by Anthology
"So they come to this place, and then they die?"
"You make it sound like it happens overnight," I reply. "We've kept some of them alive for more than a century," I add proudly. "A lot of them, in fact."
He stares at me. I recognize that particular stare; it means I'm not going to like what he says next.
"You could save a lot of time and effort by killing them right away."
"That would be contrary to civil and moral law!" I reply angrily. "It's our job to keep every patient alive."
"Have you ever asked them if they want to be kept alive?"
"No one wants to die."
"Right. It's against all civil and moral law." He coughs and tries to clear his lungs. "Well, that's why you won't find it in the dictionary."
"Find what?" I ask, confused.
"Euthanasia," he says.
"I don't understand you."
"That's what we were talking about, isn't it?" he says. "It means mercy killing."
"Mercy killing?"
"You've heard both words before. Figure it out."
I am still wondering why anyone would think it was merciful to kill another human being when my shift ends and I go home.
* * * *
"Why would someone want to die?" I ask Felicia.
She rolls her eyes. "Goldmeier again?"
"Yes."
"Somehow I'm not surprised," she says in annoyed tones. She shakes her head sadly. "I don't know where that man gets his ideas. No one wants to die." She paused. "Look at it logically. If someone's in pain, he can go on medication. If he's lost a limb, he can get a prosthesis. If he's too feeble even to feed himself -- well, that's what trained people like you are there for."
"What if he's just tired of living?"
"You know better than that," replied Felicia with unshakeable certainty. "Every living organism fights to stay alive. That's the first law of Nature."
"Yes, I suppose so," I agree.
"He's a nasty old man. Did he say anything else?"
"No, not really." I toy with my food. Somehow my appetite has vanished. "How were things at the greenhouse?"
"They finally got exactly the shade of phosphorescent silver they want for the Aglaonema crispum," she says. "I think they're going to call it the 'Silver Charm'."
"Cute name."
"Yes, I rather like it. They tell me there was once a famous racehorse, centuries ago, with that name." She pauses. "Of course, it means some extra work for me."
"Potting them?"
"They're all potted. No, the problem is making room for them. I think we'll have to get rid of the Browallia speciosa majorus."
"But those are your Majors!" I protest. "I know how you love them!"
"I do," she admits. "They have exquisite blossoms. But they've got some kind of exotic root rot disease." She sighs deeply. "I saw some miscoloration, some slimy residue...but I didn't identify it in time. It's my fault they're dying."
"Why not bring them home?" I suggest.
"If you want Majors, I'll bring some young, healthy ones that will flower in the spring. But I'm just going to dump the old ones in the garbage. The disease won."
I'm grasping for something, but I'm not quite sure what. "Didn't you just tell me that every living thing fights to stay alive?"
"The Majors don't want to die," said Felicia. "They're infected, so I'm taking that decision out of their hands before the disease can spread to other plants."
"But if -- "
"Don't go getting philosophical with me," she says. "They're only flowers. It's not as if they feel any pain."
Later that night I find myself wondering when was the last time Rex or the Major or Mr. Spinoza or any of the others felt any pain.
50 years? 75? 100? More?
Then I realize that that's what Mr. Goldmeier wants me to think. He sees the weak and he wants them dead.
But they're not his targets at all. They never were.
I finally know who he is trying to infect.
* * * *
I show up early for work and enter my ward. Everyone is sleeping.
I look at my charges, and a warm glow comes over me. We are a team, you and I. I give you life and you give me satisfaction and a sense of purpose. I pledge to you that I will never let anyone destroy the bond between us.
When I think about it, there is really very little difference between Felicia's job and my own. She has to protect her flowers; I have to protect mine.
I fill a syringe and walk silently over to Mr. Goldmeier's life station.
It is time to start weeding my garden.
ANCIENT ENGINES
Michael Swanwick
"Planning to live forever, Tiktok?"
The words cut through the bar's chatter and gab and silenced them. The silence reached out to touch infinity and then, "I believe you're talking to me?" a mech said.
The drunk laughed. "Ain't nobody else here sticking needles in his face, is there?"
The old man saw it all. He lightly touched the hand of the young woman sitting with him and said, "Watch."
Carefully the mech set down his syringe alongside a bottle of liquid collagen on a square of velvet cloth. He disconnected himself from the recharger, laying the jack beside the syringe. When he looked up again, his face was still and hard. He looked like a young lion.
The drunk grinned sneeringly.
The bar was located just around the corner from the local stepping stage. It was a quiet retreat from the aggravations of the street, all brass and mirrors and wood paneling, as cozy and snug as the inside of a walnut. Light shifted lazily about the room, creating a varying emphasis like clouds drifting overhead on a summer day, but far dimmer. The bar, the bottles behind the bar, and the shelves beneath the bottles behind the bar were all aggressively real. If there was anything virtual, it was set up high or far back, where it couldn't be touched. There was not a smart surface in the place.
"If that was a challenge," the mech said, "I'd be more than happy to meet you outside."
