Cloned Lives

by Pamela Sargent

  Jim was seated at the kitchen table, chewing on the remains of a large sandwich. He looked up at Ed, brushing some of his long disorderly brown hair off his face with one arm.

  “Hello,” Jim said. “No one’s here. Our athletic brethren have practice this afternoon.” Jim grimaced at the words. “I don’t know why they waste their time.”

  “You wasted plenty of time with them yourself last year,” Ed replied.

  His brother shrugged. “I didn’t know any better. I think Coach Anders just wanted us on that damn track team so he could get publicity.”

  “He also wanted you because you were good runners,” Ed said quietly.

  “Then why the hell didn’t you go out for the team? You’re as good at the mile as we are. You can hardly help that.”

  “You know why not.” But Ed also knew that the reason he refused to join a team was the same reason his brother Mike had for joining one. Mike was almost obsessed with being like other people. Al participated in sports because he enjoyed them, Mike because they helped make him more socially acceptable. From Mike’s point of view, it was practical to get along with other people and try to be accepted as an individual. Yet at the same time Mike was able to hold himself apart from others, avoiding the danger of pain or rejection. He would go through the motions but retain his personal shield.

  “Maybe Mike is right,” Jim said suddenly, as if sensing what Ed was thinking. “But he won’t change what we are. We’re stuck. We may as well accept it.” Jim gestured dramatically with his bread crust, then stuffed it into his mouth.

  What difference does it make?, Ed thought. Mike went through the motions of sociability, Al treated everyone with the same friendly impartiality, Kira spent most of her time with biologists and other older people who at least tried to treat her fairly, Jim was openly obnoxious and antagonistic, and Ed kept to himself. They had all wound up in the same solitary place with only each other for company.

  It seemed to Ed that they were constantly having to prove themselves to people now. When they had been younger, they had enjoyed playing tricks on those who could not tell them apart. Even Kira as a child, with her short hair and overalls, had been mistaken for one of the boys. When they were eight, they had played what seemed a masterful trick at the time.

  Their elementary school classroom had not been unusual. It contained microfiche readers, simple machines designed to teach basic skills and several more specialized computer devices and learning machines. All of this was arranged in apparently random order about the cheerful yellow room with desks, tables, and chairs grouped in the center. Their teacher and her aide would normally supervise them on basic skills, oversee discussions, tests, language practice and music listening, then allow them time with the more specialized machines, testing them on what they had learned after that. They were supposed to alternate among the more specialized machines, spending only a certain amount of time at each so they would have practice in many areas.

  Ed could not remember who first thought of the trick, although he suspected it had probably been Al or Jim. Instead of alternating among the machines, they were to choose one machine each and remain there for the alloted time. Ed chose one of the math machines, leaving it for a few minutes at a time and then returning, becoming in turn Mike, Al, Jim, or Kira to the other children in that part of the room. Occasionally he would glance at Mike, who was busily constructing holographic models on the screen of a computer designed to teach mechanics and they would giggle, astonished at their cleverness.

  It was then that Ed discovered his love for numbers. He became entranced by the math machine and fascinated by its geometrical models, which showed him an entirely new world of abstract beauty. The other clones had the same reactions to their own machines. Kira ran evolutionary projections on her computer and soon started to experiment with seeds and tadpoles at home. Jim spent his time on a reading machine, occasionally moving to one which taught history. Al and Mike began to set up experiments with pendulums and planed surfaces, and Al was soon spending afternoons struggling to read Paul’s elementary texts on astrophysics.

  Ed often wondered if that little prank was the beginning of their differing interests. They had chosen their machines for the trick completely by chance. At any rate, their teacher had discovered their prank when each of them began to fail tests on skills they had not learned. She had humiliated them in front of their classmates with a lecture, then called Paul on the phone, telling him the whole story. She told him that he would have to send the clones to school with name tags so she could tell them apart.

  Ed recalled how Paul had struggled to restraint a chuckle when he conveyed the teacher’s message to them. Yet he had complied with the request by sewing their names on their overalls; perhaps he suspected that they would switch their pinned-on tags.

  Ed and the others had been embarrassed. Their classmates had resurrected old clone jokes for the occasion. Being a clone no longer seemed very funny. Their teacher had not been sympathetic to them either. Ed realized now that she had felt threatened by the computers. The machines, with their programmed tests and attractive components, seemed to be stealing her job, reducing her to a supervisor. Parents had the right to allow their children to learn on computers at home, as long as the children spent some time with others their own age in child care centers or at hostels. Most were in schools only because of custom or because their parents did not care to supervise them at home. Their own teacher had taken out her resentment on the clones because of their trick. But at the time, Ed had thought her an old crank who insulted and belittled the machines as she lectured them on their behavior.

  “Paul’s going to the moon,” Jim said. A shock ran through Ed’s body. He straightened involuntarily in his chair.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Aschenbach called before and asked if he had decided about going. I guess some people there asked him to come. I know he’ll go, maybe he’ll ask us first if he should but…”Jim did not finish the sentence. He’s always wanted to go, his eyes told Ed. Don’t tell him to stay.

