The Life of the World to Come (Company) Read online

  “There’s no reason to be damned fools, all the same, old boy,” said Chatterji, glancing nervously at the door as though he expected a public health monitor to come charging in. Ellsworth-Howard had reached down and taken up the lime-green pyramid wonderingly.

  “Bloody hell,” he murmured. “Makes you feel like one of those, what d’y’call’ems, those guys with crystal balls? Cryptographers?”

  “Alchemists,” Rutherford said.

  “Yeah, them. Look at this. No cells, no leads, no buttonballs! You could make one of these out of anything. Shracking ingenious.”

  “We are the dreamers of dreams, after all.” Rutherford wiped his palms on his trousers. “Did you know the word ‘sorcerer’ originally meant, ‘One who throws dice’?”

  “No, I hadn’t heard that,” said Chatterji. “Look here, let’s put those away for now. Don’t you want to know how the project’s going?”

  “Yes, please,” said Ellsworth-Howard.

  “What about my Sleeping Knights?” said Rutherford, groping on the floor for the other dice.

  “They’ve begun the program,” Chatterji said, relaxing. “One by one, the Enforcer units are being called in for disbriefing and ‘upgrades.’ Seven underground bunkers have been constructed to contain them, and a special operative has been programmed to maintain the sites. Timetable Central projects that all Enforcers should be accounted for by the year 1200 CE. Congratulations, gentlemen! Brilliant solution.”

  “Another myth made real.” Rutherford sighed happily. “Really, one can’t help feeling like a god, chaps. Just a small god, playing with a pocketful of little blue worlds.”

  “Well, do you feel like playing with some modeling clay?” Chatterji looked arch. “I’d really like to hear what you’ve got on our New Man.”

  “Heh heh.” Ellsworth-Howard drew out his buke and extended a retractable rod. He slipped on an earshell and throat mike, squeezed in a few commands on the buttonball, and a tiny disk opened out from the top of the rod, in sections like a series of fans. Its surface appeared to be beaded. It whined faintly as it scanned the room and oriented itself; then a column of fiery light appeared in midair, dust motes whirling in it bright as sparks.

  Rutherford snorted, and Chatterji raised an eyebrow and said: “I trust you’ve got farther than this?”

  “’Course I have, bastards,” Ellsworth-Howard muttered, as his fingers worked. “That’s just the lead-in. Here he comes.”

  On the buke screen a DNA helix appeared. The column vanished and a pattern of lines began to form where it had been, stitching a figure in bright fire. One swift rotation and the figure was finished: a naked man standing with head bowed. There wasn’t much resolution or detail. In relation to the room he was quite tall, long-limbed. He hadn’t a bodybuilder’s physique by any means, but there was something unusual in the musculature of the torso, in the arms and neck, something that suggested effortless power without bulk. His genitalia were discreetly blurred.

  “Very nice.” Chatterji leaned forward to study him. “The height will impress, but won’t intimidate.”

  “Beautiful hands,” said Rutherford. “Put clothes on the fellow and he’d pass for human any day. Bravo, Foxy! Let’s have a look at the face.”

  Ellsworth-Howard gave another command. With a fluid motion the man raised his head. His features were blurred and indistinct, few details clear: formidable dentition, deep-set eyes, large nose, broad, sloping forehead and wide cheekbones.

  “Too primitive,” said Rutherford.

  “This is just the template,” said Ellsworth-Howard. “I’m not a face man. Thought I’d wait for your input.”

  Rutherford nodded. “Do something about the skull shape. More modem, please.” Ellsworth-Howard turned his attention to the complex DNA model and moved some of its components around. A final squeeze and the head of the man melted and re-formed, became less elongated. The brow was high and straight, the nose thinned. “Good. Much friendlier.”

  “You want him to look like Superman?” said Ellsworth-Howard. “I can make him a pretty boy, if that’s what you want.”

  “No! No!” Rutherford waved his hands. “I was referring to Shaw’s superman, anyway. We don’t want him to look like some conceited male model. Do we?” He looked in appeal at Ellsworth-Howard. They considered each other a moment, the one with his puffy mustached face and the other with his naked riveted head. Chatterji, who was rather good-looking, regarded them coolly as he drew out his sinus inhalator and took a drag.

