LifeQuest No. 1

INTRODUCTION TO LIFEQUEST

Life Quest's numbered issues are collections of fictional works about life extension, including suspended animation, elimination of aging and progressive self-transformation. A recurrent theme is that interference is not to be tolerated with regard to an individual's pursuit of life extension, where others are not in any way being victimized or placed at risk as a consequence.

LifeQuest's stories portray people who desire and work to achieve endless lifespans, via scientific and technological approaches. They frequently encounter conditions where death occurs or seems unavoidable, and struggle against limitations of technology and the complacent acceptance of death by their fellow humans, in an attempt to prevail over that which others regard as inevitable. All the characters and events portrayed in these stories are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Contents of LifeQuest are entirely fictional. The stories often portray levels of organizational development which do not presently exist. Readers are cautioned that such tales do not reflect the current state of the art in cryonics, or life extension in general. Readers are advised to evaluate the capabilities, standards, and records of performance, of all organizations, before making arrangements of any kind.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS, ISSUE ONE

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1. FIB-DEFIB, By Fred Chamberlain

2. SHADOW, By Linda Chamberlain

3. AVENUE OF STARS, By Fred Chamberlain

4. CONSTRUCTION SITE, By Linda Chamberlain

5. ODETTE, By Linda Chamberlain

6. CALIFORNIA SUNRISE, By Fred Chamberlain

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"So there it is, folks!" said Doug, smiling and shaking his head as if he just could not believe it. "Medical World News, 3/8/76, page 22. Very few CPR instructors know about this, even today! Tell me, if you can, how long it's going to take for this knowledge to reach the people who could be using it to save their own lives?"

Doug Atwell, a lean, wiry six footer, began passing out exams at the end of his CPR course. He'd finished by describing 'Cough CPR', a unique method used to help catheterization patients stay alive and conscious while awaiting defibrillation, in the absence of effective heartbeat. Sitting in the front row, grinning widely, was Gary Willits, a friend who'd been ordered to take the course.

Gary, a rock climbing buddy of Doug's, was a pro football offensive tackle, 29 years old weighing 260 pounds. He had a reputation of doing his job so enthusiastically that those in the opposite line frequently needed to be resuscitated.

"Damn it, Gary, get out of here and don't come back to practice until you've had a CPR course," screamed his coach two days ago. "It's bad enough when you keep knocking out those guys on the other sides during games, but when you start doing it to your own team mates during practice, well, you're going to have to learn to wake 'em up yourself. From now on, when one of our people needs CPR because of your blocks, you're going to do the resuscitation personally!"

Gary had almost too much thirst for the extreme, dangerous and exciting. Doug had told him once, before a climb, "You can get used to leading on the long, steep pitches, because while you're driving in those flimsy pitons of yours, I'm going to be sinking expansion bolts. One of these days all your pitons are going to pull out and it's going to take somebody like me to stop you."

It finally happened, twelve hundred feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley. Gary was forty five feet above belay when he fell, tearing out six pitons in a hundred foot drop before static arresting on the safety rope, stretching it near it's limit. One of Doug's expansion bolts, carefully planted in solid rock, saved them both. Doug watched, in fascinated horror, as granite splinters formed and shot off like darts from the edges of the expansion bolt hole. Later, they both laughed about it, a bit uneasily, Doug recalled.

Now they were driving home from the CPR course. Outside, streets were beginning to run deep with water, in the midst of a raging winter rainstorm. Inside, straining to see through the streaked windshield, Doug was trying for what seemed like the hundredth time to interest Gary in cryonic suspension, but Gary had an 'immortality complex' of a different kind!

"Hell, Doug," he said, "nothing's gonna take me out! The expansion bolt stop was the closest I've ever come, and that won't happen again in a hundred years." Doug had talked Gary into having a look at the cryonics laboratory, anyway, and was hoping the streets wouldn't be too flooded. The wind was whipping rain against the windshield so violently he could hardly see. A deep pool could stall them at any moment, he thought.