  Ed felt stranded and alone. He can’t.

  He will anyway. Jim leaned back in his chair, balancing it precariously on two legs. “I’m going to the city this weekend with Joey and Olive. Olive’s uncle runs a hotel and we can stay there for nothing. She said he’d let us have a suite.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Throw a party. Get drunk. Joey has some stuff from his older brother’s plants he’s bringing along with him, and some mood-changers.”

  “Paul won’t want you to go,” Ed said.

  “He can’t stop me. I’m sixteen now, I have the right to do anything I want that doesn’t hurt others or isn’t physically, psychologically, or socially harmful or illegal.”

  “Getting drunk’s illegal for you, taking moods is illegal for anybody without a doctor’s supervision, and hanging around with Joey and Olive is what I’d call psychologically harmful.”

  Jim sighed. “You never miss a chance to insult my friends.”

  “I don’t like them,” Ed said, “and I don’t know why you spend any time with them. I don’t know anybody who likes them, they’re so damn sophisticated, always acting as though they know more than anybody. All Olive cares about is parties and spending half the night with old guys in her car. I don’t know how her parents can afford the rent on that car. And Joey’s still on probation.” Joey, technically gifted, had jammed the transmission in Olive’s car, causing all the cars in his lane on the automated highway to come to a stop and nearly bringing about a serious accident. He had been saved from serious punishment only because of his age. “You don’t like them any better than anyone else, Jim,” Ed went on. “I know it.”

  “At least they don’t treat me like a freak,” Jim said angrily. He paused for a moment, as if realizing that he had not refuted Ed’s statements. “Besides, Joey’s an interesting person and Olive’s one of the best artists at school. Jesus, if I
’m going to be a writer I should have experience, meet different kinds of people.”

  “What a rationalization.”

  “It’s the truth. I suppose you’ll go to Paul now and tell him what we’re going to do.”

  “You should know better than that. It’s your decision, you’d go even if Paul said no. And it’s none of my business anyway.” Ed got up. “I have to take a shower.”

  He left the kitchen, annoyed with his brother. Jim always seemed to enjoy self-destructive situations and bizarre experiences. Ed had often heard his brother vomiting late at night in one of the bathrooms, sick from drugs or drinking. Paul had not forbidden Jim to see his friends but he had told him never to bring Olive and Joey to the house after Joey had stolen a bottle of scotch.

  Ed climbed the stairs and walked down the hallway. He opened the door to his room. His bed, covered with an orange blanket, was against the wall on his right. His desk was in the corner to his left, separated from the bed by a small night table under his window. He noticed that he had left his barbells in the center of the room. Picking them up, Ed placed them inside the small closet beside his door. Jim even kept a messy room, he thought to himself, full of print-outs, piles of old books on the floor and in, almost every available space, a worn imitation Oriental rug in the center of the room, and various useless artifacts Jim had bought in antique stores. Jim did at least keep this mass of articles clean and seemed to know where everything was, but the room had no sense of order.

  Ed pulled off his sweatshirt, then sat down in the orange chair near his desk. As he untied his shoes he tried to push these thoughts out of his mind. He would take his shower, then try to clear his mind with some meditation before dinner. He would avoid for the time being the idea of Paul’s prospective lunar journey and ignore the apprehension that threatened to knot his stomach and stiffen his spine.

  They usually ate supper crowded around the kitchen table. The dining room table, in the room between the living room and the kitchen, was larger but they all preferred the informality of the kitchen during weekdays.

  Paul, seated across the rectangular wood table from Ed, seemed tired. Paul usually enjoyed cooking, feeling that it relaxed him after work. They often helped him prepare dinner, taking turns on different nights. But tonight Paul had simply broiled some fish and steamed some carrots and peas. Al had groaned when he came to the table and saw the simple meal, subsiding when Paul suggested that if he didn’t like it he was free to cook his own dinner.

  Jim, seated on Ed’s left, was struggling to drink a cup of bitter black coffee with a straight face. Jim usually refused the glass of milk the others drank and had settled on the black coffee as a reasonably sophisticated substitute. Kira, her short wavy brown hair held back from her face by a white band, waved her fork as she discussed her day at the biological center with Paul. Al and Mike, seated on Ed’s right, were commenting on what seemed to Ed some rather esoteric points about soccer, punctuating their conversation with raucous locker-room laughter. Both Al and Mike had grown impressive handlebar moustaches in imitation of their coach and a few of the other athletes.

  Paul lifted his wine glass and sipped. His green eyes met Ed’s for an instant. He’s old, Ed thought suddenly, and something within him panicked. He swallowed some milk quickly. But sixty-six isn’t old. A reasonably healthy person could expect to reach a hundred with proper care and anti-aging shots. Of course Paul had only recently begun to take the shots; the government, still fearful of social consequences and uncertain about long-range effects, limited the shots to those already over sixty-five. Some people refused the shots, feeling perhaps that it was futile to prolong their later years. Even so, the shots had raised average life expectancy to over ninety and could postpone many old-age ailments until that time. Paul was still a healthy and youthful man capable of running a couple of miles a day or playing a vigorous set of tennis. His silver hair was thick and his face, aided by his high cheekbones, could have been that of a younger man. But there were lines etched around Paul’s large eyes and sensitive mouth. His arms had grown thinner and his waist thicker with time. He was much older than the parents of Ed’s classmates. Ed began to feel threatened in some indeterminate way by his father’s age.

