by Ben Bova
Luke looked around the crowded little room. The two men of the helicopter crew were standing in the doorway, and a trio of tech sergeants, seated at their consoles, had swung their chairs around to watch their colonel and the civilians.
Luke explained. “I just wanted to get far enough away so I could put through a couple of phone calls.”
“Phone calls?”
Luke dug out his cell phone and brandished it in front of the colonel’s face as if it were a magic wand. “Yep. The news is out, Colonel. My work’s been published on the Internet.”
Dennis’s face went pale. “Ohmigod.”
* * *
DENNIS FLED TO his office while Tamara took Luke to the infirmary, with a pair of MPs and Hightower accompanying them. Luke saw Novack lying on one of the beds, asleep or unconscious. The other three beds in the minuscule sick bay were empty.
Tamara fussed over his hands, washing them thoroughly, then swabbing disinfectant over his cuts and bandaging them carefully.
“That’s the longest time we’ve ever held hands,” he said to her, grinning foolishly.
She gave him a tight-lipped look. “You could have killed yourself out there.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t.”
She led Luke to the examination table. He sat on its edge, and she helped him pull off his pants. Luke wanted to laugh, thinking this would be much more enjoyable if the MPs and Hightower weren’t watching.
“You must have a guardian angel watching over you,” she said as she cleaned the clotted blood from his thigh. “Another inch and your femoral artery would have been ripped open. You would’ve bled to death out there.”
Luke said nothing, but he thought that he did indeed have a guardian angel watching over him at this particular moment. An angel with green eyes.
With Tamara holding one arm and Hightower the other, Luke shuffled to the nearest empty bed and sank down on it.
“You must be tired,” she said.
“Yeah. I didn’t get much sleep out there.”
She bent over and kissed him lightly on the lips. He closed his eyes and, smiling, fell asleep.
* * *
WHEN LUKE AWOKE it was bright morning. Novack’s bed was empty, he saw. Nobody else was in sight.
Then Hightower pushed through the door, carrying a breakfast tray.
“You’re awake. Good.”
Luke pulled himself up to a sitting position as Hightower put the tray on the swinging table next to the bed.
“Colonel Dennis has been on the phone most of the night. Rossov is on his way here. So is Fisk.”
Jerking a thumb at the mussed bed, Luke asked, “Where’s Novack?”
“They took him to Spokane late last night.”
“How’d he get the concussion?”
Hightower swung the table in front of Luke. “He was bothering Dr. Minteer. He fell and hurt himself.”
“With a little help from you, huh?”
Smiling minimally, Hightower replied, “An FBI agent doesn’t rough up people. That’s against our rules, even if the little jerk is attacking a woman. He just fell and hurt himself.”
“If you say so.”
Luke looked down at the breakfast tray: cup of fruit, scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. Picking up the fork, he asked Hightower, “No breakfast for you?”
“I had mine two hours ago.”
Luke speared an apple slice just as the door opened again and a blur raced to his bedside. “Grandpa!” Angela said, reaching for him with both arms.
Luke hauled her up beside him and saw Lenore and Del at the door, both of them wreathed in smiles.
“Grandpa, we’re going home!” Angela cried happily. “Tomorrow!”
“That’s great,” he said, looking past the child to his daughter and her husband. “Wonderful.”
Hightower burst the bubble, though. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay until Rossov and Fisk decide what to do about you.”
Luke’s elation dimmed. “When will they be here?”
“Later this afternoon,” said Hightower. “They’re flying to Spokane on one of Fisk’s jets, and Colonel Dennis has arranged for a chopper to bring them here.”
Luke nodded. Shootout at high noon, he said to himself.
Then he realized that Hightower was smiling broadly.
“I’m glad you’re happy,” he said, absently hugging Angela.
“You should be, too,” said the FBI agent. “Whatever it was that you sent out on your phone last night, it’s gone viral on the Internet. Dennis has been talking to Army brass and White House people all morning. He’s sweating bullets. Probably lost five pounds already.”
Viral, Luke thought. Good. The word is out. Angela is fine. Everything’s fine. Well, almost everything.
Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way
“DO YOU REALIZE what you’ve done?” Rossov snarled.
Luke saw anger in the White House man’s face. Anger, tension—and fear.
They were sitting in Colonel Dennis’s office. The colonel sat entrenched behind his desk, looking very flustered. Quenton Fisk sat beside Rossov, quiet, cold, his expression unreadable.
Luke answered calmly. “What I’ve done is show the world that telomerase therapy can be used to kill cancerous tumors.”
“You signed a privacy agreement!” Fisk snapped.
“And you agreed to locking me up in this glorified prison. Sue me and I’ll countersue you.”
“The hell you will.”
“The hell I won’t!”
