“He seems young for the responsibilities he has,” Jesse reflected. “But it looks as if the Group consists entirely of young people. Am I the only exception besides Kira?”
There was an awkward silence. Finally Michelle said, “I guess there’s no reason we can’t be frank now that you’re one of us. How old do I think I am, Jesse?”
He hesitated, deciding on the most tactful answer. Like most of the others, she appeared to be in her early twenties, though perhaps a year or two beyond. “I’d say about twenty,” he replied.
“I’m twice that,” Michelle confessed, “and some of us that you’ve met are older.”
“Oh, you mean in local years. I meant Earth years, the way ages are counted most places.”
“I do mean Earth years,” Michelle said.
“That’s not possible!” None of them wore makeup, and on the beach they went topless; there was no way they could conceal normal aging. “I thought you people didn’t go in for things like cosmetic surgery,” he said.
“Of course we don’t. We control our physical reactions to stress, that’s all. It’s ongoing stress that causes aging—within limits, of course.”
“We won’t live forever,” Greg said. “Ian’s a hundred and thirty, now, and he’s about to go. But we have to hack the Net to adjust some of our birthdates, so they won’t lead to questions. Needless to say, outsiders would hunt us down trying to find our secret.”
Open-mouthed, Jesse ventured, “How old is Kira?”
“She is over a hundred,” Michelle replied. “She’s been in the Group since its early days, when it was just a small gathering of Ian’s friends.”
“And Peter?”
“About forty-five, I think. I haven’t asked him.”
Stunned, Jesse struggled to readjust. Peter, whose youth and vitality he had envied from the beginning—three years older than he himself was? Kira, who despite white hair was trim, energetic, who swam topless like the others—over a hundred?
How old was Carla? Perhaps after all, there wasn’t a large gap between her age and his own.
“There are no guarantees,” Greg said. “The Group hasn’t existed long enough for us to know if we’ll all have extended lifespans. But we can pretty much count on not disintegrating from age before we die.”
Jesse stared into the fire, slowly absorbing this. He’d been told there would be personal gain. It had been implied that this would include good health. But a longer lifespan . . . freedom from aging . . . it was beyond anything he had envisioned, despite all he’d sensed about the specialness of these people he’d come to care about. I’m still high, he thought. I shouldn’t take seriously what I hear while I’m high. In the morning I’ll find out I’ve been delusional.
After awhile he said, “It’s a paradox, isn’t it? We aim toward lengthened lives, yet at the same time toward acceptance of death.”
“It’s outsiders who are confused,” Greg said. “They deny death, cling to pseudo-life, because they never get all they should out of living.”
“But what is natural death,” Jesse questioned, “if not the result of aging? What is Ian dying of, if all diseases are curable here and he’s not disintegrating from age?”
“Ah, that’s the big question. In the twenty-first century, many scientists hoped genetic engineering could eventually cure aging itself. Some believed humans could become literally immortal. The conservatives who thought physical immortality would be a bad thing wanted research that might lead to it banned. They didn’t need to worry. Such research has never gotten anywhere. Life expectancy is longer than it used to be—most people are active well into their nineties—but no matter how thoroughly bodies are repaired, old age remains 100 percent fatal. That’s never been adequately explained in terms of biology. Something within the human mind controls it—the deep, unconscious part of the mind that’s often called spirit.”
“Are you saying that underneath old people want to die?” Jesse protested.
“Underneath, they seek something more than can be attained in life, something beyond, without which the struggle of living would have no meaning. Not necessarily the sort of afterlife depicted by religious metaphors. A person doesn’t have to believe consciously in any form of continued existence—I’m not even sure whether I do. But there’s a built-in human longing for a state of being we can’t put a name to, a yearning that extra years can’t satisfy. Eventually, everyone comes to a point where there’s nothing more to be gained from living, even if the awareness of that fact is buried deep inside.”
“Once you have tended dying people you will see, Jesse,” said Michelle. “It’s not like premature death. And it’s not an escape from pain, either—you know now that it need never be that among our own people or those we serve as caregivers. Ian was well until a few weeks ago; now his body is shutting down. People simply die when it’s their time to pass on.”
Kira, joining them, said, “In the words of a very ancient poem, to everything there is a season . . . a time to be born and a time to die. And that’s why the Vaults are such a travesty of life. Why stasis is the one end we ourselves can’t bear to contemplate.”
Yes, Jesse thought. They feared nothing except that. Tonight, he too feared nothing. Had he not become one of them?
But the next morning the elation was gone. He felt unreal, disconnected from the world around him, and his nerves were on edge; when people greeted him warmly at breakfast it was hard to respond. His head ached. Well, this was only to be expected after getting high, he told himself. The fact that it hadn’t been a chemical high apparently had nothing to do with the immediate aftereffects.
Life at the Lodge went on as usual. The current residents took pleasure in it, as had those of the week before, seemingly oblivious to the dangers Jesse now knew they faced. He was awed by them. Collectively and in some cases individually, they were in peril of arrest for almost every crime in the book. Hacking, smuggling, conspiracy, evasion of monetary laws, involvement in the paranormal, maybe even fraud . . . and of course, murder. So too was he, Jesse realized. But the edginess he felt wasn’t due to that. The carefree joy that the others displayed, that he’d felt briefly himself the night before, he now sensed was hard-won. So far he had experienced only the beginning of what it might take to win it.
