Mindscan

Neruda took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the phrase 'birth control' entered the language in 1914. But, of course, it's really a misnomer. We're not trying to control birth; we're looking to do something nine months earlier — prevent pregnancy! In fact, even though conception and birth are at opposite ends of the time span we're discussing, we use 'contraception' and 'birth control' as synonyms.

"Now, there are true contraceptives: condoms, diaphragms, and spermicides prevent conception by the simple expedient of blocking the sperm from reaching the egg, or killing it before it gets there. And, of course, surgical sterilization of a man or a woman prevents conception, as does abstinence. So does the rhythm method if you're very lucky and very careful.

"But the most common method of … shall we say, 'family pla

"Now, birth control pills sometimes prevent conception — that is, that's one of the things they do. But they also can have a secondary effect: they prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. If the court had ruled that life began at conception, then it would have to accept that birth-control pills can kill that life, by depriving it of the usual necessities of continued existence, which it would receive once it implanted in the uterus.

"But Americans love birth-control pills and related pharmaceuticals, which stiffen the uterine wall so that embryos won't implant. The original birth-control pill was introduced in 1960, and we've been refining them ever since, so that today they have virtually no side effects. But a politically conservative country — and this one had certainly become that by this time, what with Pat Buchanan in the Oval Office — that wanted on the one hand to sanctify the unborn and on the other hand loved the convenience of birth-control pills had to come up with a definition that said life, and personhood, began after conception, so that those cases in which the pill prevented implantation rather than conception weren't tantamount to murder."

"And in Littler v. Carver, the court did just that, correct?"

"Correct." Neruda had her own graphics, and they appeared on the wall screen.

"The Supreme Court of these United States ruled that personhood begins when individuation occurs. For up to fourteen days after conception, a single fertilized egg can divide into two or more identical twins; indeed, the technical term for identical twins is monozygotic twins, because they were twins formed from just one zygote — one cell formed by the union of two gametes. Well, if the embryo still has the potential of being multiple individuals, or so the argument went, then it hadn't settled down to being one particular individual, and so no specific personhood could be accorded it. Do you see?"

I certainly did, although glancing over at Karen, I don't sink she'd gotten it yet.

"So," said Lopez, "under the law of the land, a person is a person so long as he or she can be only one person, correct?"

I saw Deshawn react at this, his eyebrows climbing up his bald head. It wasn't the tack we'd expected them to take at all — and it was damn clever.

"That's right," said Neruda. "The legal point is that once you've become one, and only one, individual, you're entitled to rights of personhood."

Lopez walked across the well and stood near the jury box. "Now, in your legal opinion, Professor Neruda, what bearing does this have on our case at hand?"

Neruda spread her arms. "Don't you see? Karen Bessarian — or, forgive me: her maiden name would be appropriate here. Karen Cohen didn't become a person on the day she was conceived back in — well, she was born at the end of May in 1960, so presumably that was sometime in August of 1959. Rather, she became a person fifteen days later, when that embryo no longer had the potential to become multiple individuals."

Lopez regarded the jurors, making sure they were following. "Yes, professor," she said. "Go on."

Neruda smiled as she went in to deliver her punch line. "And, well, since individuation is the legal test, Karen — now Karen Bessarian — presumably ceased to be an individual in the eyes of the law not on the day on which her body actually died on the moon, but on the earlier day on which her mind was sca

If I'd been in my old biological body, I'm sure I would have slumped back, stu

"Let's take a break," he said, looking as shaken as I felt.

30

I wish I could see the Earth: that would give me a place to focus my thoughts when I was thinking about Rebecca. But the Earth was straight down, and looking at the floor didn't fulfill my emotional need. Of course, nothing short of actually seeing her would do that.

Rebecca thinks the universe sends her messages — subtly at first, she says, and then, later, if she doesn't get them, the universe starts whacking her with two-by-fours.

I didn't believe in that sort of thing. I knew the universe was indifferent to me. And yet, perhaps out of respect for Rebecca, I did find myself looking, listening, watching, paying attention: if there was a way out, maybe the universe would give me a clue.

In the meantime, I took another of Brian Hades's suggestions — one I hoped wouldn't leave me feeling quite so sordid afterwards. I decided to try mountain climbing here on the moon. I'd never done much of that sort of thing on Earth — Eastern Canada is not known for its mountains. But it sounded like it might actually be fun, and so I inquired about it at the recreation desk.

Turns out the guy who usually led climbing expeditions was my old traveling buddy Quentin Ashburn, the moonbus-maintenance engineer. No one was allowed on the lunar surface alone; the same common-sense safety rules that applied to scuba diving also applied here. So Quentin was delighted by my request to go climbing.

It used to be, I'm told, that spacesuits had to be custom built for each user, but new adaptive fabrics made that u

Quentin helped me suit up, making sure all the co

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's a piton gun," he said. "It shoots pitons."

"Well, let's hope we don't run into any of those," I said.

Quentin laughed. "Pitons are metal spikes." He opened the gun's thick chamber, and showed me one. The spike was about ten centimeters long. It had a sharply pointed front and an eye at the other end to which a rope could be fitted. "We shoot them into the rock and use them as footholds or handholds, or to hold our ropes. On Earth. people often drive in pitons by hand, but the rock here is quite hard, and there's too much risk of rupturing your glove and exposing yourself to vacuum. So we use piton guns."