  “Nah,” said Ellsworth-Howard decisively. “Make him an ordinary-looking git, that’s what I think.” He played with the buttonball and the figure’s eyes got a bit smaller.

  “Exceptional beauty causes a high degree of resentment in others, anyway,” conceded Chatterji. “This way he’s unlikely to arouse envy, at any rate.”

  “Jolly good.” Rutherford looked happy. “Now, are we agreed on the features so far? We are? Then let’s see the living man, Foxy.”

  Ellsworth-Howard squeezed the ball twice and abruptly the man, who had been a statue cut of light, seemed a creature of flesh in the room with them—if a homely naked man might be standing, like a summoned ghost, before three mages in a parlor in an old house off Shaftesbury Avenue.

  “I don’t like the hair,” said Rutherford. “Couldn’t he have a great flowing mane of some remarkable color? That’s just the sort of dull shade nobody ever notices.”

  “Shrack great flowing manes.” Ellsworth-Howard looked disgusted. “The brain’s special. Want to see?”

  “By all means,” said Chatterji.

  “Okay.” Ellsworth-Howard thumbed the buttonball. “Say bye-bye, New Man.” He made the figure half turn and smile at them.

  “Good-bye,” it said, and Rutherford gave a cry of delight.

  “Oh! Wait, wait, have him say something else.”

  “Okay.” Ellsworth-Howard gave the command.

  “This is the experimental prototype design for Dr. Zeus Project 417, Code Name Adonai,” said the figure. Its voice was unlike an Enforcer’s, neither shrill nor flat, but a smooth and strangely pleasant tenor. The animated face was pleasant, too. It looked wise and kind.

  Rutherford rose from his chair and collapsed into it again.

  “You’ve done it. Oh, Foxy, you must keep that voice. He’s perfect! I withdraw any reservations I may have had. Let’s give him a mind to match.”

  “Gotcha.” Ellsworth-Howard worked the ball briskly and the man winked out, to be replaced with a great model of a brain like a domed cloud floating in the room. “Here’s your basic brain goes with the revised skull shape. Complete connection between frontal lobes and a shrack of a lot more room in the cerebral cortex. Lots of little extras in the amygdala and hippocampus. Adaptable for immortality process with the installation of a four-fifteen support package placed at midline. Here’s your lower brain function.” Part of the floating brain lit up bright blue.

  “All the aggressive instincts of the old Enforcers but much more self-control. Superior autonomic nervous system. Increased resistance to injury through improved ability to process stimuli. Lots of sex drive!”

  “Whatever did you want to give him that for?” Rutherford said disapprovingly. “That’s so … so crude.”

  “I want him to be able to get the girls,” Ellsworth-Howard said, glowering. “The hero always gets the girls, don’t he? And somebody shracking well ought to! ’Cos I never do, do I?”

  “But he ought to be above mere sensual appetites,” said Rutherford.

  “Now, now.” Chatterji put out a hand. “Let’s think about this, chaps. We’re creating a man to be obeyed and respected. And there is clinical evidence to indicate that people do react submissively to pheromone signals from authority figures, especially testosterone. They tend to obey a man of, er, parts.”

  “Oh, I gave him a real clock tower.” Ellsworth-Howard grinned. “Want to see?” He held up the buttonball, ready to squeeze in an order. Rutherford leaped to his feet,
shouting in protest.

  “If you please, gentlemen!” Chatterji said. “Let’s keep some professional distance here, shall we? It’s in keeping with the heroic profile to be sexually active, Rutherford, you must admit. It’s not as though there can possibly be any consequences. He’ll be as sterile as the old Enforcers. Won’t he, Foxy?”

  “Shrack, yes. A tetraploid? ’Course he will. No Crewkerne females in a bazillion years, and he can’t breed with human beings,” Ellsworth-Howard said seriously.

  “But that’s really almost worse,” said Rutherford, wringing his hands. “Sterile! That’s decidedly unheroic, chaps.”

  “Make up your mind,” jeered Ellsworth-Howard. “Give the poor bastard his fun, that’s what I say.”

