“Why?”
“An immortal will live forever, but he can also spend forever in jail. A life sentence would be a terrifying thought to him.”
“But how often does a true life sentence get handed down? You know the old saying, ‘Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.’ Well, Ambrotos might very well think he could do any crime because, after all, he can do the time.”
“Good point,” said Sarkar. “But I still think he’s the guilty one. They say time heals all wounds, but perhaps if you knew you were going to live forever, you’d want to deal with anything that was going to fester in your mind for century after century,”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Look, if murder is a terrible crime to me, wouldn’t it be unthinkable — the ultimate atrocity — to an immortal version of me, who knew life could go on forever?”
Sarkar sighed. “Perhaps. I guess it could go either way. But what about Spirit? His moral reasoning, too, could be fixated at a low level. Even though Spirit is dead, we have simulated neither heaven nor hell for him. So perhaps he considers himself to be in Purgatory. If he behaves well, maybe he believes he will be allowed entrance to heaven. Kohlberg’s second stage defines moral acts as those which gain rewards.”
Peter shook his head again. “I don’t really believe in heaven or hell.”
Sarkar tried another tack. “Well, then, consider this: murder is a crime of passion, and passion is a failing of flesh and blood. Remove sex from the human psyche and you would have no reason to kill a philanderer. That would argue for Spirit’s innocence, and, by process of elimination, for Ambrotos’s guilt.”
“Maybe,” said Peter. “On the other hand, Spirit knows there is life after death — knows it by virtue of his existence. So, to him, murder would be a less heinous crime than it would be for Ambrotos, since it’s not a complete ending for the victim. Spirit would thus be much more likely to feel comfortable committing murders.”
Sarkar sighed, frustrated. “So you could argue that one either way, too.” He glanced at his watch. “Look — there’s nothing more we can do here.” He paused. “In fact there may be nothing more we can do anywhere.” He sat quietly for a moment, thinking. “Go home. Tomorrow is Saturday; I’ll come by your place around ten in the morning and we can try to figure out what to do next.”
Peter nodded wearily.
“But first — ” Sarkar pulled out his wallet, fished out a pair of fifties, and handed them to Peter.
“What’s this?”
“The hundred dollars I borrowed from you last week. I want to be sure the sims have no cause to resent me. Before we go, send a message into the net telling them that I paid you back.”
A group of protesters announced late yesterday that Florida’s SeaWorld, the last U.S. entertainment institution to still keep dolphins in captivity, was refusing their requests to try to determine if dolphins also exhibited the soulwave.
George Hendricks, 27, a born-again Christian, today filed suit in Dayton, Ohio, charging that his parents, Daniel and Kim Hendricks, both 53, in failing to have baptized George’s brother Paul, who died last year in an automobile accident at age 24, were guilty of neglect and abuse by preventing Paul’s soul from being able to enter heaven.
Further research from The Hague, Netherlands, indicates that departing soulwaves seem to be moving in a very specific direction. “At first we thought each wave was going separately, but that’s before we took into account the time of day of each individual’s death,” said bioethics professor Maarten Lely. “It now seems that all soulwaves are traveling in the same direction. For want of a better reference, that direction is approximately toward the constellation of Orion.”
Germany became the first country today to make it explicitly illegal to interfere in any way with the departure of soulwaves from dying bodies. France, Great Britain, Japan, and Mexico are currently debating similar legislation.
The suicide rates on Native reserves in the United States and Canada, and in the three largest ghettos in the U.S., were at a five-year high this past month. One suicide note, from Los Angeles, typified a recurrent theme: “Something beyond this life exists. It can’t be worse than being here.”
CHAPTER 38
Cathy was lying on her back in bed, staring at the ceiling, when Peter entered. He could see by the Hobson Monitor that she was wide awake, so he didn’t make any effort to be quiet. “Peter?” said Cathy. “Hmm?”
“What went on this evening?”
“I had to see Sarkar.”
Cathy’s voice was tightly controlled. “Do you know who killed my father? Who killed Hans?”
Peter started to say something, then fell silent.
“Trust,” she said, rolling slightly toward him, “has to be a two-way street.” She waited a moment. “Do you know who killed them?”
“No,” said Peter again, removing his socks. And then, a moment later, “not for sure.”
“But you have your suspicions?”
Peter didn’t trust his voice. He nodded in the darkness.
“Who?”
“It’s only a guess,” he said. “Besides, we’re not even sure that your father was murdered.”
Firmly: “Who?”
He let out a long sigh. “This is going to take some explaining.” He had his shirt off now. “Sarkar and I have been doing some … research into artificial intelligence.”
Her face, blue-gray in the dim room, was impassive.
“Sarkar created three duplicates of my mind inside a computer.”
Cathy’s voice was tinged with mild surprise. “You mean expert systems?”
“More than that. Much more. He’s copied every neuron, every neural net. They are, for all intents and purposes, complete duplicates of my personality.”
“I didn’t know that sort of thing was possible.”
“It’s still experimental, but, yes, it’s possible. Sarkar invented the technique.”
“God. And you think one of these — these duplicates was responsible for the murders?”
Peter’s voice was faint. “Maybe.”
Cathy’s eyes were wide with horror. “But — but why would duplicates of your mind do something you yourself would not?”
Peter had finished changing into his pajamas. “Because two of the simulations are not duplicates. Parts of what I am have been removed from them. It’s possible that we accidentally deleted whatever was responsible for human morality.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “I tell you, I would never kill anyone. Not even Hans. But part of me very much wanted him dead.”
Cathy’s voice was bitter. “And my father? Did part of you want him dead, too?”
Peter shrugged.
“Well?”
“I, ah, have never really liked your father. But no, until recently, I had no reason to hate him. But … but then you told me about your counseling session. He hurt you when you were young. He shook your confidence.”
“And one of the duplicates killed him for that?”
A shrug in the darkness. “Turn the fucking things off,” said Cathy.
“We can’t,” said Peter. “We tried. They’ve escaped out into the net.”
“God,” said Cathy, putting all her terror and fury into that single syllable.
They were silent for a time. She had moved away from him slightly in the bed. Peter looked at her, trying to decipher the mixture of emotions on her face. At last, her voice trembling slightly, she said, “Is there anyone else you want dead?”