grinning at her as he headed for the sofa, his favorite Saturday afternoon haunt.

  “A mountain of work that’s been accumulating for weeks,” Debbie answered. “Now’s the time to tackle it, while all the others are busy and won’t be able to bother me.”

  His smile faded as he realized how miserable his wife really was. “Come on, Deb. We both know what’s eating you.”

  “I won’t plug in, Doug.”

  “Be a shame to miss it,” he insisted.

  Suddenly she was close to tears. “Those bastards even rotated me off the shift. They don’t want me there!”

  “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “No, Doug! They put everybody else in ahead of me. I’m on the bottom of their pecking order. So to hell with them! I won’t even watch it on TV. And that’s final!”

  Los Angeles

  “It’s all set up, man. All we need’s a guy who’s good with the ’lectronics. And that’s you, Chico.”

  Luis Mendez shifted unhappily in his desk chair. Up at the front of the room Mr. Ricardo was trying to light up some enthusiasm in the class. Nobody was interested in algebra, though. Except Luis, but he had Jorge leaning over from the next desk, whispering in his ear.

  Luis didn’t much like Jorge, not since first grade when Jorge used to beat him up at least once a week for his lunch money. The guy was dangerous. Now he was into coke and designer drugs and burglary to support his habit. And he wanted Luis to help him.

  “I don’t do locks,” Luis whispered back, out of the side of his mouth, keeping his eyes on Mr. Ricardo’s patient, earnest face.

  “It’s all ’lectronics, man. You do one kind you can do the other. Don’t try to mess with me, Chico.”

  “We’ll get caught. They’ll send us to Alcatraz.”

  Jorge stifled a laugh. “I got a line on a whole friggin’ warehouse full of VR sets and you’re worryin’ about Alcatraz? Even if they sent you there you’d be livin’ better than here.”

  Luis grimaced. Life in the ’hood was no picnic, but Alcatraz? More than once Mr. Ricardo had sorrowfully complained, “Maybe you bufóns would be better off in Alcatraz. At least there they make you learn.”

  Yeah, Luis knew. They also fry your brains and turn you into a zombie.

  “Hey.” Jorge jabbed at Luis’s shoulder. “I ain’t askin’ you, Chico. I’m tellin’ you. You’re gonna do the locks for me or you’re gonna be in the hospital. Comprende?”

  Luis understood. Trying to fight against Jorge was useless. He had learned that lesson years ago. Better to do what Jorge wanted than to get a vicious beating.

  Washington

  Senator Theodore O’Hara fumed quietly as he rolled his powerchair down the long corridor to his office. The trio of aides trotting behind him were puffing too hard to speak; the only sound in the marble-walled corridor was the slight whir of the powerchair’s electric motor and the faint throb of the senator’s artificial heart pump. And obedient panting.

  He leaned on the toggle to make the chair go a bit faster. Two of his aides fell behind but Kaiser, overweight and prematurely balding, broke into a sprint to keep up.

  Fat little yes-man, O’Hara thought. Still, Kaiser was uncanny when it came to predicting trends. O’Hara scrupulously followed all the polls, as any politician must if he wants to stay in office. But when the polls said one thing and Kaiser something else, the tubby little butterball was inevitably right.

  Ch
airman Pastorini had recessed the committee session so everybody could plug into the landing. Set aside the important business of the Senate Appropriations Committee, O’Hara grumbled to himself, so we can all see a half-dozen astronauts plant their gold-plated boots on Mars.

  What a waste of time, he thought. And money.

  It’s all Pastorini’s doing. He’s using the landing. Timed the damned committee session to meet just on this particular afternoon. Knew it all along. Thinks I’ll cave in because the other idiots on the committee are going to get all stirred up.

  I’ll cave them in. All of them. This isn’t the first manned landing on Mars, he thought grimly. It’s the last.

  Phoenix

  Jerome Zacharias—Zack to everyone who knew him—paced nervously up and down the big room. Part library, part entertainment center, part bar, the room was packed with friends and well-wishers and media reporters who had made the trek to Phoenix to be with him at this historic moment.

  They were drinking champagne already, Zack saw. Toasting our success. Speculating on what they’ll find on Mars.

  But it could all fail, he knew. It could be a disaster. The last systems check before breaking orbit had shown that the lander’s damned fuel cells still weren’t charged up to full capacity. All right, the backups are okay, there’s plenty of redundancy, but it just takes one glitch to ruin everything. People have been killed in space and those kids are more than a hundred million miles from home.

  If anything happens to them it’ll be my fault, Zack knew. They’re going to give me the credit if it all works out okay, but it’ll be my fault if they crash and burn.