Tomorrow and Tomorrow Page 6

  “Are you telling me that the same thing happened again, after I entered the cryowomb?”

  “Indeed it did.” Cass Leemu smiled and stroked her right nipple. It was clear that she considered her action quite empty of erotic content. Paradigm shift. Drake was tempted to ask her to have a private meal with him, and see if and where she blushed.

  “It has happened not once,” she went on, “but three times. There have been three major viewpoint shifts. Our understanding of Nature differs more from the perspectives of your time, than yours differed from the Romans.”

  “So I am going to be like Newton’s colleagues, unable to comprehend a new foundation.”

  “I am afraid so. Unless you can master the concept of…” She paused, then smiled again at Drake, this time apologetically. “I am sorry. The word for the idea that now underpins science lacks any adequate useful paraphrase in Universal. Even the general data banks are silent. But if you really wish to study science, and learn the Science language beginning with the absolute basics, I would be willing to help you.”

  “I can’t do that. Not yet.” Drake had already given up any notion of learning science for himself, but he was reluctant to say an outright no to Cass Leemu — he might need her later. “You see, Cass, I owe the next six years to Par Leon. He revived me.”

  “Of course. Six years only? He is being generous. A sponsor like Par Leon, who chooses an individual in whom no one else has an interest, can set his own terms with the Resurrect.”

  And there again was the paradigm shift. Cass was pointing out to Drake that the brave new world he now lived in contained other elements at least as hard to grasp as science.

  After he had returned to his own spartan living quarters, he worried over the problem. Slavery did not exist. On the other hand, six years of absolute service to Par Leon was taken for granted. It was a form of slavery, but its ethical basis was never questioned. Drake could not understand that basis. He comforted himself with the thought that Henry VIII would have been appalled at wars that killed civilians, while accepting as natural a public hanging, drawing, and quartering.

  As he placed his helmet over his head, he wondered what induced lesson he would receive tonight. He felt beyond surprise. Before he lost consciousness, it occurred to him that humanity was able to manage with very few absolutes. Why? Because people could live within — and apparently justify — any imaginable variation of ethics and morality.

  Maybe that was why humans had survived.

  Gradually, Drake became resigned to his own situation. He did not need to hurry. He had survived. Ana was safe in the Pluto cryowombs. Before he could do anything to change her status he would first have to earn his own freedom. He resolved to give Par Leon six good, solid years of effort toward the other man’s great lifetime project: the analysis of musical trends in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In any case, as a Resurrect what other option did he have?

  After the first few months, the shrewdness of Leon’s act in reviving Drake was apparent. More important than any facts that he might provide were the perspectives that he could offer into the lifestyles of the late twentieth century. It was far more than just science and ethics that had changed.

  Often, his information had Leon shaking his head. “It is truly astonishing. An insanity. Did man-woman relationships really play so large a part in everything in your society?”

  “You know they did.” Drake was learning his way around the data banks, with no help from Leon. “Your own records show it, the ones that we were examining just two days ago.”

  “Yes. They do show it, but believing it is difficult. Men and women actually appeared to hate each other in your era. Yet at the same time there was much random mating, mating on impulse. I do not mean mere sexual acts, that I can comprehend. But random mating that produced offspring, without benefit of genome maps or the most rudimentary genetic information on parents and grandparents…”

  Drake started to explain, and quickly realized that it was hopeless. Here was another five-hundred-year gulf that could not be crossed. To Par Leon, mating was always dictated by the selection of desirable gene combinations. As he said, there was no other way to make sure that the children would be healthy. How could any other approach be justified?

  He reacted to the idea of reproduction between comparative strangers as Drake regarded public burning at the stake.

  In any case, Drake was beginning to have problems of his own. There really was no case to be made for the production of children, without thought for their future or for their physical and mental well-being. It was, as Par Leon said, “the blind mating urge of the primeval slime, deified to become religious principle and-blind dogma.”

  Drake listened to those words and decided that he was beginning to view his own epoch with a new perspective. He must control that tendency, or his main value to Par Leon would disappear. For that reason, and one other, he had to remain an outsider in this century.

  After six months, Drake realized that he was earning his keep and more. Leon might be the century’s foremost expert on the music of Drake’s period, but of some events and forces he knew nothing. He was endlessly fascinated by the smallest details.

  “You say you knew him?” Par Leon leaned forward, eyebrows raised on his high forehead. “You met Renselm in person?”

  “A score of times. I was present at the first performance of Morani’s Concerto concertante, written especially for Renselm, and I went backstage afterward. Then we went to dinner, just the three of us. I thought you already read about all this in one of my articles.”

  “Oh, yes.” Par Leon made a dismissive gesture. “I certainly read it. But this is different. Tell me about his fingering, his posture at the keyboard, his strange reaction to applause. Tell me what he said to you about Adele Winterberg — she was his mistress at the time, you know.” He laughed in delight. “Tell me, if you can remember it, what you all ate for dinner.”

  Only once or twice did Par Leon express dissatisfaction. And then it was because Drake had been frozen just before some event that especially interested him. “If you had only waited another three years…” he would say; but he spoke philosophically and with good humor.

