Longer

by Michael Blumlein

  “The premade stuff is junk. Even the good stuff is never quite what you need. Doing it yourself saves time in the end. Saves money.” He touched the glass, traced the outline of one of them. “I’m quite fond of this particular system.”

  Dashaud leaned in to study it closer. An intricate puzzle of hoses, filters, gauges, housing, and circuitry. Ingenious and original, though his eye, understandably, kept wandering to the living contents.

  “It’s a work of art,” he said.

  “Does the job,” replied Cantrell, basking.

  “How long have you had them?”

  “Ten years next month.”

  “Like this?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Long time.”

  “They’re worth holding onto.”

  Not what he was getting at. “How do we know they’re still good?”

  “It’s a good system. Works on mice, rabbits, monkeys. All your basic vertebrates. No reason it’s not going to work with these. Would have been easier if you’d engineered them with an eye toward longevity. But they’ll be fine. Warm ’em up, you’ll see.”

  He replaced the cover, clamped it down, and ushered Dashaud upstairs. In the workshop he pointed out a similar-looking panel, this one portable.

  “Longevity wasn’t our aim,” Dashaud replied defensively. “Our concerns were more immediate.”

  “Knee-jerk,” said Cantrell.

  “Urgent.”

  “Ecologically unsound.”

  “How so?”

  “You made them disposable.”

  “Readily available and easy to use,” said Dashaud. The description the makers preferred.

  “Not saying it was a flaw in the design. In the planning, more like. Strictly short-term. Not seeing the forest, et cetera, et cetera. What governments do.”

  “What’s the forest?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “Completely different reason. There’s no threat, real or otherwise. No danger. No anything.”

  Cantrell wasn’t buying it. “You’re just spending money for the fun of it? You’re a collector maybe? A dealer in rare things?”

  He was fishing, and wasn’t far off. In a way they did belong in a museum.

  “Research,” said Dashaud.

  “On what?”

  “Classified. Sorry.”

  Cantrell nodded knowingly, a gleam in his eye, then escorted his guest out of the workshop. In the house he offered him shark and Aquavit.

  Dashaud was touched: the guy had done his research, and gone out of his way. But shark? In the desert? A thousand miles from any ocean, not to mention the chill waters of Iceland, where proper sharks were caught, beheaded, fermented, and hung to dry. Nothing could touch them for flavor and taste. He’d been spoiled by perfection, and took a pass.

  “A drink would do nicely.”

  Cantrell poured them each a glass. Dashaud removed his gloves.

  “Something wrong with your hands?”

  “Not a thing.” He explained his recent augmentation.

  “Nice. So now you’re a super surgeon. I guess that’s what it takes these days.”

  “Takes?”

  “To hold the line. Keep the robots at bay. Personally, I’d take one of them over a human. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “Better outcomes. Steadier hands.”

  Dashaud glanced at his own. Steady as a rock.

  “Had one once,” said Cantrell. “Did a great job.”

  “How was its bedside manner?”

  “Very professional.”

  Dashaud could imagine. Now and then he toyed with becoming a veterinarian. Maybe the time had arrived.

  “Can we get down to business?”

  “Sure thing.”

  He was surprised to learn that Cantrell did not own the HUBIES3. Had somehow missed the law declaring that ownership was a crime, while using was not. A strange disconnect, not unheard of in the annals of ethics and morality. Use alone was problematic for the vast majority of people. There was a fine line, some said no line at all, between use and abuse.

  “So what does this mean? You’re lending them?”

  “Sharing,” said Cantrell. “Passing them along.”

  “For a price.”

  “Cost plus expenses.”

  “No profit?”

  “Lots of profit. Just not monetary.”

  Dashaud was pleasantly surprised. “That’s very generous of you.”

  “I have what I need. As long as I can keep inventing things. Making them, then making them better. Doing my part. Giving progress a nudge. Step by step. Circuit by circuit. Forward, out of the dark ages, into the new age.”

