Time Enough for Love (38 page)

“Mutant Howards, Lazarus?”

The old man shrugged. “Isn’t that a question-begging term, dear? If you use a long enough time scale, every one of the thousands of genes a flesh-and-blood carries is a mutation. But by the Trustees’ rules, a person not derived from the Families’ genealogies can be registered as a newly discovered Howard if he can show proof of four grandparents surviving at least to one hundred. And that rule would have excluded
me
, had I not been born into the Families. But on top of that, the age I had reached when I got my
first
rejuvenation is too great to be accounted for by the Howard breeding experiment. They claim today that they have located in the twelfth chromosome pair a gene complex that determines longevity like winding a clock. If so, who wound
my
clock? Gilgamesh? ‘Mutation’ is never an explanation; it is simply a name for an observed fact.

“Perhaps some natural long-lifer, not necessarily a Howard, had visited Blessed—the naturals are forever moving around, changing their names, dyeing their hair; they have all gone through history—and earlier. But, Minerva, you recall from my life as a slave on Blessed one odd and unsavory incident—”

(Omitted)

“—so my best guess is that Llita and Joe were my own great-great-grandchildren.”

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Possibilities

“Lazarus, was that why you refused to share ‘Eros’ with her?”

“Eh? But, Minerva, dear, I didn’t reach that conclusion—or suspicion—that night. Oh, I admit to prejudice about sex with my descendants—you can take the boy out of the Bible Belt, but it is hard to take the Bible Belt out of the boy. Still, I had had a thousand years in which to learn better.”

“So?” said the computer. “Was it simply that you still classed her as an ephemeral? That troubles me, Lazarus. In my own—deprived—state, I find that, like her husband Joe, I see
her
side of it. Your reasons seem excuses, not sufficient grounds to refuse her need.”

“Minerva, I did not say I refused her.”

“Oh! Then I infer that you granted her this boon. I feel a lessening of tension.”

“I didn’t say
that
, either.”

“I find an implied contradiction, Lazarus.”

“Simply because there are things I have
not
said, dear. Everything I tell you winds up in my memoirs; that was the deal I made with Ira. Or I can tell you to erase something, in which case I might as well not have told you at all. Perhaps my twenty-three centuries do hold something worth recording. But I see no possible excuse for placing on record each time some darling lady shared with me simply for pleasure, not for progeny.”

The computer answered thoughtfully, “I imply from this addendum that, while I am precluded from inferring anything about the boon Llita requested, your rule with respect to ephemerals extended only to marriage and to progeny.”

“Nor did I say
that!
”

“Then I have not understood you, Lazarus. Conflict.”

The old man brooded, then answered slowly and sadly, “I think I said that marriage between a long-lived and a short-lived was a bad idea…and so it is…and I learned it the hard way. But that was long ago and far away—and when she died, part of me died. I stopped wanting to live forever.” He stopped.

The computer said brokenly, “Lazarus—Lazarus, my beloved friend!
I am sorry!
”

Lazarus Long sat up straight and said briskly, “No, dear. Don’t be sorry for me. No regrets—never any regrets. Nor would I change it if I could. Even if I had a time machine and could go back and change one cusp—I would not do so. No, not one instant, much less that cusp. Now let’s speak of something else.”

“Whatever you wish, dear friend.”

“All right. You keep coming back to me and Llita, Minerva, and seem bothered that I denied her this ‘boon.’ But you don’t know that I denied her anything and you certainly don’t know that it was a ‘boon.’ Can be, surely—but not always, and often sex is not. Trouble is that you don’t understand ‘Eros,’ dear, because you
can’t;
you aren’t built to understand it. I’m not running down sex; sex is swell, sex is wonderful. But if you put a holy aura around it—and that is what you are doing—sex stops being fun and starts being neurotic.

“Stipulating for argument that I ‘denied Llita this boon,’ it surely did not leave her sex starved. At worst I could possibly have miffed her a little. But she was not deprived. Llita was a hearty wench, and having to work too hard was the only thing that ever kept her off her back—or on top, or standing up, or kneeling, or swinging from the chandeliers—and I did make it possible for them to have more time for it. Joe and Llita were simple souls, uninhibited and uncorrupted, and of the four major interests of mankind—war, money, politics, and sex—they were interested only in sex and money. With some guidance from me they got plenty of both.

