The Gentle Seduction (22 page)

"Among other things."

Max shrugged. "So, it'll be expensive." Steve looked at him with big, doubtful eyes. "Okay, it'll be
very
expensive. That's no sweat here in America, right? And we're the only ones likely to develop a robot that's that tiny anyway, anytime this century."

Steve rolled over and sat up. "Finally, smarty, even if your computer had the brains to figure out which were the good cells and which were bad, where would it get the education?"

Max snapped his fingers. "No sweat, man. That's where you come in. You biochem types teach it what it needs to know."

"I see. So there's a use for us biochem types after all." Steve mellowed at that admission. "Hmmmm. And haaaa. You know, that's not such a bad half-baked idea."

Max stood up; he was starting to get excited about the whole thing. "You know, I'll bet we could do it. The two of us." As he thought about it, his confidence grew. "They couldn't stop us!"

Steve stood up, too. "You might be right. We could do this after we get our bachelor's degrees, when we go to grad school. It could be sort of a combined dissertation for robotics and biochemistry." He nodded his head. "I like it. You know, we could cure more than just the common cold."

"That's right. Nobody'd ever have to get sick again. From anything."

Steve walked over to the bar. "We might even be able to cure old age—I don't know how, maybe by having the robots clean up the free radicals or something. It might be worth investigating, anyway."

Max coughed again. "Right.
After
we cure the common cold."

Steve poured two short glasses of Glen Livet. "Are we gonna do this half-baked thing?"

"Yes."

"Swear to it?"

"Yes."

They solemnly shook hands on the pact. "A toast, then," Steve said, taking a glass.

Max raised the other glass. "To our dissertation!"

"To our dissertation!"

"What you may not know is that only American technology and American financing can bring the cure from a laboratory experiment to a product that saves lives."

He raised the piece of paper that Congress had put through the legislative process in just three short weeks, desperately rushing to complete the bill before the Congress recessed today. It had been an extraordinary effort, a master thrust, for they knew that this was the only chance they would ever have of getting it past the president who had fought it for so long.

Max waved the paper for the cameras. "I hold here the largest single procurement bill in the history of Man. I hold the key to the creation of paradise, the salvation of millions of people." He brought the piece of paper down between clenched fists. "I hold here the slaughter of billions of innocent victims, and the extinction of life on Earth." His hands trembled briefly; he was committed now.

"Have you ever seen someone die of cancer? I have. It is not a pretty thing, to die slowly, painfully."

Max walked very softly into the room, the sound of his steps masked by the moaning and occasional thrashing of the gaunt woman lying on the bed. "Mom?" he started.

She moaned and turned his way. She opened her sleepless eyes, that lay sunken in pits of shadow. "Max." She held out her hand—and screamed. "Sorry," she whimpered.

The cancer was eating her alive. For a time the pain killers had been quite effective, and she lived a normal life, at least as normal a life as one could live in a hospital bed.

But now the cancer had invaded her spinal cord, slowly working its way to her brain. It was no longer the pain sensors in her body that screamed in dying agony, but rather the central nerves themselves. The pain killers could no longer kill the pain; dosages strong enough to kill the pain would kill her, too. Though perhaps that wasn't a bad idea.

He talked to her. He told her about his summer job, and his preparations to start college in the fall. She listened, and moaned, and changed positions, and screamed. She screamed when she lay still, and she screamed when she moved, no matter where she moved, for the cancer followed her to each new position.

Finally it was time to go. Max stood up uncertainly. "Ill be seeing ya, Mom." He started automatically to say "Keep smiling"—it was Max's way of saying farewell— but he choked it off.

His mother smiled at him—it was a hideous caricature of a smile, for the lines of pain stamped her face with indelible creases—but it was her best effort nevertheless. "Keep smiling," she said.

Max stood there in agony, seeing her pain. "You too," he blurted as he hurried out of the room.

He never told anyone to keep smiling again.

