Дэймон Найт - Orbit 3

Kagle paused. “Do you want me to go into the surgical and electronic techniques more deeply?”

“No. Let me get this straight.” Cassius was sweating hard. “You’re able to take someone’s—corpse—and from it get a record of what it felt like for that person to die?”

“That is more or less it, yes. The process involves a great deal of painstaking surgery, much work with computers and video tape and sound-recording equipment. I tried to get the Institutes to underwrite the initial study. Naturally they wouldn’t, they didn’t dare. You’re too young—and so am I, though perhaps I don’t look it—to remember the DNA Riots when Gadsburry finally created one single cell in his lab. I’m sure you’ve read about the riots often. Old illusions die hard, Mr. Andrews. Some of mine died, too, when I first took up this field. I wanted to work legally. Obtain legitimate corpses in the manner of a private medical school.”

“Couldn’t you?”

The blue-flame eyes brightened. “A court order obtained by a committee of certain members of the clergy in this country frustrated my efforts. I decided it was prudent to go underground, so to speak. To steal the bodies I needed. After all, I’m convinced in my own mind that the work is necessary, important. And honest. Men have been martyred before. I’m prepared to be martyred myself, though of course I prefer to avoid it.”

More amusement suddenly. “And I’ve discovered it won’t be necessary, either, Mr. Andrews.”

“Isn’t this very expensive research?”

“Frightfully.”

“Then where—?”

Kagle shrugged. “Patents. Three big ones, several small ones. Neurosurgical apparatus. The royalties are more than ample.”

Cassius said, “But I don’t really understand why you chose to work in this particular field.”

Kagle sounded sad. “After I stumbled across the fundamental technique, it wasn’t a matter of choosing.”

“Your reason is—?”

“To know. What else?”

“I can see why the clergy would stand in your way.”

“Frankly,” Kagle snapped, “I can’t. I’m not in any way tampering with their precious concepts of immortality. Of course I am in a position to state that, as far as sentient experience goes, there is no immortality after the act of death. The neural latent images are feeble at best by the time I’m through scrounging for the bodies. And they quickly go altogether. Yet even though I resent the opposition, I’ve tried to be circumspect. Picked subjects who fit my requirements—a violent death, for maximum image strength—but have no relatives or family. I’ve done this partly out of vestigial moral considerations, partly from a practical wish to avert discovery and continue my studies as long as possible. With your brother, as I stated, the fool I had working for me slipped up. You were shrewd enough to locate me. Therefore I’ll hide nothing, Mr. Andrews. I’m no criminal.”

Cassius frowned. “Are you sure? What you’re doing touches on realms other than the purely scientific.”

Kagle sighed. “Metaphysics? I’m only concerned about that as it relates to the people—the clerics—who prate about it and therefore act because of it. I don’t want to be dragged into a lot of messy court trials. Which is exactly what would happen if this work became public. Trials, more trials, publicity and, eventually, other harmful effects, evidences of which you saw in my sister’s behavior. I’m really going to have to do something about her soon.”

Cassius felt as if he should draw back, flee. But he was oddly unable.

“About my brother’s body. Where is it?”

“Ruined, I’m afraid. Gone. The techniques we use are destructive. That’s why there mustn’t be relatives.”

“What happens to your so-called latent images?”

“We record them. Five separate tracks which can be projected simultaneously for a viewer. Though viewing is a dull, limited term for the experience.”

“So a person—knows how it feels to die?”

“Yes. By violence. The most painful deaths possible. Raises some interesting speculations, doesn’t it? I think you intimated that Wanda was mouthing some of them. Quite apart from the empiric achievement of translating and recording a dying body’s sensory images, the research opened up whole new areas of less tangible results. I only began to think about some of the related questions after the work was well under way. Namely, do people fear the -what of death, or do they fear the how and its lesser partner, the when?”

“For myself,” Cassius said slowly, “I—I’m afraid of the end. The blankness. The finality.”

“Are you? I assure you there is evidence to the contrary. Death must be a little like sleep. Before you sleep, what is going to happen while you sleep is rationally graspable. The sleep of death is permanent. So you can’t reconcile yourself to it wholly. But you can begin to reconcile yourself to it, if only slightly. While I don’t think you can reconcile yourself to the other part reasonably. To the pain. The anguish. The lifetime of hells in one instant, one instant waiting, always waiting up there ahead. It’s my contention that, because of innumerable variables not present in the sleep aspect, the pain of death can only be known when it happens. And the variables only increase the terror.”

“The theory won’t hold up,” Cassius said. “Death, the absolute end—that’s the fearful part.”

“Ah, you assume that because everybody’s always assumed it. I assumed so too. All I can say is, my work has revealed evidence to the contrary. Evidence no open-minded person can deny. Which is why I made you promise not to write a word.”

Abruptly Cassius felt the thrust of ambition, possibilities, chances like gold. He tried to fix the lines of his face and sound demanding:

“Look, Kagle. So far all you’ve given me is a lot of talk. If you’ve recorded these so-called latent images, then they ought to be available for someone to see, right?”

“See is another poor word. Experience would be more correct.”

“All right, experience, see, view, you name it. But I want it demonstrated.”

“You have more courage than I thought.”

“Listen, Kagle, you can’t scare me. What about it?”

“If you’ll hold to your promise not to write—”

“I will, yes,” Cassius lied, feeling very foxy and, incidentally, very righteous.

Weren’t those gas-jet eyes laughing at him all at once again?

He was puzzled. Kagle was a naive fool. Maybe Cassius only saw laughter in the eyes. The man wasn’t mad, Cassius was positive of that much. Yet his confidence ebbed quickly. He had the feeling he oughtn’t to go through with what he himself had suggested.

But the copy possibilities—! My God! Staggering.

“Since you volunteer, Mr. Andrews, let’s step down the hall.” Dr. Kagle rose, smoothing his thin hair. “I’ll show you as little or as much as you find you’re able to stand. This way, please.”

The chamber at the rear of the funeral home had been renovated with theater seats to resemble a private projection room minus the screen. Cassius took a place in the front row center. Dr. Kagle wheeled over a cart on which were mounted several odd-looking instruments. From the instruments dangled fifteen or twenty wires which ended in assorted pads and needles.

“It’ll take me a few minutes to get you wired up properly,” Dr. Kagle said, snapping a leather cuff around Cassius’s bare left forearm. There was unmistakable pride in his eyes as he worked. “I apologize in advance for the needle pricks, but they’re necessary.”

Cassius was sweating harder. He was fearful but determined to go through with it. He pointed beyond his boot.