“Shucks, it can’t matter now to say that, after they learned contraception techniques—almost as perfect then as now, and which I taught them but had no reason to mention—they had no superstitions or taboos to keep them from branching out for fun, and their pair-bonding was so strong as not to be endangered thereby. They were innocent hedonists, and if Llita failed to trip one tired old spaceman, she did trip plenty of others. And so did Joe. They had fun—plus the deep happiness of as perfect a marriage as I have ever observed.”

“I am most pleased to hear it,” Minerva answered. “Very well, Lazarus, I withdraw my questions and refrain from speculations about Mrs. Long and that ‘tired old spaceman’—even though your statements show that you were neither tired, nor old, nor a spaceman at that time. You mentioned ‘four major interests of mankind’—but did not include science and art.”

“I didn’t leave them out through forgetting them, Minerva. Science and art are occupations of a very small minority—a small percentage even of those people who claim to be scientists or artists. But you know that; you were simply changing the subject.”

“Was I, Lazarus?”

“Pig whistle, dear. You know the parable of the Little Mermaid. Are you prepared to pay the price she paid? You can, you know.” He added, “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

The computer sighed. “I think the question is ‘may,’ not ‘can.’ A wheelbarrow has no rights. Nor do I.”

“You’re dodging, dear. ‘Rights’ is a fictional abstraction. No one has ‘rights,’ neither machines nor flesh-and-blood. Persons—both sorts!—have opportunities, not rights, which they use, or do not use. All you have going for you is that you are the strong right arm of the boss of this planet…plus the friendship of an old man who enjoys very special privileges for a most illogical reason but does not hesitate to take advantage of those privileges…plus, stored in your memories in Dora’s number-two hold, all the biological and genetic data of Secundus Howard Clinic—best such library in the Galaxy, possibly, and certainly best for human biology. But what I asked was:
Will you pay the price?
Having your mental processes slowed down at least a million to one; data storage reduced by some unknown—but large—factor; some chance—again I can’t say—of failure in achieving transmigration…and always the certainty of death as the ultimate outcome—death a machine need never know. You know that you can outlive the human race. Immortal.”

“I would not choose to outlive my makers, Lazarus.”

“So? You say that tonight, dear—but would you say it a million years from now? Minerva, my beloved friend—my only friend with whom I can be truthful—I feel certain that you have been toying with this idea ever since the Clinic’s files were made part of your memories. But, even with your speed of thought, I suspect that you do not have the experience—the flesh-and-blood experience—with which to think it through. If you choose to risk this, you
cannot
be both machine and flesh-and-blood. Oh, certainly we have mixes—machines with human brains, and flesh-and-blood bodies controlled by computers. But what you want is to be a woman. Right? True or false?”

“
Would that I were a woman, Lazarus!
”

“So I knew, dear. And we both know why. But—think about this!—even if you manage this risky change—and I don’t know what the risks are; I am just an old shipmaster, retired country doctor, obsolete engineer; you are the one with all the data my race has accumulated about such things—suppose you manage it…and find that Ira will not take you to wife?”

The computer hesitated a full millisecond. “Lazarus, if Ira refuses me—refuses me utterly; he need not
marry
me—would you then be as difficult with me as you seem to have been with Llita? Or would you teach me ‘Eros’?”

Lazarus looked astounded, then guffawed. “Touché! You ranged me, girl—you hulled me between wind and water! All right, dear, a solemn promise: If you do this…and Ira won’t bed you, I’ll take you to bed myself and do my best to wear you out! Or the other way around more likely; a male hardly ever outlasts a female. Okay, dear, I’m the second team—and I’ll stick around till we know the outcome.”

He chuckled. “My sweet, I am almost tempted to hope that Ira turns chicken—were it not you want him so badly. Let’s discuss practical aspects. Can you tell me what it will take?”

“Only in theory, Lazarus; my memories do not show that it has ever been attempted. But it would be similar to a total clone rejuvenation in which computer help is used to transfer the memories of the old brain into its blank twin in the clone body. In another way it resembles what I do when I move the ‘me’ here in the Palace into my new ‘me’ in Dora’s hold.”

