Robert Silverberg: To Live Again

Roditis said, “Kaufmann was a great man and a great banker. I don’t know which aspect of him I admire more.”

“For us his greatnesses were combined. He favored us with many donations and sometimes with his presence at our rites. Shall we pray?”

A couple of sandaled monks had slipped into the room. Roditis heard the soft chanting of the great mantra: “Om mani padme hum.” Beside him Noyes’ voice took it up. Roditis, too, unselfconsciously began to repeat the catch-phrase. They said it was the essence of all happiness, prosperity, and knowledge, and the great means of liberation. Om. The liberation they talked about was one Roditis did not seek: nirvana, oblivion. Mani. No one sought that, really, except possibly in places like India, where rebirth meant yet another breaking on the wheel of karma.

Padme. Hum. Om. Who wanted liberation from existence? First a man wanted nourishment, and then strength, and then power, and then long life. And then rebirth so he could savor the cycle once more. Om mani padme hum. Roditis participated in the chant but not in any wish that the chant be fulfilled, and he suspected that of those about him only Noyes might seriously feel otherwise. Om.

The religious interlude was over. It was time to talk business. His voice tougher, less ethereal now, the guru said, “I’m glad you took the trouble to visit us, Mr. Roditis. Some men a whole lot less important than you can’t be bothered to pay a personal call even on their own philanthropies.”

Roditis shrugged. “I’ve been curious about this place for a long time. And since I had to be in San Francisco anyway—”

“Was it a successful trip?”

“Very. We closed the contracts for the entire Telegraph Hill redevelopment. Five years from now there’ll be a hundred-story tower on top of that hill, the biggest thing that’s been put up anywhere since ’96. It’ll be the Pacific headquarters of Roditis Securities.”

“I look forward to blessing the site,” said the guru. “Naturally. Naturally.”

“In our humble way we have our own building program here, Mr. Roditis. Would you care to view our grounds?”

They stepped through an irising gate of burnished beryllium steel and entered a broad spade-shaped garden several hundred yards deep. The rear was planted in blue flowers, delphinium, lupine, convolvulus, several others of varying heights, surmounted by a massive wistaria whose tentacles reached in all directions. Cascades of flowers dangled from the many limbs of the wistaria. Closer by were humbler flowers, and it dawned slowly on Roditis that the entire garden was laid out in the shape of some vast mandala, circles within circles, an esoteric significance of the highest degree of solemn phoniness. The thought came from Kozak; Roditis himself had not perceived the pattern. Beyond the garden lay rocky, uncleared land sloping down the hillside.

“There is to be our refectory,” said the guru. “Here, the library. On the far side, overlooking the bridge, we anticipate building a guidance center for the uninformed.

“And just here to our left we will establish a soul bank.”

“Your own soul bank?”

“For storing the personae of the chapter members. Obviously we can’t allow our own people’s personae to be thrown into the general bank. We must remain in control of each incarnation. So we propose to establish a complete Scheffing-process installation here and carry out every stage of rebirth.”

“That’ll cost you a fortune!” Roditis said. “Exactly.” Noyes said, “When do you expect to build it?”

“Within the next several years. It depends on our receipt of funds, of course. We have the basic equipment for a pilot plant now. We’ve already had a fine contribution from the estate of Paul Kaufmann. And I understand his young nephew Mark is planning to match it.”

“Mark. Yes.” Roditis sucked his belly in sharply at the painful mention of his enemy. “He would. A very generous man, Mark Kaufmann.”

“A generous family,” said the guru. “Quite. Quite. They all recognize the obligation of the wealthy to repay the society that has treated them so well. As do I,” Roditis said a moment later. “As do I.”

Noyes looked pained. Roditis kicked pebbles at his ankle. A rich man does not need to be subtle, he told himself, except where subtlety pays.

They received the full tour. They were handed rare Tibetan manuscripts, prayer wheels, and associated sacred artifacts. They visited the young lamas in their chambers. They received samples of the lamasery’s publications, its painstaking theological substructure for the modern materialistic cult of rebirth. Noyes fidgeted, but Roditis calmly followed the guru about, asking questions, nodding in frequent response, showing utter concentration and complete patience. The shadows lengthened. Twilight was creeping across the continent. The guru made no request for a contribution; Roditis offered none. At the end, they were back in the guru’s own chamber for farewells.

“May you attain your heart’s desire,” said the guru, “whatever it may be. I’m right to assume that a man of your station has some unfulfilled desires, even now?”

Roditis laughed. “Many.”

“I have no doubt that some of them will be gratified shortly.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Roditis. “I’m grateful for your sparing us so much of your time today. The visit was fascinating.”

“Our pleasure,” said the guru. A youthful lama with a bony face took them to the room where they had left their clothing. They dressed and departed from the lamasery in silence. Noyes seemed to have a powerful headache. Probably good old Jim Kravchenko was hammering on the inside of Noyes’ skull again.

They got into the car. “In the morning,” said Roditis, “transfer a million dollars fissionable to their account.”

“That much?”

“Kaufmann gave them a million and then some, didn’t he? Can I afford to do less?”

“You’re not Kaufmann,” Noyes pointed out. “Not yet,” said Roditis.

Risa Kaufmann was sixteen years old: old enough for her first persona transplant. She had come of age, so far as the Scheffing process was concerned, three months earlier, in January. But that had been the time of old Paul’s death, and it was bad taste for her to bring up the matter of the transplant just then. Now things were quieter. The black armbands had gone into the drawer; the rabbis had stopped bothering them; family life had reverted to normal. Talk of transplants was very much in the air. Everybody in the family was worried about who was going to get old Paul. They didn’t speak about it much in front of her, because they still assumed she was a child, but she knew what was up. Her father was sizzling with fear that John Roditis would get Paul. That would be a funny one, Risa thought It would serve everybody right for being so rude to the little Greek. But of course Risa knew that her father would fight like a demon to keep Paul Kaufmann’s persona from finding its way into Roditis’ mind.

She giggled at the thought. Touching a shoulder stud, she caused her gown to drop away, and, naked, she stepped out on the terrace of the apartment.

A thousand feet below, traffic madly swirled and bustled. But up here on the ninety-fifth floor everything was serene. The April air was cool, fresh, pure. The slanting sunlight of midmorning glanced across her body. She stretched, extended her arms, sucked breath deep. The view down to the Street did not dizzy her even when she leaned far out. She wondered how some passerby would react if he stared up and saw the face and bare breasts of Risa Kaufmann hovering over the edge of a terrace. But no one ever did look up, and anyway they couldn’t see anything from down there. Nor was there any other building in the area tall enough so that she was visible from it. She could stand out here nude as much as she liked, in perfect privacy. She half hoped someone would see her, though. A passing copter pilot, cruising low, doing a loop-the-loop as he spied the slinky naked girl on the balcony.