  It was by no means a one-way transfer of information. From his vantage point five centuries ahead, Par Leon had insights into the musical life of an earlier era that left Drake gasping. For the first time he understood where certain contemporary musical currents had been heading in his own time. Krubak, in his much-ridiculed late works, had been feeling his way toward forms that would not mature until thirty years after Drake had been frozen.

  The work went on, ten to twelve hours a day. If Leon ever wondered why Drake showed no curiosity at seeing firsthand the world as it had become in the twenty-sixth century, or in making other friends, or even in learning the twists and turns of human progress over the past five centuries, he never mentioned it.

  For his part, Drake had no desire to be absorbed by or become part of the current society. Yet he had to know certain subjects in great detail, far more than Par Leon could tell him. Fortunately, the general data banks permitted near-infinite cross-checking and depth of inquiry.

  Drake began to satisfy his own unique information needs.

  The whole solar system had been explored and mapped in detail. Venus was in the first stages of terraforming, the acid witch’s brew of its atmosphere creeping down in temperature and pressure. Mars had been colonized, not on the surface but within the extensive natural caverns beneath. There were permanent active stations — many of them “manned” by self-replicating computers and repair devices — on all the satellites of the major planets.

  It was progress; yet to Drake it was less than expected. The projections made in his own time had seen the whole solar system crawling with humans and their intelligent machines. Sometime in the past five centuries, priorities had changed.

  But what about Pluto?

  Drake gave that little world his special atten
tion. A small crew of scientists had a research station on Charon, the outsized satellite that made the Pluto-Charon system into a small planetary doublet. Pluto itself was uninhabited, unless one counted the dreaming serried ranks of the cryocorpses. The cryowombs were too cold for the comfortable permanent presence of animate humans. They hovered down at liquid helium temperature (Drake’s earlier suspicion of liquid nitrogen storage had proved well founded). The vaults were tended, to the extent that they needed any sort of attention, by machines especially designed for extreme cold.

  With the idea of money subsumed into some incomprehensible system of electronic credit, it was not clear to Drake

  when he would be able to afford to make the long trip out to Pluto. He forced himself to be patient, putting the question to one side until his time of service was closer to its end.

  The work went on, hard but certainly not unrewarding. The text that they were producing grew steadily. By the beginning of the fourth year, Drake shared Par Leon’s conviction that they were producing a classic. He listened to the suggestion that in fairness the two of them should be given equal credit, and shook his head.

  “It was all your idea, Leon, not mine. You could have found someone else to do what I have done. But without you to revive me I could have done nothing …”

  …and if you shared credit with me, I would not be here long enough to take it. As soon as possible, I will be gone.

  That was the secret goal, thought about constantly but never mentioned.

  And then, at the end of the fourth year, an event took place that changed all Drake’s plans.

  Chapter 7

  “A wild call and a clear call that man not be denied”

  Drake was working. It was late or early, depending on the definition. The improvements to his body included a lessened need for sleep, and he did most of his private thinking and searching long after midnight. Tonight he had lost track of the hour as he strove to understand, for the hundredth time, the complex medical environment of Ana’s disease. He could see why an ailment that had been bred out of the human race would attract little attention in the present day; but it seemed to him that treatments for other conditions might apply to this one.

  He was toying with the daunting idea of learning Medicine — a multiyear commitment — when his outer portal reported a caller. He glanced up at the clock. Eight in the morning. He had time for a short nap, then he ought to call Par Leon and plan the rest of the day. They worked together flexibly and well, swapping opinions and thoughts and notes whenever either of them felt it useful; but they seldom met in person.

  So who could be visiting, so early and uninvited? He lived in a tiny apartment. It was furnished with minimal facilities, and in four years he had never had a visitor.

  The portal again reported a request for attention. He approved it, and stood up as the interlocking doors opened.

  The caller was a woman. She did not wait for Drake’s invitation before she entered. She walked in and swept her gaze over the interior of the apartment. She seemed to take everything in with a single glance from a pair of sapphire-blue eyes.

  “You’re Drake Merlin,” she said firmly. “I’m Melissa Bierly.”

  She looked right at him, and he experienced for the first time the full force of her. Even long afterward, even when he knew the whole story, he was never able to explain the source of that peculiar power. She was striking looking, certainly, with a round, symmetrical face framed by straight black hair and wide eyes of pure deep blue; but a composer, especially one who had written music for movies, was exposed to many striking women. His first impression was that she was tall. Then she came closer and he realized that he was wrong. Her head scarcely came to his nose.

  “Do I know you?” Drake said at last. He was sure that he did not. He had met hundreds of people since his awakening, usually through Par Leon and their mutual researches; but he would not have forgotten Melissa Bierly.

  “Apparently not, though it would have been possible — -just.” She had switched to English. “We were around at the same time, but you were frozen when I was only one year old. I went to the cryowombs twenty-four years later, and this is the first resurrection for each of us.”

  Dead at twenty-five — younger even than Ana. Drake gestured to a chair, and she nodded and sat down. He sat on the low bed, facing her.

