The Moon and the Other

by John Kessel

  Maggiesdaughter: The lenses will allow the scanners to gather a complete, instantaneous description of the cat’s quantum state.

  When the mist in the chamber clears, Maggiesdaughter, wearing gloves, transfers the cat to the mesh scanner table and touches a sparker to the cat’s foot. Hector goes rigid. The table draws back into the center of the scanner. The upper hemisphere lowers and seals. Maggiesdaughter motions to the techs at the controls.

  The hum in the room grows louder, but for a machine of its size and complexity it makes little sound.

  It is over almost as soon as it began. They open the sphere and Maggiesdaughter takes up Hector, sprayed silver and stiff as uncooked pasta. She deactivates the immobilizer and brushes the dust from his fur. Hector takes a convulsive breath, shudders, opens his eyes part way, and sneezes again. Maggiesdaughter scratches him behind his ears, then places him onto one of the gel pads on the table. He settles his head on his paws.

  Maggiesdaughter: We now have a complete scan of Hector down to the subatomic level. Once the sedative has worn off, he will be a little traumatized by the fact that we had to immobilize him. The inhaled nano will be metabolized out of his body within a day. Otherwise, he is unharmed.

  She walks over to the machine at the other side of the room, a second chamber, not as big as the scanner, this one lozenge-shaped.

  Maggiesdaughter: This is the assembler. Michael?

  A new sound as the assembler comes to life. This machine produces a keening whine, and Maggiesdaughter has to raise her voice slightly to be heard. She touches a screen.

  Maggiesdaughter: I am calling up the scan of Hector that we just made. This device, using an immense amount of energy and a stock of undifferentiated matter, which it breaks down into fundamental particles, will assemble a copy of the cat out of those particles.

  She goes on to speak at some length about stable quantum states and zero eigenvalues for momentum, singularities and the free field vacuum state.

  Maggiesdaughter: But this is all addressed in my second paper of 2118. The practical solution—

  The whine of the assembler fades. Maggiesdaughter looks over to the booth, touches a control, and the front of the lozenge swings upward, revealing a red-lit interior. She puts on gloves and reaches into the chamber.

  Maggiesdaughter: And so we have—a new version of Hector.

  Maggiesdaughter holds another cat, similarly rigid and silver with nano. She unsparks the nano. Like Hector, the cat sneezes. She brushes the dust off his black-and-white fur. The cat struggles feebly, then relaxes as she holds him in her arms, carries him back to the table, and places him on the second gel pad. The cat sniffs at the original Hector, shies away. Groggy, he crouches, haunches trembling, and watches the observers.

  Maggiesdaughter: This new Hector is identical to the original Hector as he existed thirty minutes ago, at the microsecond that he was scanned. He has all the abilities and memories that the original had at that moment. He is unaware that he is a copy. The only difference between the two is that the original Hector has lived some minutes longer, and the new one has no awareness of what occurred to the original during those minutes. If we were to run the scan through the assembler a year from now, to the new Hector we would so create it would seem that he had just been in the scanner a minute before.

  Some of the observers are talking to each other now in low murmurs. In the front row, Carey Evasson watches the two cats on the table.

  Maggiesdaughter: Let me demonstrate another capability of the assembler. I have loaded another scan.

  She touches the screen. The assembler’s door closes. Again the high-pitched whine. When the machine quiets, Maggiesdaughter opens the chamber, reaches in, and removes an apple. She steps to the front row of the observers.

  Maggiesdaughter: The original of this apple—here, take it—

  She hands the apple to Myra Göttsch.

  Maggiesdaughter: —was scanned over twenty years ago. Yet what you hold is the apple exactly as it was at the moment of the scan. Go ahead, take a bite.

  Göttsch hesitates, then bites the apple.

  Maggiesdaughter: How is it?

  Göttsch: It tastes fine.

  Maggiesdaughter: And I could produce a hundred or a thousand copies of the same apple. One might use the IQSA to copy any object. However, the amount of energy required and the cost of constructing and maintaining such complex technology make it economically untenable to duplicate ordinary objects. To make an apple this way is a criminal waste of resources. This is not the costless duplicator of people’s fantasies.

