He turned his head and raised the hair above his temple. Drake saw a faint, thin discoloration, normally covered by the hairline.
“That marks where the implant sits,” Sorel went on. “It is normally installed in early infancy, and can be changed at any time. It is tiny, smaller and thinner than a pin, and it serves multiple purposes: as a body function monitor, as a slave computer, and as a transmitter and receiver. Commands, requests, data, and programs can be sent or received. I can speak with data banks or with other individuals. I have requested via the Copernicus network that both medical and language experts go directly to your ship. And I am able to speak to you now, in real time, because although your language is new to me, I am employing the language translation modules within the Tycho network.”
Some transfer of information was still directly from person to person. Sorel read Drake’s misgivings from his facial expression. “Do not worry about this. In your case — as in all cryowomb revivals — the implant will be totally optional. Before you make a decision you will have ample opportunity to observe its use in others. But I can assure you that if you do proceed, you will find it hard within a few weeks to believe that you were ever able to function without such a service. You will possess total recall; you will be a calculator beyond the most powerful computers of your time; and you will have immediate access to every data bank within the solar system — although, naturally, access and transmission time to people and data banks on other planets is considerable. Do you have questions, Drake Merlin?”
“Only one. I want to know if Ana can be cured.”
“I have asked the medical team that question. They are already on board your ship, and they are performing their
assessment. I will inquire as to their progress. One moment.”
The gray eyes widened. Their expression again became remote and preoccupied. This time the wait stretched on, to become one minute and then two.
As the silence continued, Drake felt a knife of tension twisting inside him. If communication was mind-to-mind, what was taking so long? He was afraid that something was going wrong, but what could it possibly be? He comforted himself with Trismon Sorel’s assurance: this society was able to cure all diseases of humans, including every known past disease.
But it was taking too long. Finally he could stand to remain silent no longer. “Are you talking to them? What do they say to you?”
Sorel’s eyes focused again on Drake. “I am talking now to the medical specialists. It is somewhat… complicated. Give me one moment more.”
The gray eyes were changing. They became gentler and more personal. At last Trismon Sorel nodded, as though confirming something that he already feared. He spoke to Drake more slowly, choosing his words with great care.
“They ask me to ask you certain questions. The woman in the cryotank, Anastasia. According to our records she had been constantly maintained in the Pluto cryowombs. Is that correct?”
Drake nodded.
“And when you found her, she was within a cryotank?”
Again, Drake nodded.
“You did not remove her, but you brought the whole cryotank with you on board the ship?”
“That’s right.” Drake’s mind was filled with foreboding. “I had the tank carried from the cryowombs to the ship, exactly as I found it. It was done very carefully. The gravity on Pluto is low, and the machines had no trouble handling it.”
Trismon Sorel was frowning. “Then it is difficult to see how there could be any problem. Unless — Drake Merlin, think hard. Did you open the tank, for any reason, after your ship left Pluto?”
Drake saw again before him Ana’s peaceful face, her pearly eyes and milky skin. He felt a sickness like death. “I did open it. Just once. The outer case, for a few moments, after we left Canopus. The inner seals were unbroken. I looked for only a second or two. I was careful to seal the cryotank afterward …”
It was pointless to try to explain why he had done it, to say that he had been unable not to do it. Trismon
Sorel was regarding him sorrowfully, across an eight-hundred-year gulf. Somehow his face was Tom Lambert’s, and also Par Leon’s. The eyes spoke the same sad message.
“Drake Merlin, a Pluto cryotank is not designed for sealing and resealing. Closing calls for special equipment and special procedures, available only in the cryowombs. When a seal is broken, it is assumed that the person will at once be resurrected, or special resealing methods must be adopted. Do you understand what I am saying? With an imperfect seal, suitable conditions cannot be maintained within a cryotank.”
“Then Ana…”
“One moment more. Again I must consult the specialists, and the data banks.” The eyes once more became unblinking. The silence dragged on and on, longer than before. When Trismon Sorel at last focused on Drake, his face was beyond doubt.
“I have checked all our references. The medical team, at my request, did the same to provide independent confirmation. We have formed the same conclusion. The problem that faces us is quite different from that of curing a disease. The damage caused to a body, and particularly to a body’s brain, when a cryotank is opened and resurrection is not performed at once… that damage is permanent. It cannot be repaired, and there can be no possible revival. Now, or ever.
“I am sorry, Drake Merlin. Anastasia is dead. Forever dead.”
Forever dead. Ana is dead. Trismon Sorel’s words echoed those of Tom Lambert, so long ago. But this time Drake
heard the ring of complete certainty.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves. He, not disease, had killed Ana. Like Orpheus of the old myths, he had pursued his Eurydice through hell. In his case it had been a double hell of cryodeath and Canopus, but like Orpheus in Hades he had found his love and brought her back toward life. Like Orpheus he had looked at her; and in looking he had lost her.