"Oh, noooooo," the drunk said, his expression putting the lie to his words. "I just saw you shooting up that goop into your face, oh so dainty, like an old lady pumping herself full of antioxidants. So I figured . . ." He weaved and put a hand down on a table to steady himself. ". . . figured you was hoping to live forever."
The girl looked questioningly at the old man. He held a finger to his lips.
"Well, you're right. You're -- what? Fifty years old? Just beginning to grow old and decay. Pretty soon your teeth will rot and fall out and your hair will melt away and your face will fold up in a million wrinkles. Your hearing and your eyesight will go and you won't be able to remember the last time you got it up. You'll be lucky if you don't need diapers before the end. But me -- " he drew a dram of fluid into his syringe and tapped the barrel to draw the bubbles to the top -- "anything that fails, I'll simply have it replaced. So, yes, I'm planning to live forever. While you, well, I suppose you're planning to die. Soon, I hope."
The drunk's face twisted, and with an incoherent roar of rage he attacked the mech.
In a motion too fast to be seen, the mech stood, seized the drunk, whirled him around, and lifted him above his head. One hand was closed around the man's throat so he couldn't speak. The other held both wrists tight behind the knees so that, struggle as he might, the drunk was helpless.
"I could snap your spine like that," he said coldly. "If I exerted myself, I could rupture every internal organ you've got. I'm two-point-eight times stronger than a flesh man, and three-point-five times faster. My reflexes are only slightly slower than the speed of light, and I've just had a tune-up. You could hardly have chosen a worse person to pick a fight with."
Then the drunk was flipped around and set back on his feet. He gasped for air.
"But since I'm also a merciful man, I'll simply ask nicely if you wouldn't rather leave." The mech spun the drunk around and gave him a gentle shove toward the door.
The man left at a stumbl
ing run.
Everyone in the place -- there were not many -- had been watching. Now they remembered their drinks, and talk rose up to fill the room again. The bartender put something back under the bar and turned away.
Leaving his recharge incomplete, the mech folded up his lubrication kit and slipped it in a pocket. He swiped his hand over the credit swatch, and stood.
But as he was leaving, the old man swiveled around and said, "I heard you say you hope to live forever. Is that true?"
"Who doesn't?" the mech said curtly.
"Then sit down. Spend a few minutes out of the infinite swarm of centuries you've got ahead of you to humor an old man. What's so urgent that you can't spare the time?"
The mech hesitated. Then, as the young woman smiled at him, he sat.
"Thank you. My name is -- "
"I know who you are, Mr. Brandt. There's nothing wrong with my eidetics."
Brandt smiled. "That's why I like you guys. I don't have to be all the time reminding you of things." He gestured to the woman sitting opposite him. "My granddaughter." The light intensified where she sat, making her red hair blaze. She dimpled prettily.
"Jack." The young man drew up a chair. "Chimaera Navigator-Fuego, model number -- "
"Please. I founded Chimaera. Do you think I wouldn't recognize one of my own children?"
Jack flushed. "What is it you want to talk about, Mr. Brandt?" His voice was audibly less hostile now, as synthetic counterhormones damped down his emotions.
"Immortality. I found your ambition most intriguing."
"What's to say? I take care of myself, I invest carefully, I buy all the upgrades. I see no reason why I shouldn't live forever." Defiantly. "I hope that doesn't offend you."
"No, no, of course not. Why should it? Some men hope to achieve immortality through their works and others through their children. What could give me more joy than to do both? But tell me -- do you really expect to live forever?"
The mech said nothing.
"I remember an incident happened to my late father-in-law, William Porter. He was a fine fellow, Bill was, and who remembers him anymore? Only me." The old man sighed. "He was a bit of a railroad buff, and one day he took a tour through a science museum that included a magnificent old steam locomotive. This was in the latter years of the last century. Well, he was listening admiringly to the guide extolling the virtues of this ancient engine when she mentioned its date of manufacture, and he realized that he was older than it was." Brandt leaned forward. "This is the point where old Bill would laugh. But it's not really funny, is it?
"No."
The granddaughter sat listening quietly, intently, eating little pretzels one by one from a bowl.
"How old are you, Jack?"
"Seven years."
"I'm eighty-three. How many machines do you know of that are as old as me? Eighty-three years old and still functioning?"
"I saw an automobile the other day," his granddaughter said. "A Dusenberg. It was red."
"How delightful. But it's not used for transportation anymore, is it? We have the stepping stages for that. I won an award once that had mounted on it a vacuum tube from Univac. That was the first real computer. Yet all its fame and historical importance couldn't keep it from the scrap heap."
"Univac," said the young man, "couldn't act on its own behalf. If it could, perhaps it would be alive today."
"Parts wear out."
"New ones can be bought."
"Yes, as long as there's the market. But there are only so many machine people of your make and model. A lot of you have risky occupations. There are accidents, and with every accident, the consumer market dwindles."
"You can buy antique parts. You can have them made."
"Yes, if you can afford them. And if not -- ?"
The young man fell silent.
"Son, you're not going to live forever. We've just established that. So now that you've admitted that you've got to die someday, you might as well admit that it's going to be sooner rather than later. Mechanical people are in their infancy. And nobody can upgrade a Model T into a stepping stage. Agreed?"
