Joe Haldeman - Forever Peace

"But not the half-billion deaths," Belda said. "It's academic to me, since I only plan on living a few more years. But it does seem a high price to ask."

Asher pushed the button for the waiter. "This didn't come off the top of your head, Marty. How long have you been thinking about it, twenty years?"

"Something like that," he admitted, and shrugged. "You don't really need the death of the universe. We've been on a slippery slope since Hiroshima. Since World War One, actually."

"A secret pacifist working for the military?" Belda said.

"Not secret. The army tolerates theoretical pacifism – look at Julian-so long as it doesn't interfere with work. Most of the generals I know would call themselves pacifists."

The waiter shambled in and took the order. When he left, I said, "Marty's got a point. It's not just the Jupiter Project. There are plenty of lines of research that could ultimately lead to the planet being sterilized, or destroyed. Even if the rest of the universe is unaffected."

"You're already jacked," Reza said, and finished his wine. "You don't get a vote."

"What about people like me?" Amelia said. "Who try to be jacked and fail? Maybe you can put us in a nice concentration camp, where we can't hurt anybody."

Asher laughed. "Come on, Blaze. This is just a thought experiment. Marty's not seriously proposing – "

Marty slapped the table with his palm. "Damn it, Asher! I've never been more serious in my life."

"Then you're crazy. It's never going to happen."

Marty turned to Amelia. "In the past, it's never been imperative that any one person be jacked. If it became an effort on the order of your Jupiter Project-the Manhattan Project-all the work that's been begging to be done would be done!" To Reza: "The same with your half-billion dead. This isn't something that would have to be implemented overnight. A lot of cautious, controlled research, refinement of techniques, and the casualty rate would dwindle, maybe to zero."

"Then to put it in the least kind terms," Asher said, "you're accusing the army of murder. Granted, that's what they're supposed to do, but it's supposed to be people on the other side." Marty looked quizzical. "I mean, if you have thought all along that jacking installation could be made safe, why hasn't the army held off on making new mechanics until it is safe?"

"It's not the army who's a murderer, you're saying. It's me. Researchers like me and Ray."

"Oh, don't get dramatic. I'm sure you've done your best. But I've always felt the human cost of the program was way too high."

"I agree," Marty said, "and it's not just the one-in-twelve installation casualties. Mechanics have an unacceptably high death rate from stroke and heart attack." He looked away from me. "And suicide, during their enlistment or after."

"The death rate for soldiers is high," I said. "That's not news. But it's part of the argument: get rid of soldiering as an occupation.

"Suppose we could develop a way that jacking was a hundred percent successful, with absolutely no casualties. There's still no way you could get everyone to do it. I can just see the Ngumi lining up to have their heads drilled by a bunch of Alliance demon-scientists! Hell, you couldn't even convert our own military. Once the generals found out what you were doing, you'd be history. You'd be compost!"

"Maybe so. Maybe so." The waiter was bringing our drinks. Marty looked at me and stroked his chin. "You feel up to jacking?"

"I suppose."

"Free at ten tomorrow?"

"Yeah, until two."

"Come by my place. I need your input."

"You guys are going to hook up together and change the world?" Amelia said. "Save the universe?"

Marty laughed. "That's not exactly what I had in mind." But it was, exactly.

JULIAN HAD TO BICYCLE a mile through much-needed rain to get to Marty's lab, so he didn't arrive in too festive a mood.

Marty found him a towel, and a lab coat against the airco chill. They sat on a couple of straight-back chairs by the test bed, which was literally two beds, equipped with full-face helmets. There was a nice view of the sodden campus, ten stories down.

"I gave my assistants the Saturday off," Marty said, "and routed all my incoming calls to my home office. We won't be disturbed."

"At doing what?" Julian said. "What do you have in mind?"

"I won't know for sure until we're linked. But I'd just as soon keep it between ourselves, for the time being." He pointed to the data console on the other side of the room. "If one of my assistants was here, she could patch in one-way and eavesdrop."

Julian got up and inspected the test bed. "Where's the interrupt button?"

"You don't need one. You want out, just think 'quit' and the link is broken." Julian looked doubtful. "It's new. I'm not surprised you haven't seen it before."

"Otherwise, you're in control."

"Nominally. I control the sensorium, but that's trivial for conversation. I'll change it to whatever you want."

"One-way?"

"We can start out one-way and go limited two-way, 'stream of conversation,' on mutual consent." As Julian knew, Marty couldn't jack deeply with anyone; he'd had the ability removed for security reasons. "Nothing like you and your platoon. We can't really read each other's minds. Just communicate more quickly and clearly."

"Okay." Julian hiked himself up on the bed and let out a long breath. "Let's get on with it." They both lay down and worked their necks into the soft collars, slipped the plastic sleeves off the water tubes and moved their heads around until the jacks clicked. Then the front half hinged shut over their faces.

An hour later the masks sighed open. Julian's face was slick with sweat.

Marty sat up, looking refreshed. "Am I wrong?" "I don't think so. But I'd better go to North Dakota anyhow."

"It's nice this time of year. Dry."

IT WASN'T RAINING WHEN I left Marty's lab, but that turned out to be temporary. I saw a squall line coming at me down the street, but was providentially right by the Student Center. I locked up the bike and got through the doors just as the storm hit.

There's a bright and noisy coffee place under the dome on the top of the building. That felt right. I'd spent too long cooped up in two skulls, contemplating skullduggery.

It was crowded for a Saturday, I guess because of the weather. It took me ten minutes to get through the line and negotiate a cup of coffee and a roll, and then there was no place to sit. But the inside of the dome had a ledge at the proper height for parking against.

I reviewed what I'd taken from Marty's brain:

The 10 percent casualty figure for jacking didn't tell the whole story. The raw figures were that 7.5 percent die, 2.3 percent are mentally disabled, 2.5 percent are slightly impaired, and 2 percent wind up like Amelia, unharmed but not jacked.

But the classified part is that more than half of the deaths are draftees who were slated to be mechanics, killed by the complexity of the soldierboy interface. Many of the others are due to undertrained surgeons and bad operating conditions in Mexico and Central America. On the large scale Marty was talking about, you wouldn't use human surgeons at all, except for oversight. Automated brain surgery, Jesus. But Marty claimed it was a couple of orders of magnitude simpler when you didn't have to wire into a soldierboy.

And even if it were ten percent death, the alternative is one hundred percent, chasing life all the way out to Hubble's Wall.

Still, how do you get normal people to do it? Civilians who do it fit pretty narrow profiles: empaths, thrill-seekers; the chronically lonely and the sexually ambiguous. A lot of people who are in Amelia's position: someone they love is jacked, and they want to be there.

The basic strategy is, first, you don't give it away. One thing we've learned from the Universal Welfare State is that people devalue things they don't pay for. It would cost a month of entertainment credits-but as a matter of fact, you'd be spending most of that month unconscious, anyhow.