Farmer, Philip José - Traitor to the Living (24 page)

Langer, though he had said nothing about them, was intelligent enough to realize their implications. Western had intended to launch research into replication of human beings from cells and to make artificial life for one reason only. That would be possession by sembs of the bodies so created. People now living would donate cells to be preserved cryogenically. When the donor died, a cell would be put through a process which would result in a body that would be the duplicate of the donor's.

Each cell in a person's body contained all the biological apparatus needed for this. That had been known for a long time. The only thing lacking to bring this about was knowledge. And knowledge could be attained if enough money, determination, and time were available.

What if the project took a hundred years, or two hundred, to reach its goal? The semb would still be around; it wasn't going any place.

Carfax had read in the Scientific American about the work being done in this field. Scientists had succeeded in growing complete rabbits from single cells. These were babies, at a stage comparable to that of the new- born.

If a human baby was processed from a single cell, how would the adult semb fit into it? A baby was incomplete; its neural system developed slowly. What would the semb do about adjusting itself to the undeveloped faculties of the baby? Would it have to endure being fed, bathed, its diapers changed while it was a prisoner in the infant? Would the drives of the adult to master its environment, to be his own master, conflict with the pace of the growing up of the baby's body?

Wouldn't that result in neurosis, or even psychosis, of the occupying mind? It wouldn't be possible to let the body mature until it was advanced enough for the semb to possess it without trouble. The body grown from a cell would have its own brain, and, if left unpossessed, it would develop its own persona, and possession then would be criminal. It would be as much a psychic rape as Western's taking over of Dennis.

Now that he considered it, the baby grown from a cell should have its own civil rights. It would have its own semb, too. No, that means of providing a body for a semb wouldn't work. Physiologically, psychologically, legally, and ethically, it was a wrong.

Perhaps Western had figured that out after he had first thought of it.

The second means, that of making human beings from cells created in the laboratory, was much less open to objection. If the semb was an adult, he'd be given an adult body, probably better than that he had known in his first life. If it were a baby, it would go into an infant's body.

But you couldn't, or rather wouldn't, bring back the idiots, the hopelessly insane, and the nonrehabilitable criminal. Or could and would you? The idiot was so because of a disease, an imbalance in body chemistry, or an injured brain. If the semb were placed in a healthy body and brain, would its new environment then allow it to change for the better? Nobody knew, which meant that experiments would have to be made to determine what would happen.

But, Carfax thought, the world is overcrowded now. Where would you put all the dead come back to life?

Western must have thought of that, too. Perhaps he had intended to keep the research secret. Only a few bodies would be made, a few for the elite, namely, Western and his gang. While the artificial bodies were still in the experimental stage. Western and company could kidnap people and use their bodies. Once the artificial bodies were available, they would no longer have to use this method and so take the chance that the police might uncover their kidnappings.

In the meantime. Western could dangle the carrot of immortality before the rich and the powerful. He could legally sell repossession insurance.

Nor did Carfax doubt that in a hundred years Western would have a secret control of the world. He and his council would have achieved that dream which was the premise of so many science-fiction novels. The secret master of the world, controlling the use of MEDIUM, Western would become the richest man on Earth in a short time. From there, step by step, he would gain ownership of all the business corporations.

And his offer of immortality would be refused by few of the rulers of the world. Or, if they did refuse, they could be disposed of and Western's men put in their place. Western could take his time at his work. He had all the time in the world.

Or he would have had. A single moment of carelessness had put an end to his plans. Electricity'didn't care about the rank or the wealth or the dreams of a man. It took the path of least resistance.

Western was gone, but the world would never be the same. MEDIUM would ensure that. The world will never be the same, he thought. And then, it never is and yet it always is.

The bus rolled into its port, and he saw Patricia standing in front of the bus. She smiled when she saw him. He thought that she had never looked so beautiful.

She questioned him eagerly all the way home. He finally told her to let him finish an answer before she broke in with another question. She laughed and, said she'd be silent, but he could understand, couldn't he, how she lusted to know everything that had happened?

"Perfectly," he said. "But watch your driving, will you? I'd hate to come through all this and be killed in a dumb traffic accident."

"I'm just excited," she said. "Would you rather drive?"

"No, just take it easy. We'll have a lot of time to go over everything in juicy detail."

Five minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of his house. Carfax picked up his suitcase and waited while Patricia rumbled with the keys. "I'm so excited I'm all thumbs!" she said. "Here, I've got it now."

He put the suitcase near the foot of the staircase to the second story and headed toward the bar. Two glasses were set out by the ice cube container, and five bottles: bourbon, Scotch, vodka, gin, and dark Lowenbrau were lined up by them.

"You must be planning on quite a party," he said.

He put an ice cube in a glass and poured out about six ounces of Weller's Special Reserve. He turned to see Patricia in the middle of the room, looking at him with a curious expression.

"Come on!" he said. "Surely you aren't planning to have people in?"

"Oh, no," she said, sitting down and taking a package of cigarettes out of her handbag. "I was just taking inventory of our liquor stock. I wouldn't let anyone else into the house tonight. To tell the truth, I had expected that the first thing you'd grab would be me, not the whiskey."

He laughed and said, "Make up your mind. The story first or bed."

"The story, of course," she said. She drew in a deep breath of smoke, released it, and said, "Would you mind making me one, too, darling?"

"Not at all," he said.

He poured her three ounces of bourbon and carried it across the room to her. As he handed it to her, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips. She responded as passionately as she had at the bus station. For a moment he wondered if he should put off the inquisition until later. But no, no matter how starved she was for sex, her desire to hear about Western would be stronger. He didn't want her mind occupied with that while he was making love.

