Lew shrugged and accepted the completed forms.
The induction room was empty, clean, and white. Metal instruments clattered in trays with hollow echoes. Larry’s ears popped as the heavy double doors were closed and the oxygen squeeze begun. He had second thoughts.
“Fear not,” said his mannequin. “While you sleep my circuits will watch through the years. Ions will not stray outside their norms.
Hypertonics dehydrated his tissues and he slipped into a cryotherapy torpor.
Larry awoke in a spacious mausoleum—bright fittings, coiled tubules, pulsing heavy machinery. Through a thick-glassed port he saw a young, bright-eyed female. She smiled and greeted him over the speaker.
“How do you feel?”
He nodded and choked on a ball of squamous epithelial cells. Rebirth suffers some of the same problems as birth.
“My name is Jen-W5-Dever. Fifth-generation descendant of your first cousin. We’re rewarming you to give you a new body and an exciting work assignment.”
Larry vomited. His head ached in spite of a sedative level that numbed his fingertips. There were tender areas under his spine and elbows. He felt a chill melt away. He lay still while the mannequin tried to rehydrate him. He studied her face—Dever cheekbones.
The air lock cycled. She entered, squishing through nondescript amorphous mucoid debris, the by-products of his perfusion membranes. His cot frame rotated to the stand-up position. He groped weakly for support.
“My transplant?” he rasped, choking on a sticky laminated plug of tracheal cells. “I’m to be repaired? A new body?… Complete?”
“Yes.” She smiled, glancing at his Med-Ident-Plate. “You’ll benefit from the Todd-Sage breakthrough. Work has already begun in your case. Transplant date is only six months away.”
Larry was ecstatic. His gamble had paid off. Slapping his mannequin, he exclaimed: “Wonderful! Let’s get up and take a look around.”
Meck motors sputtered and whirred sluggishly. “Sorry, Larry,” hummed the vocal membrane, “but carbon whiskers have grown in my ferrite cores. We must go out on the road and burn them out.”
“Not so fast.” Jen smiled, pushing him back with a soft hand. “There’s someone waiting to see you.”
The lettering on the door read: IRA-M17-DEVER, CLAN LEADER, PROJECT IMPLANT, SYSTEM PROCYON. Inside, Larry was introduced to a greying executive surrounded by wall star-maps, mock-ups of space-ships and a cluster of terminals. Printouts were slowly exuding from silent meck lips.
“So this is our Larry,” greeted Ira, reaching for a handshake. “You’re our oldest specimen. OLGA is mighty proud of you.”
Larry blinked around the room, puzzled.
“He’s only been warm a few minutes,” explained Jen. “I haven’t taken him to the stacks for updating yet.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Ira. “Let him relax, and encourage reminiscing. Where we’re going he may be able to use his memories of a primitive Earth.”
“Primitive?” mumbled Larry. “But, I…”
Ira waved him to silence.
“OLGA wants you whole again, before we Implant Out. You have some very old genes. We’ve all been moulded by a protective society—survival of the unfit, sort of. We’ll ship out to a planet in the Procyon System soon, carrying a good cross-section of Earth biota, rainbow human genes, and nuclear material from our zoo ecosystems: desert, aquatic, forest, marine, mountain, and jungle—Dever’s Ark!!!”
Larry’s confusion increased. Clothing, furniture, and language hadn’t changed much. These people seemed pleasant, normal.
“Why are we leaving Earth? I like it here.”
“OLGA has selected us for the Procyon Implant. It is an honour to be selected for your genes. We’re going to try and settle on a very hostile planet.”
“Settle?”
“Earth Society has been sending out Starship Implants for as long as I can remember—seeding mankind among the stars before someone or something else does.”
“Why me?” coughed Larry.
“You’re an important set of genes, the oldest OLGA could find. We need primitive types to tame primitive planets. Your priority number is higher than mine.”
Ira’s gold insignia hinted of rank. Larry was beginning to enjoy this new age into which he had awakened. He had self-respect and the promise of a new body.
Larry trotted his mannequin to the alternate spaceport, looking for running room to burn out his carbon whiskers. Ferrite cores warmed up as he ran up and down the roof ramp of one of the hangers. The dish antenna was cold. He ran three hundred feet up to the rim—a convex track tilted at fifteen degrees. He circled a quarter mile and descended the ramp. Warming ferrite increased efficiency. Larry felt exhilaration. He clocked a 7:45 mile around the periphery of the landing pad. Legs ran smoothly. Arms tired.
“This is great! It feels like I am really running. It’s that lactate you’re putting in my Blood Scrubber. Now if you can just give me back my sex life…”
Mannequin shared and updated with distant Library: “That too can be arranged; midbrain electrodes for you. Meck sex can be pleasant with a wired reticular system.”
Larry grinned, assuming that he was the object of a very funny robot joke. “Not for me! I have no erotic interest in a rusty scabbard. My imprinting was plain and primitive. I can wait for my pelvic transplant.” He circled the pad again, noticing the wall around him—high, dull, featureless. The sky was a slate grey. No clouds. No skyline of buildings. He glanced around the port for signs of a city. No lights or smoke. The port itself had glass and plastic buildings. An occasional orange-suited worker wandered by. No other signs of life. “Is there a park? Trees? Grass?”
“Not for running. Cities are underground. Gardens are everywhere. They are off limits.”
“Off limits? But why?”
“Crops. The Gardens need all available sunlight—growing calories for Earth Society is no simple task now—fifty billion mouths to feed. A pedestrian park would be an extravagant waste.”
“Perhaps the time is right for me to Implant Out,” mused Larry. He paused at a bubbler and sipped noisily while the mannequin’s umbilical probe sparked in an energy socket. “A drink for me and a cup of electrons for you.” His power cell bulged. “I can hardly believe that I’m about to be whole again—a complete body! What exactly was this Todd-Sage thing?”
“Breakthrough,” explained the mannequin, sharing with the City’s memory banks. “Todd Island was the scene of a bloody uprising. Afterwards, the rebel leader, called The Sage by his followers, was sentenced to the guillotine. Continued unrest delayed the execution. The rebels wanted to salvage their leader’s brain by perfusion. The Todd officials agreed, reasoning that the publicity surrounding the project would remind the population that justice was swift and sure. However, about three years later The Sage was back—intact—and using political tools this time.”
“Perfusion?”
“The pump was hidden in his turban headdress. It carried enough liquid oxygen to protect the brain during the ceremonial execution. The Vascular Team had worked all night in his death cell. An airway tube was placed low on his chest, and diaphragmatic electrodes kept the detached body breathing on its own. I’ve reviewed the optic playbacks. A very smooth ceremony—only no blood.”
Larry tried to imagine how it felt to be surgically beheaded the night before your execution—and by your friends! Only the spinal cord remained intact until the blade fell.
“But his cord was cut, just like mine…”
“Yes, but his followers purchased a new blade for the occasion, one free from HAA so there would be no danger of picking up a liver-damaging virus from one of the previously executed. The cut was very clean.”