“These aren’t for sale,” Jameson said.
“You do not understand,” the man said. “Photographs from your age are sometimes worth a great deal in this.”
“I am not selling them.”
“The courts will force you to sell. Your current financial state is untenable.”
Jameson paused. “I suppose we could transfer these photographs to your equivalent of digital disks so I might have them in some form.”
“No,” the woman said.“Old photographs must be one of a kind if they are to retain their value. The purchasers will want complete copyright control.”
The man insisted that Jameson show them all the photographs. That meant they would see the small box underneath them. Jameson hadn’t been a complete fool, after all, but in the meantime it was the photographs, one by one. The woman insisted he wear white gloves to handle them, and it took Jameson some time to pull them on. The man never offered to help.
Some of the photographs were brittle. Some had faded. Fading could add to their value, the woman said. She had him put the photographs of the two dogs he’d owned in one pile. She had him set the photographs of anyone handsome or beautiful and who looked healthy in another.
But she had him set the ones that showed the scar on Rose’s cheek in a separate pile.
“We can speed this up, Mr. Jameson,” she said.“Were any of the people you photographed maimed or sick?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did they have birth defects, missing limbs, obvious illnesses, rashes?”
She didn’t need to mention scars.
“Like this one,” she said, pointing at a photo of an office party. Andy was in it. He’d lost his left arm in the war.
Jameson pulled the box onto his lap. What was worth money and what wasn’t was becoming clear to him. But the idea of making money off Rose’s scar and Andy’s lost arm made him ill. He took time setting the photograph of Andy on the desk.
“This one is worth a great deal,” the woman said. She turned away and spoke words Jameson couldn’t hear. After a moment she turned back. “Do you have any photographs of that man without his shirt on, or at least with what was left of his arm uncovered?”
Jameson glared at her. He put the picture of Andy back in the box, gathered up the others and closed the lid. “What is it you want?” he asked. “Photographs of freaks? None of these people were freaks. You won’t find what you’re looking for here.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“But we already have,” the woman said.
Balance sheets displayed in front of Jameson and the man at the desk.
“The figure on the left is what I will pay you for what you have shown me so far,” the woman said.
“Excellent!” the man said.
Her payment would subtract a large amount from Burroughs Cryogenics’ balance due, even Jameson could see that in the new money.
“Can you have this translated into twenty-first-century dollars?” Jameson asked.
The man and woman looked at him. “Just ask for it,” the man said after a moment.
Jameson asked. The balance sheet shimmered, disappeared for a moment, then redisplayed with new, much higher figures.
Jameson stared.
He owed Burroughs Cryogenics $2,347,153.62. The photographs so far were worth $512,298.43.“How can my photographs be worth so much?” he asked.
“Few photographs have survived from your time,” the woman said. “They show things more recent projections do not.”
Again, everyone was quiet. After a moment, Jameson spoke. “We can finish this appraisal,” he said. “But before we go any further, I want legal counsel sitting here with me. I will want at least seven appraisals before I sell, some from auction houses — is Sotheby’s still in existence?”
He had legal counsel the next day. It turned out the diamonds, rubies, and sapphires he had stored in the small box were worth less than the photographs. But Burroughs Cryogenics could not deny him legal counsel. He authorized the company to sell two diamonds and a sapphire for him and buy him his own used robot, programmed and certified to practice law — for him at least. He’d be its only client. Doing that was cheaper than retaining a human lawyer. They all met in the same room at the same desk.
“Burroughs Cryogenics has put a lien against your robot,” the man told him.“The value of it will go toward your balance due the day all sales are completed if you have not generated enough money to pay your bill in full.”
“Burroughs Cryogenics’ claims are legal and in order,” the robot assured him. “The company is required to set up a payment plan only after you have divested yourself of all assets.”
“I need time to study the situation,” Jameson said.“Give me two weeks.”
They gave him six days. Jameson intended to use them well. He wanted to prove Burroughs Cryogenics wrong. He wanted to find loopholes that would let him keep the photographs or use the money in other ways.
He would sell the photographs only if doing so would pay the additional fees to bring back Rose.
Jameson studied the ways of finding information in this age while the robot reviewed case law. It stood, never moving, in the center of his room. Finally, it turned to him.
“There is precedent,” it said. “Ninety-three years ago, two district courts ruled that giving life to next of kin takes precedence over paying debt.”
Jameson wanted to hug the robot, and he did wheel his chair to it to shake its hand. He could use the photographs to bring Rose back now — if he could find her before Burroughs Cryogenics forced him to pay his bill. He might owe a great deal, and he would have to pay what he owed in full, but he could do that over time.
He did not want to wait for Rose.
Each day he was stronger. Each day he could do more. He could swim now — not far, and swimming left him winded, but eight laps was more than he had yet done in this life. The robot physical therapists made no comments. They just helped him to and from the pool, handed him towels, helped him dry off if he was too winded to manage it himself. Once a week the projection of a human physical therapist had shimmered at poolside to check off his progress, but the man was all business, never friendly. He assured Jameson that soon he would be able to leave Burroughs Cryogenics to strike out on his own.