Suddenly, Doug saw a flash of light and violent movement in the street ahead. A high voltage power pole crashed to the pavement, almost blocking the road. Beneath a lamp post at the curb, live electric lines began dancing freely about the car, sparks bursting out on the other side of the windshield as wires lashed at it. Strong gusts of wind rocked the car back and forth. A falling branch smashed the hood. Glass fragments flew in their faces as half the windshield collapsed in their laps.

Then a live power line flew into the car and flicked back and forth before their eyes. Gary flung his hands up and for a few brief, horrifying seconds was racked with twenty thousand volts trying to find paths through his body and the seat beneath to the car's frame, where another wire touched. A moment later the wind ripped the wires away from the car and Gary sat shaking, his huge frame still trembling from the shocks. His face grew pale. He had a weak, sinking feeling.

Doug looked at him, puzzled. Something was wrong. He'd never seen Gary like that before. Suddenly it hit him. "Cough! Cough, damn it! You could be fibrillating!" Doug shouted. He grabbed Gary and shook him, slamming him against the door. "Cough! Cough! Cough!," he shouted, over and over.

Gary started coughing. After a minute or so, he felt better. He and Doug stared at each other. This is silly, thought Gary, but he kept coughing. Doug leaned toward him and yelled over the storm, "When I say 'NOW!', stop coughing! I'll check your carotids for a pulse!"

"NOW!" Doug yelled. Gary stopped coughing. Doug pressed his fingers into Gary's muscular neck. Nothing! He pressed harder. Gary's neck was like a bull's, but Doug had felt his pulse not an hour before, in practice. No, there was no pulse. Gary was growing pale again. His eyes had a vacant, staring look. "Start coughing again!" Doug screamed. "God damn it, Gary, you're fibrillating! You haven't got a normal heartbeat! Keep coughing! I've got to get you to a defibrillator!"

Gary started coughing again. Doug considered things quickly. The nearest hospital was eight miles away, but the lab was close. The storm would make the trip to the hospital fifteen to twenty minutes, and the emergency room people wouldn't understand what was happening. They'd think it was crazy to stick defib paddles on the chest of a conscious man and shock him. Damn the idiots who can't grasp and spread new ideas quickly! The lab was the only answer!

"Keep coughing, Gary!" Doug shouted, then threw the Corvette into low range and floored it. There was an eight foot space between the downed power pole and the streetlight, with whirling wires sparking the pavement, but the car shot through the gap like an angry bullet, brushing away wires like sawgrass before a swamp buggy. The cryonics laboratory was only five blocks away. They were there in less than two minutes.

A startled technician jumped to his feet as Doug unlocked the front door and pushed Gary in, both of them soaked, clothing torn from broken glass. Gary's giant figure, coughing, was strange enough, but the expression on Doug's face was more terrifying still. The technician had seen Doug in surgical clothing under pressure, many times; he'd always seemed cold as a fish. Now, intensity of expression made his face almost unrecognizable.

"Get the defib we use on dogs, Joe," Doug barked, "and switch on the cardiac monitor. We're going straight to the 'OR'! This guy's fibrillating under cough CPR. Do it now!" Doug dragged Gary into the operating room. "On the floor, Gary, keep coughing, and rip that shirt open," Doug commanded. He applied the monitor leads Joe handed him, noted briefly the screeching fibrillation trace on the screen, and reached for the electrodes. "Gary, this is going to hurt," he said sharply. "Put your hands behind your head and dig your fingers into your neck!" Gary complied.

Doug jammed the electrode paddles onto Gary's chest, once more checked everything visually, then pressed the buttons on the handles. Gary's enormous framed lurched upward almost a full 12 inches as the shock hit him, dug his fingernails into the back of his neck until it bled. All eyes turned to the monitor.

"Ker-thump, Ker-thump, Ker-thump..." went the trace, showing a heart rate of 79 and a perfect waveform. Smiles spread over all three faces. Doug got to his feet and tossed the paddles aside. Gary rose to his full height, pulled the monitor cables off his chest, and fingered his throat to be sure the pulse was still there.