In the afternoon Kira took him down to the lab for what she said was the first of regular sessions on dual. No pain was involved; he was simply told to watch the feedback and match the mind-patterns she created. It was harder to do than it had been with the spur of pain. His mind did wander. Not knowing the significance of the patterns made it tougher, but Kira said that at this stage, explanations would only confuse him. And perhaps frighten him, Jesse guessed—they represented altered states of consciousness, didn’t they? He didn’t feel as if he were in an altered state, but then, he wasn’t asked to match any specific pattern for very long.
“It’s natural for you to be uneasy for a while,” she told him. “Your mind’s been shaken up more than you realize. What you went through yesterday set things in motion that you won’t be consciously aware of for some time. But you’re going to be fine. Peter tells me you show great promise.”
The second day he rose feeling no better. He was still sleeping in the bunkroom, but most others were not. More people had arrived, and for the first time, he’d noticed couples leaving the fireside together, headed, presumably, for the cottages widely separated among trees far back from the shore. Meals continued to be served potluck-style in the Lodge. Nobody treated him as a stranger; it was simply taken for granted that he belonged. But he missed Carla. Without her, the place wasn’t as much fun.
Personal questions were no longer taboo, and by this time he’d learned more about the Group’s members. There were about three hundred, only a few of whom came to the Island—which was owned by Ian and labeled Maclairn Island on maps—during any given offshift. There were other gathering places more convenient for some, including a safe house in the city where leisure
hours could be spent in the company of fellow-members. All were welcome at the Lodge, however, except when the red pennant was flying. That meant a guest was present and it was open only by invitation.
The Group included adults of all ages, but because it was growing, those in their twenties did predominate. “Don’t any of you have families?” he asked during breakfast.
“A few of the older people do,” said Dorcas, who sat next to him. “In several cases their grown children are members. But it’s rare among those of us who joined young. That’s the catch, of course. It’s the one way in which our life’s unsatisfying.” In a low voice she added, “It would be nice if we could have kids.”
Was the Group so demanding, then, that they must abandon every facet of normal living? For himself he did not care; he had given up hope of a family long ago. But the young people should care. “I don’t see why you can’t,” he confessed. “Peter said we’re not asked to renounce attachments.”
“Oh, it’s not that,” Dorcas said. “Not the Group, though that’s what woke most of us up. The trouble is, we’re unwilling to be bound by this world’s rules. In the first place, natural conception isn’t allowed here. In vitro fertilization isn’t just an option, as it is everywhere—on Undine it’s mandatory. And embryos are screened for a lot more alleged defects than we’re willing to discard.”
“Not only major problems that would cause suffering or mental incapacity,” her husband Erik added. “We have no objection in principle to the destruction of embryos that don’t yet have brains, any more than we view brain-dead bodies as persons. But the Meds’ selection criteria are warped. They won’t accept a genetic predisposition for any disease, or even for characteristics that aren’t ‘defects’ at all, like shortness or obesity. They stick to an arbitrary standard of physical perfection; if it weren’t for the Colonial League ban on germline genetic engineering, they’d be altering genomes to fit their narrow concept of what’s ideal. Or trying to, at any rate—God knows what havoc that would create with personality. Most abilities can’t be predicted by genetic analysis, so no one knows precisely what’s lost in the screening process. But something surely is.”
Jesse had noticed that the population of Undine seemed lacking in natural diversity; though skin color varied, virtually everybody was tall, slim and athletic. The thought of the uniformity being planned was disturbing. He’d heard that no prejudice existed in the colony. Now he saw that no one against whom prejudice might arise was allowed to be born.
“What if a woman gets pregnant accidentally?” he inquired, thinking that forced abortion, common as it was on overpopulated Earth, would be inconsistent with the Meds’ policy of keeping bodies on life support indefinitely.
“That can’t happen. Though women’s contraceptive implants have to be taken out prior to IVF for hormone balancing, men’s IVDs aren’t removed. We’re all required to have our eggs or sperm stored cryogenically, so they’re available to use.”
“Good God. Why don’t they just cut everyone’s tubes while they’re at it, then?”
“They would, if League law didn’t prohibit sterilization on colony worlds.” Sadly, Dorcas added, “The screening of embryos isn’t the only reason we choose not to have children. If we had them, you see, we’d want them brought up according to our beliefs. We wouldn’t want them conditioned by Med propaganda.”
Conditioned? Puzzled, a bit frightened, Jesse asked, “What harm would the Meds do to a normal child?” It occurred to him that he might not yet have been informed of all the horrors.
“Nothing as sinister as you’re imagining,” she assured him. “Only what happens everywhere, even on Earth. Except that here, it’s more stifling. Kids aren’t allowed much fun—no sports that could lead to injury, no exercise that’s not supervised in gyms. No time free to just hang out. Never anything to eat that doesn’t meet nutritional standards. And medication for every minor problem, so that they come to believe drugs are the answer to stress. Besides, we wouldn’t even see them except during offshifts—”
“Not see them? Why not?”