  Rutherford subsided, looking pained.

  “A question, Foxy.” Chatterji got up and walked around the image, studying it from all angles. “We’re not making the prototype immortal, of course, but can we install recording hardware? So as to have a complete transcript of his experience.”

  “Give ’im a black box? No problem.” Ellsworth-Howard gave an order and another section of brain lit up. “Right there, instead of your support package, eh? Shove it up through the nasal fossa right after birth. Mind you, it’d fit better if we left his nose big. Shield the box right and even we wouldn’t know it was there, unless we knew what to look for. Cut it out after he dies.”

  “I don’t want to think about him dying,” said Rutherford. “He hasn’t even lived yet. That is—I suppose he has, hasn’t he, and died too? Speaking temporally? We’re going to create him and send him back into the past, where he’ll live out a human lifetime. Somewhere, somewhen, that black box is already on its way to be analyzed. All those figures may have appeared on the dice because they were predestined to, chaps, think of that! Talk about once and future kings.”

  “I hate shracking temporal paradoxes,” growled Ellsworth-Howard. “D’you want this brain or not, then?”

  “Oh, it’s a jolly good brain,” Rutherford hastened to assure him. “We’ll go with this design, by all means.”

  “Do you suppose one life sequence is enough?” Chatterji frowned thoughtfully at the brain. “It’s not, really, is it, for this kind of experiment?”

  “Not if you want valid results,” Ellsworth-Howard said. “I was planning on cloning, once I’ve got a blastocyst. Get three embryos to start with, run three separate sequences.”

  “He’ll be reincarnated,” Rutherford yelled in delight. “Another myth made real.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Chatterji icily. Rutherford turned bright red.

  “Sorry, old man. No offense. It’s not as though you believed in those legends, after all.”

  “Of course I don’t, but that’s not the point,” Chatterji said. “It’s my cultural heritage and I won’t have it mocked. Look here, suppose you give us your report on this now? I’ll be interested in hearing what you’ve come up with.”

  “Very well.” Rutherford cleared his throat. “We’ll need to issue a standing order for the Preservers to be on the lookout for a particular scenario, throughout all time.”

  “Which will be—?” Chatterji went to the sideboard and poured out a little of the apple-prune juice combination. He tasted it experimentally.

  “A woman,” Rutherford said, “fair, of above average height, unmarried, who is sleeping with one or more men who also answer that general physical description. At least one of the men must be highly placed in whatever local tribe or government exists in their era. Any period will do, but Adonai simply must be an Englishman, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, of course.” Chatterji nodded. Ellsworth-Howard grunted his assent and made a subvocal request through the throat mike, and sent it for general temporal distribution.

  “Once we have the situation, the woman will be abducted, implanted with one of our embryos and returned to her environment,” Rutherford said briskly.

  “But these will be human women,” said Chatterji, knitting his brows. “Can they manage?”

  “Of course. Cattle embryos used to be shipped implanted in rabbits, for heaven’s sake! Nothing inhumane. We’ll have a Preserver contact the woman, give her proper prenatal care and deliver the infant, installing the hardware at birth. And we’ll pressure the supposed father or fathers for child support, on threat of exposure. I thought this bit was particularly neat, myself; ought to partly pay for the program.” Rutherford leaned back and folded his arms in a self-congratulatory manner.

  “That is neat, yes.” Chatterji agreed. “It never hurts to think of one’s budget.”

  They heard a faint beeping signal.

  “Got your situation for you,” Ellsworth-Howard said. “Facilitator in 1525 AD says he’s got his eye on a girl at Greenwich. Matches the physical type and so do her sex partners. One of ’em’s the king’s falconer. That okay?”

  “Splendid! Send an affirmative response to the Facilitator.” Rutherford punched the air with his fist. “You see, chaps? It’s all falling into place.”

  “What happens next?” Chatterji inquired.

  “Next, we’ll arrange for the subject to be raised by one of our paid households with security clearance. They’ll know he’s one of our experiments, but he’ll never be told, of course. He’ll think he’s a human being. What he will be told is that he’s illegitimate, that his birth was a scandal and a disgrace.”

