She came straight to the point. “Khalid, I’ve been giving due consideration to our little talk the other day. I’ve been reading my Buddhism… and under the circumstances I think it would be in Davey’s best possible interests if he were implanted.”
I refrained from punching the air in triumph, but I could feel myself grinning idiotically. “That’s good news, Mrs. Emmett.”
“Davey’s at home with me at the moment,” she said. “But he’s taken a turn for the worse and he’s due to be admitted into Bradley General tomorrow.”
“I’ll arrange for him to come straight to the implant ward,” I told her.
She hesitated. “Would I… That is, could I be present when Davey is implanted?”
“By all means. I’ll arrange everything and see you tomorrow.”
“Thank you very much for your help, Khalid.”
I smiled and cut the connection.
The following afternoon I ushered Mrs. Emmett and Davey into my surgery and explained the implantation procedure. Davey sat clutching a stamp album, oblivious that we were discussing his future.
Mrs. Emmett was surprised that the operation would be over so quickly. “I thought it would be performed under general anaesthetic,” she said.
I smiled. “No, local. It takes about ten minutes. I simply make an incision in the skin of the temple and insert the implant. I seal the wound, and the implant does the rest. It releases nano-machines into the subject’s body, which monitor the metabolism. When the subject ‘dies’, the implant takes over and revives the system.”
Mrs. Emmett was shaking her head. “And then, when Davey is returned, he can make his decision as to whether or not he wishes to retain the implant?”
I nodded. “That’s right. Now, if you’d care to step this way.”
Davey proved to be a docile patient. A nurse administered a sedative and a local anaesthetic, and while Davey lay on the couch with his head turned to the left, I made the slit in his right temple, eased the implant home, and sealed the wound.
Mrs. Emmett perched on a stool, watching intently.
I looked up and smiled. “There, done.”
“Quite amazing, Khalid.”
While Davey was drinking a cup of sugary tea, Mrs. Emmett confided her concerns to me. “It will be a very strange experience, Khalid, when Davey returns, to see him as he might have been if not for…” She smiled, sadly. “You see, so much of my life has been taken up with his welfare. I retired early in order to keep him with me. I could have sent him to a care home, but after my husband died… well, Davey was all I had.”
She fell silent, her gaze distant, perhaps considering how her life might have worked out had it not been for Davey’s handicap.
I realised, then, that Davey’s return would be at once a cause for celebration and, for Mrs. Emmett, much soul-searching.
Once Davey was implanted, he was spared the treatment he would have undergone for his condition. A month after his implant, he was admitted to Bradley General where he died peacefully. Richard Lincoln, accompanied by Mrs. Emmett and myself, drove the body up to the Onward Station. There was a small, secular ceremony of leave-taking, and then Davey was beamed aboard the orbiting Kéthani starship. I drove Mrs. Emmett home, promising to accompany her to the ceremony that would greet Davey’s return to Earth in six months’ time.
That year, winter hung on well into April. There was a late fall of snow at Easter, transforming the land with its total and pristine beauty. Life proceeded as normal, a round of work and Tuesday night sessions at the Fleece. They were the highlight of the week, a few hours of relaxation among good friends.
I saw Zara once in Bradley, and that was painful. She was walking arm in arm with her new husband, on the opposite side of the street. They didn’t see me, for which I was thankful. The sight of her, tall and beautiful and seemingly happy, released a slew of painful memories. I went over and over our final days together, and Zara’s accusations. I was a bastard, she had said, a domineering, selfish, bigoted, sexist bastard.
And then I had killed myself and been resurrected—remade, as it were, by the Kéthani. I became a new man.
A few months after Davey Emmett’s death, Richard Lincoln took me to one side in the Fleece and told me that Mrs. Emmett was in hospital.
“I saw her yesterday while I was making a pick up,” he said. “She has cancer. It’s terminal. She said she wanted to see you.”
I looked at him. “You don’t think…?” I began.
“What, that she wants to be implanted? A conversion at the eleventh hour? I doubt it, not our Mrs. Emmett.”
“I’ll drop by and see her tomorrow,” I promised, and returned to my pint, wondering what the old lady might want to see me about.
She was in a private room on the oncology ward, sitting upright in bed and hooked up to a bank of machines. If I had expected a feeble, self-sorry old woman who had given up all hope, then I had grossly underestimated Mrs. Katherine Emmett.
She gave a cheery smile when I hesitantly entered the room. “Khalid, pull up a chair. How are you?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Isn’t it me who should be asking you how you are?”
She laughed. “I’m fine, Khalid. Oddly enough, given the circumstances, I’ve really never felt better.”
I took her hand. “You’re an amazing woman,” I found myself saying.
She laughed again, mockingly this time. “I’m seventy-six, Khalid, and I’ve had a full and eventful life. I’m quite prepared for the end of this stage of existence.”
I gestured at the equipment surrounding the bed. “They’re doing their damnedest to keep you alive.”
She leaned forward and whispered, mock-conspiratorially, “It’s because I’m not implanted, Khalid. They’re frightened to death of death. They’re trying to do everything they can to squeeze a few more weeks of life from me. But as I’ve told them over and over, I’m ready to go.”
“They haven’t tried to get you to agree to an implant?”
“Of course they have. I had some young thing down here just yesterday. He didn’t know his theology, though—I tied him up in knots.”
“So it’d be useless if I tried to…”
“Absolutely and categorically futile, Khalid, my friend.”
I tried another tack. “How long do they give you?”
“Perhaps a month. The liver, you see.”
“But you won’t be around to see Davey when he returns…”
She allowed a few seconds to elapse before she replied—sufficient time to make me regret the statement.
“No,” she said, “I won’t be around. And do you know something? I don’t want to be around, to be honest.”
I stared at her. “Surely—” I began, and stopped myself.
She leaned forward. “Khalid, I want to tell you something. I’ve never told another living soul this, and I want to get it off my chest before I go.” I squeezed her hand, wondering what I was about to hear.
“Khalid, do you know what was wrong with Davey? I mean, what was responsible for his condition?”
I shook my head. “His medical records would have been privy only to his own doctor,” I began.
She smiled, returning the pressure of my hand. “It was an accident, Khalid. When he was two years old. I’d taken him out shopping. If only I’d delayed going out or not gone at all… But we can’t undo the past, can we? Oh, I’ve often wondered how what happened might have been the repercussions of sins I might have committed in a previous life. That was the only part of Buddhist theory that I found hard to accept.” She laughed. “For obvious reasons, Khalid! Anyway, you see, it was my fault… the accident. We had stopped at the side of the road, and Davey got away from me… ran straight into the road, in front of…” She paused, gathering herself, and then went on. “The doctors said it was miracle that Davey survived, even though he was severely brain damaged.”