James Halperin - The First Immortal

“Mom…” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “You suppose you’ll ever want to clone Dad?” Alice must have been anticipating that question from him for years, yet she’d never broached the subject.

“Not yet,” she answered. “Maybe someday, or maybe never. In a way, I’m still mourning Alice Smith.”

“But to us, you are Alice Smith.”

“No, Ben, I’m not. Maybe I’ve replaced her in your heart, and I’m very grateful to be here with you. And I’m thrilled to be alive. But she’ll never know that. Whatever I do here, in this world, has no effect on her. The original Alice Smith is dead, forever without consciousness. Sometimes I feel remorse for that, even though I know full well there’s nothing any of us could ever do to bring her back. I never met her, but I do know her, since I’m much like her. I mourn her death as if she were my twin. After all, I’ve usurped her place in the world. I rarely stop thinking about her.”

“Maybe cloning Dad would help somehow,” Ben suggested, unabashed by the self-serving potential of his words.

“Or maybe I’d feel guilt-ridden, seizing her life’s last possession like that. I just don’t know yet. They implanted a lot of knowledge in my brain, but as far as actual experience, I’m only nine years old, much too young to know what I want from life.”

This was true, Ben knew. An education could be acquired almost instantaneously now, but insight and wisdom required attention; still took time and effort.

He gazed at this pretty young woman who was both his mother and yet not, and for once the hint of uneasiness he usually suppressed in her presence did not trouble him. The smile he offered her contained only love and respect.

“To me, you seem wise as the ages,” he said, and meant it.

February 14, 2096

—Photographic evidence from the newly deployed Hubble-Sagan-IV telescope gathered in the apogee of its Jupiter/Neptune orbit strongly suggests the massive planet orbiting “solar twin” star 16 Cygni B in the Cygnus tristar system supports wide grassland areas at the poles. The planet, informally named Cochran-A for its co-discoverer, travels an unusual orbit. However, its hyperseasonal conditions (approximately 170 °F in summer; minus 140 °F in winter) appear minimized in the polar regions, where green-colored areas of significant proportion expand and contract within parameters of established seasonal vegetation effects. WASA AIs rate intricate life forms as a 21.55% probability, the 83rd highest odds of any planet thus far discovered.—Separately, scientists aboard Ceres XII, outside Saturn’s orbit, discover concrete evidence that a “pygmy” black hole crossed the Oort Cloud at the outer extremities of our own solar system sometime in the distant past. Tentatively dubbed Nemesis , the class-2 type-C gravitational singularity appears to track a hugely elliptical orbit around our sun, passing through the Oort Cloud of comets every 60 to 70 million years. Because the singularity is tiny by celestial standards, possibly of terrestrial mass and thus the size of a marble, and is by definition lightless, had it not passed through the Cloud, astronomers would consider its detection even by today’s technologies a miracle of chance.

Margaret heard another beep emanate from her wristband. She glanced quickly at twelve-year-old Devon MacLane’s elaborate 3-D Valentine’s Day card as it appeared on the smaller of her two deskscreens, then resumed her studies on the larger one. It was flattering, as always, when boys in her school—so many of them—went to such trouble, and she resolved to acknowledge his attention in the nicest way possible without giving him the wrong idea. She did like him as a friend, but kept no room in her heart for more than friendship with any child from her own generation. Even at age eleven, Margaret knew.

Was it his voice? Or his smile? Or maybe just the way he regarded the world: with logic yet also with optimism. No matter the reason, someday soon enough, she would become Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Smith, just like the Margaret Callahan Smith she’d been cloned from. Only this time it would be forever.

That afternoon, as she walked from school toward the subway access, Margaret saw Ben waiting for her, holding a bouquet. She ran to hug him.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said. “Cultured orchids. Should last till next Valentine’s Day if you keep ‘em in 3CLd solution. How was school today?”

“Good.”

“Get a lot of lovenotes?”

“Sixty-two,” she answered, “but who’s counting?”

Ben laughed.

“I tell them I’m already spoken for, you know.”

“You have plenty of time to decide about that,” he said, wondering whether it was really such a good idea for Margaret to take herself off the market so young, then shuddering at the very language his mind used to grapple with the issue. Besides, he’d long ago sensed Gary’s discomfort with their mutual expectation of marriage. It was the sort of discomfort that could easily flash into rage.

Not only that, he was starting to have second thoughts himself.

An image danced through his mind of Humbert Humbert, the old lecher hanging around the schoolyard with flowers for his Lolita. No! God! It was nothing like that! But maybe such a marriage, even when she’d gained the maturity to make the choice, wasn’t so wise, especially if Gary was against it. No sense adding more strain to their uneasiness.

“There’s a whole world out there,” he added. “Years left to decide. Keep your options open.” But it felt like he was lying.

“I don’t want to,” she said. “I’m saving myself.”

Feeling inexplicably relieved, Ben kissed her cheek. “I won’t hold you to that.”

Margaret wondered when Ben would really start kissing her, but decided she’d better not suggest it. Not directly, anyway. “Ben,” she said as they boarded the pneumatic commuter car, “tell me about your wife. Why did you love her?”

“Hard to know. Many different reasons. She was beautiful, of course…”

“Like me?” Margaret asked, batting her eyelashes.

Ben laughed. “Just like you. And not only intelligent, but also wise and compassionate and dependable…”

“Also like me.” This time she batted her eyelashes furiously, and moved her face closer to his.

But Ben wouldn’t bite. “Yes.”

“So, how am I different from her?”

“Well, she grew up in a different time, with different realities and concerns.”

“So did you.”

“Sure. Marge and I shared a period of history together. We lived through the Second World War, the nuclear age, the assassination of President Kennedy, the first time men set foot on the moon, and the Needless Extinction—”

Time! Time! Time! Ben thought. Margaret looked and acted so much like Marge, he sometimes let himself forget there was no shared history. How could they be right for each other without it? What had he been thinking?

“The Needless Extinction?” Margaret interrupted. “What’s that?”

“It’s what historians call those last decades from 1975 to 2015, when hardly any of us were suspended even though we knew how to do it.”

Margaret said nothing, just patted his hand.

“Nothing sadder. A hundred times worse than any war. Virtually everyone died before reaching a hundred years. And it didn’t have to happen. Absolutely pointless…” He ran out of words but let himself bask in the child’s touch.

“My history AI calls it the Lemming Generation,” Margaret said.

“Not a very flattering label for us, but it fits, I guess.”

“What happened to people when they died back then?” “Usually we were embalmed and buried in the ground. Or sometimes cremated, burned until there was nothing left but ashes.”