  “Won’t that tend to create a neurosis?” Chatterji objected, sipping his drink.

  “Ah, but, that’s the clever part! He’ll be splendidly nourished and educated.” Rutherford held out his hands, grinning hugely. “He’ll be programmed with the very highest ideals by someone he loves and trusts, and told he must work harder than other boys to make up for the stigma of his birth. The psychology here will produce someone well adjusted, but with a secret shame.”

  “Ingenious, Rutherford! Go on.”

  “Every influence must be used to indoctrinate him toward a life of service to humanity, you see.” Rutherford stood and began to pace about, rattling the dice in his pocket “Then, we’ll throw him out alone in the world! Start him on the hero’s journey. He’ll have no family, so all his emotional ties and loyalties will come to settle on those values he’s been taught to hold dear. We’ll see what he does.”

  “Here now,” said Ellsworth-Howard, who had only just sorted through the whole speech. “Isn’t that a little hard on him? You’re not only making him feel bad about something he didn’t do, you’re making him feel bad about something that didn’t even shracking happen.”

  “I believe churches used to call it original sin,” Rutherford agreed, looking crafty. “But what does it matter, if it serves to make him a better man? If he could understand, I’m sure he’d thank us. I can’t wait to see how he’ll turn out, can you?”

  Chatterji raised his glass in salute. “I think you’re right, Rutherford. This must be what the gods feel like! I report to the committee on Thursday. You’ll get your authorization for raw materials then, Foxy.”

  THE YEAR 2337: Alec and His Friends

  By the age of seventeen, Alec Checkerfield was no longer unhappy in London. Not at all. He was a well-to-do young man about town and he was having a lot of fun. At least, as much fun as one could have in the twenty-fourth century.

  “Alec.”

  Alec opened one eye. His other eye was obstructed by the breast of the young lady who happened to be in bed with him that morning. He breathed in the reassuring fragrance of her skin. With his usable eye he looked around uncertainly and met the glare of the bearded face that had lowered down beside him.

  “What?”

  “Alec, it’s eight bells! Don’t you think you’d better get the wench out of here afore Mrs. L. comes in with yer bloody breakfast on a tray?”

  “Uh-huh,” Alec replied. He did not move, staring blankly at the shambles of last night’s social encounter. In the twenty-fourth century, young men hardly ever woke up to find empty liquor bottles and sus
picious-looking smoking apparatus lying amid shed clothing; stimulants had been illegal for decades and sex was very nearly so. Alec, however, was a rather old-fashioned boy.

  As Alec lay there getting his bearings, the Captain paced back and forth, growling. He no longer resembled a pirate, or at least not the eighteenth-century variety. Nowadays he appeared as a dignified-looking gentleman in a three-piece suit, though there was still a suggestion of the corsair in his black beard and fierce grin. He looked like a particularly villainous commodities trader.

  “Get up, son,” he said patiently. “It’s the first of April, 2337, which is sort of appropriate under the circumstances. Wake up yer friend. Take a shower and wash the smoke out of yer hair. Mix yerself a glass of Fizz-O-Dyne and drink it. Make one for the girl, too. Get her clothes back on her. Take her down the back stairs. Sensors indicate nobody’s in that part of the house right now. Alec, are you listening to me?”

  “Oh, piss off,” Alec said, and sat up unsteadily. The girl sighed and stretched. The Captain winked out before she opened her eyes, but several hundred red lights glowered at her from the banks of electronic equipment that lined the walls of Alec’s room, and a small surveillance camera swiveled to follow her motion as she reached out a hand to stroke Alec’s back.

  “Hey, babe,” she cooed.

  “Hey, babe,” he said, turning to her with all the charm he could summon through the miasma of hangover. “D’j’you sleep okay?”

  “Like a brass lime,” she said. It’s not necessary here to explain all the youth argot of the year 2337, but like a brass lime was a reference to the title of a current hit song and meant that she’d slept quite well, thank you.

  “Bishareedo,” he said, and in the same idiom that meant that he was very happy to hear she’d slept well. He reached out to pull her upright beside him, with one swift motion of his arm. She gave a little squeal of mingled terror and delight. He kissed her gently.