Joe popped open three folding chairs, and Gary and Doug sat down. A few moments later, they were gulping hot coffee mixed with brandy, and the world seemed normal again. Gary looked around carefully for the first time, at the room full of stainless steel apparatus and electronics racks. He could see capsules through a doorway, marked 'Liquid Nitrogen', and beyond these were parked rescue vehicles. Through another door he saw a well equipped biological research lab, with computer controlled experiments in progress. He felt his throat again, sensing the strong, steady pulse dropping toward a normal 45-50 resting rate.

A wide, exhilarated grin filled Gary's face. Doug had seen it before, after hard climbs as they sat on a summit and scanned distant mountain tops 20, 30 miles away. Putting down his coffee, Gary stood up, stretched, shook his head, and smiled even more broadly. "Now, why don't you show me around this 'flying saucer' of yours?" he laughed.

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It was one of those wonderful, warm September afternoons. Days like this must have been made just especially for small boys and their dogs.

Jimmy climbed up into the old, gnarled tree that had been his friend for so long. As he climbed, his medic alert bracelet snagged on a small limb. He muttered something under his breath, pulled the silver chain free from the snag, unclipped it and poked it into his rear pocket. Then he swung himself on up into the tree.

Sitting in a fork of the limbs of the great tree, he leaned back against its strong trunk feeling the prickle of the bark against his back. The shade from the protective canopy of leaves above and around him felt good as it cooled him. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead and his T-shirt was damp from exertion. His favorite blue shorts were tattered from constant wear. Rays of sun filtered through the branches of the tree and danced off the brown hair on his head. His face was round and happy and full of that special kind of trusting that only the very young seem to have.

The happy sounds of his puppy frolicking in the dry leaves at the base of the tree beckoned. He sat up a little and looked over his knobby knees to watch Shadow, his blue-black little friend, playing on the ground. Shadow was rolling and snarling, hopping and pouncing. He was, undoubtedly in his own mind, tangling with the biggest, meanest dog in the pack. And, of course, he was winning.

The thrill of surprise filled Jimmy all over again as he remembered his birthday, the day Shadow came into his life. There was that big bumping, squirming box being carried in under Dad's arm. Before it could even be placed on the floor, out popped the most beautiful little bundle of wiggly, licking, loving friendship a boy ever saw.

At first Jimmy had called him Wiggles. But that didn't seem sophisticated enough. It sounded too much like something a kid would call his dog. He finally decided to call him Shadow because Mom always said he followed her son around like he was Jimmy's shadow. The name stuck.

Jimmy hopped down beside Shadow and took him into his arms. The puppy immediately forgot his battles with the bully dog and set about lavishing all the love he could on his master. He licked Jimmy's face and ears until Jimmy finally pushed him down on the ground, holding him lovingly in the bowl made by his bent knees.

Suddenly remembering it was Mom's birthday, Jimmy cupped his hand over his mouth. He had vowed to himself that he would clean up the back yard as a special treat for her today... something she would never expect. And his favorite cousin would be here soon, too, as part of the birthday party. He jumped to his feet and took off at a run. Shadow hopped and plunged happily along through the autumn leaves after him.

As Jimmy rounded the freshly trimmed hedge at the corner, he saw his cousin standing in the driveway of his house. He bolted across the street, waving and shouting, "Hi Stan! Wait till you see my new puppy."

Horror filled Stan's boyish face. He pointed at something behind Jimmy and screamed, "Look out!"

Jimmy whirled to look behind him. The brakes of the blue sedan screamed with smoke and pain as the driver tried to bring the car to a sudden halt. Shadow, breathlessly trying to catch his master, was struck by one of the skidding wheels and rolled over and over until he came to a silent rest against the curb.

Running to where Shadow lay, Jimmy painfully crouched to gingerly touch the lifeless, broken body of his puppy. Tears pouring down his cheeks, he lifted the puppy into his arms and buried his face in Shadow's glistening black hair, his own brown mop covering the pain on his face.

Stan was frozen, helpless to give any comfort as Jimmy slowly stepped up onto the curb and walked around the side of the house to the back yard. Both boys' parents had rushed out of the house at the sound of the squealing brakes. Jimmy's mother, tears staining her own face, started toward her son until her husband put his arms around her and whispered into her ear, "No, Love, let him alone. What he needs most right now is be alone with Shadow."

