Then long, disappointed faces. The guinea pigs developed symptoms of poisoning. They died by the thousands, while others, fed with the same Multimanna enjoyed the best of health. Mysterious, poisonous substances, distorted groups of molecules, deposits of mutated atoms, the emergence of deadly compounds.
“Mistakes in the running of the program,” said the scientists of CalTech and NASA. An improved scanning of the matrix and better computers for the reconstruction of molecular structure would eliminate such malfunctions—would make it possible to produce copies of living creatures, of human beings (Multimanna was only a sideline as Teflon-coated frying pans were to the Apollo project). It was all only a quantitative problem of storage capacity and data transmission.
I was fascinated by the idea of outwitting time by means of timeless copies. Two lovers—whose copies meet again and again—as young as we were then, Irini. A simultaneous program over millennia. A minor detail for a computer.
“What is MIDAS?” I asked Nikos.
He looked at me in amazement.
“No, I really don’t know,” I assured him.
“Molecular Integrating and Digital Assembling System,” he said. “It uses the same principle as the television screen, only extremely complicated and three dimensional. Each atom of a molecule in a specifically delineated area of space is measured and the data are stored. Using these data—analogous to the two-dimensional television screen—a three-dimensional copy is created. This takes place in a turbulence chamber which contains the atoms necessary for composing a copy. A series of computer-induced magnetic fields restructures the matter in exactly the same form as the original. The speed of reproduction depends on the complexity of the molecular pattern. While a coin can probably be reproduced in seconds, it will take hours, if not days, to create a human being.”
And NASA was counting on it. One could put unmanned observatories with MIDAS equipment on board into orbit around each planet, send unmanned spaceships to Alpha Centauri, to Barnard’s Star, to Sirius— and send the crews later, at the speed of light, after the spaceships had reached their destinations.
Nikos called up the flight paths on the screen of his computer. They bounced out of the solar system, threaded their way through far-off gravitational fields and looped themselves around the distant suns like lassos made of green light. He watched the scientists appear on the screen and hurry to the equipment in order to measure and catalog the marvels of the universe.
“This is the victory of mankind over space and time,” Nikos said.
His eyes were a clear light blue, the eyes of Nordic conquerors or slaves. They often appear unexpectedly in our people, generations later, flashing like aquamarines from the depths of dark stone. I always hated his eyes. I never liked him anyway.
And then there were those others, the skeptics. They always said that it would never be possible to achieve the hi-fi quality that such living cells need. Enzymic and neural disturbances, poisons, carcinogens and deformities could not be avoided. Copies of the living organisms would not be viable.
I had a vision of a spaceship, floating through space like the raft of the Medusa, delirious survivors still clinging to the wreckage, everywhere the silence of death and decay. Figures covered in blood staggered wailing through the passageways. Others, oblivious to everything around them, sat slumped over their equipment, cursing those who had done this to them—who had sent them on this voyage of no return.
They had already long since created a pitiful name for them: Morituri —the doomed ones—heroes of science who saw the stars and then died. The MIDAS technicians, however, with their unerring instinct for the right word, called them “data mutants.”
Then a man called Horace Simonson appeared, a mathematician, who proved that an error rate of so and so many per thousand was the lower limit, as the recording process itself interfered with the molecular structure. The copy, no matter how accurate the reproduction, was always subject to a number of errors—a sort of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle of bioelectronics. This meant poisoned chicken meat for the starving, crippled, hemorrhage-prone astronauts, incapable of performing their mission and—even worse—terrible surprises at exclusive parties (unless you followed the old tradition of having someone try your food first or enjoyed playing Russian roulette).
* * * *
Congress canceled the funds for further research. This was Nekyomanteion’s chance. The company acquired the patent for the recording and copying procedure for twelve billion dollars. The U.S. Government had already invested more than ten times this amount. The so-called Lazarus Act stipulated that only copies of persons proven dead could be made (on legal and identification grounds). Electronic immortality and temporary resurrection were now feasible. Of course, it was typical American sensationalism to establish a subsidiary of the world-renowned corporation on the very spot where, two and a half millennia ago, the old Nekyomanteion had actually flourished.
* * * *
The stone floor under the vine leaves was spotted with sun. Sun-dappled faces turned to greet me. Dimitrios, my older brother, had come up from Patras with Nikos. They were sitting around the table. Leandros, Helena’s husband, had joined them. A letter, held down by a stone, lay before him on the table. Beside him, his two children.
Dimitrios, small and wiry, also had a mustache like a fat black fly over his upper lip. He’s getting more and more like Father, I thought.
