Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

"Perhaps that is not quite the end," Minerva replied. "Ira, did you notice that Ishtar said only that such research was 'proscribed'? She did not say that it had not taken place. I have just made a most thorough semantic analysis of the published literature for truth-and-falsity implications. I conclude that the probability approaches certainty that much pertinent research on humans has taken place even though it may no longer be going on. Do you wish to order it released, sir? I am certain that I can freeze their computer quickly enough to prevent erasure, assuming that an erasure program guards it."

"Let's not do anything drastic," drawled Lazarus. "There may be good reason for a 'hold' on this stuff. I'm forced to assume that these johnnies know more about it than I do. Besides, I'm not sure I want to be a guinea pig. Let's put it on the back of the fire, Minerva. Ira, I'm not sure I would be me without my Y chromosome. To say nothing of those jolly hints of how you transfer the personality and at what point to kill off the male. Me, that is."

"Lazarus-"

"Yes, Minerva?"

"The published literature makes one option both certain and safe. This method can be used to create your twin sister-identical rather than fraternal, save for sex. A host mother is indicated, with no forcing to maturity, since the brain would be allowed to develop normally. Would this meet your standards of newness and interest? To watch yourself grow up as a woman? 'Lazuli Long,' you might name her-your female other self."

"Uh-" Lazarus stopped.

I said dryly, "Grandfather, I think I've won our second bet. Something new. Something interesting."

"Now slow up! You can't do it, you don't know how. Nor do I. And the Director of this madhouse appears to have moral scruples about it-"

"We don't know that. Mere inference."

"Not so 'mere.' And I may have moral scruples. 'Twouldn't interest me unless I stuck around and watched her grow up which might send me crazy either through trying to make her grow up just like me-what a fate for any girl!-or by trying to keep her from growing up as ornery as I am when that would be her nature. Nor would I be justified either way; she would be a separate human being, not my slave. Besides that, I would be her sole parent-no mother. I've had one crack at trying to raise a daughter alone-it's not fair to the girl."

"You're inventing objections, Lazarus. I'll give long odds that Ishtar would gladly be both host mother and foster mother. Especially if you promised Ishtar a son of her own. Shall I ask her?'

"You keep your biscuit trap shut, Son! Minerva, place that on - 'pending'-I won't be hurried into a major decision about another person. Especially one who isn't, quite. Ira, remind me to tell you about the twins who were no relation to each other. But twins."

"Preposterous. You're changing the subject."

"So I am. Minerva, what else do you have, girl?"

"Lazarus, I have one program which involves low hazard and a probability approaching certainty of supplying one-or more-experiences completely new to you."

"I'm listening."

"Suspended animation-"

"What's new about that? We had that when I was a kid, hardly two hundred years old. Used it in the 'New Frontiers.' Didn't attract me then, doesn't now."

"-as a means of time travel. If you stipulate that in X number of years, something truly new will develop-a certainty based on history-then your only problem is to select whatever span of years will, in your opinion, produce the degree of novelty you seek. One hundred years, one thousand, ten thousand, whatever you say. The rest involves nothing but minor design details."

"Not so 'minor' if I'm going to be asleep and unable to protect myself."

"But you need not go into hibernation until you are satisfied with my design, Lazarus. A hundred years is obviously no problem. A thousand years is not much problem. For ten thousand years I would design an artificial planetoid equipped with fail-safes to insure that you would be revived automatically in case of emergency."

"That would take quite some designing, girl."

"I feel confident of my capacity to do it, Lazarus, but you are free to criticize and reject any part of it. However, there is no point in my submitting preliminary designs until you give me the controlling parameter, namely the time span, which in your opinion will produce something new to you. Or do you wish my advice on that?"

"Uh, hold your horses, dear. Let's assume that you've got me in liquid helium and in free fall and thoroughly protected against ionizing radiation-"

"No problem, Lazarus."

"So I stipulated, dear; Fm not underrating you. But suppose some tiny little fail-safe fails null instead and I go on snoozing through the centuries-and millennia-without end. Not dead. But not revived, either."

"I can and will design to avoid that. But let me accept your stipulation. In such case, how would you be worse off than you would be if you used your termination-option switch? What do you lose by trying this?"

"Why, that's obvious! If there is anything to this immortality talk-or any sort of afterlife-I'm not saying there is or isn't-but if there is, then when the 'Roll Is Called Up Yonder,' I won't be there. I'll be asleep but not dead, somewhere off in space. I'll miss the last boat."

"Grandfather," I said impatiently, "quit trying to wiggle out. If you don't want it, just say No. But Minerva has certainly offered you a way to reach something new. If there is anything to your argument-which I don't admit-you will have achieved something really unique: the only human being out of many billions to fail to show up for muster on this hypothetical-and-highly-unlikely Judgment Day. I wouldn't put it past you, you old scoundrel; you're slippery."

He ignored my slur. "Why 'highly unlikely'?"

"Because it is. I won't argue it."

"Because you can't argue it," he retorted. "There isn't any evidence for or against-so how can you assign even a loose probability either way? I was pointing out the desirability, if there happens to be anything to it, of playing it kosher. Minerva, hold that under 'pending,' too. The idea has everything you claim for it, and I don't doubt your ability as- a designer. But, like testing a parachute, it's a one-way trip with no chance to change my mind after I jump. So we'll look over all other ideas before falling back on that one-even if it takes years."

"I will continue, Lazarus."

"Thanks, Minerva." Lazarus looked thoughtful as he picked his teeth with a thumbnail-we were eating, but I have not mentioned breaks for refreshment, nor will I again. You may assume any food and rest breaks that make you feel comfortable. Like Scheherazade's tales, the Senior's anecdotes were chopped up by many irrelevant interruptions.

"Lazarus-"

"Eh, Son? I was daydreaming...of a far country and the wench is dead. Sorry."

"You could help Minerva in this search."

"So? Seems unlikely. She's better equipped to conduct a needle-in-a-haystack search than I am-she impresses me."

"Yes. But she needs data. There are these great gaps in what we know about you. If we knew-if Minerva knew- those fifty-odd professions you've followed, she might be able to cancel several thousand possibility pockets. For example, have you ever been a farmer?"

"Several times."

"So? Now that she knows that, she won't suggest anything relating to agriculture. While there may be sorts of farming you have never done, none would be novel enough to meet your stringent requirements. Why not list the things you have done?"

"Doubt if I can remember them all."

"That can't be helped. But listing what you do remember may call to mind others."

"Uh...let me think. One thing I always did every time I reached an inhabited planet was to study law. Not to practice-not usually, although for a number of years I was a very criminal lawyer-on San Andreas, that was. But to understand the ground rules. Hard to show a profit-or to conceal one-if you don't know how the game is played. It's much safer to break a law knowingly than to do so through ignorance.