  I think if you give it a little thought, you will realize that use of the IQSA has the gravest moral, ethical, and practical implications.

  Consider one obvious implication: I have created an exact duplicate of Hector. I must now take care of him for the rest of his life.

  Perhaps with a cat we can put aside any squeamishness: Not everyone believes that owning an animal entails any moral obligations. But we could, for instance, make an exact copy of any one of us in this room. I think you will see the difficulties this raises.

  What is the practical use of a duplicate human being? It would not be possible to tell the original from the copy. Each would have exactly the same memories and abilities, the same loves and hates, ambitions, expectations, and flaws. Which of the two—or three, or four, or one hundred—would possess a legal identity? There would be no place for them—the history that created the original, the place that she had earned in the human world, would not be available to the copy.

  The one situation, I think, where the IQSA might have great value, however, would be in preserving things that, should they be lost or destroyed, would be irreplaceable. A great work of art, perhaps. Or something that has no monetary value, but great emotional importance. For instance, a child.

  When I and my colleagues created the IQSA and had assured ourselves that scanning would not damage the original, one of the first things I did, in secret, unknown to anyone else in the lab, was to bring my son, Carey, here and scan him. He was fifteen years old.

  To my dismay, within three months I had the chance to test my machine—and my character—when Carey went missing, presumed dead. With the assistance of Rosalind Baldwin, I used that scan to create a duplicate. Carey came out of the assembler with no idea that he had died. He thought he had been in the scanner just a second before. He did not know what his original had done in the months between the scan and his death. But he was my son, and I loved him. I don’t regret doing what I did.

  Around the room attention turns toward Evasson. A camera homes in on him. He looks somber, but does not flinch. Li and Göttsch put their heads together.

  Maggiesdaughter: My colleagues were appalled. I myself found it hard to justify my actions.

  I knew that the secret of the IQSA would not last indefinitely. We do not, except in the most severe cases, abandon disruptive technologies. We regulate them. I proposed that we should release the news of our invention and set up a system to tightly control its future use. But my sisters and brothers pointed out to me that not everyone treats technology in this rational way. So for twenty years, we’ve kept the IQSA a secret.

  I have a few more things to say, but I can see that you are eager to ask questions. I want to thank my son for being willing to come here today and, with me, take some of them.

  Carey joins her at the podium.

  Martin Beason: If this little magic act turns out to be genuine—which I sincerely doubt—how can you have suppressed something with such power to transform the world?

  Maggiesdaughter: The fact that it has that power is reason to take the greatest care with it.

  Beason: Information wants to be free.

  Maggiesdaughter: Information, as I understand it, does not have volition. Most of the Earth has pursued this freedom, and the results have not been happy. The Society was set up, among other reasons, in flight from that sort of thinking.

  Göttsch: I look forward to the oppor
tunity to speak with you at length about the physics of this. But that’s for another venue. Why are you revealing this now?

  Maggiesdaughter: I believe one of the reasons the OLS sent you here is that knowledge of the IQSA’s existence reached certain powerful people outside the Society. I’ve been expecting it for twenty years. The principles of quantum scanning have been established for thirty. I don’t know why no one elsewhere in the solar system has been able to build such a scanner. But I offer it freely now to the entire human race. There are great benefits and equal risks inherent in this technology.

  A series of questions follows about the Cousins’ information embargo and how this relates to the IQSA. Maggiesdaughter admits that the entire reason for the embargo was the futile hope that the Society might be able to keep the IQSA secret longer.

  Maggiesdaughter: I am proud that we in the Society of Cousins got there first. It gives the lie to those who say that we are incapable of innovative scientific research. It gives the lie, too, to the idea that any technology that humans invent must be used in any way it is possible to use it, without regard for the consequences. I am a scientist but I am also a Cousin. I am proud to be both, and thus to have my research fall under the control of wiser people than I.

