The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (4 page)

‘Perfusion?’

‘The pump was hidden in his turban headdress. It carried enough liquid oxygen to protect the brain during the ceremonial execution. The Vascular Team had worked all night in his death cell. An airway tube was placed low on his chest, and diaphragmatic electrodes kept the detached body breathing on its own. I’ve reviewed the optic playbacks. A very smooth ceremony – only no blood.’

Larry tried to imagine how it felt to be surgically beheaded the night before your execution – and by your friends! Only the spinal cord remained intact until the blade fell.

‘But his cord was cut, just like mine . . .’

‘Yes, but his followers purchased a new blade for the occasion, one free from HAA so there would be no danger of picking up a liver-damaging virus from one of the previously executed. The cut was very clean.’

‘Executed by a blade purchased by his own men?’

‘Yes.’

‘But how did they avoid the CNS scarring in his spinal cord? My lower torso was viable and the surgical site did not get infected. But the regenerating nerve fibres could not get past the scar.’

‘His team used CNS Sealer, fast-setting emulsification of embryonic brain cells that heals the wound three times faster than normal scarring. The Sealer is from embryonic carbon copies grown from human ova after your nuclear material is added. The ova have their own nuclei removed so that the only genes present are yours. The only antigens present are yours – no transplant rejection.’

Larry shuddered. ‘Embryos?’

‘The CNS Sealer has extracts of pituitary and thyroid so it matures – sets – before the usual wound scar forms. Embryonic maturation rather than gliosis.’

‘Well . . .’ muttered Larry. ‘I suppose it is the only way. Sounds simple enough. Let’s get back to the mausoleum and check on my lower torso. I want to make certain it survived Suspension OK. My vital organs, you know.’

Jen-W
⁵
-Dever shook her head. ‘No. Your lower torso was not suspended. It wouldn’t have been suitable, anyway. Too much tissue was lost in the crush and surgical attempts. The skin and muscle were already degenerating from neural loss. Inflammation and fibrosis were too extensive.’

‘But where will we find a . . . ?’

‘Now you mustn’t be concerned about that. Clinics supply us with the transplant organs we need. Your torso has already been ordered, years ago, with tissue antigens that match perfectly.’

‘Like the glial glue – the CNS Sealer?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Amazing.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘The graft will be done high in your thoracic cord. You’ll keep your diaphragm and its phrenic nerves, but all your abdominal viscera will come from the CC donor – strong, young organs from a ten-year-old.’

Larry felt weak. ‘A ten-year-old what?’

‘Donor. Grown from your nuclear material. A Carbon Copy.’

‘A live human?’

Jen noticed his agitation. ‘I’m sorry, Larry. But I keep forgetting you’re from an era before budding. Your bud child is not considered a human being – just a donor. Business ethics require that a donor live only long enough to donate. Of course, if the donor is viable after the organs are taken, that is a different problem. But there is no question of viability in your donor’s case. The anastomosis will be too high.’

Larry slumped into his mannequin.

‘My bud child is to die?’

Jen didn’t answer. She was hoping that the mannequin would administer a tranquillizer. Larry’s vasomotors were too strong so soon after his rewarming; his blood pressure fluctuated wildly.

‘I don’t think I can go through with it,’ moaned Larry. ‘Isn’t there some other way?’

She patted his slumped shoulder. ‘We’ll see. Let’s have a talk with Ira-M17. OLGA wants you to be happy.’

The greying Project Director listened patiently and then took them to the wing of the Clinics near the playground.

‘I understand your concern, Larry, but there is no need. The donor is just that – a donor. It has had no real contact with humans, so it probably doesn’t even know what it is. The attendants do not speak when they service the grounds, so it has no vocal skills.’

They watched through the one-way. A half-acre enclosure contained a dozen fruit trees, a fodder-feeder, and four fat goats – bucks. A teardrop-shaped wicker nest hung from a pin in the high wall surrounding the little garden. A few dried strips of partially eaten fibre protein dangled above the nest.

‘We use the area for fattening meat animals,’ explained Ira. ‘It gives the donor a little company. Let me turn up the audio.’

Bleats and clucks filled the observation room. Larry glanced around the feed-lot playground – puzzled.

Ira grinned. ‘We have no fowl right now. There usually are a few. That’s where the donor picked up the “chicken talk”. He competes with the birds for his food.’