  “What’s the new age?”

  “Science, Doctor. Intelligence. Rational thinking. Our age. Yours and mine.”

  Dashaud raised his glass. “To intelligence.”

  “So you’re using them for research,” said Cantrell. “I won’t ask what, but I’m curious. Does Dr. Gharia happen to be involved?”

  “Gunjita Gharia?” He kept his voice level.

  “That’s the one. Your old boss.”

  “I haven’t spoken to her in nearly a century.”

  “Really? A whole century?”

  “Half a century. Fifty years at least.”

  “You worked in her lab.”

  “Briefly.”

  “You left.”

  “People do. It’s expected. This was all very long ago.” He was ready to move on.

  But Cantrell had his teeth in it. “What was she like?”

  “I barely remember. Smart. Successful.”

  “Like you.”

  “It was that kind of lab. Competitive. Highly prized. People killed to get into it.”

  “Was it hard? Working side by side with her? Elbow to elbow. Two superstars, sharing the spotlight.”

  “I was her student. Hardly a superstar. She mentored me.”

  Cantrell nodded. His attention seemed to wander.

  “I worked in a lab once,” he said. “I had a mentor, too. He stole my ideas. When I complained, he got rid of me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I got blacklisted.”

  “How awful.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  “Not at all.”

  Cantrell gave him a sly, conspiratorial look, as though he recognized a kindred spirit, a comrade in arms. “She got rid of you, didn’t she?”

  Dashaud was speechless.

  “We’re not so different,” Cantrell added.

  Dashaud felt otherwise, as though a gauntlet had been tossed. “I got an offer from another lab. A very generous offer. She told me to take it. She was doing her job.”

  “Told you, or asked you? Forced you maybe?”

  “She guided me. That’s what mentors do.”

  “I was told, too. I wasn’t asked. I wasn’t thanked. I was coerced.”

  For Dashaud, an old wound, long since healed. He’d hated her for a time, but for a much longer time had understood the wisdom in what she had done, and admired her for it.

  He would not stand idly by while her reputation was dragged through the mud.

  “She gave me an option.”

  “The HUBIE lab?”

  “Wasn’t called that then. But yes. There was a core group. It was a good move.”

  “Good? Career, Dashaud. Career. May I call you Dashaud?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Best thing that could have happened. Trust me on this.”

  “Look. Abel. May I call you Abel?”

  “My friends call me Spud.”

  “Spud then.”

  “Like the potato. I built a satellite when I was a kid. A little one, with a tiny hollow space inside. Named it Sputnik, in honor of . . . well, you know what. Later on, I changed the name, in honor of its first payload. Know what it was?”

  “A potato chip.”

  “How’d you guess?”


  “Listen, Spud. Just to be perfectly clear. I’ve got no ax to grind. No grievance. Dr. Gharia’s the best there is. She’s in a class by herself. I’ve got nothing but respect for her.”

  Cantrell looked like the cat who swallowed the canary. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “What secret? There is no secret.”

  Cantrell made the motion of zipping his lips.

  Dashaud felt the blood rise. He had an urge to rearrange the man’s face. This came as a surprise to him, as the days of uncontrolled impulses and outbursts were behind him. Far behind, or so he thought.

  Cantrell was not a small man, but Dashaud Mikelson towered over him, and was half again as broad. His fists were like hams. His chest and biceps strained against the seams of his shirt.

  He eyed the man, considering his options. Age and experience had taught him the value of restraint. Now he was young, with a young man’s sense of indignation and urgency, and a young man’s refusal to be straitjacketed.

  He raised his hands, feeling mighty and righteous, intent on wringing the man’s neck.

  Cantrell froze, then went for his gun. Quick, but not quick enough. Dashaud got to him first.

  It was over in a second.

  “Hey!” Cantrell yelped. “You’re crushing me.”

  It was true. Dashaud had him pinned in a fierce, manly, beefcake embrace.

  “Let me go!”

  Dashaud released him. “So how did it taste?”

