“Let me get to the point,” Jonis said. “Without Hidey, I doubt that any of us could agree on anything. He’s the only one who’s kept us from getting into time-wasting feuds. I don’t want us to be like the chemistry department or anthropology. I don’t think those people could agree on what model coffee machine to get.” The blond woman stared across the table at Kurt. Kira knew Jonis had never particularly liked him. Kurt stared back coldly.
“I am forced to agree with you on that, Ms. Ettinger,” he muttered at last.
“I don’t believe what I just heard,” Bert said, chuckling and glancing from Jonis to Kurt. “There’s hope for you two yet.”
“All right,” Hidey said, and Kira watched as everyone turned back to him. Hidey had somehow mastered the art of inspiring loyalty among his associates. It might have been that talent that had made her own existence possible in the end. Several people, she knew, had wondered how he had persuaded others to go along with the then-dangerous project of cloning Paul Swenson.
Even after the project’s conclusion, when many of those involved had to face several problems, she had never heard of any of them turning against Hidey.
Yet Hidey seemed genuinely surprised whenever anyone pointed this out. Maybe that was part of the talent.
“I have an idea for something we might work on,” Hidey continued. “I don’t know how much I want to say about it right now. Maybe I’ve been too close to it for too long. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for thirty years, in a way it’s something I was working for back when I cloned Kira and her brothers from my friend.”
Kira waited. Hidey had said little to her about his ideas. “The reason I cloned Paul Swenson,” he said, “was that I felt one human lifetime was too short for him to make full use of his talents. The same thing is probably true of any person. However, I don’t think cloning everybody is really the answer here. I have something else in mind, although it would utilize the techniques of cloning.”
No wonder he didn’t mention anything to me, Kira thought. He probably didn’t know how I’d react. She tried to give him a reassuring look.
“We’ve already extended the human life span with anti-aging shots,” Hidey continued. “Because of social reasons, administration of these shots is delayed, but I have no doubt that if they were given at an earlier age we could hope for an even greater life span.”
“There’s talk about doing that already in Washington,” said Ike, the only one of them who seemed to keep up with politics. “They might lower the age for receiving them to fifty-five.”
“That’s really beside the point anyway,” Hidey said. “It’ll still be a half-measure, even if you could get shots at thirty. I’m sure there are people doing that in spite of the penalties and the chance of getting caught. So you might live, say, to one hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred. But you wouldn’t be able to replace lost brain cells, lost nerve cells, you would just be clearing out old ones.”
“Still, you could double our life span,” Cesar said. “I’d settle for that.”
“Oh, we’ll have it one of these days,” Ike said. “Not in our lifetime, maybe. It’ll be a gradual kind of thing, getting people psychologically prepared, adjusting our institutions, a continuation of the process that’s already taking place.”
Hidey, Kira noticed, was growing impatient with this meandering. “What about an indefinite life span?” he asked. There was silence as those around the table looked at each other, then back at him.
“It is theoretically possible,” Kurt murmured. “Even with the little we now know as a result of the moratorium.”
“Who would want to live that long?” Jonis asked irrelevantly.
“Surely you people can be a little more adventurous,” Hidey said. “I believe we could develop a method within the next few years.”
“An application of cloning,” Kurt said, leaning back in his chair. “Yes, I think I see where you are leading us.”
“We have the technology for producing clones,” Hidey continued. “We also have available to us a means of clearing out the collagens and wastes acquired in the body through aging and the cross-linkage of proteins, namely the anti-aging shots. What if we were to clone a person, then, when the fetus reached a certain point of development, make serum from the different organs and inject it into the person? The various cloned cells would presumably migrate to the different parts of the body, replacing old cells that had been removed by anti-aging shots. The body would be renewed. Aging would be halted, perhaps turned back. The person might be completely rejuvenated. If the process were repeated at intervals, there’s no reason why the subject couldn’t live indefinitely.”
Perhaps forever, Kira thought. The word Hidey was refusing to say was immortal. Suddenly she had an image of herself and her brothers cut up and injected into Paul. She managed to repress a shudder. I can’t look at it that way. Besides, the use of fetuses in such a project would, she was sure, be temporary. The process could be refined; eventually only certain portions of the body, certain organs, would be cloned, rather than the entire person.
“We couldn’t get a grant for that,” Bert said. “No way in the world.”
“Sure we could,” Jonis replied. “You just have to word the application in a certain way. We could probably get some kind of grant for medical research, repair of damaged organs, something like that.”
“I can’t believe it,” Ike said, slamming his palm down on the table. “No one here seems to realize what Hidey’s saying. You’re all talking as if it’s just another project. He’s talking about something that would change us forever, that would dislocate our entire society. This won’t be so easy for people to brush aside or suppress. If people get the idea that they might be able to live indefinitely, if it works, how is it going to be handled? Will everybody get a chance and if not, who’s going to choose? We’ve just started to stabilize our population, what’s this going to do to that? Do you really think people are ready for it?”