Goats gambolled, butted playfully, and nibbled on grass, leaves, and bark. Occasionally one would nudge the bottom of the nest.

‘Where is he?’

‘Napping in the wicker basket. Like the animals, he likes his midday rest. Here comes his feeder. He’ll come out.’

The attendant carried a heavy bushel to the nest and placed items on a nearby shelf: coarse dark breadloaf, wet raw vegetables, and wrinkled dry fruit. The goats crowded their knobbly heads into the feeder as he dumped in the variegated, damp, brown grain. ‘Buck, buck, buck,’ he called. Larry watched the naked figure emerge from the nest – same shock of yellow hair, same angular cheekbones – a Carbon Copy of himself.

‘That’s me!’

‘Just your donor,’ Jen reminded him. ‘Same genes and antigens, but no human traits – no culture, no speech. Listen to those sounds it makes – buckbuckbuck – hardly intelligent.’

‘I just can’t think that way.’

‘Times have changed, Larry,’ said Ira. ‘You will have to adjust. OLGA has ordered you repaired. We have our mission to Procyon. Your genes are scheduled in the Implant.’

Jen took Larry’s hand and led him down the hall. ‘We all were counting on you. We’ve been working with your CC donor for over ten years. It would be a shame to waste all that effort.’

Larry blinked back a tear. ‘I tried. I really tried to think of him as a project for a few moments back there. I know you have grown up with the idea, so you accept it. But I can’t accept that.’

‘But the Implant Starship?’

‘Let OLGA take the donor. He has all my precious genes.’

‘And you?’

‘I’ll return to Suspension. Time will bring a new solution – one that doesn’t require the loss of a life . . .’

OLGA’s voice was more feminine than Larry had expected. She explained again her logic in repairing Larry for the Implant. He just shook his head slowly as she spoke. ‘I do not want to force you,’ said the cybervoice over the screen. ‘I see by your Bioelectricals that you are truly concerned for your donor. If at some future date you adjust to the repair techniques, we can give you a complete body then.’

Jen-W
⁵
grinned and tugged his elbow. ‘Come with us in your mannequin. An Implant Starship can be fun. A new planet – starting a human colony . . .’

‘Would there be research to find a new way of repairing me?’

OLGA was silent for a moment. The screen flitted from chart to chart. ‘My probes indicate that the Procyon System may be quite hospitable – perhaps under three point zero on the Determan scale. However, the Implant may well be on a level between Upper Stone Age and Early Rural for some generations. No, I don’t think there is any likelihood of a break-through in your lifetime.’

Larry shrugged. ‘Well, I might as well stay here and wait. Bio is still operating on a good budget, isn’t it?’

‘The highest, but my intuition tells me it will be a long wait.’ Larry set his chin. ‘It’s what I want.’

‘Fine. You are very important to me. You may use what time Ira has before shipping out to make tapes for your donor. Your genes will be making the trip. Let’s see if we can capture some of your personality, too.’

Larry nodded. OLGA signed off. He gazed blindly at the blank screen. The decision to remain on Earth was another gamble for a complete body. After all, the new planet would probably be no more interesting than Earth with a few bizarre molecules – new life forms, maybe – a stimulating challenge. Well, he had all the challenge he needed right here – trying for a new body. Earth was where the research was. He’d stay home.

Ira and OLGA monitored the donor’s progress with the teaching machines. Language skills were slow in coming.

‘I can see why Larry calls the donor “Dim Dever”. He certainly is slow,’ commented Ira.

‘Slow with attendants,’ said OLGA. ‘He is making pretty good progress with machines. My terminals have been eaves-dropping on him for so long that I think we already have a common language. All that needs to be done is to give him the human speech equivalents.’

Ira nodded. ‘Too bad we couldn’t have talked Larry into the transplant. Why didn’t we foresee his “father fixation” and avoid exposing the details to him until after the operation?’

OLGA flickered amber. ‘No. His autonomics told me how brittle he was. Deceit could have ruined his value as an Implant specimen. Unfortunately, if he had discovered that he had benefited from the death of his own bud child it might have wiped away his self-esteem. Without that he would be worthless for Implanting.’

Dim Dever climbed out of his teardrop nest and patted the goat on the head.

‘Nice goat,’ said the meck voice.