  Cantrell gave him a wary look. “How did what taste?”

  “The chip. When it got back.”

  Puzzlement. Suspicion.

  Dashaud grinned. “Crisp?”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “Salty?”

  “You’re messin’ with me.”

  “Cosmic?”

  Cantrell’s wariness deepened. All at once he broke into a grin. Then a laugh. Here was the brother he’d never had. Fate, or foresight, had brought them together. The HUBIES, whom he’d faithfully nursed, were theirs together. He and Dashaud were their custodians. Their guardians. He and Dashaud: inextricably bound.

  “Out of this world,” he said.

  1 From The Peregrine, by J. A. Baker.

  2 Robert Fairchild and Julian Taborz’s brainchild accounted for 38 percent of the global market in responsive sheathing material. Current data compiled and reported by Blumlein et al, in The Roberts: A Twenty-Year Follow-Up.

  3 A word of apocryphal origin. 1. An acronym for Hybrid Usable Body in Idiosyncratic Encephaloid State; alternatively, HUman Boosted Inhalation Experiment; 2. An insult, a slur; 3. A tribute, an accolade, an expression of esteem, as in “She hubied herself for the cause”; 4. Brainless and stupid; 5. An anagram for SHIEBU, goddess of perfume and good deeds; 6. A portmanteau of “hubris” and “boobie.”

  –FIVE–

  . . . I may have seemed somewhat strange

  caring in my own time for living things

  with no value that we know . . . 1

  Human beings were not meant to float, so naturally everyone wanted to, Cav included. You could do it on Earth with injectable micropackets of supercharged helium. He’d tried these on a couple of occasions. What he got was a roller coaster ride. One moment up (as it were), then up higher, then flat on his back. He preferred something smoother and more predictable.

  He’d dreamed about a voyage into space since boyhood. It was relatively easy to book a trip, which was not to say cheap. Somehow he’d never gotten around to it. Now here he was, living the dream, but late in the game, on the downslope of life, well past his prime. A missed opportunity, and a reason for regret.

  But there was no regret, and in fact, he felt the opposite. This was his opportunity, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

  He hurt. Knees, feet, back, neck . . . the joints ground down by a lifetime of gravity. Joint replacement, once popular, now superseded by juvenation, was obsolete, a footnote in history. His pain was not terrible, but it was frequent. Occasionally, it would sharpen, and he would gasp, or freeze.

  He was hardly alone in this. Soreness, achiness, little stabs and embarrassments were universal in his age group. A fact of life.

  But not in space. Being weightless robbed gravity of its teeth. Bone no longer gnashed against bone. Nerves were no longer pinched. Pain went from a roar, or a dull roar, to a whisper, and often to silence. A truly liberating experience.

  Liberation came at a price, however, as other age-related problems, previously overshadowed, were now freed to make their presence known. Eyes, bladder, balance, concentration. His wonky heart. Amazing all the ways a body could fall apart. Equally, or more amazing, all the ways it didn’t, how well it worked, and for how long.

  He loved being weightless; floating not so much. It was counterintuitive, and made him uneasy, as though his body knew it wasn’t right. He’d stuck a tall stool in front of the Ooi for this reason, anchoring it to the floor. Nothing he liked better than to sit on it, strap himself down, and let his mind drift.

  He was sitting now. Bouncing thoughts off the Ooi. Letting them fall where they may. Keeping all channels open.

  Death was certain. There was no denying it. It went hand in hand with life.

  He had seen his share of dying people. All ages, all walks, all faiths, all stripes. For some of them it appeared to be a momentous event, of the greatest significance. For others, ordinary, even mundane.

  He was curious about this. The two experiences appeared so different, so polarized. He wasn’t worried. He believed that all would be well, that his body would take care of itself. That after three billion years, life knew how to handle transitions. And if it didn’t, or couldn’t, there were ways to help. He wasn’t afraid.