Shaking his head, Rossov said, “I don’t think you understand what you’ve let loose. Curing cancer. All sorts of people living past a hundred. It’s a disaster.”
“It’s a revolution,” said Luke. “What the hell are you so spooled up about? This is the best news the human race has had since … since Watson and Crick unraveled DNA.”
Rossov moaned. “Death rate going down. Lifetimes doubling. That’s a disaster, Abramson! A fucking disaster!”
Genuinely puzzled, Luke asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ve ruined Social Security. We’re already going broke with Medicare. And the whole insurance industry, too. You’ve wrecked the American economy.”
“Bullshit.”
Jabbing a finger at Luke, Rossov insisted, “The economy can’t survive having a nation full of centenarians! It’ll break the bank.”
Luke felt growing anger simmering inside him. These chowderheads don’t understand, he realized. They don’t understand anything at all.
He rose slowly to his feet. “You just don’t get it, do you? You can’t stop this. You can’t put a cork in scientific knowledge. What I’ve done is just the tip of the iceberg. We have the knowledge, the power, to transform the human race.”
“And ruin the country.”
“Change the country. Change the world.” Luke started to pace across the office, but his ankle flared and he sank back onto his chair. Still, he continued. “We’re going to be able to extend human life spans indefinitely, sooner or later. Prevent genetic diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s. Stem cell therapies will repair failing hearts, rebuild nerves and any other tissue that’s been damaged, regrow limbs that have been lost—”
“By killing fetuses,” Rossov growled.
Luke waved the thought away. “We don’t need fetal stem cells. We can take stem cells from your own body. Or regress skin cells to become stem cells.”
“I’ve read reports on that,” said Colonel Dennis.
Turning in his chair to face Rossov squarely, Luke said, “You think we’re going to have a country full of pathetic, creaking old geezers. Well, that’s wrong. Look at me! I’ll be seventy-five in a couple of months, but somatically—physically—I’m like a forty-year-old. And I’m going to stay this way for a long time.”
“That’s the fucking problem,” Rossov muttered. “Millions of people living to a hundred and more. My Christ.”
“It’s not a problem,” L
uke countered. “We’re entering a new era. The first transhuman beings are with us now. My granddaughter’s one of them. There are going to be plenty of others.”
Fisk said, “So what you’re telling us—”
“What I’m telling you,” Luke interrupted impatiently, “is that people will be healthy and vigorous all their lives. So they live to be a hundred and fifty, two hundred, so what? They won’t need Social Security or Medicare. They’ll be working, going back to school, starting new careers for themselves.”
Fisk’s eyes narrowed. “They’ll continue to be consumers.”
“Damned right,” said Luke. “They’ll continue to buy cars, homes, take vacations, overseas trips—”
“Have babies,” said the colonel.
“You just don’t understand,” Rossov repeated. “You think your transhumans are going to give up their Social Security benefits, their Medicare, their pensions just because they’re feeling spry and healthy? In your dreams! This is going to destroy the economy.”
“No,” Luke replied. “It’s going to change the economy. And you politicians are going to have to make some real changes to Social Security and Medicare and the rest.”
“Change them? That’s impossible. Political suicide.”
“Then we’re going to have to find political leaders who can make it possible.”
Rossov glared at him.
“Besides,” Luke went on, “this isn’t going to happen all at once. We’ve still got a lot of work to do. You won’t start to see any major effects for another five, ten years.”
“The President will be out of office by then,” Rossov mused. “Even if she wins a second term.”
Turning back to Fisk, Luke said, “You thought that by keeping me bottled up here you could prevent news of my work from getting out.”
“We wanted to control the situation,” Fisk admitted.
Shaking his head, Luke pointed out, “But I’m not the only one working in this area. Sure, I’m ahead of all the others, but sooner or later some bright researcher would hit on the same idea. You can’t control everybody. You can’t stop people from thinking, learning.”
Rossov muttered, “And you can’t drop a bombshell like this without dislocating the economy. We’re having a tough enough time keeping Social Security and Medicare properly funded. Now…” He sank his head into his hands.
“Now,” Luke took up, “you’re going to have to get those egomaniacs in Washington to do the jobs they were elected to do. You’ve got at least five years to do it, maybe ten. Instead of trying to stop this transformation, get to work and prepare for it.”
“You’ve never tried to work with the Congress,” Rossov moaned. “You’ve never tried to move the bureaucracy.”
Luke snapped, “Then get out of the way, buster, because the change is coming, whether you like it or not.”
Fisk broke into a tentative smile. “He’s right, Paul,” he said to Rossov. “You know, if you play your cards right, you and the President could come out of this smelling like roses.”
Rossov looked dubious, but Fisk went on grandly. “Transhumans. It’s exciting. People staying young, vigorous past a hundred. Active.”
