Coming of Age: Volume 2: Endless Conflict (35 page)
Read Coming of Age: Volume 2: Endless Conflict Online
Authors: Thomas T. Thomas
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #science fiction, #High Tech, #Hard Science Fiction
As to what was to come next, Antigone Wells drew a blank. She was not a believer in any god or spiritual system or any kind of afterlife. She had participated in the eastern mysticism of karate as a matter of mind-body discipline. She did not believe in Buddhism or any of its tenets such as reincarnation, karma, nirvana. When she tried to imagine eternity in some conscious, spiritual, or physical form, she always came up short. She could imagine a hundred years more of life and awareness. Perhaps even two or three hundred. But an infinity of such years? Endless life? Forever?
No. The closest she could come to understanding death was nothing. Not that she did not understand it, but that the concept was painted entirely in negatives: not life, not activity, not hope, not despair, not pleasure, not pain, not sleep with the expectation of waking, not dreams with the expectation of recovering reality. Not any kind of reality, either.
And there Wells left the matter. Whatever was coming to her, faster and faster now, it was still a mystery.
One morning in June, she was entering her kitchen in the dim, mist-filled hours before the world awakened. Angela was still asleep in her bed. The birds were still sleeping—if any kind of bird flew this high up above Market Street. The automatic coffee machine had not yet brewed its first cup. The kitchen was as empty and spotless as an operating room and almost as brightly lit. As she crossed the cold tiles of the floor in her bare feet, toward the sink to get a glass of water, the world suddenly turned upside down. She was falling toward the ceiling, which had become a field of black granite with the bright stars in the orderly rows of the ceilings light-emitting diodes embedded in it. A final phrase, from somewhere in a sea of possible thoughts, occurred to her.
“Hammer of Gah … ahh!”
2. And Then You Die
John Praxis had only recently taken up fencing. He found it was moderately competitive, good cardiovascular exercise, good for balance, and good for his eye-hand coordination—especially since he had finally broken down and had a bionic retina installed in his non-dominant left eye, along with all the brain hardware it required. It certainly helped him in targeting and ranging with the tip of his foil.
He supposed it would have been even better to get his brains cut years ago, when the surgical implanting of cortical arrays had reached full maturity, because by now he would be on friendlier terms with his own cybernetic daemon—who answered to the name “Dingus,” and Praxis had never asked why.
He probably also should have taken up Antigone on her offer to teach him karate, because by now he would have been a master-level black belt and practically invincible, as she had been. But that offer was years in the past, when they were still together, before their estrangement. The thought of Antigone now reminded him of her passing, three years ago this summer.
He felt something brush his chest.
“
Touché!
” Callie exclaimed with savage glee.
The station behind her flashed a light and chimed to confirm the hit.
“I’m sorry. I must have been wool-gathering,” he said.
“Are you all right?” she asked with concern.
“Well …” He thought about the question. “Now that you mention it, I have been a bit breathless lately.”
“You don’t get enough exercise,” she explained logically.
“Sometimes I’m tired,” he agreed. “And then there’s an ache in my chest, and my hands tingle.” Praxis stopped and thought about what he was saying, and a picture came into focus. He had been here before. He knew the signs. He slowly took off the fencing mask and tucked it under his arm.
“What? Are you done for the day?”
“I just realized—these are heart symptoms,” he said. “I haven’t felt really well in a month or two. Short of breath, coughing—sometimes to the point that I get dizzy. It may be time for another implant.”
“But you’re young yet. You’re on what—your second heart?”
“Third,” he corrected. “The second they replaced when it was aging prematurely. And I’ve had this one for more than eighty years. That used to be a lifetime.”
“But they make them stronger, more resilient.”
“Now, yes. The heart you’ve got. This one’s an older model.”
“Do you want me to set up an appointment with the doctors?”
“No, I’ll do it. But this whole thing’s getting to be a bother.”
* * *
When the medical center called about her father’s heart problem, Callie Praxis had to think back. Was it two months ago that he had been complaining about shortness of breath and chest pains? She had never actually followed up with him about his doctor’s appointment. So, had he forgotten? And now had he collapsed somewhere? Was he all right?
“No, ma’am,” the attendant said quickly. “I’m standing here with the scrub nurse. The surgical team wants you to come downtown.”
“Surgery? Was that scheduled for today?”
“Yes, ma’am. Everyone thought you knew.”
“So, if he’s in surgery, then what’s the problem?”
“I—uh—here,” the voice said. “You’d better explain.”
“This is Sarah Perrin,” said a new voice. “I’m the scrub nurse on your father’s team. The surgeons have run into a snag with the new implant—something no one foresaw. He’s had two hearts implanted already, and before that, after his first myocardial infarction, they had him for some weeks on a primitive mechanical pump …”
“Yes, I know. So you’re putting in the replacement now, aren’t you?”
“That’s just the problem. You see, the doctors can’t get the stitches to hold. His blood vessels—the aorta, pulmonary arteries and veins, as well as the major connective tissues—they’re all just a mass of collagen scarring. Even if we can get stitches in, there’s no guarantee the incisions will heal properly.”
“No one ever planned for this?” Callie asked.
“Well, yes, if we had been doing those early surgeries today, we would have bathed the cut ends in an enzyme, called collagenase, which breaks down and randomizes the collagen bundles, especially in older people. But your father’s other hearts were put in before anyone developed this therapy.”
“So what are you going to do?” Callie pressed.
“We can keep him alive on the table with the heart-lung bypass.”
“Can you then put in one of those old mechanical hearts?” she asked.
“Same problem as the implant, ma’am. There’s not enough tissue to secure it.”
“Well then, what do you want from me?” Callie was becoming scared.
“We can wake him up, briefly. We wanted to know if you want to come down and say good-bye.”
Callie’s eyes filled with tears. “You want to wake him up so I can tell him he’s going to
die?
”
“Well, ma’am …”
“Is he peaceful now?”
“Yes, he’s totally out of it.”
Tears were running down her face.
“Then let him go,” she whispered.
“Yes, ma’am. And thank you.”
Appendix 1:
The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or
The Wonderful “One-Hoss Shay”:
A Logical Story
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,
I’ll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits—
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus
was then alive—
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock’s army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always
somewhere
a weakest spot—
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace—lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will—
Above or below, or within or without—
And that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise
breaks down,
but doesn’t
wear out.
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an “I dew vum,” or an “I tell
yeou
”)
He would build one shay to beat the taown
’N’ the keounty ’n’ all the kentry raoun’;
It should be so built that it
couldn’
break daown:
“Fur,” said the Deacon, “’tis mighty plain
Thut the weakes’ place mus’ stan’ the strain;
’N’ the way t’ fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T’ make that place uz strong uz the rest.”
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn’t be split nor bent nor broke—
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the “Settler’s ellum”—
Last of its timber—they couldn’t sell ’em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he “put her through.”
“There!” said the Deacon, “naow she’ll dew!”
Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren—where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!
Eighteen hundred—it came and found
The Deacon’s masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten—
“Hahnsum kerridge” they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came—
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and fifty-five.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundreth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. You’re welcome. No extra charge.)
First of November—the Earthquake-day—
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn’t be—for the Deacon’s art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn’t a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!
First of November, ’Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
“Huddup!” said the parson. Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday’s text—
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the—Moses—was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet’n’-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill—
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet’n-house clock—
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once—
All at once, and nothing first—
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That’s all I say.
Appendix 2:
Praxis Family Tree
Circa 2088,
and Other Characters
in the Story
Praxis Family Tree
Circa 2088