  Nevertheless, as we speak I am sending you complete specifications for the IQSA and assembler, along with data from extensive trials and video of previous test runs. Rather than see this discovery fall into the hands of those who might use it for their personal gain, we are committed to complete openness of scientific inquiry, and willingly share this information with the rest of the human race, to do with as they see fit.

  The rest of the solar system now has one less justification for intervening in our affairs. I hope this helps people understand that the Society offers no threat to the rest of the moon.

  Sirius: Dr. Maggiesdaughter, this is fascinating! But I’d like to ask Carey a question. Carey, can you tell us, what’s it been like to live your life believing you are a copy of a dead human being?

  Carey Evasson: I am not a copy of anyone. I’m Carey Green Evasson, as human as anyone here.

  Sirius: Sadly, I myself am not human, you may have noticed. You’ll have to excuse those who will not believe this demonstration. Pulling apples out of the air is the oldest of conjuring tricks. If, as Dr. Maggiesdaughter professes, it can be verified, you’ll then have to excuse us for being wary of a person who was assembled out of fundamental particles in that chamber.

  Evasson: I expect that the first person who saw an uplifted dog was reluctant to treat him as a fellow cognizant being, worthy of the same rights and privileges as a human. The history of the human race has been one of extending recognition of full humanity to those who were once excluded—other races, women, children, the differently abled, the multigendered, cyborgs, clones, the augmented, the genetically modified. Even to uplifted animals.

  The dog moves forward, teeth bared now.

  Sirius: Yes, we all know of the liberal-mindedness of Cousins, even if they don’t allow the uplifted to enter their sealed society. But what, tell us, is to keep you from making an army of duplicates and overwhelming the rest of the moon?

  Maggiesdaughter: The fact that to do so would be a monstrous atrocity, just the sort of misuse of this technology that we hoped to prevent by keeping it secret.

  Evasson: Such a plan is more likely to be put into effect by the people who employ you, Sirius, than by anyone here.

  Sirius: I am employed by a media conglomerate. We don’t need clone armies.

  Maggiesdaughter: Carey is not a clone.

  Evasson: Deny that you told me, Sirius, not two weeks ago, that the OLS would take over the Society of Cousins. You offered me the position of governor if I would go along with you.

  Sirius: Deny it? Of course I deny it. This is the most desperate sort of lie. I have no position in any government, no influence over SCOCOM. You can see by the astonishment on the faces of the OLS investigators that this is the first they have ever heard of such imaginings. Don’t try to distract us.

  Evasson: You’re not working for SCOCOM.

  Sirius: As I just told you. You should get your paranoid theories straight. Are we here to steal this magic duplicator, or are we here to subjugate your utopia? If your mother and her scientific team can create this device and keep it secret for twenty years, then what other dangerous technologies can she unleash on the world? If she’s willing to use it, against the will of her own government, to violate every code of scientific research and human ethics, how might she use it against societies her government considers hostile?

  Maggiesdaughter places her hand on Carey’s shoulder, but he shrugs it off.

  Evasson: Less outrage and a little more honesty might be appropriate.

  Sirius: I’m a mere dog, not a citizen of your or any other lunar society. But I would advise the human race to think twice before accepting this poison pill, cooked up by people who reject the mores of and deliberately separate themselves from the rest of the civilized world.

  Evasson: I can’t do this.

  Evasson whispers something into Maggiesdaughter’s ear, and leaves the lab. Two camera midges follow him.

  Maggiesdaughter: If we might have a question from someone else?

  • • • • •

  Erno watched the broadcast of the press conference he had insisted he would not attend, but he turned it off when it broke down into charges and countercharges. Erno’s notoriety as a possible terrorist was about to be eclipsed thirty times over by Carey Evasson’s. The revelation that Carey had been brought back from the dead twenty years ago, added to his fame from the custody battle, was already main menu all over Lunanet. Add the upcoming protest rally, and the Society would become the hottest site for junk news in the solar system.