With that thought age-old barriers came down inside his mind. For the first time he noticed a spicy fragrance in the air that he was breathing. He felt a steady dry breeze blowing past him, and far-off along the corridor he heard the faint concert pitch A-natural of vibrating metal. It was as though all his senses were opening, after long centuries of hibernation.
Trismon Sorel was speaking again. “One possibility remains. Anastasia, the woman that you knew, cannot be reanimated. That is quite impossible. However, many whole cells remain intact within her body. She could be cloned without difficulty. Her growth and education would begin anew. But it would, you must understand, be a new Anastasia. There is no hope of sufficient memory transfer from undamaged cells for any inkling of her former existence to pass to her new body. Your former relationship would of course be known to you, but it would be irrelevant to her. Should we proceed?”
The temptation was enormous. To see Ana once more standing before him, blooming and vibrant as he had once known her…
That was the selfish answer. There was a better one; Ana had the right to a healthy new life in this world, eight hundred years beyond their own time. He could not deny it to her.
She would live again. And yet…
It would not be the Ana that he knew and loved. It would be a quite different person. Could he bear to look on her, a woman who was Ana and yet not Ana, a woman who would not feel for him the overwhelming love that he felt for her?
Except that he had no choice. Ana deserved resurrection, and a new life.
Sorel had been waiting sympathetically. Drake nodded at last. “Proceed. Make a clone of Ana.”
Trismon Sorel also nodded, and smiled. Drake saw the relief on his face. Sorel knew, with the authority of eight hundred more years of science and technological progress, that the Ana whom Drake had known was gone forever.
But -
A tiny seed of doubt sprouted deep in Drake’s mind. But what would science say in another three hundred years? in a thousand, or ten thousand, or a hundred thousand? Science had come so far. Surely no one, least of all a scientist, would say that it was now at an end and could go no
further.
Trismon Sorel was talking to him again, trying to catch his attention. He forced himself to listen.
“Ana cannot be revived and cured,” Sorel was saying, “not in the way that you hoped when you took her body from the cryowombs. But we can help you.”
“Me?”
“Certainly. We can cure you. There is evidence that a cure was attempted three hundred years ago, but it clearly failed. We have superior techniques now. They can end your obsession with Anastasia. It would, of course, be done only with your consent.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You have an infinite number of choices. The right to self-determination — even self-destruction, if you wish it — is basic.” Trismon Sorel leaned forward. “Now I would like to speak personally, for myself alone. I hope that you will agree to a cure, and enjoy your own new life. I have vast sympathy for you. I have searched the whole data bank as we have been speaking, and your suffering seems unique. No quest and sacrifice comparable to yours can be found, anywhere.”
“I have not suffered.” Drake had made up his mind. “I have not sacrificed. And I know what I would like.”
“State it.”
“I would like a cloned form for a new Ana, just as you offered.”
“We have agreed, that will be done. But for yourself?”
“I want to remain here just long enough to be sure that Ana’s cloning can proceed without problems. Then I wish to leave.”
“Leave?” Trismon Sorel was bewildered. “Go from here? Go where? The universe is open to you, but we can offer you everything that your heart might desire.”
“No, that is not true. You cannot offer me the Anastasia that I know and love. And that is what I want — all I want. Put me back into the cryowombs, with Ana’s body at my side. Let us travel together to the future.”
“But I told you, the real Ana, the Ana that you knew, is not in that body. Too many brain cells have been destroyed. Your Ana is gone.”
“She is gone. But gone where?”
“Drake Merlin, that is a meaningless question. It is like asking where the wind goes when it is no longer blowing, or where is the odor of a flower after the flower dies.”
“It seems a meaningless question today. But it may not always be meaningless. You told me that I have an infinite number of choices. My choice is simple, and I say it again: I want to be placed in the Pluto cryowombs. Do I have that right?”
“You do.” Trismon Sorel could not conceal his dismay and disappointment. “We cannot deny it to you. But I beg you to reconsider. You can return to cryosleep for as long as you choose, but when will you be awakened? In a century? In five?”
“I do not know. I want to leave this instruction with my freezing: Awaken me when new evidence comes into the data banks that seems relevant to the recreation of Anastasia’s original personality. And not until then.”
“It can be done. But I must be honest with you. I do not think such new evidence will ever appear. If you hope to sleep until your Ana can return, I believe that you will sleep forever.”
You have everything to lose. You’re healthy, you’re productive, you’re at the height of your career. And you are asking me to throw all that away, to help you take the chance that someday, God knows when, you might — -just might — be revived. Don’t you see, Drake, I can’t help you. Across a gulf of eight centuries, Tom Lambert’s words reverberated in Drake’s mind.
“I’ve heard that logic before,” Drake said, “and it proved wrong. I will take that risk. It is smaller than risks that I have taken in the past. Can we begin… now?”
“If you insist.” Trismon Sorel held up his hand. Drake was already rising from his seat. “But there is one thing more. While we have been speaking, a group-mind meeting has been in progress involving every human within easy signal range. A conclusion has been reached. Your request will be granted, but with one condition: You do not go alone. You will have a companion for your travel into the future, just as each of us has a companion, to share our fortunes and to stand by our side through good and bad.”