Jack dipped his head. "Yes."
"You knew it all along."
"Yes."
"That's why you behaved so badly toward that lush."
"Yes."
"I'm going to be brutal here, Jack -- you probably won't live to be eighty-three. You don't have my advantages."
"Which are?"
"Good genes. I chose my ancestors well."
"Good genes," Jack said bitterly. "You received good genes and what did I get in their place? What the hell did I get?"
"Molybdenum joints where stainless steel would do. Ruby chips instead of zirconium. A number seventeen plastic seating for -- hell, we did all right by you boys."
"But it's not enough."
"No. It's not. It was only the best we could do."
"What's the solution, then?" the granddaughter asked, smiling.
"I'd advise taking the long view. That's what I've done."
"Poppycock," the mech said. "You were an extensionist when you were young. I input your autobiography. It seems to me you wanted immortality as much as I do."
"Oh, yes, I was a charter member of the life-extension movement. You can't imagine the crap we put into our bodies! But eventually I wised up. The problem is, information degrades each time a human cell replenishes itself. Death is inherent in flesh people. It seems to be written into the basic program -- a way, perhaps, of keeping the universe from filling up with old people."
"And old ideas," his granddaughter said maliciously.
"Touche. I saw that life-extension was a failure. So I decided that my children would succeed where I failed. That you would succeed. And -- "
"You failed."
"But I haven't stopped trying!" The old man thumped the table in unison with his last three words. "You've obviously given this some thought. Let's discuss what I should have done. What would it take to make a true immortal? What instructions should I have given your design team? Let's design a mechanical man who's got a shot at living forever."
Carefully, the mech said, "Well, the obvious to begin with. He ought to be able to buy new parts and upgrades as they come available. There should be ports and connectors that would make it easy to adjust to shifts in technology. He should be capable of surviving extremes of heat, cold, and moisture. And -- " he waved a hand at his own face -- "he shouldn't look so goddamned pretty."
"I think you look nice," the granddaughter said.
"Yes, but I'd like to be able to pass for flesh."
"So our hypothetical immortal should be, one, infinitely upgradable; two, adaptable across a broad spectrum of conditions; and three, discreet. Anything else?"
"I think she should be charming," the granddaughter said.
"She?" the mech asked.
"Why not?"
"That's actually not a bad point," the old man said. "The organism that survives evolutionary forces is the one that's best adapted to its environmental niche. The environmental niche people live in is man-made. The single most useful trait a survivor can have is probably the ability to get along easily with other men. Or, if you'd rather, women."
"Oh," said the granddaughter, "he doesn't like women. I can tell by his body language."
The young man flushed.
"Don't be offended," said the old man. "You should never be offended by the truth. As for you -- " he turned to face his granddaughter -- "if you don't learn to treat people better, I won't take you places anymore."
She dipped her head. "Sorry."
"Apology accepted. Let's get back to task, shall we? Our hypothetical immortal would be a lot like flesh women, in many ways. Self-regenerating. Able to grow her own replacement parts. She could take in pretty much anything as fuel. A little carbon, a little water . . ."
"Alcohol would be an excellent fuel," his granddaughter said.
"She'd have the ability to mimic the superficial effects of a
ging," the mech said. "Also, biological life evolves incrementally across generations. I'd want her to be able to evolve across upgrades."
"Fair enough. Only I'd do away with upgrades entirely, and give her total conscious control over her body. So she could change and evolve at will. She'll need that ability, if she's going to survive the collapse of civilization."
"The collapse of civilization? Do you think it likely?"
"In the long run? Of course. When you take the long view it seems inevitable. Everything seems inevitable. Forever is a long time, remember. Time enough for absolutely everything to happen."
For a moment nobody spoke.
Then the old man slapped his hands together. "Well, we've created our New Eve. Now let's wind her up and let her go. She can expect to live -- how long?"
"Forever," said the mech.
"Forever's a long time. Let's break it down into smaller units. In the year 2500, she'll be doing what?"
"Holding down a job," the granddaughter said. "Designing art molecules, maybe, or scripting recreational hallucinations. She'll be deeply involved in the culture. She'll have lots of friends she cares about passionately, and maybe a husband or wife or two."
"Who will grow old," the mech said, "or wear out. Who will die."
"She'll mourn them, and move on."
"The year 3500. The collapse of civilization," the old man said with gusto. "What will she do then?"
"She'll have made preparations, of course. If there are radiation or toxins in the environment, she'll have made her systems immune from their effects. And she'll make herself useful to the survivors. In the seeming of an old woman she'll teach the healing arts. Now and then she might drop a hint about this and that. She'll have a data base squirreled away somewhere containing everything they'll have lost. Slowly, she'll guide them back to civilization. But a gentler one, this time. One less likely to tear itself apart."
"The year one million. Humanity evolves beyond anything we can currently imagine. How does she respond?"
"She mimics their evolution. No -- she's been shaping their evolution. She wants a risk-free method of going to the stars, so she's been encouraging a type of being that would strongly desire such a thing. She isn't among the first to use it, though. She waits a few hundred generations for it to prove itself."