"Cancer is a hideous disease, more terrible than any other disease we have ever known." He looked down, then looked up again. His voice turned soft, and terrifying in its gentle pressure. "Have you ever seen a city die of radiation poisoning? It is not a pretty thing, to die slowly, painfully."

Max felt flustered as he considered the number of times he had tried to make people see that these two, death by disease and death by radiation, were related. God, how he wished he were Jason! His voice rose involuntarily; he couldn't control it.

"Can't you see what's wrong with saving millions of lives? Billions may die! Can't you see that we have too many people already trying to share this planet?"

"Politicians!" Max exploded. "What disgusting kinds of creatures. You say this guy is a
friend
of yours?"

"Come on." Tina tugged him down the sidewalk until they were by the gate of a low stone wall. Behind the wall elms drooped in the summer heat, though it was cooler now that the sun was sinking. "He's a neat person despite his occupation." Her eyes twinkled. "And he's sharp, too. I'll bet that before the evening's over, you'll have a different opinion."

"About a
politician
? Not hardly."

"You'll have a different opinion about something. I don't know what, but Jason always . . . People are always just a little bit different after talking to him."

"No doubt he uses mind drugs."

"What an excellent idea!" a voice from somewhere among the elms cried. "Mind drugs! Tell me, do you have any recommendations? I've always believed in softening people up first, particularly if they hate—" and now the voice changed to mimic Max's "—
politicians
."

Max peered into the shadows, and saw nothing until somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped around.

"Hi. I'm Jason. Jay to my friends, except when they're angry at me." A small, pale man with dark eyes and black hair offered his hand.

"I'm Max." They shook hands.

"Hi, Jay." Tina hugged him, and Max felt a twinge of jealously. Not that
he
had any right to be jealous. Tina was Steve's girl; at least she had been when Steve left for the summer. Though now, Max wasn't so sure. Whom did she love: Steve? Or Max? Max was uncomfortable with the question; he knew he wanted her himself, desperately; but Steve had met her first. In Max's code of ethics, she belonged to Steve.

Tina had him by the arm again. "Come on, dopey. Didn't you hear what he said?"

Max blinked.

"If we don't get inside soon, the bugs will climb out of the trees and eat us alive." She pulled him along.

They sat down at the kitchen table: a long, beautifully carved table steeped in the smells of food and the echoes of loud laughter and deep discussions. It was a place of home.

Max sat at the corner, with Jason at the head of the table next to him, leaning forward, his dark eyes alive with energy, somehow not conflicting with his soft smile. "So you don't like politicians."

"Well," Max suppressed a blush, then decided he might as well be honest, "not really. Not at all."

"Why?" His tone was sharp, though friendly.

Max shrugged. "Look at all the stupid things they do." He sat forward himself. "Like wars, and arms races, and burglary—"

"Burglary?"

"Yeah, stealing money from one person to give it to another—usually to give it to another bureaucrat."

"Like in the social safety net system."

"Yeah."

Jason nodded. "It's not an easy problem. Surely you can see that it's hard for a politician to fight Social Security—there are a lot of people who want it kept alive, no matter how much it costs, because it's benefitting them. And every year there are more people it benefits, and more voters who would hang anybody who tried to stop it."

"And there's fewer people to pay for it." Max had been furious that summer when he got his first pay check, to find that almost half his pay had been taken out before he even got it. "Everybody knows it'll destroy us eventually. Even the politicians. And they know that the longer they wait the harder it'll be to stop. If they were any good, they'd risk their jobs
now
, before it's too late."

Jason stroked his chin. "Ah. What you want isn't a politician. What you want is a statesman."

Max stared at him blankly.

"A politician is a man who can get voted into office. A statesman is somebody who, once into office, can make wise decisions. The two have very little in common."

"Then which one are you?" Max smiled wickedly.

Jason looked away from Max's face. "I'm not quite sure. Right now I'm running for the House. I suppose I'm a politician. " He looked back at Max, and his smile returned. "Of course, I plan to be a statesman once I get there."