Nikos, wore an elegant dark suit and vest with a light gray tie, a heavy ring with an onyx stone on his finger and, on his wrist, a minicomputer. His black beard was well kept.
“You’re looking well,” I said.
“Sounds as if you are trying to butter me up into doing you a favor,” he said, his white teeth glistening.
“Don’t worry.”
“Do you know who I was thinking of today, Apostoles?” he asked.
“I’ll never be able to guess, Nikolakis.”
“Do you remember that German Frau Doktor, Irini?”
“Vaguely.”
“Do you think she’s still alive?”
“Why not?” I asked with more vehemence than intended. “She was very young at the time.”
Nikos wouldn’t look at me. He pretended to be studying his folded hands, grinning to himself. “She ought to be about eighty now.”
Helena’s husband looked at us imploringly. His broad shoulders had become stooped under the burden of his wife’s constant nagging. His hands, not capable of fighting back, lay on the wine-stained table in front of him, his glass of wine half-empty. There was no use answering.
“They have now closed the bridge at Stratos,” Dimitrios said. “They obviously can’t cope.”
I couldn’t help smiling.
“I can’t imagine what there is to grin about,” he said. “They blew up four skyscrapers in Patras last week, because they were in danger of collapsing. One of them was the Sheraton Hotel.”
“That horrible monstrosity in the Peloponnesus,” I said.
“But where is this all going to end?”
“Whitewashing it would be a good idea,” Alexandros said.
“Shut up!” his father said.
“He’s right,” Nikos replied. “Whitewashing disinfects, but there are better ways of going about it. It would cost over 200 billion drachmas to treat all the concrete buildings in Greece. Not only that, we would have to use strong poisons. And the environmentalists…” He shrugged his shoulders in resignation.
Leandros finished his glass of wine.
“Bring us another bottle of wine,” he said to Alexandros.
“Mother says you shouldn’t drink so much,” the boy replied. Nikos grinned at his brother-in-law.
“Keep your smart mouth shut!” his father shot back at him in a surge of protest and self-assertion.
“But I want to hear what Uncle Nikos has to say,” Alexandros grumbled.
“He’ll save what he has to say for when you return.”
“How’s business?�
� I asked Dimitrios.
“There’s no question of business anymore,” he sighed. “When the Germans still came, the Austrians, the English, the Swedes—we sold wine and ouzo. Hah! Business was booming! But today…”—he opened his arms in resignation—”we can’t even feed the grapes to the pigs. These damn Arabs don’t drink any alcohol, don’t eat any pork.” He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what to make of people who drink tea all day and stare out at the ocean with a look of suffering on their faces.”
“What’s in the letter?” Nikos asked. “Strictly speaking, that’s why we’re here, you know.”
Leandros removed the stone holding the letter down and laid his large hand on the paper.
“Nekyomanteion has made us an offer on the occasion of Father’s eightieth birthday. I’ve no idea how they found out that he would be eighty.”
Alexandros put a jug of wine on the table. Leandros filled the glasses, which immediately misted over, diffusing the golden yellow sparkle of the wine.
“When Nekyomanteion Inc. was founded and the company bought up all the land around Acheron, they also acquired sixteen hectares of pastureland in the mountains from your father.”
“Pastureland!” Dimitrios screeched contemptuously. “You couldn’t have kept a dozen goats on it. Nothing but stones. That was the best deal he ever made!”
Leandros put on his glasses and, in a pedantic manner, read the letter out loud: “ ‘Kristos Katsuranis belongs to the group of privileged persons to whom we have made the unique and extraordinary offer: a free recording…’ “—Leandros hesitated—” ‘of his person at any prearranged time. This recording will be stored free of charge for a period of five years. After that period, the usual fee for such storage space will be charged. A 33 1/3 percent discount will be given for the realization of every copy— including medical care of the same until its decease, the standard procedure, cremation etc…’ “ He moistened his lips and followed the text in the letter with his finger. “ This is the most valuable present you can give a person—the gift of life.” “
A pensive stillness followed.
“It’s a bargain!” Leandros pointed out. Helena’s words. I could almost hear her voice. “Up to now only the very rich have been able to afford it: the young Onassis, the fifth Rockefeller, King Charles and Lady Di, a few oil sheikhs, some politicians, a couple of actors… It’s a bargain, believe me.”
“What does Father have to say about all this?” Dimitrios asked. “Where is he, anyway?”