Soon. Everything was soon. Jameson was beginning to learn that soon in this age could mean quite a long time.
A robot knelt to dry Jameson’s feet, but Jameson took the towel and dried them himself. “Can you contact the human physical therapist?” he asked.
The robot looked up. “Is something wrong?”
“No, but I need his permission to take a short trip.”
To the Census Bureau. Everything cost, Jameson had learned. All information cost money — and the research services were, as he’d been warned, pricey. But if a person went to a bureau or library himself to do his own research, without using any service, the cost of searching for information about someone in the past was minimal.
The robot transmitted his request with a thought.“A reply will take a few moments,” it said.
Jameson waited at poolside. Most of the robots left. Only his own robot stayed with him. It helped him into a robe. The water in the pool stilled.
And the physical therapist shimmered in front of him, suddenly. “It’s too soon,” he said. “I can’t certify you for travel.”
“I need only a short time,” Jameson said. He told him about Rose and explained about going to the Census Bureau. The man turned to speak to someone Jameson couldn’t see. After a moment he turned back, shook his head no, and disappeared.
“What did he say to whomever he was speaking to?” Jameson asked. He knew robots read lips.
“I am not legally allowed to repeat human conversations,” the robot said.
“Is it legal for Burroughs Cryogenics to keep me here?”
“It is not a question of legality. Your stamina and physical abilities are in question.”<
br />
“Are humans still allowed freedom of movement?”
“Certainly.”
“Are humans allowed to attempt activities others might consider beyond their abilities?”
“I do not understand your question.”
“Do humans climb mountains? Scuba dive? Run rapids?”
“They do.”
“Then if they are free to do those things, to put their lives, even, at risk, I am surely free to go to the Census Bureau for one afternoon. I want you to take me there.”
The robot was silent. Considering? Jameson wondered.
“If the physical therapist’s advice is not legally binding,” Jameson said,“my instructions to you as your owner must take precedence.”
Still the robot said nothing.
“I am scheduled to sleep every afternoon,” Jameson said. “You know I have spent the last two afternoons studying instead. No one will miss me if I am gone those few hours.”
The robot turned to him. “I have just finished downloading the public transportation programs. They are free, of course, or I would not have done so without your permission.”
“Let’s go now,” Jameson said, and the robot helped him stand.
Jameson dressed himself, but he had to sit down afterward. He walked partway to the elevator, but when he slowed, the robot took his arm gently, without being asked. Jameson relied on its support more and more the farther they went.
The elevator opened into a vast room filled with opalescent ovals of metal and glass. Crowds of people and robots hurried there, and it was very noisy. The noise hurt Jameson’s ears. The rooms he’d been in till now had all been nearly silent. Jameson covered his ears and stared at the people. Each was beautiful or handsome, all young.
“We are booked in unit 88762-10,” the robot said. It guided Jameson to an oval not far from the elevator. “Open,” the robot said, and the glass top retracted. There were two seats inside. Both looked the same. There was no steering wheel in front of one. The robot helped Jameson into the right-hand seat, still the passenger seat, Jameson thought. The robot sat in the other. “Close,” it said and, as the top closed, restraints folded around Jameson and the robot, and the robot said, “Census Bureau.”
And there was no building beneath them.
They were plunging through bright air between mountains of metal and stone. They banked across the surface of one building, and sunlight glared off the metal. Jameson could not look at it. He shaded his eyes, but he could not see the top of the building. Below them was a forest, and far, far off a river.“Where are we?” he asked, and the robot named a city he’d never heard of.
They were in traffic — ovals all around them dove gracefully through the air, faster and faster, it seemed.
“Does the sight frighten you?” the robot asked. “Your heart is racing. I can blank the covering.”
“My heart is racing because I am finally living again,” Jameson said.
He watched the ovals fall and climb and race ahead.
Robots at the Census Bureau sent him from room to room, and his robot had to carry him. He was embarrassed, but too weak to walk. He saw no file cabinets, no papers, no books. If he listened closely, he could understand the few people. Here they spoke at a normal pace, and he realized just how much English had changed. A tall woman came out to him. She was as beautiful as models had been in his first life. She was the director — surprised to meet someone come in person to do research.
And they had records of Rose. Rose had lived eighty years beyond his death. Medical advances had given her a long life. She had remarried twice. Fifteen years after his death she had had another daughter.
Had she even wanted to meet him in the future? he wondered. Eighty years and two marriages was a long time.
“Was she cryogenically preserved?” he asked.
The records did not show.
The next morning, Sotheby’s sent a projection with the best appraisal yet of his photographs. They expected to make enough from auction to pay the balance due and leave Jameson with the robot and a little money besides. The one photograph of Andy and the many photographs of Rose, and her scar, were worth most.
