“How about the elixir of life?” I asked.
“They have the elixir of life?”
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
And then he got the point. He’d been a little slow. I’d been even slower...but I hadn’t had the benefit of such direct prompting.
“You can run interstellar trade,” I said, wanting to say it before he could dive in and steal all my lines. “We already do it. The Daedalus brings help to the colony worlds. But it’s not material help. It’s all in the head, with a little extra facility laid on in the form of a lab. The one thing you can exchange is knowledge...the most basic wealth of all. None of the other colonies have it, or can be expected to develop any worth exporting for hundreds of years. They’re all living on the legacy of Earth, and they won’t get into new patterns of discovery until they’ve used up that legacy in transforming their environment. But Arcadia is different. Arcadia is already into new discoveries...whole new kinds of discovery. They have opportunities we could never have, because they’re not the same kind of beings we are. They won’t do much in physics or raw chemistry—not for a long time and maybe not ever. But in biochemistry and in psychochemistry they have facilities for experiment we can never have. This is just a truth serum. We already have ways of getting at or near the truth...and maybe it won’t be long before someone finds a way of countering this one. It’s not particularly important. It’s not worth much in terms of propaganda and getting into thick skulls.
“But tell the hardheaded men with guns that they’ll be blowing up something that has potential enough to produce cures for every ill known to mankind—ills that even our advanced knowledge in genetic engineering hasn’t beaten or even subdued. Tell them that they’ll be blowing up something that might one day be able to offer us immortality...a way to make the human body keep renewing itself forever. Tell them that they’ll be blowing up something that could eventually lead us to a full knowledge of the nature of death, and how to overcome it.”
That gun was still pointing at my midriff.
“Does he mean it?” asked Nathan, quietly, of Mariel.
It wasn’t really a necessary question.
“He means it,” she replied. “And I think he’s telling the truth.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There are risks and risks. Some risks aren’t worth taking simply because they’re so consummately easy to counter. And that’s why I had to put on yet another plastic suit in the decontamination lock. I was condemned to wearing it for a month. As a precaution. It was a sort of cruel joke by which Nathan paid me back for winning the day. He can’t have taken that much joy in it. What’s sauce for the goose etc. I insisted that if I was going to have to seal myself away from the world, so was he. As a precaution, of course. Karen got stuck with it as well...on the grounds that we couldn’t be sure that her suit (and her being) hadn’t been tampered with while we were prisoners in the city. It was all a bit of a farce.
Being in a suit is no fun. You can’t eat properly, sterilized drinks usually taste foul, and there are other pleasures which become downright impossible. There was a certain amount of frustration attendant upon our precautions.
Nevertheless, I still went to Karen’s cabin later that night, for a modest orgy of self-satisfaction in the absence of any other kind. It was good to be together, for the company.
“I was worried,” she confessed to me. “I was really scared. I didn’t really think you could persuade him that we were okay after they’d had us incommunicado for so long and after you told them about Sorokin changing back into a Servant. I have to hand it to you...you really talked a ring round Nathan.”
“He’d have let us back in anyhow,” I told her. “Even without the serum and the clever chat. He’d have taken the chance in the end.”
“I’m not so sure. He can be tough.”
“Sure,” I said. “When we were all inside, and there was only a world beyond the airlock...then he could be tough. We could have flown away and left nothing behind, and stood by with clean hands while the UN debated butchery. We could have kept our consciences under control. Even me—if it had come to the crunch I would have rationalized it, excused it, told myself not to care more than I could bear. That’s the way minds work. But once there were two of us outside, so that in order to take the big decision Nathan would have had to desert us.... Well, the odds were always in our favor. We’re neither of us particularly lovable. I’m obsessive and you’re a bit of a bitch. But in four years we’ve become part and parcel of the people in there. They’ve grown accustomed to us. They wouldn’t abandon us if they could rationalize a policy that would allow them to save us. They’d take the risks...for us.”
“You have far too much faith in human nature,” she said.
“I don’t have any at all,” I assured her. “But I know what motives are made of.”
“What would have happened,” she asked pensively, “if it hadn’t been you that went with Sorokin? Suppose it had been Nathan? Would they still have been so ready to play it straight after they’d heard his version of the whole truth and nothing but? And even if they still wanted to play the difficult way...would they have persuaded him?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But with me aboard the ship...you and he outside....”