After planting a rose bush at the head of the tiny grave, Jimmy slumped down on his knees. Tears were still streaming, non-stop down his puffy red cheeks. Jimmy had never encountered death before. What a horrid thing it was. So devastating. So... final. All that was left of his beautiful, wiggly, licky, loving puppy was the memory... and the pain of his loss.

Jimmy pulled the medic alert bracelet out of his hip pocket and placed it back on his wrist. For a long time he looked down at the silver oval which would help him get frozen if he were ever struck by a car. His parents had always worn these bracelets, and so had he as far as he could remember. But he never really thought much about it before today.

Today was the most terrible, painful, hateful day of his life; but it was also the first time he really knew what it meant to die... and that he never wanted that to happen to him.

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Strong gusts of chilled air began sweeping through the open dome of the observatory shortly after midnight. The old scientist shivered and rubbed his freezing fingers together as he checked the telescope's thermocouple readouts, then pulled a wool cap down more tightly over his almost bald head. Temperatures were dropping rapidly, as a cold front approached. Twenty minutes and this exposure would be complete, then he'd have to close the dome and wait till the weather cleared. There was never enough data, never enough time. The problems just got more fascinating all the while.

He'd been an astrophysicist nearly forty five years, John Foster thought. Then he corrected himself, since his doctorate, well, that would make it forty two years--or forty three? But the amount of knowledge that had been acquired during that time was just enormous.

Now they were reaching out to understand things that would have been almost unimaginable thirty years ago. His infrared images of Cygnus X-3 were a dramatic case in point, more and more evidence of an absolutely devastating process developing only forty thousand light years away, that is forty thousand years ago, but they were just finding out about it now. The story is only beginning to be told, he thought. I'm growing old and will miss almost all of it!

John hadn't felt well for awhile. Too much exposure to the winter air in the dome, perhaps. It was time to see a doctor, now. "You simply don't take care of yourself!" his wife had said three weeks ago. "Won't you go see Tom for a checkup?" Gina was two years older than he, but her ever-sparkling eyes told him she was just bursting with energy. Her job as a neurophysiologist sometimes took even more hours than his. Slender, dark haired, still very attractive compared with other women her age! Why was he, even a bit younger, dragged out like this? Maybe she was right!

"John, I need more tests," said Tom. "Gina tells me you tire very easily these days. Maybe we can do something to help. The kind of work you do requires a lot of hours, she says, and you're growing older, like the rest of us. How about it?"

That had been ten days ago. Now, as he sat in Tom's waiting room, John experienced a chilling apprehensiveness. Gina had been quiet for a few days, not her usual bubbling self at all, and John wondered if she'd been talking to Tom. "Don't stall on getting back with Tom," she'd said worriedly just yesterday. "He might have some kind of... important thing on your health!" But she was indefinite, as if she knew something but didn't know how to explain it, or was afraid to try.

"It's a very rare condition, John," said Tom. "You've heard about leukemic retroviruses, of course, but we've been studying some kinds of brain diseases over the last few years that seem to be similar. They're caused by reverse transcription too, and a number of different strains have cropped up. One of the latest is known as HNV-X, the tenth in a series which replicate in the cerebral cortex. They're considered to be very difficult to transmit. On top of that they're almost impossible to activate, but if that happens the results are terrible. Gina works with chimpanzees that carry the virus. We've found that chronic exposure to low temperatures can activate them. Do you spend a lot of time at winter sports, or something like that?"

"No," said John, "but I'm sitting for long periods lots of nights at the infrared telescope, and I do get thoroughly chilled during the winter. You can take a thermos of hot coffee up there with you, but nothing seems to really help. Perhaps a flight suit with electric heaters?"

"It's beside the point now," shrugged Tom. He paused, and looked down at his desk for a moment. "John, we've detected HNV-X in your blood. The fact that we can see it in a normal blood sample suggests the concentration in your brain is very high. The disease is almost certainly in an active state. We're only beginning to characterize this strain. There's no way to combat it, yet. Have you been experiencing any problems with memory?"

