by Ben Bova
Jo sat by the bed, holding Markov’s hand. For years the Russian had harmlessly pursued her with beautifully romantic speeches that hid the bashfulness of an overgrown boy. They had become friends, rather than lovers, and now Jo wept as she felt the old man’s fingers growing cold.
Markov’s eyes opened slowly. He tried to smile, but the stroke that had paralyzed half his body turned the effort into a grisly rictus. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a tortured groan.
Jo pressed his dying hand to her cheek and sobbed openly.
Stoner did not touch the Russian physically. Instead he reached into Markov’s mind.
—I’m here, old friend.
—Keith? It is you?
—Yes.
—I knew you would come…to see me off…
—I’d rather be a million miles away, and have you healthy.
—But we are here.
Stoner nodded uneasily. He felt the pain that racked his old friend’s body, the terror of imminent death that flooded his mind.
—Keith, is there an afterlife?
The question surprised Stoner. —I don’t know. I don’t think so.
—Maria is waiting for me, angry that I’ve taken so long to join her.
—You haven’t lost your sense of humor.
—Only my life.
—Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?
—A new body, perhaps?
—We could have you frozen. Jo’s corporation has the facilities and…
—No. No freezing for me. It is time for me to leave, dear friend. Time to let go.
—But…
—No hope of resurrection. This old wreck of a body would not survive the freezing process. I looked into that more than a year ago.
—Oh. I see.
—My will. You…I named you executor. You don’t mind?
—No. Of course not. I’ll take care of everything.
—No one has ever come out of freezing. Only you. Of all the bodies frozen, only you have been revived.
—That is true.
—Why? What happened on that alien ship? What did they do to you?
Stoner closed his eyes and bowed his head. Markov’s pulse was weakening, his heart was failing rapidly. In another few seconds the monitors would start to wail and a frantic team of nurses and doctors would burst into the room and try to keep him alive for a few agonized hours longer.
With one part of his mind Stoner kept the monitors from showing Markov’s worsening condition. They hummed to themselves and repeated the measurements that they had made a few seconds earlier, despite the Russian’s rapidly deteriorating condition.
As he did so, Stoner gave Markov a mental image of what had happened on the alien starship. No other person on Earth knew about it, except Jo. And Markov would take the story to the grave with him.
The starship was a sarcophagus. It bore the dead body of an alien who had chosen to be set adrift on the sea of space in the chance that his craft might one day reach a world that harbored intelligent life. His message was simply: You are not alone. There are other intelligences among the vast desert of stars. Take my body, study it, learn from it. Study my ship and learn from it, also.
And there was more. Far more.
The alien was roughly human in shape: two arms with four-fingered hands, although its four short legs ended in soft hoofs. Head and face only slightly different from ours. But the alien was not alone.
Within its body dwelled tens of billions of incredibly tiny objects. Machines. Each of them less than a millionth of a millimeter in size. Specialized machines that coursed through the alien’s bloodstream and permeated every part of his body. Machines to repair organic damage. Machines to protect against invading viruses and cancerous growths. Machines that could make more of themselves. Machines that could think, when linked with an intelligent brain.
Each of them as small as a virus, they served as an intelligent symbiote to the alien, protecting it against disease and injury, enhancing its mind.
When the alien chose to die, the machines acquiesced. They would not control the will of their host. But they did suggest the sarcophagus to be sent out among the stars. And they helped direct its design so that it would not merely drift aimlessly, but would purposefully seek out worlds that might harbor life and intelligence.
—I have a star brother inside me. During the years that I remained frozen on the alien’s spacecraft, before the craft was recaptured and brought into Earth orbit, the ship’s automated systems transferred those billions of nanometer devices to my body.
—That is why…that is why…
—That is why I survived freezing. They repaired the ruptures in my cells while I was being thawed. That is why I can do the things I can do. That is why I haven’t aged in the past fifteen years.
—I understand now. I understand.
