Charles Sheffield - Tomorrow and Tomorrow

He was toying with the daunting idea of learning Medicine — a multiyear commitment — when his outer portal reported a caller. He glanced up at the clock. Eight in the morning. He had time for a short nap, then he ought to call Par Leon and plan the rest of the day. They worked together flexibly and well, swapping opinions and thoughts and notes whenever either of them felt it useful; but they seldom met in person.

So who could be visiting, so early and uninvited? He lived in a tiny apartment. It was furnished with minimal facilities, and in four years he had never had a visitor.

The portal again reported a request for attention. He approved it, and stood up as the interlocking doors opened.

The caller was a woman. She did not wait for Drake’s invitation before she entered. She walked in and swept her gaze over the interior of the apartment. She seemed to take everything in with a single glance from a pair of sapphire-blue eyes.

“You’re Drake Merlin,” she said firmly. “I’m Melissa Bierly.”

She looked right at him, and he experienced for the first time the full force of her. Even long afterward, even when he knew the whole story, he was never able to explain the source of that peculiar power. She was striking looking, certainly, with a round, symmetrical face framed by straight black hair and wide eyes of pure deep blue; but a composer, especially one who had written music for movies, was exposed to many striking women. His first impression was that she was tall. Then she came closer and he realized that he was wrong. Her head scarcely came to his nose.

“Do I know you?” Drake said at last. He was sure that he did not. He had met hundreds of people since his awakening, usually through Par Leon and their mutual researches; but he would not have forgotten Melissa Bierly.

“Apparently not, though it would have been possible — -just.” She had switched to English. “We were around at the same time, but you were frozen when I was only one year old. I went to the cryowombs twenty-four years later, and this is the first resurrection for each of us.”

Dead at twenty-five — younger even than Ana. Drake gestured to a chair, and she nodded and sat down. He sat on the low bed, facing her.

The sapphire eyes looked right inside him as she went on, “I was revived two months ago. As soon as I could, I

checked how many of us there are. Do you know that number?”

He shook his head, still without speaking. It was a question of no interest. At best it was irrelevant to his needs; at worst it would lead to an interaction with other Resurrects. That could waste time and distract him from his goals.

“There were fewer than fifty thousand placed in the cryowombs,” Melissa went on. “Forty-eight thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, to be exact. Most of them entered the cryowombs within fifty years after me. Apparently the idea went out of fashion when the revival success rate remained at zero for so long. Also, life expectancy had increased. Of the total frozen, only a hundred and thirty-two have been resurrected. How many of those have you met?”

“None.”

“That’s what I thought. As soon as I arrived, one of my first acts was to contact the other Resurrects. They form a closely knit group.”

“I am not surprised to learn it.” Drake was speaking in English, too, and he felt the shift in mental gears. It was his first use of the language in almost four years. It brought a surge of longing for the past, as strong and inexplicable as life returning with the spring.

He knew that his answer to Melissa Bierly had not been quite an honest one. He had examined the data base of Resurrects. He did not remember how many there were, but he recalled that they lived in a colony of their own and spent all their leisure time together.

“But you are unique,” Melissa said. The eyes were boring into Drake. “You alone have had no contact with any of the others.”

“Did they tell you to come and see me?” The presence of the woman was producing an effect on Drake, relaxing and unnerving him at the same time. Her gray dress was as concealing as Cass Leemu’s scanty outfits were revealing, but with Melissa Bierly there was a crackling undercurrent of tension. He did not know if it was sexual or from some other cause. He had not generated it, and he did not want it. But it was there.

The dark head shook firmly, while the eyes never left his. “The others said nothing to me, except inviting me to join their group. I came to you precisely because of your aloofness. You see, I wish to undertake a project. I wish to see what the world has become, everywhere from pole to pole. I do not want to travel with a group. But I do want a companion.”

Even before he replied, Drake felt the insidious lure of her suggestion. A knowledge of the world as it was now could only increase the chances of his own success. The data banks were vast beyond imagining, but surely they did not contain everything. Suppose that, in some far-off corner of the Earth, information existed that would allow Ana to be cured?

“Well?” Melissa had moved to stand in front of him, her hands on her hips.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s impossible. I’m busy on a long-term collaborative project.”

“If it’s long-term, why can’t it wait a little while?” She moved closer and reached out to touch his hand. It was their first contact, and Drake felt the irrational spark of attraction.

“We wouldn’t need to be gone long,” she continued. She was smiling down at him. “Come on, come with me. Just for a few weeks. Surely you must have taken breaks in your work before.”

“Never.”

“How long have you been working on this project?”

“Four years.”

She stared at him incredulously. “Without any time off at all? You deserve a vacation, and I’ll bet you need one. Why not call your collaborator and see if he will agree to it?”

Drake felt no need of a vacation. He had resisted the idea strongly, the half-dozen times that Par Leon suggested it. He had known Melissa Bierly for less than a quarter of an hour. But, beyond his comprehension, he found himself reaching out to call Par Leon.

Leon was sure to say no. There was no way, given the current status of the project, that he would agree. While the call was going through, Drake told himself to expect a refusal. And once Leon had said no, Drake would have something tangible to counterbalance his own irrational urge to say yes, and go off with Melissa to the ends of the Earth.

Then the screen was alive, Par Leon’s open, dignified face was staring out at them, and Drake was making a half-coherent request to delay their work for a while.

And Leon was nodding, even before Drake had finished. “Of course you may go. I have plenty of work that I can manage very well in your absence. The project will not suffer. Go, and enjoy.”

Even in Drake’s dazed state of mind he felt that there was something wrong. Par Leon had no expression in his voice. It was as if the request had come to him as a follow-up on some earlier conversation. Also, Leon had not asked when Drake wanted to go, or where, or how long he might be away. And Drake had provided none of that information. Indeed, he did not know it himself.

But before he could speak again, Leon was gone; and Melissa had taken both his hands in hers and was lifting him easily to his feet.

“There,” she said. “What did I tell you? Now that’s done, we can sit down together and make plans and begin to get to know each other. You’re very cramped in here. Why don’t we go to my place? It’s a lot more comfortable.”

Drake thought for one moment of Ana. She lay secure in her frigid cryowomb, on far-off Pluto. But it was Melissa, warm and breathing and somehow compelling, who held his hands. It was her sparkling blue eyes, rather than Ana’s gray ones, that smiled into his.