"Yes," said John. The feeling of apprehensiveness was changing to a chill of near panic. "How bad is it?" He tried to keep his voice calm.

"By the time there's sufficient damage for noticeable memory loss," Tom said, "we'd have to guess it's pretty far along. You've got perhaps a couple of weeks at best. You could begin feeling very poorly as soon as a few days from now! Part of the difficulty is there's so little history of the disease in humans."

John felt sweat beading out on his forehead, and a tingling at the back of his neck. He imagined that he felt faint, and shut his eyes very tightly for a moment to clear his vision. "What can I do?" he asked.

The internist looked away for a moment. There was a struggle in his face, as if some terrible tension were tearing at him. "John, there's a procedure that most of my fellow doctors think is premature, but I've looked into it and--well, if something like this were to happen to me, I'd do it! In fact, I've already set up the arrangements, for myself and Susan. But it's very unconventional. It's unorthodox! It's a little..."

"Damn it, Tom, get to the point! Is this an experimental therapy, or what?" John was obviously agitated.

"John, that's precisely why I don't quite know how to explain it!" Tom replied, frustrated. "If I told you about some spirit worship cult and you were perfectly well, you could take it or leave it! But if you're dying, and I'm you're doctor, and I steer you onto something that other doctors don't believe is ready for application?"

"Come on, Tom, out with it!" John scowled. "Look, Gina and I've known you for twenty years. I know you're not going to push some kind of devil worship on me, so that's not it. You've probably talked to Gina about this already. What does she think? She's got the same kind of background as you!"

"Gina is all for it, John," said Tom. "But she didn't know how to bring it up either." He took a deep breath. "Oh, hell! It's cryonics! You've heard about it for years, and you've heard what everybody has to say about it. But what's the alternative? I've watched it for the last decade, and it's made remarkable progress. Now! I've already said too much, by professional standards. As far as therapy is concerned, there's damn little we can do for you. Just spend as much time with Gina as you can, and take these when you begin feeling dizzy." He scribbled on a pad, tore off a sheet, and handed it to John.

John sat there, shocked. Only a few days left? He needed centuries! Now, unexpectedly, it was all going to end, not enough time to even finish the papers he was working on! He looked out the window and sighed. Spring was just six weeks away. The bare trees would soon be tinged with green, then they'd be filling with the lush leaves of summer, but for him? John slowly got up, thanked Tom absent-mindedly, and left. The observatory at the top of the hill called to him, and he walked toward it. He'd walked this way for nearly thirty five years, now, and it was all over with! So soon! He couldn't believe it!

Gina's hands were clasped so tightly they were white, when he finally entered the house. It was eight o'clock, dark outside, and he knew she'd have been worried about him. Her dark hair, normally glossy and neatly brushed, was tangled. Her cheeks were red and streaked, still wet with tears. Gina came over silently and took him to the sofa, coaxed him to lie down, then cradled his head in her lap. He closed his eyes as she stroked his brow, and just let himself go for a few minutes. He kept remembering Tom saying she was "all for it!" He'd better talk with her about this--in just a minute or so!

Later that evening, the streets were dark and wet with rain as John and Gina drove up to a large, long structure in an industrial park. A bright cluster of stars high on one corner of the building was the only logo; it reflected from puddles in the empty parking lot as they got out and walked toward the doorway.

Inside, John found himself sitting in a conference room with Gina and a slender young man whose eyes were intense and yet contemplative, as if they saw things at a great distance. John had the feeling this person would understand his work, yet couldn't see why. It was as if there were some unspoken bond, yet to be defined between them. "This is Ted Stone," Gina had said, as if there were some significance that should be obvious. Ted had shaken his hand as if he wished they'd met a long time before. Perhaps that was part of it. John thanked Ted for meeting with them late at night. Ted told them he'd still been working, anyway.

"Tom and Gina called me a couple of days ago," Ted said, once the preliminaries were out of the way. "I'm pretty much aware of your condition. They've probably told you this is the thing to do! You may feel, as we talk about cryonics, that I'm trying to talk you out of it, but that's not really the intent at all. It's just that most of our people have thought this thing through without having a sword hanging over their heads.