A feeling almost of guilt coursed through Stoner. His star brother understood and did not interfere.
—Kir…if I had known, if I had any inkling that this would happen…
—How could you? It hit me like an automobile crash.
—But I could’ve transferred some of the devices to you. All it would have taken would have been a simple blood exchange. They reproduce in microseconds. They might have repaired your body, made you young and strong again.
—No. My time has come.
—It still might not be too late. Let me try.
—No! Let me die now.
—You’re only saying that because of the pain and the fear. Your body is tired of fighting; your brain is soaked with the chemicals of exhaustion. We might be able to reverse all that, if you’ll let us try.
Stoner sensed shock, outright terror surging through his friend’s mind.
—Kir, we can save you. Let us try…
—To be invaded by alien—things? To become something not human? No, never! I can’t. I can’t!
—But, Kir…
—You can stand it, Keith, being not human. But I…never. I could never stand it.
Stoner sensed his friend shuddering. You don’t understand, he pleaded with the Russian. It’s not being inhuman. It’s being more than human, Kir. More than human. The next step in our evolution.
But it was too late. Stoner felt the Russian’s life ebb away, like a candle blown out by a dark wind. For a long moment he simply stood by the bed, staring at the unseeing eyes of his old friend. He killed himself, Stoner realized. He let himself die rather than accept the help I was offering.
Then a surge of blackest grief and guilt overwhelmed him. No. I killed him. I tried to force him to accept something he wasn’t prepared to deal with. He allowed himself to die rather than facing it. I killed him. I killed my best friend.
He slumped down on the bed, startling Jo, who was still holding Markov’s hand.
“He’s dead,” Stoner said woodenly. The monitors suddenly began wailing an electronic dirge.
By the time the emergency team burst in and pushed them out into the hallway, Stoner’s star brother had calmed the flow of hormones raging through his bloodstream. We are still howling apes, aren’t we? he asked himself bitterly. First the glands, then the brain. His sense of guilt abated, the pain in his guts eased. But still he knew that Kirill Markov, professor of linguistics, first secretary of the Soviet National Academy of Sciences, a man who had worked with Stoner all those years ago when the alien spacecraft had first been detected, his dearest friend—Kirill could not accept the idea of sharing his body with alien symbiotes.
As they walked sadly down the hospital corridor, Stoner said to his wife, “Jo, I was too optimistic a couple of nights ago. I don’t think the human race will ever be ready to accept partnership with an alien presence.”
ISTANBUL
“COME to prayer. Come to prayer.” The muezzin’s call was an amplified recording that reverberated through the scorching hot morning like a brass gong.
Noura Anadolu sipped coffee on the balcony of the apartment she
shared with three other stewardesses and watched the ferries trudging slowly, patiently across the Golden Horn. Sunlight glittered off the oily water beneath a molten sky. Noura felt almost glad that she had to go to the airport in another hour and work the Vienna-Frankfurt-Stockholm flight. Stockholm could be fun, the Swedes appreciated a woman with dark hair and exotic eyes. Besides, it would be much more comfortable than this wretched heat and humidity.
Two days ago she had been in Bangkok. Yesterday it was Calcutta. Nothing but blazing heat and unrelenting, sodden humidity that made the very air feel like a stifling towel wrapped around your face.
Even in nothing but her sheerest robe Noura felt as if the heat was cooking her, boiling the juices inside her. It would be better inside, where it was air conditioned. Her mother still believed that air conditioning was bad for your health, that it made you weak and gave you the chills. But then her mother still walked barefoot to the market each day and refused to allow a modern freezer and microwave into her house. The only electrical convenience she put up with was the TV set that was on twenty-four hours a day. Her mother even slept in front of it.
Noura was alone in the apartment this morning, the other stewardesses were all working, so she could take her time in the bathroom with a long cooling shower.
