Jack McDevitt - POLARIS

Alex was good. He was skilled at dealing with people, and his professional persona surfaced. “Fenn,” he said, “I don’t think we’ve got the identity right on this guy. Find out who he is, and you might find out why somebody tried to kill us.”

“Oh, c’mon, Alex. A guy who died twenty years ago?”

“I think there’s a very good possibility that all this is connected. Fenn, I don’t ask for much-”

They went back and forth for a couple of minutes, Fenn growing less adamant.

Finally, he began to cave. “I would if I could, Alex. But you’re talking about something that’s really old news. What’s your evidence?”

“There are too many people involved in this who seem to come and go without leaving tracks. Barber. Agnes, who may or may not be her mother. Crisp. Maybe even Taliaferro.”

“Taliaferro has a long history, Alex. He did not walk in out of nowhere.”

“No. But he walked off. And seven more people disappeared out of the Polaris. I think it would be helpful if we could find out who’s in Crisp’s grave.”

Fenn held up both hands, the way people do when they want you to calm down.

Or when they’re pretending you’re hysterical. “Look,” he said, “Crisp died when?

Fourteen oh-five? Oh-four? And nobody has seen Agnes Shanley since.” He pushed back in his chair. “I’ll pass along what you’ve told me to the jurisdiction up there.

With a recommendation they take a second look at the case. Okay? Will that satisfy you?”

“Are they likely to take a look at the body?”

I could see him debating whether to tell us what he really thought. “No,” he said at last. “From their point of view, no matter who’s in the grave, there’s nobody to prosecute anyhow. So why bother?”

Nature cares only that you reproduce and rear the kids.

After you’ve done that, get out of the way.

- Charmon Colm,

Chaos and Symmetry Alex talked about digging him up ourselves. I don’t know how serious he was, but I pointed out that there were severe penalties for grave desecration. And I wasn’t sure what good it would do even if we did find out who was buried there. It was a guessing game. Alex admitted that. And he backed off the idea when I started suggesting what the headlines would look like.

ANTIQUITIES DEALER TURNS GRAVE ROBBER

BENEDICT CHARGED IN DESECRATION PLOT

Sitting in the skimmer on the perimeter of the cemetery, watching the moon drift through the sky, I found myself thinking of Tom Dunninger, who had dreamed of doing away with graveyards. Or, at least, of reducing the need for them.

We decided to stay over in Walpurgis. Most of the restaurants and the larger hotels were closed for the season, but we got a suite overlooking the ocean at the Fiesta and ate in the dining room, which was inauspiciously named Monk’s. But the food was good, and a few other people drifted in, so we weren’t completely alone.

I don’t remember what we talked about. What I remember is that I kept thinking about the grave, and wondering whether it had been an accident or a crime of passion.

Or whether it had been something else entirely: Had someone found it necessary, or expedient, to kill Ed Crisp? Had he known something?

I had trouble sleeping. I got up in the middle of the night and fixed myself a snack.

The sky was full of gauzy clouds, giving the moon a halo effect. For reasons I don’t understand, other than maybe because I associated him with graveyards, I called up Tom Dunninger’s avatar, which materialized in the center of the room and said hello.

He was tall, dark-skinned, with somber features and white hair. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who enjoyed a good laugh.

I had settled onto the sofa, with a donut and coffee at my disposal. “What can I do for you, Chase?” he asked. He was impeccably dressed in creased slacks, a blue jacket, and a white shirt with a string tie.

The last update to the avatar had been made in 1364, a full year before the Polaris flight. This was a Dunninger whose face was lined with age. His knees appeared to be giving him trouble, and he grimaced as he sat down.

“Can we just talk for a bit, Professor?”

“My time is yours,” he said. He glanced around the room. “A hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Where are we?”

“Walpurgis.”

“Ah, yes. The resort. You know, I don’t believe I ever took a vacation. In my entire adult life.”

“You didn’t have time?”

“Didn’t have the interest.” He smiled. “I don’t think I’d have enjoyed myself in these sorts of places.”

“Probably not,” I said. “Professor, you achieved a great deal during your lifetime, but you’re best known for your pursuit of life extension.”

“It’s nice of you to say so, that I made some contributions. But I didn’t manage the one that mattered.”

“-Because people still get old?”

“Yes. Because people are still betrayed by their bodies. Because they live only a relative handful of years before they begin to decay.”

“But isn’t that the natural way of things? What would happen if people stopped dying? Where would we put everybody?”

“It’s the natural way of things that people run through the forests of Earth, chasing deer and wild pigs, I would guess. And getting chased. And huddling around fires on nights like this. Is it as cold out there as it looks?”

“Yes.”

“Is that how you’d prefer to live your life? The way your distant ancestors did?”

“I’m not much into hunting. No.”

“Or being hunted. So the first argument is turned out of court. And you ask, what would happen if people stopped dying? I’d argue, to begin with, it’s the wrong question. Rather, we need to know what would happen if people were able to retain youth and vigor indefinitely. I propose, to begin with, that we would remove, at a single pass, the bulk of human suffering. Not all of it, of course. It’s beyond our power ever to do that. But if we can stop the automatic funeral, kill it dead in its tracks, if we can stop the slow degradation that leads eventually to the grave, we will have given the human race a gift beyond measure.”

“Professor, a lot of people feel death is not necessarily a bad thing. That a life that goes on too long becomes terribly dull-”

“-It only becomes dull because the body becomes stiff and fragile. Things break easily. The energy level declines.”

“-That it becomes a burden both to the individual and to his family-”

“-Again, because of weakness. Of course the extremely old are a burden. I proposed to prevent that very condition.”

I hung in there as best I could: “It might be that art arises from our sense of the transience of beautiful things. That death is part of what makes us human. That people need to get out of the way so their children can move on.”

“Hogwash. Chase, you’re babbling. All that is fine when you’re talking in the abstract. Death is acceptable as part of the human condition as long as we mean somebody else. As long as we are only talking statistics and other people. Preferably strangers.”

“But if you succeeded, where would we put everybody? We don’t have limitless land space. Or resources.”

“Of course not. There’d be a price to be paid. Humans would have to stop reproducing.”