“Minerva, I suspect that it is more difficult—and far more risky—than either one. Different time rates, dear. Machine to machine you do in a split second. But that total-clone job takes, I think, a minimum of two years—rush it, and you wind up with an old dead body and a new idiot. No?”

“There have been such cases, Lazarus. But not in the past two centuries.”

“Well…my opinion isn’t worth anything. You must discuss it with an expert—and it must be one you can trust. Ishtar, perhaps, although she may not be the expert you need.”

“Lazarus, there
is
no expert in this venture; it has never been done. Ishtar can be trusted; I have discussed it with her.”

“What does she say?”

“That she does not know whether it can be done or not—in practice, that is, with success on the first attempt. But she is deeply sympathetic—she is a woman!—and is thinking of ways to make it less hazardous. She says that it will require the finest of gene surgery, plus facilities for full-adult cloning.”

“I guess I missed something. Starting a clone doesn’t take a topflight gene surgeon; I’ve done it myself. Then, if you plant the clone in utero and get it to take, a host-mother will hand you a baby in nine months. Safer. Easier.”

“But, Lazarus,
I
can’t move me into a baby’s skull. No room!”

“Um. Yes. True.”

“Even with a full-size adult brain I will have to choose most carefully what to take and what to leave behind. Nor can I be a simple clone: I must be a composite.”

“Mmm—I’m not sharp tonight. No, you would not want to be Ishtar’s twin, for example, with your own personality and selected knowledge imprinted on what would have been her brain. Hm—Dear, may I offer you my twelfth chromosome pair?”

“
Lazarus!
”

“Don’t cry, girl; you’ll get your gears all rusty. I don’t know that there’s anything to the theory that reinforcement in a gene complex in that chromosome pair controls longevity. Even if it does, I might be handing you a run-down clock. You might be better off using Ira’s twelfth.”

“No. Nothing from Ira.”

“Do you expect to do this without his knowing it?” Lazarus then added thoughtfully, “Oh—Children, eh?”

The computer did not answer.

Lazarus said gently, “Should have known you meant to go whole hog. Then you won’t want to borrow from Hamadryad, either; she’s his daughter. Unless genetic charting shows that we can avoid any hazard. Mmm—Dear, you want as mixed a composite as can be managed, do you not? So that your clone will be a unique flesh-and-blood, not too closely copied from any other zygote. Twenty-three parents perhaps? Is that what you had in mind?”

“I think that would be best, Lazarus, since that could be done without separating paired chromosomes—simpler surgery and no possibility of introducing an unexpected reinforcement. If it were possible to find twenty-three—satisfactory—donors who were willing.”

“Who said they had to be willing? We’ll steal ’em, dear. Nobody owns his genes; he’s merely their custodian. They are passed to him willy-nilly in the meiotic dance; he passes them along to others through the same blind chances. There must be many thousands of tissue cultures over at the Clinic, each with many thousands of cells—so who’s to know or care if we borrow one cell from each of twenty-three cultures?—if we’re slick about it. Don’t fret about ethics; it’s like stealing twenty-three grains of sand from a large beach.

“I don’t give a hoot about the Clinic’s rules; I suspect that we’ll be hip-deep in proscribed techniques all through this. Hmm—Those Clinic records you’ve stored in Dora: Do they include genetic charting of tissue cultures on hand? Case histories of their donor-consigners?”

“Yes, Lazarus. Although personal records are confidential.”

“Who cares? Ishtar said you could study both ‘confidential’ and ‘secret’—as long as you kept it to yourself. So pick the twenty-three parents you want—while I worry about how to steal them. Stealing is more in my line, anyhow. I don’t know what criteria you will use, but I offer one mild suggestion: If the selection you have to choose from permits it, each of your parents should be healthy in all respects and as brainy as possible—by their established records in life as shown by their case histories, not alone by their genetic charts.” Lazarus thought about it. “That mythical time machine I mentioned earlier would be a convenience. I would like to look over all twenty-three after you pick them—and some of them may be dead. The donors I mean, not the tissue cultures.”

“Lazarus, if other characteristics are satisfactory, is there any reason not to select as well for physical appearance?”