But as she began to put on her deep maroon uniform, her stomach cramped painfully. Surprised, she sat on the bed. Another sharp burning pain made her gasp. For several minutes she sat there waiting for the pain to go away. It did not. It grew worse. Overpowering. Noura reached for the telephone, half fainting from the pain.
By the time the paramedic team got to her apartment she was already dead, her once-beautiful face twisted into a grotesque mask of agony. The police arrived at about the same moment; she had been screaming so loudly that the neighbors had called them.
CHAPTER 9
THERE were two uniformed policemen at the nurses’ station at the end of the corridor, and a chunky bald man in a gray three-piece suit. Still struggling against his sense of guilt, Stoner did not notice them until the bald man called to him.
“Dr. Stoner. Kindly allow me to introduce myself. I am Feodor Rozmenko, of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. I was Professor Markov’s personal aide.” He held an ID card up in front of Stoner’s eyes.
Jo immediately snapped, “We’re on our way to the airport…”
“Please! One moment only!” Rozmenko begged, smiling. He was slightly shorter than Jo, but thick in the torso and arms. Younger than his baldness suggested. The two in uniform behind him were quite tall, very blond; Stoner thought of elite military police.
“Look,” said Stoner softly, “Professor Markov was a very dear friend of ours. He’s just died and we’d appreciate it if you could just leave us alone for a while.”
“I understand. I worked with Professor Markov for several years. I would like to think that he was my friend, also,” Rozmenko said with a forlorn little smile. But he pressed ahead, “Will you be staying in Moscow overnight, or do you plan to leave immediately?”
“I told you; we’re leaving right away,” Jo said.
“Could I induce you to stay for just one hour more?” Rozmenko was being extremely polite, smiling hopefully at them. The two uniformed men had expressions as blank as robots.
Jo was already shaking her head, but Stoner asked, “Why do you want us to stay?”
“A certain Dr. Lucacs from the University of Budapest is here. She had come to see Professor Markov.”
“So?”
Almost pathetically eager, Rozmenko went on, “When she learned that you were visiting the good professor, Dr. Stoner, she asked if she could meet you.”
Jo snapped, “What does this doctor want with my husband?”
“That I do not know,” replied Rozmenko. “But perhaps Professor Markov would have wanted the two of you to meet—in the interests of scientific research, perhaps?”
Stoner sensed no danger in Rozmenko. No hidden motives. He was a bureaucrat sent on a mission of diplomacy. With two big military policemen to back him up.
Turning to Jo, he said, “I’ll talk to her for a few minutes, see what she wants. Okay?”
Jo looked from Rozmenko to the policemen to her husband, tense, wary. “I’ll go with you.”
Rozmenko, delighted, led them down a corridor and into a small conference room. It was windowless, and held only a shabby, worn table and ten rickety plastic chairs. The walls were bare and gray with age, except for a big display screen that filled one wall. The ceiling panels glowed with fluorescent lights that gave skin tones a ghastly bluish cast.
“Please to wait here one moment,” said Rozmenko. “I will bring Dr. Lucacs.”
The two policemen stood out in the hall, flanking the room’s only door.
Jo would not sit down. “I know the Cold War’s over and done with,” she muttered, “but I can’t help thinking that that is watching us.” She jabbed a manicured thumb toward the blank display screen. “They could hide a whole TV studio on its other side.”
Smiling, Stoner eased his lanky frame onto one of the little plastic chairs. It creaked.
“Don’t get nervous,” he said. “The Russians won’t bite you.”
Still Jo paced the length of the conference table and peered anxiously at the blank screen.
“The most conservative society on Earth,” Stoner said to his wife.
“Conservative? The Soviets?”
“The Russians. They like to tell themselves that they’re the savior of civilization, that Moscow is the third Rome, the last bastion of Christianity.”
“I’m sure Pope Gregory would be surprised to hear that,” Jo countered.
“He’s an American, what do you expect?”