"Ha! Not a chance." Max loved to be cynical, particularly when he was justified.

"That is unjustified cynicism," Jason countered, as if he were a mind reader. "Being expedient from time to time doesn't prove you're completely immoral all the time. Haven't you ever done something you knew was stupid, just to please your advisor, in effect buying his vote?"

"Well . . ." Dammit! Of course he had. But—

"Besides, there have been some who became statesmen, you know—or do you think Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln were men without principles, the way you seem to think all politicans are?" He raised an eyebrow. "Actually, there's no way you can tell whether I can do it until I've actually been tested. Or don't you believe in the experimental method?"

Max almost choked. "Of course I believe in it."

"Then how can you make such silly claims?" Jason's smile broadened. "Better yet, what are
you
doing that is so much more meaningful and worthwhile than what
I'm
doing?" His eyes picked up the laughter in his smile. "I hear you're supposed to be protecting the human race while it's growing up."

Max ran his hands down the arms of the chair. "Oh, not quite." His voice turned a bit smug. "I
am
working on saving millions of lives, which is almost as good. We might even achieve immortality."

"Oh, really? Are you sure that saving lives and making them immortal is the right thing to do for humanity right now?"

Max stared blankly at Jason yet again. "What do you mean?"

Jason seemed surprised by Max's incomprehension. "Isn't it obvious? There are eight billion people crowded together here already. You're talking about increasing the number of people, increasing the burden on the planet's resources, reducing the amount of resources per person." He slapped his hand palm up on the table. "Man, some of the people you'll be saving are going to burn gasoline that
you
could have burned, put smog in the air
you'll
have to breathe, and increase the price of the food
you
buy. For some people, it'll make the difference between buying enough, and not enough."

"Wait a minute."

"In fact, the group you'll have the most impact on is the older, more disease-prone part of the population— the ones using the safety net—the ones you were just moaning about. What'll it do to your taxes if they keep on living?" Jason shrugged his shoulders. "Course, you'll be rich and famous, after inventing the cure. It won't be a problem for you—you'll be a member of the rich, protected class. It'll just be a problem for people like me, who're trying to stop the problem."

Max found his jaw hanging open; slowly he closed it.

There was a science magazine lying to one side; Jason stretched for it, couldn't reach it. "Tina, could you get that for me?"

Tina retrieved the magazine for him.

"Thank you, my dear," Jason said. Again Max felt groundless jealousy.

Jason flicked rapidly through the pages. "What about the new cancers they just isolated—or rather, the ones they just recognized as being different?"

"Well be able to cure those, too, I'm pretty sure." Max was still dizzy from the rate at which the topic changed.

Jason stopped on a page. "There it is. 'Though they have the same symptoms as the usual cancers, like lung cancer and melanoma, these mutant II cancers have three distinctive features: they are much more prevalent in the post-industrial societies, even considering lifespan biases; they have a peculiar binodal distribution, striking primarily young adults ages eighteen to twenty-five, and people just past the midlife crisis, ages forty-five to fifty-five; and they have a 99.9% mortality rate, being virtually immune to traditional therapies." Jason looked up at Max. "This disease just might save the world."

"What?" Max felt dizzy. Where'd this guy come from? Where was his mind going?

"Don't you see? By wiping out people when they hit retirement age, we can reduce the strain on our society caused by retirement. Better yet, by killing off the ones just getting out of high school and college, when they're entering their best breeding years, we can reduce the overall population."

"We don't have to reduce the population. The population is going down anyway."

Jason waved the objection away breezily. "Just a temporary fad, with this new-woman identity. In five years the population will start zooming up again. I just hope it doesn't grow so fast that it makes up for all the slow-growth years instantly."

"You can't be serious."

"Sure I can. Don't you see the danger? As the population grows, so does the probability that someone will pull the trigger on a nuclear holocaust. To go around curing all the diseases—to say
nothing
of passing out immortality like candy—would be crazy. It's a simple case of suicide."