He sat down by her, smelled the aroma rising from the glass, tasted it with his tongue, said, "Ah!" and downed half an ounce. "Now," he said, "to begin all over again at the beginning."

When he had finished, she said, "It must have been horrible. I mean, seeing that rotting body. I feel sorry for him, even if he was the world's worst bastard." "Smelling him was worse than seeing him," he said.

"No matter. He stank when he was alive."

"Well, he's gone now, and this time he won't be coming back. So, here's to Western, wherever he is." "Here's to the devout wish that hell stay wherever he is," Carfax said, lifting his glass. He drained it down, coughed, wiped the tears from his eyes, and stood up. "Come on, let's go upstairs. I don't want to wait any longer."

"I can't think of a better way to celebrate," she said.

She rose, and he took her hand and led her across the room and up the steps.

Afterward, he said, "You must really have been suffering! That's the first time you ever scratched my back. I didn't mind it while it was happening, but it's hurting like hell now."

He got out of bed and stood sideways to the mirror, looking at the gashes. "You'd better fix me up, since you did it," he said. He went into the bathroom and got a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a box of band-aids. Patricia, smoking a cigarette and looking not at all contrite, entered a moment later. She applied the alcohol to the gashes and placed the band-aids over them. He turned around, and she moved her naked body against him.

"I'm not completely satisfied," she said in a low voice.

"The gashed child dreads the nails," he said. "Though not necessarily the gash.''

"What?"

"Never mind," he said. "You may have conditioned me forever against sex."

A few moments later, dressed, he went downstairs.

Patricia, clad in only a robe, followed him down. She started to resume her place on the sofa when he said, "Would you mind making some coffee? I need a stimulant, not a depressant."

"Of course," she said. "Instant or perked?"

"Perked. And how about a sandwich? That'll keep me until we have dinner."

She stopped and turned to him. "I was hoping that you'd take me out to dinner. I don't feel like cooking tonight."

"You said you were going to be busy being a good wife to me," he said. "I don't feel like going out."

"Couldn't we just this once?"

"No, I'm tired of eating in restaurants."

"And I'm tired of cooking."

"All right, dear, I surrender. But only for tonight. Tomorrow you fix my favorites."

Well, here they were, reunited for only a few hours and already at odds, he thought, although Patricia's re quest wasn't unreasonable. On the other hand, neither was his.

He heard her running the water into the coffee pot.

That was followed by a clang as she dropped the lid of the can on the floor, succeeded by a soft swearing. He smiled at these domestic noises and leaned back, then winced and leaned forward again. He'd have no more of this wild nail-digging, but he and Patricia would work out the other irritations and hurts and disagreements. They did love each other, and they missed each other when they were separated. There was no reason that he could see why they shouldn't get married soon. They'd lived together long enough to know each other well and to know what to expect in the way of unhappiness and happiness. He might as well pop the question now, when she came back from the kitchen. He did not want her, however, to throw her arms around him. Even the pressure of the clothes hurt his back.

Damn the woman! The lovely woman.

Pat entered, carrying a cup of steaming coffee on a saucer. She put it down on the coffee table and stood before him, looking as if she were waiting for him to say something.

"What is it?" he said.

"What's what?"

"You seem to be expecting something."

"Oh no, it's nothing. I just can't get my mind off Western. It's so hard to believe that we don't have to worry about him any more."

She turned and walked toward the kitchen. He opened his mouth to tell her to come back and sit down, then decided to drink his coffee first. There was really no rush about proposing. His hesitation, he thought, might result from a subconscious reluctance to propose. Was it because it was telling him that he was not actually in love with her? Or was it because he was afraid that she might come to a violent end, as his first two wives had? But that was superstition. He didn't carry a fatality for spouses, and things did not always happen in threes.

He heard the refrigerator door close as he lifted the cup to his lips. And then, as he gingerly sipped the hot liquid, he heard a crunching sound. For a few seconds, he listened. The cup shook in his hand so much that some of the coffee sloshed over the edge. He put the cup down and said, "What are you doing in there, The crunching stopped, there was a pause, and Pat said, "I'm just taking the edge off my appetite. Why?"

His heart was beating so hard that he thought he would faint, and his head thrummed as if it were being beaten with drum sticks. He rose slowly and walked across the room and around the corner and looked down the room into the kitchen. She was standing by the counter, a cup of coffee before her, and munching on a stalk of celery.

He advanced even more slowly.

Patricia said, "What's the matter. You look so pale."

He stopped in the doorway.

Her coffee was a pale brown; beside the cup stood a plastic container of cream and a sugar bowl.

"You ... you..." he said, stepping forward.

"What's the matter?" she said, shrinking back and looking wildly around.

He bellowed and sprang at her. She screamed and grabbed the cup and dashed its contents in his face. His yell of pain mingled with her scream, and for a second he was blind. And then, unconsciousness.

When he awoke, he was slumped in a chair in the front room. His face burned, and his head ached. His arms were bound tightly to his body with rope, and his ankles were gripped by more rope. Two ropes around his chest and his waist secured him to the chair, which had been removed from the dining room. The drapes had been pulled and three lamps turned on. There was no one else in the room.

Even with only one good ear, he could hear footsteps upstairs. Somebody was working hard, dragging something across the floor. That somebody had to be Patricia. And he could do nothing, absolutely nothing, except endure whatever she had in mind for him.

After a minute or so, something thumped on the steps. She appeared around the corner, her back to him. She was now wearing a pantsuit and was bent over and hauling something. A second later he saw that it was a cardboard box, a cube about two meters wide. Paying no attention to him, she dragged it across the room, past him, and to the outlet at the base of the wall near the French windows that opened onto the sun-porch. She straightened, breathing hard, and said, "That's the trouble with being a woman. No muscle. But there are compensations."