“Everyone’s expendable.”
“To the UN. Not to me. Not even to Nathan. Nor to you, though you’d be damned before admitting it.”
“Sure,” she said dryly.
“I wouldn’t even abandon the devil’s advocate,” I said, with all the generosity I could find. My soul was overflowing with generosity at that particular point in time. Other times, I might have thought differently about everything.
“Who?” she inquired.
“Whoever the UN put aboard to prepare the opposition case. Nathan pointed out to me that there had to be one, and I accept the logic. It’s not him, or me, or Mariel. I don’t believe it’s Conrad or Pete, either. Conrad was out on the first trip and Pete doesn’t take enough interest. That leaves you or Linda. Mariel knows, of course, but she won’t tell.”
“And you expect me to clear up the mystery for you? Suppose I said it wasn’t me...how could you possibly believe me? And suppose it was me...what do you propose to do about it?”
“Nothing,” I assured her. “Nothing at all. And you don’t have to give me an answer.”
“I don’t intend to,” she said. She lay herself back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I stretched out beside her, and we both stared up at the ceiling. That was as far as it went.
“It’s true what they say,” she said. “God does move in very mysterious ways.
“Sure,” I agreed. “And we should all do our level best to imitate him.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Stableford was born in Yorkshire in 1948. He taught at the University of Reading for several years, but is now a full-time writer. He has written many science-fiction and fantasy novels, including The Empire of Fear, The Werewolves of London, Year Zero, The Curse of the Coral Bride, The Stones of Camelot, and Prelude to Eternity. Collections of his short stories include a long series of Tales of the Biotech Revolution, and such idiosyncratic items as Sheena and Other Gothic Tales and The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels. He has written numerous nonfiction books, including Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950; Glorious Perversity: The Decline and Fall of Literary Decadence; Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia; and The Devil’s Party: A Brief History of Satanic Abuse. He has contributed hundreds of biographical and critical articles to reference books, and has also translated numerous novels from the French language, including books by Paul Féval, Albert Robida, Maurice Renard, and J. H. Rosny the Elder.
Borgo Press Books by Brian Stableford
Alien Abduction: The Wiltshire Revelations
The Best of Both Worlds and Other Ambiguous Tales
Beyond the Colors of Darkness and Other Exotica
Changelings and Other Metaphoric Tales
The City of the Sun (Daedalus Mission #4)
Complications and Other Science Fiction Stories
The Cosmic Perspective and Other Black Comedies
Critical Threshold (Daedalus Mission #2)
The Cthulhu Encryption: A Romance of Piracy
The Cure for Love and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution
The Dragon Man: A Novel of the Future
The Eleventh Hour
The Fenris Device (Hooded Swan #5)
Firefly: A Novel of the Far Future
Les Fleurs du Mal: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
The Florians (Daedalus Mission #1)
The Gardens of Tantalus and Other Delusions
The Gates of Eden: A Science Fiction Novel
The Great Chain of Being and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution
Halycon Drift (Hooded Swan #1)
The Haunted Bookshop and Other Apparitions
In the Flesh and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution
The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels
Journey to the Core of Creation: A Romance of Evolution
Kiss the Goat: A Twenty-First-Century Ghost Story
Luscinia: A Romance of Nightingales and Roses
The Mad Trist: A Romance of Bibliomania
The Moment of Truth: A Novel of the Future
Nature’s Shift: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
An Oasis of Horror: Decadent Tales and Contes Cruels
The Paradise Game (Hooded Swan #4)
The Plurality of Worlds: A Sixteenth-Century Space Opera
Prelude to Eternity: A Romance of the First Time Machine
Promised Land (Hooded Swan #3)
The Quintessence of August: A Romance of Possession
The Return of the Djinn and Other Black Melodramas
Rhapsody in Black (Hooded Swan #2)
Salome and Other Decadent Fantasies
Streaking: A Novel of Probability
Swan Song (Hooded Swan #6)
The Tree of Life and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution
The Undead: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
Valdemar’s Daughter: A Romance of Mesmerism
Wildeblood’s Empire (Daedalus Mission #3)
The World Beyond: A Sequel to S. Fowler Wright’s The World Below
Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction
Xeno’s Paradox: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
Zombies Don’t Cry: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution
The City of the Sun Page 17