“He has gone to the café. He had a fight with Helena. Every day the same goings-on. Always the same. We had to fire another young girl yesterday. A good girl. She came from Papigon, up there in the hills, hardworking and capable. He was always after her, trying to grab at her under her skirts. Always the same. Now Helena has to do all the work alone again. Ah…” He became silent with a sigh.
“What does Father have to say about the offer?” Nikos asked.
“I haven’t told him yet. We wanted to talk it over with you first.”
“Such bargains are often the beginning of the end,” Dimitrios inserted.
“Nonsense,” Nikos said. “They probably have some leftover storage space.”
“I think the new Nekyomanteion will be as successful as the old one,” I said. “When they’ve got their first few thousand persons stored, they’ll earn a fortune in storage fees. Once such a recording exists, who would ever have it erased? Who would want to be the willful executioner of a favorite relative? Who would want to destroy hope of eternal resurrection of the flesh? Even if mathematicians say that it is, in principle, just not possible—when has faith ever been conquered by mathematics? Faith, love, hope—the three emotional pillars of mankind—shaken by a couple of dry formulas? Never! The relatives will pay the bill of Nekyomanteion Inc. like good citizens. Only when the person concerned can no longer be remembered in the hearts of those living will it perhaps be possible to delete his recording. Then and only then will he be able to rest in peace. But that has always been the case.”
“Are you against this, then?” Nikos asked.
“No, I’m not.”
“I don’t know what the whole thing is about,” Dimitrios said.
“It just means,” I said, “that you can get together with someone for a few hours—with someone long since dead. You can talk to him, celebrate with him, be happy with him.” Forgive me—I didn’t know any better at the time.
Nikos shoved a piece of cheese into his mouth. “One of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. I’m all for it.”
Dimitrios nodded.
“Me, too,” he said.
Leandros shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a bargain,” he said.
“Have you the right to speak for Helena?” Nikos asked him mischievously.
Leandros looked at him helplessly.
“Please stop it, Nikos!” I said.
He raised his hands defensively. “I didn’t really mean it like that.”
Eurydice, bored by the grown-ups’ talk, kicked the concrete wall surrounding the terrace with the tip of her plastic sandal. Suddenly, a large piece came loose and fell noisily down to the street below. Everyone stared, shocked at the hole in the wall. In the silence that followed, you could hear the shouting of the young boys playing ball at the other end of the quay.
Dimitrios suddenly burst into cackling laughter. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Father was only saving cement.”
“Have you come to an agreement?” Helena asked. She had appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her skirt. “It’s a bargain.”
And that in the end was our father’s real reason, too, even if he did grumble that he would never let himself be “poked about” by a machine and suspected his daughter of having sold him to the “American capitalists” behind this “corpse-stripping company,” as he called it. Just as a steady drop of water hollows out stone, the fact that it was a bargain succeeded in penetrating to the very depths of his consciousness, dispersing any doubts and reservations. Sometime during the following year, he agreed to the recording with one stipulation: I must accompany him to Acheron.
* * * *
It was a clear morning in late spring. Sage and thyme were in bloom. Yellow broom had covered the slopes with gold and, here and there, the tranquil green of the countryside was broken by the blaze of pomegranate blossoms. We drove along the coastal road, along the mountain slopes, toward the north. The ocean glistened in the sun and embraced the coast with arms the color of emeralds. You can’t see the rubbish from up here, I thought, the wasteful blessings of the age of plastic.
Father insisted on stopping a couple of times to rest and drink ouzo. I drank mine out of a glass with water. The water took on the milky color of the ouzo. Father, used to a life of prohibition, drank his out of a cup.
Just ever so slightly tipsy, we entered a small, unadorned church, lit two thin candles and pressed them into the sand holder near the altar. Stern-looking saints in glass-covered pictures gazed serenely down on us from across the centuries.
Shortly thereafter, we reached our destination.
Nekyomanteion Inc. was a subsidiary of a multinational corporation comprising above all a chain of homes for the aged, a senior citizens’ travel agency, geriatric hospitals and funeral homes. In order to exploit the genius loci, it had bought up a huge piece of land east and southeast of the village of Parga and transformed it into a park. The land between Igoumenitsa and Preveza, which had represented the end of the world of the living eons ago, had always been a barren, mountainous region. Even on sunny days, it seemed dark and gloomy. Innumerable caves led deep into the earth. The small river that flows down from the mountains and joins the ocean southeast of Parga is called Acheron. It was the river boundary between this life and the next. Two and a half millennia ago, the ancient Nekyomanteion had been situated on the hill overlooking the shore of the hereafter.
Full Spectrum 3 - [Anthology] Page 41