“Buying your products,” Luke said.
Fisk tried to glare at him, but broke into a tentative smile instead. “You’re still under contract to me, you know.”
“Where does Marlo Gunnerson work?” Luke asked.
“In the Fisk Laboratories, in Cincinnati.”
Luke nodded. “That’s where I’ll go. I like Gunnerson. He and I could work well together.”
Fisk’s tentative smile widened into a happy grin.
“So you peddle your fountain of youth to the masses,” Rossov growled.
“That’s right,” said Fisk. “And you start getting the government ready for the changes that are coming.”
Rossov shook his head wearily.
“I’ll talk to the President about this,” Fisk said happily. “She’ll see the sense of it. It’ll win her that second term. And I’ll put in a good word for you while I’m at it. Deal?”
“What choice do I have?” Rossov said bleakly.
“No choice at all,” said Luke. “The change is coming. Either you take credit for it and try to lead the country or you’ll get rolled under by it.”
“It’s impossible,” Rossov muttered. “You have no idea how impossible it is.”
Luke shook his head at him. “Listen, pal, you either lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
Fisk nodded briskly. “Professor Abramson, how would you like to explain this prob—this opportunity to the President of the United States?”
* * *
THAT EVENING LUKE met Tamara, Angela, Lenore, and Del in the mess hall.
“We’re going home tomorrow,” Angela enthused. Lenore looked happier than Luke had seen her in a year or more. Even Del seemed relaxed, pleased.
Luke smiled back at them and said, “I’m going to the White House, to meet the President.”
“You are?” Lenore gasped.
Reaching for Tamara’s hand, Luke went on. “Yep. Rossov is setting it up. Him and Fisk.”
“Can I come?” Angela asked.
Laughing, Luke replied, “Sure, why not? All of us.”
“The President of the United States,” said Lenore. “I hear she’s very sweet.”
“She’s very smart. She knows which way the parade is heading, and she’s going to see to it that she’s at its front.”
* * *
ONCE DINNER WAS finished, Lenore and Del took Angela back to their quarters.
“We have to finish packing,” Lenore said, almost apologetically.
Luke took Tamara by the hand, and together they strolled along the quiet dark street, out toward the fence.
“You’re not thinking of going over it again, are you?” Tamara teased.
He chuckled softly. “Hell no. Once was enough.”
“You’ve changed the world, Luke.”
“With your help. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yes, you could have. And you would have. I just came along for the ride.”
He stopped and turned toward her. “Do you want to continue the ride?”
In the shadows between the lampposts Luke couldn’t make out the expression on her face. But he heard the uncertainty in her voice. “Do you want me to?”
He replied instantly. “I sure as hell do.”
She stepped closer to him and they kissed.
“Maybe we can get married in Washington. Get a Supreme Court justice to do the job.”
“You’re fantasizing!”
“Yeah, but not about a Supreme Court justice. My fantasies center on you, Tamara.”
And they kissed again.
But then Tamara said softly, “Luke, about your biopsy.”
“What about it?”
“You’ve got cancer. It’s early, but it’s definitely prostate cancer.”
He nodded. “I figured.” With a stubborn snort, he said, “We’ll have to do something about that.”
And, hand in hand, they headed back toward their quarters. And Washington. And a long life together.
Tor Books by Ben Bova
Able One
The Aftermath
As on a Darkling Plain
The Astral Mirror
Battle Station
The Best of the Nebulas
(editor)
Challenges
Colony
Cyberbooks
Escape Plus
The Green Trap
Gremlins Go Home
(with Gordon R. Dickson)
Jupiter
The Kinsman Saga
Leviathans of Jupiter
Mars Life
Mercury
The Multiple Man
Orion
Orion Among the Stars
Orion and King Arthur
Orion and the Conqueror
Orion in the Dying Time
O
ut of Sun
Peacekeepers
Power Play
Powersat
The Precipice
Privateers
Prometheans
The Rock Rats
Saturn
The Silent War
Star Peace: Assured Survival
The Starcrossed
Tale of the Grand Tour
Test of Fire
Titan
To Fear the Light
(with A. J. Austin)
To Save the Sun
(with A. J. Austin)
The Trikon Deception
(with Bill Pogue)
Triumph
Vengeance of Orion
Venus
Voyagers
Voyagers II: The Alien Within
Voyagers III: Star Brothers
The Return: Book IV of Voyagers
The Winds of Altair
About the Author
Ben Bova is a six-time winner of the Hugo Award, a former editor of Analog, former editorial director of Omni, and a past president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America. Bova is the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction. He lives in Florida.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
TRANSHUMAN
Copyright © 2014 by Ben Bova
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Base Art Co.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Date is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3293-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-6542-2 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781429965422
First Edition: April 2014