Again they nodded.
His grandfather’s brows drew down. “Finally, because here we have no death penalty, he’s certain to draw life without hope of parole.” He glared at his son. “That, Willard, means he’ll be a ready weapon for any enemy to use against us — the press will always help. That’s something we can not afford.”
“Then what the hell can we do?”
The old man sat back in his chair. “We can put him in cold storage,” he said.
“What do you mean by that, Judge Vennah?”
“You’ve heard about cryonics, haven’t you? People getting themselves into deep-freeze the moment they’re dead, hoping they can be brought to life again when the world’s found cures for what they died of? Well, it got a big boost in ’88 when they proved that higher mammals can be frozen and revived, and even more when the Russians actually woke up that baby mammoth in Siberia.”
“I think... I see,” said Willard Vennah slowly. “That means we’d not be killing him.”
“A good point,” put in the counsel. “A very good point. Of course, it would have to be entirely voluntary.”
A few hours later the three of them visited John Vennah in his cell. They laid it out for him, coldly and legalistically, examining each of his hopeless options, saying nothing of their own motives in the matter.
He was intelligent. He stared at them for a long time with his strange eyes. He told himself that, when those people in the future woke him up, they’d find a problem more difficult than they expected; he had defeated every headshrinker he had encountered. He smiled. Then he agreed.
Three weeks later his counsel presented the Vennah family’s offer at a pre-trial hearing, arguing eloquently that they would defray all expenses — that the taxpayers would be spared the enormous costs of keeping this mentally ill, dangerous man in high-security confinement for forty or fifty or more years. And justice would ally with mercy; perhaps years from now a more advanced society with psychiatric wonder cures could bring him back to life, a useful citizen.
The judge agreed. Though there had been no enabling legislation, he declared, there quite clearly had been none prohibiting. The prosecution, who had good reason to keep Judge Vennah happy, agreed not to pursue the case. The media had a field day.
Ten days later, in the prison hospital, John Vennah was prepared for cryonic storage. He was given the necessary shots to slow down his life processes. He was wrapped in the winding sheet the treatment called for. He was taken away to the cold crypt where he was to lie for generations.
The awakening was much slower than he had expected, much slower and much more painful. For a long time he could see nothing; no sounds reached him. He was aware simply that he was.
Then there were vague lights and shadows, voices he could not locate, somewhere in the air. He felt a touch against his neck; he slept. When finally he awoke, it was to see four people standing over him, staring at him silently. They wore curiously cut clothing, yellow and white smocks like Nehru jackets. Their faces were utterly expressionless, extremely smooth, uniformly handsome.
He found that he could move his head. He looked around. The architecture was foreign to him — glowing walls decorated with vivid blots of color like Rohrshach tests, arched doorways, vaulted ceilings. The blots drew his gaze disturbingly. He looked again at the attendants. He was not curious about how the world had changed; his only thought was how he might contend with it. He tried to move his arms, and found that they had not removed his cerements.
“What... what year is this?” he asked.
They did not answer.
“How long have I been — asleep?”
One of the men spoke. His English was — the only word was mutated, its vowels and consonants hard to recognize. “You frozen, yes, now two hunder-thirry-and — yes, three years.”
John Vennah peered at them. They did not look advanced. They did not even look intelligent. Suddenly the feeling welled within him that he would have no trouble in this society — that he could bring them plenty of it. He fought his laughter back.
“And I suppose you’ve found a cure?” he asked. “You know — for what they said was wrong with me?”
The man nodded heavily. “Yes,” he replied. “We did not waken you until. We have the records; we know you. We have the cure, yes.”
“That’s great!” John Vennah told him. “And when’re you going to take these mummy wrappings off?”
“They will be removed,” the man promised him, “but after you have cured.”
“Which will be when?”
“Soon, soon,” the man said.
Minutes passed. John Vennah told himself that they must certainly work fast if they thought they could cure him before he even was unwrapped, and momentarily he was apprehensive. Was it possible? Could they have developed a technique that would do to him what lobotomy might have done in his own day? Then another look at their dull, impassive faces reassured him.
Fifteen more minutes passed. No word was said.
“Well?” he asked. “When do we start?”
“They come now,” the spokesman told him.
There was sound. He looked around. A door had opened, and two more men had entered. One was tall and dark, hawk-nosed, professionally serene, dressed like the others but in white and pale blue; his companion wore a recognizable cassock, but black and saffron, with a sort of Roman collar; a string of votive beads hung from his wrist. They walked in total silence; their feet were bare.
Well, look at that! he thought, trying not to sneer. Religious bunk!
They came to him. “John Vennah?” the tall one said.
“Yes.”
The man read from a paper — the record of his life before the freezing.
“So. All this is true? It is needful for us to know, for the cure. From you, yourself.”
“It’s true,” John Vennah told him.
“Then we need not delay.” The tall man nodded to the others. They took the four corners of the gurney. They started moving it toward the door. The man in the cassock, counting his beads, murmuring unintelligibly, followed behind them.
“How long is this going to take?” John Vennah asked.
“It takes a moment only.”
“Well, I guess you’re the doctor,” John Vennah said.
The tall man stopped. He frowned. “You do not understand. True it is we have a cure for those like you. Yes, we have rediscovered it. The only cure. The cure that sets you free as you deserve, to where you belong.”
He gestured. The door slid open.
“But I am not a doctor,” the tall man told John Vennah humbly, pointing to the open courtyard where the scaffold stood. “I am the common hangman.”
A Matter of Conscience
by Gary Alexander
An unusual story about an unusual detective... Meet David Clay of the Public Defender’s Office (Juvenile Division) in the case of a tragic, brutal triple murder. Dave Clay had his orders: Go through the motions; go by the book, but don’t make waves. The question was: could a conscientious public defender like Dave Clay follow such orders?...
Children do have some rights in this country, but most of the legal ones protect only the child’s physical well-being. One cannot, for example, mug one’s child too often, too severely, too conspicuously. One cannot deprive one’s child of adequate nourishment either. A parent accused of such crimes can be and is occasionally prosecuted in a court of law.
Unfortunately, tragically, parents who subject their child to more subtle forms of deprivation will seldom be held accountable. A child unloved has no legal redress. The sheriff will not intervene, nor will a social worker.