  The SCOCOM team would return to the hotel soon, ready for an all-night session of political calculations. Sirius would want to talk to Erno: Eva’s dumping her secret had thrown a monkey wrench into Cyrus’s plans. None of this mattered to Erno; he was well out of it now, and did not look forward to being drawn into any hysterical debates.

  He showered quickly, dressed in formal clothes, and set off for the Men’s House. Before his exile Erno had spent a lot of time hanging out there with other disaffected young men Tyler recruited for his dissident movement. The place was crowded. The tea room was as it had been a decade ago: tables, sofas, lounge chairs. Pixwall, low lighting. Games were in another room; elsewhere were a meeting room and a chapel. Upstairs were rooms for any men who might want to pair up.

  The brewmaster behind the bar was no one Erno had ever met, but he did the subtlest of double takes when he saw Erno. He straightened his neat white coat and came over.

  “What can I get for you?”

  Erno looked over the list. “Something for emotional awareness.”

  “Raise or lower?”

  “Raise.”

  The man turned to his synthesizer and adjusted its settings. Erno looked around the room. Some boys in the corner, lifted out of their minds, laughed and mocked one another. They made a lot of noise. A couple of men, one old and one young, played chess. Two men in the corner stared into each other’s eyes.

  From another group, a man stood and came over to the bar. “I was wondering when you would show up here,” the man said to Erno.

  It was Sid, one of Erno’s old friends. A big, handsome guy who had spent hours in the gym working out in the heavy-G trainers.

  “You’re still here?” Erno said. “I thought you were moving to Earth.”

  Sid smiled. “Yes, well, you were going to be running Biotech by now.”

  The brewmaster came over. “Here you go,” he said to Erno, setting a steaming glass on the bar. “Let it breathe for a minute or two. What’ll it be, Sid?”

  “Something that will make me forget how fucked we are.”

  “Does that ‘we’ include everybody, or just you?” the brewmaster said. “I want to know how much to brew.”


  “Shut the fuck up, Paolo. Go on strike.”

  Sid had joined Tyler’s masculinist movement, but when things fell apart and Erno went on trial, like most of Erno’s friends Sid disappeared. He had slimmed down, no longer sporting a ripped physique. He still wore his hair long, dipping over one eye.

  Erno sipped his tea. It had a biting sweetness. “What are you doing now? Still spend half your days in the sauna?”

  “I’m working now, a helium miner. I’m back home again; I was with Doris and Doreen Soniasdaughter for a while. Both of them have daughters by me.”

  Paolo brought Sid’s tea. “Come sit with us,” Sid said. “We can talk.”

  Sid introduced him to his cronies: Tommo, another miner, and Pierre, a video artist. Tommo asked Erno what it was like in the patriarchal world. Erno told them about the labor market in Mayer. Pierre asked about the mosaics in the roof of the bazaar of New Tabriz.

  But Sid wanted to talk politics. The tea was starting to take effect and Erno sensed this was Sid’s attempt to sound important. He imagined Paolo’s psychotropic chemicals buzzing through his cingulate cortex.

  “I don’t know what Maggiesdaughter expected to accomplish,” Sid said. “It just confirms the Matrons’ paranoid secrecy.”

  “What about Evasson?” said Pierre. “The OLS will invade? Sirius offered him the job of governor?”

  “Is the OLS going to intervene?” Tommo asked Erno.

  “I don’t know anything about an intervention,” he said.

  “Why bother to rally for the vote, then, if intervention is a done deal?” Pierre asked. “Why did SCOCOM even bother with all their interviews and their show of impartiality?”

  The fact that Erno essentially agreed with Pierre made him want to argue against him. He could tell them about Cyrus’s interest in the IQSA, but letting strangers know Cyrus’s business was not smart. “Göttsch and Li want to do a fair report,” he said. “But their prejudices make it hard for them to see clearly. Beason would be happy to see an OLS takeover.”

  “Then it’s up to you to persuade Göttsch and Li,” Sid said. “You always wanted to change things. Now’s your chance.”