The preservation function was simple off/on. It was, however, the only function intended to be left permanently on, and it was, moreover, the greatest triumph of the bonemaker’s art so far. By supplementing the natural repair systems, it endowed the physical organism with an unprecedented ability to withstand shock and injury, even rendering organs capable of regenerating themselves to some extent, after the manner of the liver (previously the only organ able to do so). It prolonged life, slowing the biological clock.
The felicity function was of a psychological type. It engendered a state that would also be obtained – but temporarily – through the use of drugs, and which was faintly foreshadowed in the side effects of the mental exercises Boaz had received from Madrigo. Like them, the function worked on the feelings. Hyton also referred to it as ‘the joy function.’
Its action was to open a direct conduit between sensory perception and emotional life. The sight of any scene or object, the hearing of any sound, was greeted with feelings of joy, wonderment, pleasure, happiness. Nothing was bland or mundane. The universe came to life: it glowed with radiance and meaning, from every drop of water to every spacious landscape.
The felicity function was, as Hyton had promised, like possessing another mode of perception. Boaz chuckled with delight as he gazed around him at setting two. The even, light tangerine color of the wall – how hopeful, how genial it was! The flashing mirror, with its surround of sheened bluemetal – why, it struck him at once with its sense of self-confidence, its ability to return and project images of any hue! It warmed his heart to see it!
And when he looked out of the window at the garden beyond and at the daffodil sun low in the sky – the ravishing scene made his heart burst with happiness. Just to know that all this existed!
‘May I raise to setting three?’ he asked.
‘Very well, but be careful.’
Switching was accomplished by means of mentally intoned syllables. So far, Boaz had been told six – two on/off pairs and the two additional settings for felicity. In his mind he spoke the syllable for the third setting – and immediately gasped at the shock-flood of emotion that the glowing, blazing scene before his eyes evoked in him. Hastily he reverted to setting two.
‘You must raise any function only to the level that your consciousness is able to handle,’ Hyton warned him. ‘The danger with silicon bones is of being swamped, even eradicated, by the strength of some of the functions. Generally speaking we shall install bones only in people who have had philosophical training.’
Boaz switched off felicity and came down to ground level. ‘What are the other functions?’
Hyton smiled. ‘There is adjusted chronaxy, which alters the minimum duration of nervous excitability and therefore controls the time sense by lengthening or shortening the specious present. There is also adjusted rheobase, which alters the galvanic threshold of nervous excitability; this heightens or lowers the intensity of sensory impressions. By the same token adjusted rheobase should affect the range of mental associations, provoking new chains of thought – as to that, we shall see.’ He paused before continuing. ‘There is also a sexually oriented function which I will not go into now. Then there is the kinesthetic function which makes one more alert to movement and the shapes of edges much as certain predatory animals are; dances should prove particularly entertaining when viewed with this function….’
Hyton chattered on, but Boaz understood scarcely a word of what he was saying. ‘Why isn’t there an ataraxy function?’ he asked.
‘Ataraxy is not a function,’ Hyton told him. ‘It is a primary condition. You have eight-function bones; they are experimental to a degree. Later models may have more functions, but ataraxy will not be one of them. Nor can it be.’
Hyton paused again. ‘That is why you must be introduced gradually to the effects of these functions. They are designed to be used in a condition of high ataraxy, or your mind could be blown. For that reason fail-safe fuses are installed, but just the same… we estimate that your functions should be switched on gradually over a period of years.’
‘Years?’ the young Boaz said. He sounded alarmed. ‘How many years am I supposed to stay here?’
There was nothing they could do to hold him, short of unethical imprisonment. All his early years his true character, cowed and beaten, had been given no chance to express itself. Now he was freed of the harshness of Corsair; his true nature was beginning to show, and it turned out that his character was an impetuous one. He yearned to roam, and his restlessness became a knot of frustration that could not tolerate any restraint.
He stuck it out for two months, during which time he learned to handle the felicity function up to setting four. Then he announced that he was going.
Hyton tried to persuade him against it; Madrigo made no attempt to do so. Boaz was adamant. He was eager to experience life; the remaining control syllables could wait until he was ready. He promised only that while he was away he would strive at all times for ataraxy, and that he would return so that the experiment could continue.
He went. And he did the bonemakers a great service.
He found out their basic mistake.
To own his own ship was still his goal, but for that he would need extensive financial credit. Meantime he entered the cargo trade as a hired hand, serving first on a cheap tatty scow with her tubes half rotted, then working his way up to the larger lines. He did gain experience of life, on a score of worlds, and the galaxy was as colorful as anything he could have imagined…. Sometimes he would feel sorry for his tormentors back on Corsair. They, like him, would be grown men and women now, but it was unlikely that many of them would have got offplanet. To imagine their no doubt dreary lives gave him a feeling of vengeful satisfaction that only his philosophical training prevented him from revelling in….
He kept his promise. As the years passed, he did go back to Aurelius, several times, and spent months at a time there. Mostly, though, it was Madrigo who gave him his attention. The bonemakers, disappointed at not finding him permanently at their disposal, had located new, more co-operative subjects. Hyton himself, in fact, had been installed with silicon bones, and the number of bonemen and bonewomen was increasing. Still, Boaz could boast of being the first. They checked him out, debriefed him, gave him a few more syllables, the first settings of other functions. Meantime, Boaz saved as hard as he could….
No longer so young, he grew mature….
…day 29, month 3, year 716 standard time….
H819 was an anomalous planet. It was lifeless, but it had a breathable atmosphere, if you didn’t mind breathing in sulphides along with it or else wore an air filter. The oxygen was belched out by numerous volcanoes whose intense heat apparently split some underground oxide such as water. Boaz arrived there as a crewman on a ship bringing equipment to an alchemical research station. The company he worked for had decided to switch him to another ship, so he was left onplanet to wait for his new berth to pick him up.
He remembered craggy cliffs and burning cones, nothing moving except the constant movement of rocks dislodged by frequent ground tremors….
Alchemy was not a popular sect. Colonnader cosmology was the one most universally respected in man-inhabited space; the most scientific, the most proven. And while it had its variants and deviations, alchemy was not one of them. Alchemists were famous for spreading noxious and dangerous gases, dusts and radiations through their ill-considered experiments, and were forbidden to practice their art on more worlds than not; hence this station on a dead world where they could harm no one but themselves. In place of the stoical calm of the colonnaders, they had a reputation for mental aberration and reckless improvisation, for being unable to restrain their burning zeal for chemical discovery.