  “You haven’t said much tonight, Ed,” Paul said. “Something wrong?”

  “He never says much,” Al replied. Ed glared at his brother.

  “He speaks when he has something to say,” Kira said, “unlike some people.”

  Paul’s brow was slightly furrowed. “Maybe we can get out our violins later and play together, we haven’t done that for a while.”

  “Okay,” Ed mumbled.

  “Dr. Aschenbach called you before,” Jim said loudly. “He wants to know if you decided about going to the moon yet.” The others turned toward their father in unison, heads tilted to one side.

  “What?”

  “When?”

  “What trip is this?”

  “I was going to discuss that with you tonight,” Paul said, returning Jim’s belligerent gaze with a calm one. “Since Jim brought it up, we may as well talk about it now.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Jim said. “If you have the chance you should take it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Paul went on, “I think you should know what this will involve. I’ll be gone all month, until the beginning of December. The university’s giving me a small appropriation but the rest has to come out of my own pocket. The lunar astronomical facilities are short of funds right now. That means we’ll have to cut down on car rentals for a while and try to get along with the one we own for the most part.”

  “We can get along,” Jim said impatiently. “We can use the trains.”

  “You can get along,” Al said. “Not all of us have friends with cars.” He glared pointedly at Jim. Jim stared back at his brother blandly.

  Ed looked away from Al and back at his father. “I also have to assume,” Paul said, “that you’re all responsible enough to look after things around here.” His eyes rested first on Jim, then on Al. “Jon is willing to look in on you from time to time and I imagine Hidey will too but you’ll be on your own. Now I don’t think I’ve been too hard on you. I don’t like to police everything you do, but I won’t be around to referee your battles or get you out of trouble. And you won’t be able to call me up every time you want to talk about something without bankrupting me.” He looked at Ed.

  Ed looked down at his plate. He talked to Paul more often than the others. He would be the loneliest if Paul left. When Paul left. He had already made up his mind, Ed was sure, and was now simply settling the details.

  “If you want, you could all stay at the hostel near the school, at least for some of the time,” Paul continued.

  “No, we couldn’t,” Mike said bluntly. “We’d look ridiculous.”

  “Why? There are plenty of children who don’t live with their parents or who stay there on occasion. They can do pretty much what they want to, the people living with them seem easygoing.”

  Ed glanced at Mike. “Paul, you don’t understand,” Mike replied, brushing a crumb from his moustache. “Those are younger children. When someone our age stays there, it looks silly if a parent still has custody. It looks as if your parents think you’re a baby or don’t trust you.”

  “Pardon me,” Paul said, obviously trying to repress a smile. “I wasn’t aware of the social restrictions.”

  Ed picked at his vegetables. He knew his father should go on his trip. The moon was becoming the real center of astrophysical research and Paul should have gone there before now. Space, in fact, was becoming the center of a lot of things. Many industries had orbiting factories and research facilities. Orbiting hospitals were used for certain types of operations. The United Nations and various governments maintained weather control stations, satellites that monitored earth resources and aided in the control of pollution, and communications satellites. The moon itself, once only a place for research, was becoming more populated and
industrialized. Humanity, after spending time consolidating its gains, was once again looking outward and beginning to dream.

  He knew the Lunar scientists might need Paul, even for a short time. Some of them were trying to realize Paul’s dream of star flight. Two probes had already been sent out beyond the solar system. A few people were already lobbying for a human expedition to the stars if the probes reported anything worth investigating.

  Paul could survey the work of the scientists, make suggestions, notice things that perhaps the scientists themselves, too close to the project, might not have noticed. At the very least, he would be stimulated and involved again instead of retiring to the sidelines. Paul should have gone before and he would have if not for them. Yet Ed wanted him to stay. He was fearful of being alone.

  Don’t go, please.

  “I can’t make my decision,” Paul was saying, “without knowing your feelings. So I’m asking you, and please be frank. If for some reason you want me to postpone this trip, tell me. You’re all more important to me, you’re my first responsibility.”

  Ed’s throat locked. He looked around the table. Al and Jim were staring down at their plates. Mike was looking at Paul.

  “You should go,” Mike said quietly. “We can certainly take care of things for a month.”

  Kira nodded. “You should go,” she echoed. “But we’ll miss you, especially at Thanksgiving.” She blinked and looked away.

  “What the hell,” Al said. “I wish I could go myself. As long as you fill me in on everything it’s all right with me.”

  Jim had already expressed an opinion and remained silent. Kira and Mike were watching Ed. Ed managed to shrug. “Go ahead,” he muttered, trying to smile.

  Jim and Al got up and began to clear the table. “I wanted to go over to the campus for a while,” Kira was saying to Paul. “Dr. Takamura’s speaking to a group tonight on bioethics and I think Mike wanted to go to the physics building.”