Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

“Even so. Better we work down here than up there in the dark. Eat here, too — if we had food.”

“I have — I had — lots of it, up in the kitchen. Unless those swine …”

How could I change so quickly, from blind despair to eager thoughts of food?

Easily. I was extremely hungry. Forget what the media said about me. I am human, as fully human as anyone else. At my trial, I in fact quoted in my own defense the words of the Roman poet Terence Africanus: “I am human, and I embrace to me everything that is human.”

It was not a great success. The courtroom went utterly silent. I think maybe the translation I used was a poor one.

I followed Seth upstairs into the kitchen, to see what we could find in the way of dried and canned foods.

It was clear as soon as we arrived upstairs that, food or not, we were in for the night. My poor little house shook to great blasts of wind and driving torrents of rain. The afternoon was so dark that I was reduced to groping in the kitchen cabinets and passing the cans and packages that I found to Seth so he could take them to the window and read them.

This room had, so far as I could tell, not been pillaged by the judicial horde. There was far more food than we could eat or, indeed, be patient enough to examine. We settled for the first half-dozen items and carried them downstairs to where we had heat and water.

Soup, beans, oatmeal, tuna, olives, and pineapple juice, in that order, are better than they sound. Seth and I ate steadily, and stared at each other. When we were finished, he stood up.

“I’m not going to suggest starting work tonight, because I think neither one of us is up to it. I’m going to leave you down here and lock the door at the top. If you want pillows and blankets, better come up and get them now.”

“There’s no bathroom down here,” I said.

He gestured to the sink and headed for the stairs. I followed him, and we did not speak again as I helped myself to a load of musty blankets and pillows. When I went back below to the subbasement level, I was more than ready to call it a day.

I made myself a bed, and as I lay down I reviewed the situation.

Seth’s caution was perfectly natural, and in his place I would have acted no differently. He had brought me all the way from the Q-5 Syncope Facility to my own house, and no one else — not even his two companions — knew where we were.

My need for him was over. He was a burden to me, and he knew it. On the other hand, his need for me was as great as ever. The modification of equipment here in my lab to take care of the modest telomere monitoring needs of Seth and his friends was simple — for me. For him, it would be quite impossible.

I was, therefore, from that one point of view in a much superior position. He certainly knew it. He, on the other hand, had both a gun and a knife, and he was at the moment far stronger than I. He also, though this was an asset whose worth was difficult to evaluate, knew far more about the Supernova Alpha world than I. From those points of view, he held the better position. We both knew that.

What else? Well, if I didn’t develop the tests to monitor his telomeres, and after a while he became convinced that either I could not or would not do it, then all he had to do was open the door and shout, “Oliver Guest. I have Oliver Guest in here.” But so long as I was developing those tests, that was the last thing on earth that he would do.

Of course, when he had the test methods and materials, he would no longer need me at all. At that point he would be eager to have me arrested again, no matter what he told me. Only in that way would his own safety be assured.

I know all this; and he knows all this. And I know he knows it. And on, through the infinite regression.

I snuggled into the pillow, which carried with its mustiness a faint gardenia smell reminding me of LaRona. I was over my ghastly disappointment when I saw what those police-state barbarians had done to my cloning facility. I had no clone of myself, but I would find some other answer when Seth and I reached our unknown destination. I always had, and I always would. Somewhere, somehow, I would build again.

I see it clearly. My darlings rise from their dead ashes. They grow as I want them to grow, learn as I want them to learn, clear of the encumbrances of dreadful unhealthy diets and half-witted parents and siblings. I make only one genetic change. They remain fourteen forever; and I possess them at that golden age — forever.

Giddy with that splendid vision of the future, I want to remain awake longer. It is much against my will that I quickly descend into profound, and regrettably vision-free, sleep.

By noon, Saul’s day felt as though it should be ending. It had begun with a call in the darkest predawn hour.

“Mr. President?” A stranger’s voice, on Saul’s private bedside telcom.

“Yes.” He peered at the illuminated display. Four-ten. Someone on the White House staff had made the decision to put this call through. It must be World War Three, at least. Except that every conceivable enemy was in economic and technological chaos. “Who is calling?”

“This is Dr. Evelyn Macabee, director of the Ben Ezra Sunglow Center. Mr. President, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mrs. Hannah Steinmetz has suffered a serious stroke.”

“When?”

“Shortly after two o’clock this morning.”

Dr. Macabee was reassuringly calm and direct. How many calls like this had she made? Hundreds? Thousands? “Should I come down there?”

“I do not recommend it. Mrs. Steinmetz is unable to speak or see and the left side of her body is paralyzed, but her condition is stable. I will inform you at once if there is a significant change. Do you have questions or special instructions in the event of rapid deterioration?”

“What’s the prognosis?”

“I cannot yet offer a meaningful one. We are conducting tests at the moment. They are somewhat hindered because the SQUIDs and OMRs were knocked out by the supernova. I will call again this evening. Do you have any special instructions?”

It was the second time she had asked that. Saul knew exactly what it meant: If your mother’s condition worsens, when should we stop trying?

Thou shalt not kill, but need not strive, officiously to keep alive.

That would be Mother’s own view. She was “stable,” but stable how? A stability with loss of speech and sight and mobility, the things that make life worth living.

Saul forced the words out. “We want no extreme measures for life support.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. Mrs. Steinmetz is ninety-two years old. I feel sure that you are making the right decision.”

“Keep me informed.”

“Of course.”

Saul closed the line and lay back on the pillow. Polite, tidy, efficient. Logical. At the end of life the Gordian knot of existence, so complicated in youth and middle age, straightened and simplified. And, at last, was cut.

He would make sure that an aircraft was ready at all times to fly him to Florida. More than that, neither he nor anyone else in the world could do.

After such a call, sleep would not return. And at seven-thirty he had a top-secret briefing in the basement War Room. Finally he abandoned the effort. He alerted the switchboard that he was up and about, showered, dressed, and wandered through darkened rooms to his office. Breakfast was waiting when he arrived. Amazing. Did someone in the White House kitchen prepare meals twenty-four hours a day on the off chance that the President would ask for one?