Jo was smiling now, but barely. “I just don’t see the men in the Kremlin as conservatives, I’m sorry.”
“Come on, Jo! Look at these people. Even their architecture is a century behind the rest of the world. Deliberately. They look to the past just as naturally as Americans look to the future.”
Jo turned and glanced at the screen again. Then, “We should have left for the airport. There’s no sense staying around here.”
“We’ll just see what this doctor wants and then we’ll be on our way.”
“We should have gone, Keith. I do have business to conduct.”
“Well, let’s be polite to them for a few minutes, at least. You don’t want to make the Russians think that capitalists are insensitive, do you?”
Then he remembered that one of the few real friends he had in this world had just died, and his smile vanished.
“Maybe I should stay for the funeral,” Stoner suggested. “Kir made me his executor.”
Jo started to reply, but heard footsteps clicking down the corridor outside. She turned toward the door as Rozmenko ushered Ilona Lucacs into the tiny conference room.
Stoner got to his feet.
“Dr. Lucacs,” said Rozmenko with a gesture, “Dr. Stoner and Mrs. Stoner.”
Stoner could feel the heat of Jo’s sudden anger. Automatic response, he said to his star brother. Competitive female. Men respond to competition by displays of aggression supported on spurts of testosterone. Women use their brains. And their tongues.
Ilona Lucacs was almost a full head shorter than Jo. She wore a simple tweed skirt and jacket, the uniform of the academic. Jo’s knee-length suede coat of burnt umber was more expensive than a half-dozen such outfits. But the tweeds could not hide the curves of Lucacs’s figure, any more than Jo’s striking coat, slacks, and silk blouse could mask her strength.
Stoner looked from his wife to Dr. Lucacs and realized that the Hungarian must be no more than twenty-five years old. If that.
She smiled warmly at Jo, then held her hand out for Stoner to shake. He almost felt as if he should bow and kiss her dainty fingers, as a European would. Grinning inwardly, he decided he had better not. Not with Jo already fuming.
“I am very sorry about Professor Markov,” said Dr. Lucacs,
in a throaty voice. “My deepest condolences.”
“Thank you,” Stoner replied. And he found that he could say no more. He wanted to tell her what a wonderful friend Kirill had been, how he had been a true champion of freedom and the restructuring of Soviet society. But the words choked in his throat. He felt a strange inner surge of sympathy from his star brother. I know what death is, said the alien within him. No matter how inevitable, it is always a loss, always a sorrow.
Jo was saying, “You arrived here too late to help, I’m afraid. What kind of a specialist are you?”
Dr. Lucacs blushed slightly. “Oh, I am not a medical doctor. Not a physician. My field is neurophysiology—the study of the human nervous system.”
Instantly Stoner felt a danger signal flash through him.
“My area of research deals with repairing damaged neural tissue,” Dr. Lucacs went on.
“Like fetal grafts for repairing brain damage?” Jo asked, all business.
“Yes. And for treating Parkinson’s and other diseases of the central nervous system.”
“Then why did you want to see us?”
Ilona Lucacs tried to smile and failed. “I have been assigned by my superiors at the university to examine the problems in cryonic suspension of nerve function.”
Stoner looked at his wife. Jo never blinked an eye. The four people stood in the shabby little conference room, facing each other: Lucacs and Rozmenko on one side, Jo and Stoner on the other.
Stoner broke the stretching silence. “Then it’s me you wanted to see, not Kirill.”
Lucacs looked almost ashamed. “I came to Moscow to ask Professor Markov if he would arrange some way for me to meet you. I am very sorry it had to happen this way.”
Jo said firmly, “We’ve stopped all research on cryonics at Vanguard Industries. It just doesn’t work. As far as I know, every major corporation and university has given up on cryonics.”
“Not the University of Budapest,” said Lucacs, almost meekly. “You see, the president of Hungary is seventy-eight years old. He is still in excellent health, but—well, our biology department has been asked to investigate the matter once again.”