“Everyone works on Undine,” Erik explained, “just as in most colonies. Here, the Meds provide us with free child care, and for efficiency, kids live and are schooled in crèches during the five days of their parents’ workweek. They can be taken home only during the five offshift days, and not even then if the parents have other plans.”
“Crèches run by the Meds, I suppose.”
“They’re part of the Hospital complex,” Dorcas said. “Newborns are taken directly to them and stay full time until they’re old enough for untrained mothers to be trusted with. The crèche counselors are kind and loving, you understand. We have fond memories of our caregivers, just as kids often did in societies on Earth where it was the custom for upper-class children to be turned over to nannies and boarding schools. But here, there’s no option. Child-rearing is considered the business of professionals, a matter of ensuring children’s health. And if we tried to instill different values while our kids were home or prevent their receiving medical treatment we think is damaging, we would lose custody. There’s less heartbreak not having them at all.”
“I’m surprised they don’t force you to have them. Most colonies want population growth, and Undine is closed to immigration.” It had been explained to Jesse that if it were not, hordes of the rich would come from Earth seeking eventual preservation of their bodies in stasis. He himself had escaped deportation only because Fleet personnel had the right to remain on any planet to which they traveled.
“Oh, we contribute DNA,” said Erik. “That’s the main reason our germ cells are stored—in the year we turn twenty our contraceptive implants are temporarily removed for it, first the men and then the women later so both sexes won’t be fertile at the same time. Since all conception is by IVF anyway, it makes no difference to population growth whether a child’s biological parents are also social parents. The government’s happy when people relinquish parenting rights. It means their eggs and sperm are banked anonymously and the Meds can decide which genomes to combine. Surrogate mothers are employed by the Hospital; it’s a respected career.”
“You mean there are kids in the crèches without social parents, kids with no families?”
“Yes, lots of them,” Dorcas told him. “Their surnames are assigned by the computer from a list of traditional Earth surnames that haven’t been used here before—that’s why not everyone on Undine has one of the surnames of the original colonists.” At Jesse’s frown she added hastily, “There’s no stigma attached to it. Peter was a crèche child. I don’t know how many other Group members were.”
“I thought Peter inherited wealth,” Jesse said, more bewildered than ever by the local culture’s oddities.
“Just his share of the pool, so far, though all Ian’s assets will pass to him. When citizens go into stasis without descendants or adopted heirs, their funds are pooled and the income is divided among the crèche children. Since the highest-paid people are the least apt to have devoted time to child rearing, pool shares tend to be worth more than the average direct inheritance.”
Well, he hadn’t been close to his own family, Jesse thought. He hadn’t missed it after leaving Earth for Fleet. The weakening of family ties on Undine nevertheless struck him as unnatural. But not so unnatural that the public would object, he realized with dismay. People who wanted their own kids could rear them five days out of ten. If it were forbidden entirely in favor of the government-favored crèche system, the voters would rebel.
He was beginning to get the hang of how things worked in the colony and how hopeless it was to think that political action could bring about any change. “Have you—the Group, I mean—ever thought of emigrating?” he asked.
“There’s no way for us to become a true subculture on any world,” Erik said. “We’ve investigated. It seems that we ought to qualify under freedom of religion laws, in principle anyway, if we posed as a religious cult. But no, the high priesthood o
f the medical experts is well established throughout the galaxy. Even where they’re not the only government, their pronouncements override all issues of conscience.”
Jesse’s frown deepened. He had never thought about it that way, but it was true enough that no one, anywhere, would be permitted to raise children in a way considered bad for health. There were indeed conflicts between religious groups and health care authorities, and the latter always won. You never questioned that. You assumed the authorities knew best, just as religious dogma had once been considered infallible.
The medical authorities here were so far from infallible that he’d agreed with enthusiasm to take criminal action in opposition to them. For the first time he wondered, are they any wiser elsewhere? Is the only difference here that they’ve got police power?
“There are uninhabited islands on the other side of this planet,” he ventured. “Couldn’t you establish a new colony there?”
“We’ve no way to get there, let alone transport supplies,” Erik pointed out. “Small boats and planes haven’t the range, even assuming a one-way trip for lack of a power source for recharging—and since there’s no native land life, we couldn’t survive on an island that hadn’t been terraformed. What’s more, it wouldn’t be allowed. The present government holds the charter for Undine, and surveillance from weather satellites would detect any attempt at unauthorized settlement.”
Yes, and Fleet would soon put an end to it, Jesse realized. He had momentarily forgotten that independent colonies on the same world were prohibited. The Colonial League was determined to ensure that never again could a situation exist that might, in the future, lead to a global war. Thus the government established by the first colonists to arrive had legal sovereignty over the entire planet. He had never doubted that policy; now he decided that he’d been fortunate to have been assigned to freighter duty rather than Fleet’s enforcement patrol.
Stewards of the Flame Page 15