"Have you had breakfast yet, Peter?" she said.
"No."
She reached behind a curtain beside the desk and pulled forward a telephone receiver I had not known was there.
"Two breakfasts for Chalet 24, please."
"Would you make that three?" I said.
Lareen looked at me inquisitively, and I explained briefly about Seri.
She changed the order, then hung up.
"Is she a close friend?" Lareen said.
"Fairly close. Why?"
"We sometimes find that the presence of someone else can be distressing.
Most people come here alone."
"Well, I haven't decided--"
"On the other hand, from our point of view the rehabilitation process can be greatly assisted. How long have you known Seri?"
"A few weeks."
"And do you expect the relationship to go on?"
Annoyed by the frankness of the question, I said nothing. Seri was within earshot, had she chosen to listen, and anyway I could not see what it had to do with this woman. She stared at me, until I looked away. In the shower cubicle I heard Seri turn off the water.
"All right, I understand," Lareen said. "Maybe you find it difficult to trust me."
"Are you trying to psychoanalyse me?"
"No. I'm trying to learn what I can about you, so I can help you later."
I knew I was wasting this woman's time. Whether or not I "trusted" her was not the issue; the confidence I lacked was in myself. I no longer wanted what her organization offered me.
Just then, Seri came in from the shower cubicle. She had a towel wrapped around her body and another about her head. She glanced at Lareen, then went to the other end of the chalet and pulled the screen across.
Knowing that Seri could hear me, I said: "I might as well be honest with you, Lareen. I've decided not to accept the treatment."
"Yes, I see. Are your reasons ethical on religious?"
"Neither ...well, ethical I suppose." The promptness of the question had again taken me by surprise.
"Did you have these feelings when you bought the ticket?" Her tone was interested, not inquisitive.
"No, they came later." Lareen was waiting, so I went on, noting subconsciously that she was expert at manipulating a response out of me. Now that I had stated my decision I felt a strong compulsion to explain myself. "I can't really describe what it is, except that my being here feels wrong. I keep thinking of other people who need the treatment more urgently than I do, and that I don't really deserve it. I don't know what I'm going to do with athanasia. I'm just going to waste it, I think." Still Lareen said nothing.
"Then yesterday, when we arrived here. It's like a hospital, and I'm not ill."
"Yes, I know what you mean."
"Don't try to talk me into it, please. I've made up my mind."
I could hear Seri moving around behind the screen, brushing her hair out.
"You know you are dying, Peter?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean anything to me. We're all dying."
"Some of us sooner than others."
"That's why it doesn't seem to matter. I'll die in the end, whether or not I take the treatment."
Lareen had made a note on the pad of paper she carried. Somehow it indicated that she had not accepted my rejection of the treatment.
"Have you ever heard of a writer called Deloinne?" she said.
"Yes, of course. _Renunciation_."
"Have you read the hook recently?"
"When I was at school."
"We've got copies here. Why don't you borrow one?"
"I wouldn't have thought that was approved reading here," I said. "It doesn't exactly agree with your treatment."
"You said you didn't want to be talked out of your decision. If you're not going to change your mind, I want you to be sure you've not made a mistake."
"All right," I said. "Why did you mention it?"
"Because the central point of Deloinne's argument is that the irony of life is its finite nature, and that the terror of death is caused by its infinitude. When death comes, there is no reversing it. A human being can therefore only achieve whatever it is he aspires to in a relatively brief time. Deloinne argues--mistakenly, in my personal opinion--that it is the temporary nature of life that makes it worth living. If life is prolonged, as we can prolong it here, then life's achievements become attenuated. Deloinne also points out, correctly, that Lotterie-Collago has never made guarantees against eventual death. He therefore comes to the conclusion that a short, rich life is preferable to a long and impoverished one."
"That's how I see it," I said.
"So you prefer to live your normal span?"
"Until I won the prize, I'd never even thought about it."
"VVhat would you call a normal span? Thirty years? Forty?"
"More than that, of course," I said. "Isn't normal life expectancy somewhere around seventy-five years?"
"On average, yes. How old are you, Peter? Thirty-one, isn t it?
"No. Twenty--nine."
"Your records say thirty--one. But it doesn't matter."
Seri came out from behind the screen, fully dressed but with her hair hanging loose and wet. She had a towel around her shoulders, and a comb in her hand. Lareen took no notice of her as she sat down in the other seat, but instead unclipped a large fold of computer print_out paper and examined the top sheet.
"Peter, I'm afraid I've got some rather hard news for you. Deloinne was a philosopher but you try to take him literally. Whatever you _say_, you believe instinctively that you will live forever. The facts are rather different." She was moving her pencil oven the sheet. "Here we are. Your life expectancy, at present, is put at just under four and a half years."
I looked at Seri. "That's nonsense!"
"I'm sorry, but it's not. I know you find it difficult to believe, but I'm afraid it's extremely likely."
"But I'm not ill. I've never been ill in my life."
"That's not what your medical records say. You were hospitalized when you were eight, and you were under treatment for several weeks."
"That was just a childhood illness. Kidney trouble, they said, but the doctors told my parents I was all right and I've never had any trouble since."
Again I looked at Seri, seeking reassurance, but she was staring at Lareen.
"When you were in your early twenties, you went to your G.P. several times. Headaches."
"This is ridiculous! That was just a minor thing. The doctor said it was because I was working too hard. I was at university. Everybody gets headaches!
Anyway, how do you know all this? Are you a doctor?"
"No, I'm just a counsellor. If it was as minor as you say, then perhaps our computer prognosis is wrong. You can be examined if you wish. At the moment, all we have to go on is your records."
"Let me see that," I said, pointing at the sheet of paper. Lareen hesitated, and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse. But then she passed it over.
I read through it quickly. It was in detail accurate, though selectively. It listed my birth date, parents, sister, addresses, schools, medical treatment. Further on were more unexpected details. There was a list (incomplete) of my friends, places I had often visited, and, disturbingly, details of howr I had voted, the tithes I had paid, the political society I joined at university, my contacts with a fringe theatre group, my connections with people who were monitoring the Covenant. There was a section on what the computer called "imbalance indications": that I drank frequently, had friends of dubious political affiliation, was fickle with women, was given to unreasonable rages when younger, was described as "moody and introverted" by one of my tutors, was described as "only So per cent reliable" by a former employer, had been granted deferment of the draft on "psychological" grounds, and that for a time I had been involved with a young woman descended from Glaundian immigrants.