Elizabeth Moon - Once a Hero

“I . . . have been happy there,” Esmay said.

“You could be happy here,” the old lady said, shifting in her robe. “It is not the same; you are an adult, and a hero.”

Esmay did not want to distress her, but across the impulse to comfort came the same impulse to honesty which had led to that earlier confrontation. “This is my home,” she said, “but I don’t think I can stay here. Not always . . . not for ever.”

“Your father was an idiot,” her great-grandmother said, on the trail of some other thought. “Now go away and let me rest. No, I’m not angry. I love you dearly, as I always did, and when you go I will miss you extremely. Come back tomorrow.”

“Yes, Great-grandmother,” said Esmay meekly.

Later that evening, in the great library, she found herself comfortably ensconced in a vast leather chair, with her father, Berthol, and Papa Stefan. They started with the questions she’d expected, about her experiences in Fleet. To her surprise, she found herself enjoying it . . . they asked intelligent questions, applied their own military experience to the answer. She found herself relaxing, talking about things she had never expected to discuss with her male relatives.

“That reminds me,” she said finally, after explaining how Fleet handled the investigation of the mutiny. “Someone told me that Altiplano has a reputation for being Ageist—opposed to rejuvenation. That’s not so, is it?”

Her father and uncle looked at each other, then her father spoke. “Not exactly against rejuvenation, Esmaya. But . . . many people here see it as bringing more problems to us than it could solve.”

“I suppose you mean population growth . . .”

“Partly. Altiplano’s primarily an agricultural economy, as you know. Not only is this world suited to it, but we have all those Lifehearts and Old Believers. We attract immigrants who want to live on the land. Rapid population growth—or slow growth long continued—would start encroaching on the land. But—consider what it means to a military organization, for a start.”

“Your most experienced personnel wouldn’t get too old for service,” Esmay said. “You . . . Uncle Berthol . . .”

“Generals are two a credit . . . but of course, the most experienced you have—the fellow who can always cobble up a repair for your landcruiser or your artillery—will stay useful and perhaps even pick up more expertise. Experience counts, and with rejuvenation you can accumulate more experience to learn from. That’s the positive. The negative?”

Esmay felt that she was back in school, being forced to perform in front of the class. “Longer lives for the seniors mean fewer slots for juniors to be promoted into,” she said. “It would slow down career advancement.”

“It would stop it in its tracks,” her father said soberly.

“I don’t see why.”

“Because it’s repeatable now. The rejuvenated general—to start at the top—will be there forever. Oh, there’ll still be some slots for promotion—someone will die of an accident, or in a war. But that’s not many. Your Fleet will become the weapon of an expansionist Familias Regnant empire—”

“No!”

“It has to, Esmay. If rejuvenation gets going—”

“It’s already widespread; we know that,” Papa Stefan said. “They’ve had the new procedure forty years or more now, and they’ve tried it on a lot of people. Remember your biology classes, girl: if the population expands, it must find new resources or die. Changes in population are governed by birth rate and death rate: lower the death rate, as rejuvenation does, and you’ve got an increase in population.

“But the Familias isn’t expansionist.”

“Huh.” Berthol snorted and hitched himself sideways in his chair. “The Familias didn’t announce a grand campaign, no, but if you look at the borders, these last thirty years . . . a nibble here, a nibble there. The terraforming and colonization of planets which had been written off as unsuitable. Peaceful, cooperative annexation of half a dozen little systems.”

“They asked for Fleet protection,” Esmay said.

“So they did.” Her father gave Berthol a glance that said Be quiet as clearly as words. “But our point is, that if the population of Familias worlds continues to increase, because the old are being rejuvenated—and if the population of Fleet continues to increase for the same reason—then this pressure can move them toward expanding.”

“I don’t think they will,” Esmay said.

“Why do you think your captain went over to the Black Scratch?”

Esmay squirmed. “I don’t know. Money? Power?”

“Rejuvenation?” her father asked. “A long life and prosperity? Because, you know, a long life is prosperity.”

“I don’t see that,” Esmay said, thinking of her great-grandmother, whose long life was now coming to an end.

“A long young life. You see, that’s the other thing that bothers me about rejuvenation. Longevity rewards prudence above all . . . if you live long enough, and are prudent, you will prosper. All you have to do is avoid risk.”

Esmay thought she saw where he was going, but preferred not to risk charging ahead. Not with this canny old soldier. “So?” she asked.

“So . . . prudence is not high on the list of military virtues. It is one, sure enough, but . . . where are you going to get soldiers who will risk their lives, if avoidance of risk can confer immortality? Not the immortality of the Believers, who expect to get it after they die, but immortality in this life.”

“Rejuvenation may work in a civilian society,” Berthol said. “But we think it can cause nothing but trouble in the military. Even if you could retain all your best experienced men, you would soon be out of the routine of training recruits—and the population you served would be out of the routine of providing them.

“Which means,” he went on, “that a military organization with anything but mud between the ears is going to see that it must limit the use of rejuvenation . . . or plan on a constant expansion. And at some point it’s going to run into a culture of younglings, a culture which doesn’t use rejuvenation, and is bolder, more aggressive.” He had never been able to resist belaboring a point.

“It sounds like the old argument between the religious and the nonreligious,” Esmay said. “If immortality of the soul is real, then what matters most is the prudent life, to make sure the soul qualifies for immortality . . .”

“Yes, but all the religions we know of which offer that prize also define such prudence in more stringent terms. They require active virtues which discipline the believer and curtail his or her selfishness. Some even demand the opposite of prudence—recklessness of life in the service of their deity. This makes good soldiers; it’s why religious wars are so much harder to end than others.”

“And here,” Esmay said, to preempt Berthol, “you see rejuvenation rewarding—encouraging—merely practical prudence, pure selfishness?”

“Yes.” Her father frowned. “There will no doubt be good people rejuvenated . . .” Esmay noted the assumption that good people would not be selfish. It was a curious assumption for a man who was himself rich and powerful . . . but of course he didn’t define himself as selfish. He had never had to be selfish, in his own terms, to have his least wish satisfied. “But even they will, over several rejuvenations, realize how much more good they can do alive, in control of their assets, than dead. It’s easy to lie to yourself, to convince yourself that you can do more good with more power.” He was staring blankly at the books; was this self-assessment?

“And that’s not even considering the dependency created by reliance on rejuvenation,” Berthol said. “Unless you have control of the process, adulteration—”