  He’d been present at his mother’s death. An extraordinary experience. Over the course of two lifetimes so many of his memories were gone, or hopelessly effaced, but this one was indelible. It would be with him as long as he could think.

  Her last days, falling deeper and deeper into unconsciousness. Her last eight hours, on her back, eyes closed, lips parted, breathing rapidly, panting almost. Her last twenty minutes, coughing weakly, unable to clear her throat, unresponsive. He’d taken her hand, then leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

  Her breathing became more ragged and spasmodic. They called it the rattle of death. Her body shuddered, then convulsed.

  Without warning she bolted upright. Her eyes opened wide. Wider than he’d ever seen them, than they’d ever been. They seemed about to pop out of her head. She had beautiful dark eyes, but all he could see, or remember, were the whites. Huge and shiny.

  Eerie. Spooky.

  His mother.

  He tried talking to her. He might as well have been talking to a bench. He planted his face in front of her face, and tried again.

  Slowly, she turned her head toward the window, where day had broken and light was spilling in. She held that position rigidly, raptly, as though unable, or unwilling, to tear herself away. Her eyes remained impossibly big and white; her face, preternaturally calm.

  He held his breath. Time ground to a halt. One minute, two, forever, until finally she turned away from the window, lay back down, and died.

  Ever since that day, he’d wanted to know what she had seen, if anything, or felt, for surely there was something. He wanted to experience it himself, at least improve the odds, but he didn’t know how.

  His death would be what it was. It would be his. He assumed there was a final common path for everyone, but before that path, a thousand different paths, predetermined, possibly by genetics, possibly behavior—nature, nurture—in death as in life. He’d get what he got.

  He’d welcome an epiphany, but wouldn’t quarrel with a slower, more gradual demise.

  The Ooi was a bump in the road. He’d done everything he could to get it to react, to elicit a response, and still it held out. Alive or not, it was a riddle that begged to be understood.

  He loved looking at it. Loved musing about it, w
hich was tantamount to musing about life, what it was and wasn’t, what it could be, what was necessary, what wasn’t.

  Energy, for example: necessary. How else was it able to cling to the rock? What was the source? How was the energy maintained? How was it distributed? Did the Ooi have a hibernation mode? Was that what they were seeing? Were there other stages to its life cycle? Was this an adult? A larva? A seed perhaps? An egg, or mat of eggs, embedded in a matrix? Was its surface a protective casing? A skin of some sort? A shell? And what kind of shell resisted every attempt to see past it?

  The longer he sat and observed, the greater his sense there was something there. He felt a connection. What could be more real than that? It seemed plausible, even likely, that he himself was being observed. Which not only answered the question of life, but the far more exciting one of sentience.

  He couldn’t wait for Dash to arrive. Hated the thought of harming the Ooi, would do everything in his power to limit the damage, but had to know more.

  He undid the strap and made his way to the door. He was about to leave when he felt something, a pulse or vibration of some kind, or a sound just beyond the threshold of hearing, something new, previously absent or unexpressed, now suddenly present.

  He whirled around.

  The Ooi looked different, deeper colored, more saturated, the yellow more lemony, the green more like moss, as though it were concentrating energy, manipulating light somehow. He placed his hand above it, feeling for a change in temperature. Closed his eyes and concentrated. Heard the pounding of his blood, felt it in his fingertips.

  Heat?

  Yes. A definite feeling of warmth.

  Dare he touch it? Actually lay his hand on its surface? Go that far? Take the risk? What was this warmth if not an invitation? Who would fault him?

  The answer: he would fault himself if he didn’t.

  * * *

  Three mods and a light year away, while he was making a new friend, Gunjita was working up a sweat. Quads, hams, glutes, fast and slow twitch. It felt good to sweat, like a fire felt to burn. Was it true young people sweated more freely? Seemed true. The glands just seemed to love milking themselves. What better way to spread your already heightened scent, let it do what it was meant to? First dissolve it in liquid, then let it vaporize, like perfume. Fill the air with it. Widest possible coverage and range.