Yes. I wanted to be sure as soon as possible, because the earlier the affinity gene is spliced into the embryo, the easier it is.
«Ah.» Yes, of course.
I feel there is a rightness to this, Harvey. A new life born as one dies. And a new life raised in a wholly new culture, one where my spirit-father's ideals will hold true for all eternity. I could never have borne a child into the kind of world I was born into. This child, our child, will be completely free from the pain of the past and the frailty of the flesh; one of the first ever to be so.
Hoi Yin, I'm not sure I can tell Jocelyn today. There's a lot we have to sort out first.
She looked at me with a genuine surprise. Harvey! You must never leave your wife. You love her too much.
I . . .guilty relief was sending shivers all down my skin. christ, but i can be a worthless bastard at times.
You do, hoi yin said implacably. I have seen it in your heart. Go to her, be with her. I never ever intended to lay claim to you. There is no need for that simplicity and selfishness any more. Eden will be a father, if a father figure is needed. And perhaps I will take a lover, maybe even a husband. I would like some more children. This will be a wonderful place for children.
Yeah, so my kids tell me.
This is farewell, you know that, don't you, Harvey?
I know that.
Good.she rolled round on top of me, hunger in her eyes. hoi yin in that kind of kittenish mood was an enrichment of the soul. Then we had better make it memorable.
My seventh day in Eden was profoundly different from any which had gone before, in the habitat or anywhere else. On the seventh day I was woken up by the human race's newest messiah.
Good morning, Harvey, said wing-tsit chong.
I wailed loudly, kicked against the duvet, and nearly fell out of bed. «You're dead!»
Jocelyn looked at me as if I had gone insane. Perhaps she was right.
A distant mirage of a smile. No, Harvey, I am not dead. I told you once that thoughts are sacred, the essence of man; it is our tragedy that their vessel should be flesh, for flesh is so weak. The flesh fails us, Harvey, for once the wisdom that comes only with age is granted to us, it can no longer be used. All we have learnt so painfully is lost to us for ever. Death haunts us, Harvey, it condemns us to a life of fear and hesitancy. It shackles the soul. It is this curse of ephemerality which I have sought to liberate us from. And with Eden, I have succeeded. Eden has become the new vessel for my thoughts. As I died I transferred my memories, my hopes, my dreams, into the neural strata.
«Oh my God.»
No, Harvey. The time of gods and pagan worship is over. We are the immortals now. We do not need the crutch of faith in deities, and the wish fulfilment of preordained destiny, not any more. Our lives are our own, for the very first time. When your body dies, you too can join me. Eden will live for tens of thousands of years, it is constantly regenerating its cellular structure, it does not decay like terrestrial beasts. And we will live on as part of it.
«Me?» I whispered, incredulous.
Yes, Harvey, you. The twins Nicolette and Nathaniel. Hoi Yin. Your unborn child. Shannon Kershaw. Antony Harwood. All of you with the neuron symbionts, and all who possess the affinity gene; you will all be able to transfer your memories over to the neural strata. This habitat alone has room for millions of people. I am holding this same conversation simultaneously with all the affinity-capable. Like all the thought routines, my personality is both separate and integral; I retain my identity, yet my consciousness is multiplied a thousandfold. I can continue to mature, to seek the Nibbana which is my goal. And I welcome you to this, Harvey. This is my dana to all people, whatever their nature. I make no exception, pass no judgement. All who wish to join me may do so. It is my failing that I hope eventually all people will come to seek enlightenment and spiritual purity in the same fashion as I. But it is my knowledge that some, if not most, will not; for it is the wonder of our species that we differ so much, and by doing so never become stale.
You expect me to join you?
I offer you the opportunity, nothing more. Death is for ever, Harvey, unless you truly believe in reincarnation. You are a practical man, look upon Eden as insurance. Just in case death is final, what have you got to lose? And if, afterwards, you reconfirm your Christian beliefs, you can always die again, only with considerably less pain and mess. Think about it, Harvey, you have around forty years left to decide.
Think about it? The biological imperative is to survive. We do that through reproduction, the only way we know how. Until now.
I knew there and then that Wing-Tsit Chong had won. His salvation was corporeal, what can compete against that? From now on every child living in Eden, or any of the other habitats, would grow up knowing death wasn't the end. My child among them. What kind of culture would that produce: monstrous arrogance, or total recklessness? Would murder even be considered a crime any more?
Did I want to find out? More, did I want to be a part of it?
Forty years to make up my mind. Christ, but that was an insidious thought. Just knowing the option was there waiting, that it would always be there; right at the end when you're on your deathbed wheezing down that last breath, one simple thought of acquiescence and you have eternity to debate whether or not you should have done it. How can you not contemplate spirituality, your place and role in the cosmos, with that hanging over you for your entire life? Questions which can never be answered without profound thought and contemplation, say about four or five centuries' worth. And it just so happens . . .
Whatever individuals decided, Wing-Tsit Chong had already changed us. We were being forcibly turned from the materialistic viewpoint. No bad thing. Except it couldn't be for everybody, not the billions living on Earth, not right away. They couldn't change, they could only envy, and die.
An enormous privilege had been thrust upon me. To use it must surely be sinful when so many couldn't. But then what would wasting it achieve? If they could do it, they would.
Forty years to decide.
The events of the tenth day were virtually an anticlimax. I think the whole habitat was still reeling from Wing-Tsit Chong's continuation (as people were calling it). I couldn't find anyone who would admit to refusing the offer of immortality. There were two terminal patients in the hospital, both of them were now eager for death. They were going to make the jump into the neural strata, they said; they had even begun transferring their memories over in anticipation. It was going to be the end of physical pain, of their suffering and that of their families.
Corrine was immersed in an agony of indecision. Both patients had asked for a fatal injection to speed them on their way. Was it euthanasia? Was it helping them to transcend? Was it even ethical for her to decide? They both quite clearly knew what they wanted.
The psyche of the population was perceptibly altering, adapting. People were becoming nonchalant and self-possessed, half of them walked round with a permanent goofy smile on their face as if they had been struck by an old-fashioned biblical revelation, instead of this lashed-up technobuddhist option from life. But I have to admit, there was a tremendous feeling of optimism running throughout the habitat. They were different, they were special. They were the future. They were immortal.