Charles Sheffield: Tomorrow and Tomorrow

What would the people of the future most want to know about their ancestors? Drake had his own answer. Their fascination would not be with the formal works, the official biographies, the text-book knowledge. They would have more than enough of those. What they would want would be the personal details, the chat, the gossip. They would want the equivalent of Boswell’s journals and of Samuel Pepys’ diaries. And if there was a way that they could have not only the written legacy, but the recorder himself, to talk to him and ask more questions…

It was not work that could be hurried. But finally, after nine long years, Drake was as ready as he would ever be. There was always the temptation to add one more interview, write one more article.

He resisted, and briefly worried a different question. How would he earn a living in the future? It might be only thirty years, but it might be eighty, two hundred, or a thousand. Could Beethoven, suddenly transported from 1810 to the year 2010, have earned a living as a musician?

More realistically, how would Spohr, or Hummel, or some other of Beethoven’s less famous contemporaries have fared? Drake was betting that they, and he, could manage very well as soon as they had picked up the tricks of the time. Better, probably, than the far greater genius, the titan of Bonn. The others were more facile, more flexible, more politically astute.

And if he was wrong, and there was no way that he could make a living from music? Then he would do the twenty-third-century equivalent of washing dishes for a living. That was the least of his worries.

One day he stopped everything, put his affairs in order, and returned home. Without notice he headed for Tom Lambert’s house. They had kept in touch, and he knew that Tom had married and was busy raising a family in the same house he had lived in all his life. But it was still a surprise to walk along that quiet tree-lined street, look over the same untidy privet hedge, and see Tom in the front yard playing baseball with a stranger, an eight-year-old boy who wore a flaming new version of Tom’s graying red mop.

“Drake! My God, why didn’t you call and tell me you were in town? How do you do it? You’re as thin as ever.” Tom had lost some of his hair but added a paunch to make up for it. He ushered Drake into the house and fussed over him like the Prodigal Son, leading the way into the familiar study. While his wife went into the kitchen to kill the fatted calf, he stood and beamed at Drake with pride and pleasure.

“We hear your music everywhere, you know,” he said. “It’s absolutely wonderful to know that your career is going so well.”

Judged by Drake’s own standards, it was not. He felt that he had done little first-rate composition in years. But Bonvissuto had been right: Tom, like most people, was comfortable musically with what he found familiar. From that point of view, and in terms of commercial success, Drake was riding high.

He itched to get down to business right away, but Tom’s three young boys hovered around the study and the living room, curious to see the famous visitor. Then came a family dinner, and liqueurs after it watching the sunset. Drake sat in the guest-of-honor seat, with Tom and his wife, Mary-Jane, doing most of the talking.

At ten o’clock Mary-Jane disappeared to put the boys to bed. Drake was alone with Tom. At last. He took a deep breath, pulled out the application, and handed it to his friend without a word.

As Tom looked at it and realized what it was, the happiness faded from his face. He shook his head in disbelief.

“I thought you put all this behind you years ago. What started it going again?”

Drake stared at him without speaking, as though he had not understood the question.

“Or maybe it never stopped,” Tom went on. “I should have guessed it hours ago. You used to be so full of life, so full of fun. Tonight I don’t think I saw you smile once. When did you last take a vacation?”

“You gave me your word, Tom. Your promise.”

Lambert studied the other man’s thin face. “Never mind a vacation, when did you last take any sort of break from work? How long since you relaxed for an evening, or for an hour? Not tonight, that’s for sure.”

“I go out all the time. I go to concerts and to dinner parties.”

“You do. And what do you do there? I bet you don’t relax. You interview people, and you take notes, and you produce a stream of articles. You work. And you’ve been working, incessantly, year after year. How long since you’ve been with a woman?”

Drake shook his head but did not speak.

Tom sighed. “I’m sorry. Forget that I asked that. It was a dumb and insensitive thing to say. But you need to face a fact, Drake, and you shouldn’t try to hide from it: She’s dead. Do you hear me? Ana is dead. Work won’t change that. Wishing won’t change it. Nothing can bring her back to you. And you can’t go on forever with your own emotions chained and harnessed.”

“You promised me, Tom. You gave me your solemn word that you would help me.”

“Drake!”

“Do you ever make promises to your children?”

“Of course I do.”

“Do you keep them?”

“Drake, you can’t use that argument, the situations are totally different. You act as though I made you some sort of solemn vow, but it wasn’t like that at all.”

“Then how was it? Don’t bother to answer.” Drake took the little recorder from his inside jacket pocket. “Listen. Listen to yourself.”

The words were thin in tone but quite clear.

…if I come back to you, in, say, eight or ten years, and I ask you again, will you do it? Will you help me? I want you to give me an honest answer, and I want your word on it.

Ten years from now? Drake, if you come back to me in eight or ten years and ask me again, I’ll admit I was completely wrong. And I promise you, I’ll help you to do what you’ve asked.

An absolute promise? I don’t want to hear some day that you changed your mind, or didn’t mean what you said.

An absolute promise. Sure, I’ll give you that… There was the sound of Tom’s relieved laugh.

Drake turned off the recorder. “I said, eight to ten years. It has been nine.”

“You recorded us, back then when Ana had just died? I can’t believe you would do that.”

“I had to, Tom. Even then, I was convinced that you would change your mind. But I knew that I wouldn’t. You have to live up to your agreement. You promised.”

“I promised to help you, to stop you from doing something crazy to yourself.” Tom’s face went ruddy with intolerable frustration. “For God’s sake, Drake, I’m a doctor. You can’t ask me to help you kill yourself.”

“I’m not asking that.”

“You might as well be. No one has ever been revived. Maybe no one ever will be. If they do learn how, Anastasia will be a candidate. She is in the best Second Chance womb, she had the best preparation money could buy. But you, you’re different. You’re not sick! Ana was dying before she was frozen, she had nothing to lose. You have everything to lose. You’re healthy, you’re productive, you’re at the height of your career. And you are asking me to throw all that away, to help you take the chance that someday, God knows when, you might — just might — be revived. Don’t you see, Drake, I can’t help you.”

“You gave me your promise.”

“Stop saying that! I also have my oath as a physician: to do no harm. You want me to take you from perfect health to a high odds of final death.”

“I have to do it, Tom. If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone who will. Probably someone less competent and reliable than you.”