‘Nice goat,’ repeated Dim. It would be a long time before his vocabulary allowed for philosophizing, but he’d be ready to enter a sheltered society soon.

Ira shook his head. ‘I can see why Larry hesitated to kill this donor. He’s so bright-eyed and alert. Isn’t there some way to dull a donor’s mind so we won’t identify with them?’

‘No, not really,’ said OLGA. ‘A dull-witted donor would need more attendant time – more expense. Dim Dever was able to feed and care for himself pretty much as one of these goats. And you wouldn’t want a lot of drugs in your donor – foreign molecules that might damage or weaken the very organs you are after.’

‘I suppose not,’ mumbled Ira. Every method has its drawbacks.

Larry turned on his refresher and grasped a ceiling rung of his horizontal ladder. The mannequin walked away slowly, pulling flexible tubing out of his various surgical stoma. Sucking sounds. Drops of urine and faeces soiled the meck’s breast-plates with yellow and granular brown. Larry progressed across the monkey bars to the hot shower, where he emptied his visceral sacs down the drain. Hooking his arms through soft trapeze rings, he pulled on a pair of goggles and activated the strong ultra-violet lights. Scented lather softened his flaking trunk. Wearing a terrycloth body stocking, he climbed into his hammock. More UVs focused on him as he slept.

The mannequin stood beside his bed for a while, then strolled down the hall to make records of Dim Dever’s last few hours on Earth. The last shuttle would be leaving in the morning. OLGA had built the Implant Starship in one of her mile-wide bays among the planetoids. The last of the Earth biota was now being loaded – the Dever clan.

‘My goodness!’ exclaimed Ira. ‘You certainly gave me a start.

For a minute there I thought I was looking at a headless Larry.’

‘I apologize, sir. But I thought I should store a few optics of Dim for Larry’s nostalgia file.’

Ira studied the headless and armless robot for a moment. ‘Pardon me for asking, but where are your eyes – er – optics?’

The mannequin blinked a variety of chalcogenide glasses – reverse photon. ‘My eyes are everywhere, from my toes to my shoulder spangles. But I suppose you would consider these large belt-buckle optics my true eyes.’

Ira walked around in front of the robot. He nodded. ‘Yes. But why didn’t you look at me when you spoke?’

‘I was recording your presence with a variety of sensors, sufficient for our conversation. Your size, temperature, pulse, respiration and I suppose your emotional state. Why do you worry this night?’

Ira hesitated to answer, but remembering that this meck was Larry’s legs, he shrugged. ‘You might as well add this to your nostalgia file. I’m a little worried about the Implant. The information we have on Procyon is not too detailed. A planet exists near that sun, and it has some Earth features – size, temperature, atmosphere with oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water. But there are still many blanks in our knowledge about the place. Sure, we are taking a good cross-section of Earth life forms, from every conceivable area of our globe. If anything from here can survive there, we’ll have it with us. But there are so many things that could go wrong.’

‘It is a gamble,’ agreed the mannequin. ‘Any Implant is bound to be. But remaining on Earth is a gamble too – especially in Temporary Suspension. Larry has a future Earth Society to face, while Dim Dever has a distant unexplored ecosystem. OLGA will use knowledge from other Implants to design yours. There is a very good chance you will succeed.’

Ira grinned. ‘Mannequin, those are OLGA’s very words. You must be sharing again.’

‘Your servant,’ apologized the meck.

Ira and the headless robot strolled to the windows overlooking the feed-lot playground. Dim was standing out among his trees patting a goat on the head. Ira looked up at the stars. There, near Orion’s familiar outline, was Procyon, equal to Betelgeuse in brightness. ‘It looks so close.’

‘Send us a message torpedo when you get there,’ said the mannequin, leaving the human with his thoughts.

Morning found Larry standing in his mannequin with the crowd watching the shuttle lift off. He was well rested, but insecure about his future. He checked out of his quarters with the rest of the Procyon Implant Team. Ira and Jen had tried one last time to entice him along. He declined, more a reflex based on his previous decision than a new effort at thinking it out. After they departed he looked around at the sea of faces – strangers. He realized that he knew no one on the entire Earth.

‘It’s going to be lonely without the Dever Clan,’ he said.

The ship disappeared into a cloud layer.

‘You still have me,’ said his mannequin carefully, ‘. . . and OLGA’s priority rating, credits for travel, education, good food. We can make lots of new friends.’