Denner_s Wreck

"But what she really remembered was the Power's own comments on these creatures. ‘You know,’ she said he said, ‘I never get tired of watching these. They're stranger than anything I could ever make.'

"And of course, I'm sure that you'll be struck with the same thing that struck her, and that struck me when I heard that-if he didn't make all the creatures in the sea, who did?"

– from a conversation with Atheron the Storyteller

In all the old stories, the tales of the ancient times when death was a common thing, the heroes always faced certain doom bravely, daring their foes to step forth and do battle, loudly proclaiming their faith in whatever noble cause they served, right to the last.

Geste wondered how, in all the hells of every dead religion that had ever been preached, anyone could ever believe such tripe. He was facing death now, he knew, and he was too terrified to stand, let alone laugh in its face. He fell back in his chair, teeth chattering, his entire body shaking with fear, forcing his eyes to stay open in the forlorn hope that he might see and fend off at least one or two attacks, extending his existence for a few precious seconds.

All he saw was his own face, mockingly reflected in the stasis field.

Thaddeus's laughter surrounded him, roaring laughter that did not sound sane to him.

“You thought you had me, didn't you, Trickster?” Thaddeus shouted. “You thought that you had me in stasis forever, out of your way, so you could go on playing God with these pitiful primitives, go on playing your stupid games with the women! Well, Trickster, it looks like I'm the one with the last laugh, the one with the best trick!"

Geste could not have answered had he wanted to. He had lived his entire life, centuries now, with the conviction that he would live on until he grew tired of it-and the happy suspicion that he would never grow tired of it. Death was for other, lesser beings, never for A.T. Geste of Achernar IV.

Now he knew, with absolute certainty, that Thaddeus was going to kill him, and the thought of death, of ending, of nonexistence, tumbled down on him like an endless avalanche. He waited, trembling, for oblivion.

It wasn't fair, something screamed in the back of his mind. Sure, mortals died all the time, but they knew they were going to die, they were told from early childhood that they would someday die, and no one had ever told him that, no one had prepared him. He had been promised eternal life, and he was being cheated out of it because he had been stupid enough to stand up for what was right, instead of cowering like the rest.

“How did you hide that thing, anyway?” Thaddeus asked. “I didn't see, either through my puppet or on the recordings. It's a good trick, Geste-not good enough, of course, but a good trick. How did you do it?"

Like the swift and sudden dawn of De

“I'll tell you how I survived, if you like,” Thaddeus said, as if making casual conversation. “It wasn't hard. What you have in the bubble there is an old-fashioned clone. I made him about sixty, seventy years ago now, did a little surgery when he was about a year old, destroyed his personality, juiced up his growth hormones to bring him up close to my own size, and then grew a receiver into the brain, so that I could use that body myself. I've got a little switch here, so that, up until a few minutes ago, I could use whichever body I fancied at any given time. I did some adjustments, so we'd be as indistinguishable as possible-sped up his growth, as I said, and carved some scars, that sort of thing. A neat job, wasn't it?"

Geste managed to nod. His reflected face bobbed up and down on the stasis field, distorting as it slid across the magnifying curve of the sphere.

“I figured it might be useful to have a back-up of myself."

Geste fought to control his trembling; it lessened, but did not stop.

“That's about the smallest stasis generator I've ever seen, Geste; did you build it yourself?"

Geste twisted his head to one side, then back.

“No? Aulden?"

Another twist and return.

“No? Well, it doesn't matter. Is it collapsible? Is that it? I don't really see how it could be, though."

Thaddeus paused, but Geste did not respond.

“You know, with that clone of mine, I had the switching mechanism set so that if the signal ever got interrupted, I'd be in control of my own body again, so here I am. A little safety measure. Has it occurred to you just what you would have done to me, if I hadn't done that?” Thaddeus's voice, which had been bantering and conversational, took on an edge.

Geste shuddered once more, then managed to still himself.

“I don't think you've thought about that, Geste. You see, I am always in my own body, the essential self; I've never trusted technological transmigration. If I'm in another body, I don't know it's still me. Sure, lots of people have transferred into other bodies, or machines-it's been going on for millenia-but how do you know that they didn't just die, that the mind in the new body isn't a simulation that thinks it's the same person? I'm sure you've heard the philosophical debates about this, haven't you?"

Geste nodded.

“I was sure you had. So you see, I keep my consciousness, my personality, my soul, in my own head, this same one I was born with seven thousand years ago. When I used that other body, it was all remote control, using a little transceiver arrangement at the base of the brain. When you put that body into stasis, you cut off all the input and output through that transceiver. You cut off my brain, Geste. I wasn't in the stasis field, not the real me, so I stayed conscious the whole time, but I was cut off from my own body, because I can't run both at the same time. And I couldn't switch back, Geste-the control is worked from whichever body I'm controlling at the time. We're talking about total sensory deprivation. I had a very bad second or two, wondering if the emergency switch would work-I had designed it for when the clone was killed, not enfielded. I suppose you thought you were being merciful, using a stasis field instead of a blaster, but what if I hadn't had my little switch, Geste? You wouldn't even have known what you'd done to me! I'd have starved, rotted, conscious the whole time!” His voice rose to a cracking screech.

Geste, his mind still slowly emerging from panic, saw the error in this; Thaddeus would not have stayed conscious once his body deteriorated below a certain level, and in a state of total sensory deprivation he would have felt no pain, had no sensation of the passing of time.

Still, it would have been a gruesome fate indeed, and Geste, shaken and terrified as he was, decided not to quibble.

“Now, how did you get that stasis generator in here?” Thaddeus demanded.

The thought of actually answering Thaddeus truthfully occurred to him, but he suppressed it. Right now, he was sure, only the fact that he had information Thaddeus wanted was keeping him alive. Besides, he was sure that his voice would tremble-if he could speak at all. He remained silent.

“Damn it, punk, do you want me to have to dissect you to find out?"

Geste shuddered again, even while a part of his mind wondered what would happen if an autopsy knife cut into the mouth of the bent-space pocket. Would it pop back out into normal space, its integrity disrupted? What would it do to his head if that happened?