  The sapphire eyes looked right inside him as she went on, “I was revived two months ago. As soon as I could, I

  checked how many of us there are. Do you know that number?”

  He shook his head, still without speaking. It was a question of no interest. At best it was irrelevant to his needs; at worst it would lead to an interaction with other Resurrects. That could waste time and distract him from his goals.

  “There were fewer than fifty thousand placed in the cryowombs,” Melissa went on. “Forty-eight thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, to be exact. Most of them entered the cryowombs within fifty years after me. Apparently the idea went out of fashion when the revival success rate remained at zero for so long. Also, life expectancy had increased. Of the total frozen, only a hundred and thirty-two have been resurrected. How many of those have you met?”

  “None.”

  “That’s what I thought. As soon as I arrived, one of my first acts was to contact the other Resurrects. They form a closely knit group.”

  “I am not surprised to learn it.” Drake was speaking in English, too, and he felt the shift in mental gears. It was his first use of the language in almost four years. It brought a surge of longing for the past, as strong and inexplicable as life returning with the spring.

  He knew that his answer to Melissa Bierly had not been quite an honest one. He had examined the data base of Resurrects. He did not remember how many there were, but he recalled that they lived in a colony of their own and spent all their leisure time together.

  “But you are unique,” Melissa said. The eyes were boring into Drake. “You alone have had no contact with any of the others.”

  “Did they tell you to come and see me?” The presence of the woman was producing an effect on Drake, relaxing and unnerving him at the same time. Her gray dress was as concealing as Cass Leemu’s scanty outfits were revealing, but with Melissa Bierly there was a crackling undercurrent of tension. He did not know if it was sexual or from some other cause. He had not generated it, and he did not want it. But it was there.

  The dark head shook firmly, while the eyes never left his. “The others said nothing to me, except inviting me to join their group. I came to you precisely because of your aloofness. You see, I wish to undertake a project. I wish to see what the world has become, everywhere from pole to pole. I do not want to travel with a group. But I do want a companion.”

  Even before he replied, Drake felt the insidious lure of her suggestion. A knowledge of the world as it was now could only increase the chances of his own success. The data banks were vast beyond imagining, but surely they did not contain everything. Suppose that, in some far-off corner of the Earth, information existed that would allow Ana to be cured?

  “Well?” Melissa had moved to stand in front of him, her hands on her hips.

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s impossible. I’m busy on a long-term collaborative project.”

  “If it’s long-term, why can’t it wait a little while?” She moved closer and reached out to touch his hand. It was their first contact, and Drake felt the irrational spark of attraction.

  “We wouldn’t need to be gone long,” she continued. She was smiling down at him. “Come on, come with me. Just for a few weeks. Surely you must have taken breaks in your work before.”

  “Never.”

  “How long have you been working on this project?”

  “Four years.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “Without any time off at all? You deserve a vacation, and I’ll bet you need one. Why not call your collaborator and see if he will agree to it?”

  Drake felt no need o
f a vacation. He had resisted the idea strongly, the half-dozen times that Par Leon suggested it. He had known Melissa Bierly for less than a quarter of an hour. But, beyond his comprehension, he found himself reaching out to call Par Leon.

  Leon was sure to say no. There was no way, given the current status of the project, that he would agree. While the call was going through, Drake told himself to expect a refusal. And once Leon had said no, Drake would have something tangible to counterbalance his own irrational urge to say yes, and go off with Melissa to the ends of the Earth.

  Then the screen was alive, Par Leon’s open, dignified face was staring out at them, and Drake was making a half-coherent request to delay their work for a while.

  And Leon was nodding, even before Drake had finished. “Of course you may go. I have plenty of work that I can manage very well in your absence. The project will not suffer. Go, and enjoy.”

  Even in Drake’s dazed state of mind he felt that there was something wrong. Par Leon had no expression in his voice. It was as if the request had come to him as a follow-up on some earlier conversation. Also, Leon had not asked when Drake wanted to go, or where, or how long he might be away. And Drake had provided none of that information. Indeed, he did not know it himself.

  But before he could speak again, Leon was gone; and Melissa had taken both his hands in hers and was lifting him easily to his feet.

  “There,” she said. “What did I tell you? Now that’s done, we can sit down together and make plans and begin to get to know each other. You’re very cramped in here. Why don’t we go to my place? It’s a lot more comfortable.”

  Drake thought for one moment of Ana. She lay secure in her frigid cryowomb, on far-off Pluto. But it was Melissa, warm and breathing and somehow compelling, who held his hands. It was her sparkling blue eyes, rather than Ana’s gray ones, that smiled into his.

  Unresisting, he allowed her to lead him to the door and out of his little apartment.

  Drake was heading for the open air of Earth for the first time in five hundred years. Since the surface seemed to play no part in his plans after his resurrection, he had ignored its existence during his time working with Par Leon. And if he had been asked what he expected to find as the elevator carried him upward, he would have been hard put to provide a single answer. In any case, the answers he might have given were nothing like what he and Melissa found when the deep elevator finally reached the surface.