“What do you want us to do, Ike?” Hidey said quietly. “Forget about trying and condemn everyone to a certain death? Or do the work and then try to handle it somehow?”
“I’m saying,” Ike replied, “that you have to consider things in a context, as part of a system. You can’t go off in a hit-or-miss fashion. We must ask questions, I admit, but we must coordinate our findings. We have to give more thought to educating people about alternatives. We especially have to avoid imposing our own personal ideas about what’s right for everybody in the world. We won’t be able to control how our findings are used and I don’t suppose that we should, but we must give some thought to whether or not they’ll be truly beneficial in the end.”
“I guess everybody here’s been living with the moratorium too long,” Kira said. “We’re afraid. As long as we were under imposed limitations, we didn’t have to think about these issues.”
“It may not work,” Hidey said. “Not everything does, you know. You’re all used to having everything turn out as you expect it to. Replacing brain cells, for instance, may erase memories. We might end up with what Jonis would have us write down on an application, a treatment for diseased organs.”
“I doubt that any of us can decide anything,” Kurt said, “until we familiarize ourselves more with the literature on the subject. We must decide whether or not the project you propose is feasible, either in terms of the goal you propose or in terms of knowledge to be gained. If it is, we must then decide if we are willing to work on it. That is the time to consider our various objections. Personally, I feel that a consideration of societal consequences of any project before undertaking it will gain us nothing. We should then be doing for ourselves what the moratorium has been doing for us.”
“All right,” Bert said. “We’ll start reading.”
“I was going to suggest it anyway,” Hidey said. He reached for the folder in front of him and began to pass out a list. “We’ll meet again a week from now and see what we’ve come up with in the meantime
.”
The men picked up their lists and started to drift out of the room. Jonis stood up and grimaced at Hidey. “You know how to pick them, don’t you?” she said. “Nothing small or simple. Try for the jackpot.” She picked up her list and walked out.
“Jonis doesn’t sound too happy about it,” Hidey said.
“If we all decide to go ahead, she’ll go along,” Kira responded. “That’s the way she is.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know yet.” She looked down at the list. She felt unaccountably depressed suddenly and could not shake the feeling.
He took her hand. “We’ve got time. Why don’t you forget it for now? We can go to your house and have a quiet supper, relax a bit.”
“Are you going to be the subject of this experiment?” she heard herself ask savagely, and wished almost immediately that she had said nothing.
“Of course not.” He looked concerned. “Is that what you thought, that I simply wanted to benefit myself? Surely you know me better than that.”
“I’m sure such a desire has something to do with it,” she went on, and wondered why she could not let go. “No, I’m sorry,” she forced herself to say. “I didn’t mean it.”
“How can any of us be sure of our motives, Kira? We just have to do the best we can.” He released her hand and stood up. “Why don’t we go, you’re probably tired anyway.”
“I’ll meet you in your office in about ten minutes,” she said quickly. “I’ve just got a few things to do.” She tried to smile and then kissed him quickly as if attempting to make amends.
She hurried down the hall and then realized she could not go to her house with Hidey, not with Jim there. What could she say to Jim, and why hadn’t she told Hidey her brother was visiting?
She should go home alone, tell Hidey that Jim was visiting and that she wanted to talk to him his first night there. But she did not want to talk to Jim yet. She wanted to be with Hidey, wanted to lose herself for at least a while in lovemaking.
Why does everything seem to happen at once, she thought angrily as she entered her office. She put the list of readings under a metal paperweight decorated with a symbol of a double helix and contemplated the phone. They could go to Hidey’s place. She would call Jim and tell him she would not be home.
She sat down and punched out the number. The phone rang several times before Jim picked it up.
“Hello, how are you doing?”
“Are you going to be doing anything tonight, Jim?”
He yawned, stretching an arm over his head. “I’m going to be writing. I just got up. Carole wanted to know when you’d be home. She’s making supper tonight. I think she kind of wanted to do something special.”
“I just wondered. I don’t know if I’m going to be home tonight.”
“Carole’ll be disappointed. Maybe tomorrow would be better, though. She’s still tired from the trip.”
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Kira said. She had committed herself now. I hope I’ll be up to it. “It’ll be better, I don’t want to put Carole to any trouble if she’s still tired.” Kira was hoping she did not sound as guilty as she felt.
“Where’re you going?”
“Out with Jonis,” she lied. Jim shook his head. She should have learned by now it was difficult to keep a secret from the others.
“Come on, Kira, you don’t have to fool me. You’re probably seeing a guy. I don’t expect you to be celibate, you know. Carole and Ellie keep me pretty busy.”
She did not care for the offhand way he talked about the two young women, the hint of contempt. What do you expect? He doesn’t think that much of himself, not really. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
“Have a good time.”
They hurtled along the automated highway toward the city, Kira’s head on Hidey’s shoulder. “Where to?” Hidey asked. “Enzio’s, that barnlike place with real home cooking, or do you want to take a chance on my culinary expertise, or lack of it?”