That morning, the robot told Jameson that ninety-seven companies specializing in cryogenic preservation had been in business the year Rose died. Since then, eighty-two had gone out of business or had merged with other companies.
“When a cryogenic company went out of business, what happened to the brains it held?” Jameson asked.
The robot did not hesitate. It told him the facts at once. “It attempted to sell its contracts to another cryogenic company,” it said.“If no buyers were forthcoming, it invoked the Unforeseeable Events clause. The brains were donated to science or recycled.”
Later that morning, Jameson stepped out of the shower and looked at his perfect new body in the full-length mirror. He recognized himself. The body was almost what he remembered having before. This one was young, late twenties, tanned. They had picked that skin color for him and told him he could change the pigment at any time, for a price. He hadn’t told them that through all the years as he had grown older this was how he had seen himself — young, fit, tanned. The real surprises in those years of his other life had come when he’d looked in a mirror and seen someone looking back who was aging, losing hair, getting thinner. Still, this body wasn’t quite right, either. For one thing, it was taller by half an inch. It had achieved its full genetic height. But that wasn’t what made it look wrong. He studied his body, then realized what it was.
Parts of his old body were missing. He looked closer at his left knee. He looked at his face, turned his hands over and over.
There were no scars.
His stomach had never been cut open. For all he knew, this body still had its appendix.
The water from the shower ran down his legs and cooled on his feet. He rubbed his knee. He had scarred it in his first life racing his sister Carol, she on a horse, he on a bike, faster and faster down the mile-long grid of roads that squared the Idaho farmland. The road hadn’t been oiled, and he’d hit a patch of gravel that had sent him flying — scraping his hands and knees, leaving his left knee scarred. Years later, Carol had met him at the airport and reached up to touch the gash on his forehead that he’d taken when a rhino had bashed the side of his Land Rover in Tanzania.
He was cold now. He pulled the towel from the rack and dried himself.
He hadn’t realized that scars, or the lack of them, carried memory.
He looked at his flat stomach, ran a finger along the skin where the scar had been. His mother had sat with him that first night in the hospital when his appendix had nearly ruptured and he had drifted in and out of the anesthetic. He’d been eight or nine years old. Her hands had felt cool on his forehead.
He turned away from the mirror.
And thought of Rose’s scar. The automobile accident had nearly killed her. The robot assured him such accidents rarely happened now. Scars could always be healed.
* * *
His trip to the Census Bureau had worn Jameson out. He did not feel well enough to travel again for two days. He sent the robot to archives and libraries and bureaus on his behalf, but researching in person took time and the days he had to look were fading away. So he’d sold more jewels and paid the research fees and the information-use fees and hired various services to look for Rose and his children, his parents, his sisters and friends and family.
Some had died in accidents that made it impossible to preserve their brains. Some had simply never had the procedure, he would never know why. His son Clayton, his mother and father and Andy had all been preserved by Osiris Laboratories, a company no longer in business. It would take time to track its mergers and buyouts and discover what had become of it. He could not find information about Carol, his daughter Ann, his Aunt Alice, Rose, or her parents.
At least not at once.
Two days later, Jameson looked up from the pool on his sixteenth lap and saw the rob
ot staring at nothing, its ruby eyes a shade brighter. It was receiving information. Jameson swam to the side and held himself there.
Finally, it looked at him.
“What have you learned?” he asked.
It told him at once. “The company that preserved your son, your mother and father, and Andy merged with another company two years after your son’s death,” the robot said. “That company was bought out by another, which went bankrupt in 2148. No other company purchased its contracts. Its assets were recycled.”
The robot said nothing more. Jameson said nothing. He held on to the side of the pool, but could not climb out on his own. He could not ask for help. He could not speak.
Unexpectedly, the robot leaned over and held out a hand to him. Jameson wondered at the gesture. Robots did what they were told. They did only what they were told. Jameson looked around, but there was no one to tell it what to do. He took its hand, and it pulled him out of the pool. It helped him dry and put on a robe. It helped him walk back to his room.
He sat with his photographs that night and looked at each one. He held them in dim light so they wouldn’t fade. He wanted to remember his mother’s face, his father’s hands, Andy’s smile, everything about his son. But he looked at all the photographs, those of Rose, those of Alice and Ann, Mildred and Carol and Sam — even the dogs. The robot told him he must sleep, but he ignored it.
Ann and Alice had not had the procedure. Carol had died in an earthquake, others in a war. He listened to stories of people regenerated like himself who expected to meet other people from their times. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes those they’d loved had left letters for them. When they least expected it, a law firm would contact them and hand them a letter, or a bank would send them a key or a password to a safety-deposit box filled with letters. None ever came for Jameson.
Burroughs Cryogenics set a deadline for payment. Jameson knew he would be released after that. He was weak, still, but some days he felt well. His doctor told him the number of days he felt well would increase until finally feeling well would be all he’d ever know.
How We Play the Game in Salt Lake and Other Stories Page 25
