Robert Sawyer - The Terminal Experiment

Even though chimps were no longer captured for labs, zoos, or circuses, some were still living in human-operated facilities. The United Kingdom, Canada, the U.S., Tanzania, and Burundi jointly funded a chimpanzee retirement home in Glasgow — of all places — for chimps that couldn’t be returned to the wild. Peter phoned the sanctuary, to find out if any of the chimps there were near death. According to the director, Brenda MacTavish, several were in their fifties, which was old age for a chimp, but none were terminal. Still, Peter arranged to have some scanning equipment shipped to her.

“And so,” Peter said to Sarkar during their weekly dinner at Sonny Gotlieb’s, “I think I’m ready to go public now. Oh, and my marketing people have come up with a name for the superEEG: they’re calling it a SoulDetector.”

“Oh, please!” said Sarkar.

Peter grinned. “Hey, I always leave those decisions up to Joginder and his people. Anyway, the SoulDetector patents are in place, we’ve got a backlog of almost two hundred units ready for shipment, I’ve got three good recordings of the soulwave leaving human beings, I know that at least some animals don’t have souls, and I’ll hopefully soon have the data on chimps, as well.”

Sarkar spread lox on a bagel half. “You’re still missing one important piece of information.”

“Oh?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t thought of the question yourself, Peter.”

“What question?”

“The flip side of your original inquiry: you know now when the soul leaves the body. But when does the soul arrive?”

Peter’s jaw went slack. “You mean — you mean in a fetus?”

“Precisely.”

“Holy shit,” said Peter. “I — I could get in a lot of trouble asking that question.”

“Perhaps,” said Sarkar. “But as soon as you go public, someone will ask it.”

“The controversy will be incredible.”

Sarkar nodded. “Indeed. But I’m surprised it hadn’t occurred to you.”

Peter looked away. He’d been suppressing it, no doubt. An old wound, long since healed. Or so he’d thought.

Damn, thought Peter. God damn.

It had happened thirteen years ago, during their first year of marriage. Peter remembered it all vividly.

October 31, 1998. Even back then, they didn’t eat at home often. But they’d always thought it rude to go out on Halloween — someone should be in to give treats to the kids.

Cathy made fettuccine Alfredo while Peter put together a Caesar salad with real bacon bits crisped in the microwave, and they collaborated on making a cake for dessert. They had fun cooking together, and the tight confines of the tiny kitchen they’d had back then made for plenty of enjoyable contact as they squeezed past each other, jockeying for access to the kitchen’s various cupboards and appliances. Cathy had ended up with flour stains in the shapes of Peter’s handprints on each of her breasts, while Peter had her handprints on his bum.

But after they’d finished eating the salads and had made a good start on the pasta, Cathy had said, without preamble, “I’m pregnant.”

Peter had put his fork down and looked at her. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“That’s — ” He knew he should say “That’s wonderful,” but he was unable to get the second word out. Instead, he settled for “interesting.”

She chilled visibly. “Interesting?”

“Well, I mean, it’s unexpected, that’s all.” A pause. “Weren’t you — ” Another pause. “Damn.”

“I think it was that weekend at my parents’ cottage,” she said. “Remember? You’d forgotten to—”

“I remember,” said Peter, a slight edge in his voice.

“You said you’d have a vasectomy when you turned thirty,” Cathy said, a tad defensively. “You said if by then we still didn’t want to have kids, you’d do it.”

“Well, I wasn’t bloody well going to do it on my birthday. I’m still thirty. And, besides, we were still discussing whether to have a child.”

“Then why are you angry?” asked Cathy.

“I — I’m not.” He smiled. “Really, darling, I’m not. It’s just a surprise, that’s all.” He paused. “So, if it was that weekend, you’re what? Six weeks along?”

She nodded. “I missed my period, so I bought one of those kits.”

“I see,” said Peter.

“You don’t want the baby,” she said.

“I didn’t say that. I don’t know what I want.”

At that point, the doorbell rang. Peter got up to answer it.

Trick or treat, he thought. Trick or treat.

Peter and Cathy had waited another three weeks, weighing their options, their lifestyle, their dreams. Finally, though, they made their decision.

The abortion clinic on College Street had been in an old two-story brownstone. On its left had been a greasy spoon called Joes — no apostrophe — that advertised a breakfast special with two “egg’s” any way you like them. On its right had been an appliance store with a hand-lettered sign in the window that said, “We do repairs.”

And in front of the clinic there had been protesters, marching up and down the sidewalk, carrying placards.

Abortion is murder , said one.

Sinner, repent , said another.

Baby’s have rights too , said a third, perhaps produced by Joe’s sign maker. A bored-looking police officer was leaning against the brownstone’s wall, making sure the protesters didn’t get out of hand.

Peter and Cathy parked across the street and got out of their car. Cathy looked toward the clinic and shivered, even though it wasn’t particularly cold. “I didn’t think there would be that many protesters,” she said.

Peter counted eight of them — three men and five women. “There’re always going to be some.”

She nodded.

Peter moved next to her and took her hand. She squeezed it, and managed a slight, brave smile. They waited for a break in the traffic, then crossed.

As soon as they arrived at the other side, the protesters closed in on them. “Don’t go in there, lady!” shouted one. “It’s your baby !” shouted another. “Take some time,” shouted a third. “Think it over!”

The cop moved close enough to see that the protesters weren’t actually touching Cathy or preventing her from gaining access.

Cathy kept her eyes facing straight ahead.

Eggs any way you like, thought Peter, Repairs done here.

“Don’t do it, lady!” shouted one of the protesters again.

“It’s your baby !”

“Take some time! Think it over!”

There were four stone steps leading up to the wooden doors of the clinic. She started up them, Peter right behind.

“It’s…!”

“Don’t…!”

“Take…!”

Peter stepped ahead to open the door for Cathy.

They went inside.

Peter had had his vasectomy the following week. He and Cathy never spoke again of that episode from their past, but sometimes when her sister’s daughters were visiting, or when they ran into a neighbor taking a baby for a stroll, or when they saw children on TV, Peter would find himself feeling wistful and sad and confused, and he would steal a look at his wife and see in her large blue eyes the same mix of emotions and uncertainty.

And now, they had to face that moral issue all over again.

There was no way to put a scanning skull cap on a fetus, of course. But Peter didn’t need to scan all electrical activity in the unborn child’s brain — all he needed was equipment to detect the high-frequency soulwave. It took him days of work, but he eventually managed to cobble together a scanner that could be laid on a pregnant woman’s belly to detect the soulwave inside. The unit incorporated some of the scanning-at-a-distance technology from the Hobson Monitor, and employed a directional sensor to make sure the mother’s own soulwave wasn’t mistakenly picked up.