“Anyplace,” she responded. She did not feel particularly hungry in spite of the fact that her stomach seemed to be flooding itself with acid.
“I feel like indulging myself, frankly,” he said. “I feel like a big antipasto and a bowl of spaghetti with hot sausage, even if the sausage is mostly soybeans. You know, old Enzio would have never used soy protein and he made his own pasta, but what can you do? No one knows how food tastes any more. I suspect young Enzio buys the sauces already made, his spaghetti caprice isn’t anything like his father’s was.”
Kira said nothing.
“Thinking about the meeting?”
“Jim’s back,” she said, finding her voice at last.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? Maybe you should have gone home, you probably want to talk with him.”
“I called him from my office, he said he would be busy. Anyway, I saw him this morning before I went to my class.” She was growing more nervous. What would Hidey say if he knew about her one-time relationship with Jim?
“You don’t sound particularly happy.”
“It isn’t that. You know how Jim feels about my work, about science in general. It’s hard to talk to him, I feel more like an adversary sometimes than a sister.” She stopped, feeling vaguely disloyal.
“I can understand that, in a way. He still isn’t reconciled to himself and he resents the processes that brought him into being. He’s extended the attitude to all sciences. Besides, his attitude is one thing that distinguishes him from the rest of you, so in a way it’s useful.” He paused to light a cigarette. “A lot of people resent being born, they unconsciously think of their parents as irresponsible or capricious, dragging them into existence without their consent. Sometimes that can result in sexual problems, but that could hardly be the case with Jim. He instead resents the science that…”
“I know all that,” Kira said with some irritation. Hidey was sounding as though he understood Jim better than she did. “I’ll see Jim tomorrow, I promised that. Maybe he…” She could not finish the unworded thought.
She would try to put Jim out of her mind at least for the night.
“How’s the book coming along?”
“I got a couple of pages done. I don’t know. It’s not going the way I thought it would.” Jim poured himself another glass of wine. “Maybe I just have to get used to new surroundings.”
Kira glanced across the table at Carole and caught her with an anxious look on her face which changed quickly into remoteness. “The food was delicious,” Kira said to her and was rewarded with a relieved smile. “Maybe,” she said, turning back to her brother, “you should be writing something else.”
“You haven’t even seen my manuscript.”
“I just thought there are a lot of things you could write about, that you have a unique perspective on.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Jim set down his glass. Carole and Ellie seemed to shrink slightly in their chairs, looking uneasily from Jim to Kira. She looked at the two empty wine bottles on the table and realized Jim had been drinking more than she had noticed.
Ellie leaned over and placed a hand on Jim’s arm. He shook it off. “You and my brothers, trying to act as though it doesn’t make any difference. You think it’s just something you can accept, like being born with green eyes, but it isn’t the same.”
“Fortunately most people don’t seem to share your attitude,” Kira said angrily. “If they did, I doubt the moratorium would have been repealed.” She suddenly wanted to hurt him. “Face it, Jim, you’re in a very small minority. Your attitudes are the ones people find foolish, not mine, not any more.”
“The only reason that business was repealed was because people want to get something out of it, they’re selfish and think they’ll gain something, they’re bored. They’ll see where it gets them.” He reached for one of the, wine bottles and saw that it was empty.
“Jim,” Ellie murmured. Carole began to clear dishes off the table. Her face had become an exp
ressionless mask.
“I have a theory; Kira. You. want to hear it?” He picked up the third wine bottle and refilled his glass.
“Go ahead.”
“I think something went wrong when they put us together. I think they made a mistake, I think they left something out of me.”
“You’re insane.”
“Or maybe they messed up Mike too, he’s mad enough in his own way. It’s possible.”
“Damn it, it isn’t,” she said loudly. “Don’t you think they would have noticed if something went wrong? They were monitoring things all the time; they found out right away about the one who died.” She realized that the incident of the sixth clone was hardly something she should mention at this time and hurried on quickly. “And even if something had gone wrong, they would have found out about it. A computer was monitoring us. They would have had a record of any mistake on the print-out. They would have found out about it then.”
“How do you know they didn’t?”
“What are you talking about?”
“How do you know they didn’t?” he repeated. Carole returned and quickly retreated again with more dishes. “Why should they tell us? It would only make things harder. Better to shut up and let us think we’re at least partly normal.”
The idea was ridiculous, but he made it sound plausible. No, she thought, trying to shake off doubts that were starting to dig in and take root. “No,” she said out loud.
“Do you think Takamura would have admitted a mistake after the mess he was already in? He would have shoved our dead sister down the incinerator and hidden that if he could, believe it.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she heard herself shout. “You’re trying to evade any responsibility for what you are and what you’ve done. You’d rather blame anything else, because it’s easier than thinking about how you feel and what you believe. If you examined it at all, you might see how stupid it all is and then you’d have to do something about it. You might even have to change your mind about certain things. You might have to do something hard, like thinking instead of just following your impulses.”
Cloned Lives Page 21