“I desire no woman in the cryowomb with me, other than my own Ana. And no man, either.”
“We would condemn neither living man nor living woman to such an uncertain future. Your companion will not reside in the cryowombs. It will be a Servitor, designed for on-demand operation, exactly like my own Servitor.” Trismon Sorel gestured to the little wheeled sphere with its metal whisk-broom head, waiting quietly at his side. “So long as you do not call upon its services, it will remain dormant and in communion with the data banks. When you need a companion or an assistant, it will be there to obey your commands.”
Sorel stood up. “Come with me now. The preparations are already beginning for the cloning of Ana.
While that is proceeding, I will explain to you the endless virtues of the Servitor class. And you can decide on the appearance and name of your own personal model, to travel with you into the undiscovered country of the future.”
Chapter 11
The Return of Ana
Drake woke quickly and easily, rising at once to full consciousness. He felt rested and full of energy, without pain or weakness. His immediate thought was that something had gone badly wrong. He was supposed to have descended into cryosleep. Instead he was awakening, as the effects of the first cryonic tranquilizing drug wore off.
He opened his eyes, expecting to see the cryolab facility and Trismon Sorel’s face. Instead he found himself lounging at ease in a deep armchair. A woman with the strong features, raven hair, and dark complexion of a gypsy sat opposite. She was watching him closely. When his eyes opened she nodded but did not speak.
“What happened?” His mouth was a little dry, but that was normal after sedation. “Why didn’t I go into cryosleep?”
“And what makes you think you didn’t?” She arched jet-black eyebrows at him. “Don’t you believe in progress? The old barbarism of waking agony is long in the past. Today the thawing is no different from rising after a natural sleep.”
She spoke not in Universal but in perfect English, unaccented and without pauses.
He glanced around him. His last waking sight had been of the cryolab, deep within the sterile interior of the Moon. Now he was back on Earth, held to his chair by the familiar tug of a standard gravity. The room’s long window faced out over a sandy beach and a restless ocean. It was windy outside. He could hear the gusts moaning around the outside of the building and see tiny sparks of sunlight reflecting from distant white-caps.
Suddenly, he knew exactly where he was. He and Ana, on one of their rare trips abroad, had worked together for a month in Italy. They had taken an extra two weeks of vacation after the assignment was over, and rented a small villa on the Sorrento Peninsula just south of Naples. He was there now. The restless sea that he was looking at was the Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the Mediterranean; the little island far to the west was Capri.
He even recognized the room and furniture of the villa.
Recognized it, after more than eight hundred years?
His moment of pleasure was swept away by fear. “How long?”
“I was hoping that we might postpone that question for at least a little while.” The woman sighed. “I should have known better. All your records display a remarkable focus of attention. To answer your question, it has been rather a long time — much longer than I suspect you hoped. In your notation, this is the year 32,072. It is more than twenty-nine thousand years since you last descended into cryosleep.”
Long enough, surely, for real progress in the reconstruction of his Ana.
But longer, also, than the whole of humanity’s previous recorded history. Drake stared in disbelief. He had again tried to prepare his mind for anything, for any amount of change. And again he was surprised. The last thing that he expected was sameness. But the room he was sitting in was exactly as he remembered it. The scene outside was a pleasant day of late spring. The sun was high in the sky, and it must be clos
e to noon. At any moment the villa’s housekeeper would enter with an aperitif of sambuca, before serving lunch for him and Ana outside on the little paved terrace.
“It’s not real, is it?” He gestured around him. “All this is an electronic simulation, designed for my benefit.” A worse thought struck. “In fact, I’m not real, either. I’ve not been resurrected at all. I’ve been downloaded.”
“Not true.” The woman frowned reprovingly. “You have certainly been resurrected, and you are the real corporeal you, occupying your own revivified body. Although the capability exists to download a person to inorganic storage, this was not done in your case. It requires the consent of the individual, since once done it of course admits the possibility of multiple selves. However, you are right at least in part. The scene around you was synthesized from your own memories. It is being inserted for your comfort and convenience into your optic chiasma and other sensory afferent nerves — nonintrusively, I might add. The old indignities of body invasion disgust today’s society.”
“I don’t find this either comforting or convenient. I want to know where I really am. I want my surroundings to be as they really are.”
“Very well.” She paused. “Are you quite sure? We judged this synthesis to be the best way of minimizing cross-cultural shock.”
“You were wrong. Get rid of all of it.” Drake waved his arm at the room, the easy chairs, and the blue sea and sky beyond the long window.
“Very well. However, there is one other thing that you should know before you leave derived reality.” The woman stared at Drake, her dark eyes troubled. “You are real flesh and blood. But I am not. I am a part of the synthesis, and I will disappear when it does.”
She raised her hand in farewell.
“Wait a minute!” Drake found himself standing, on legs that shook with nervousness. “Don’t go yet. I have to know. Has there been progress in resurrecting Ana?”
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