"It makes us uneasy when somebody starts thinking about cryonics for the first time, when they know they have just a few days left. The last thing we want is for someone's panic to be the deciding factor. You're going to hear every negative thing I can think of to tell you about what we do and what the chances are! If you want it, when I'm through, so be it, but you can understand why I'm not going to paint any kind of rosy picture, right?"

John thought about it for a moment. Then he said, "Fair enough! But two people I respect tell me it's what they'd do. I know most doctors are against this, but I'm skeptical about doctors' judgment of new ideas, so that's a standoff. Tom says he and Susan are signed up, and Gina says she's going to do it now, regardless of what I decide. I'd be crazy if I didn't at least find out about it, wouldn't I?"

Ted smiled, and said, "All of that has to do with other people's evaluations--other people's values. I'm curious! In addition to whether or not it works, aren't there personal reasons you'd have? Aren't there things you'd like to be able to pick up and carry on again some time in the future? I mean, that's what most of us have in mind! Your career, maybe? Your life with Gina?"

John struggled with the idea. He'd always thought in very simple terms about most things other than astrophysics. For him, the whole purpose of his life was to understand those magnificent events beyond the atmosphere--most of them beyond the Solar System, so powerful, so huge! Beside them, humans were like ants! No, like bacteria!

Suddenly, John realized that even his life with Gina, as rewarding as it was, had been like a satellite to his career. Philosophy, as sweeping as it was supposed to be, actually bored him. Those academic professors who questioned the reality of existence? Put them in the vicinity of a black hole, he'd thought, and let them deny the existence of reality as they fell into the vortex! He'd lived, driven by an insatiable curiosity about the universe, absorbing everything he could grasp. But his own life? That had always seemed secondary! He'd taken it for granted! Even now, it was the unfinished papers that seemed to trouble him most. Damn it, he wasn't going to get any of them published at all! No one else could reconstruct all the things that were taking shape within his mind on a moment by moment basis! It would all vanish!

Slowly, a connection between his life and work took shape before John's eyes. It had a kind of logical simplicity, like fitting a rod into a hollow cylinder. He felt like a preschooler with blocks, building an elementary tower. The continuity of his life and the continuity of his work were one and the same. If there were a discontinuity in his life, there would be a discontinuity in his work. If his life were terminated, his work would be terminated. Forever. It was as simple as that. If his life resumed at some future time, then his work resumed. If more understanding were available at that time, he would have a greater baseline of understanding upon which to build. John turned, looked at Gina, and in some new respect saw her for the first time. Later that night, he thought, they would have to explore that more deeply!

The tour of the facility was impressive, but in some ways unnecessary. John now understood the look in Ted's eyes. He was looking through time, rather than space. John had also looked through time, before, but only in the impersonal projection of future astronomical events. Now he looked through time at the projection of his own work into the future, a very open ended future--a future in which he could expect to continue what he was doing on an indefinite, somewhat perpetual basis. He thought perhaps he should feel excitement, but instead what he felt was more like awe. Perhaps this wouldn't work, or some sort of catastrophe would abort it at some point? But if it did work? Suddenly the whole thing made sense!

John tried to explain his point of view to Ted. Ted told him no two people ever quite saw the continuity of their lives in the same way, that John's was a little different than most, in some ways more penetrating! Ted's viewpoints, as John listened to them, further expanded on the theme of an individual's life and work as a potentially endless transformational process. John felt the undefined bond with Ted he'd imagined earlier coming into focus. One thing John intended to mention to Ted before parting, and then forgot--there seemed to be a considerable lessening of the panic and frustration he'd felt earlier, concerning his illness!

After leaving, John and Gina took a long drive into the mountains. Well after midnight, under a clearing sky, they climbed to the top of a narrow ridge above the road and looked upward into the heavens. "Gina," said John, "What will you be doing later on this Spring?"

"I'll be remembering this night," she whispered, "and looking forward to the next time we'll be up here together! While I'm able, I'll come up here from time to time and be thankful you're safe, rather than just gone forever! Before long, I'll probably be on my way to join you. I'm no spring chicken, you know!" Her voice was broken and trembling. She could say no more!

John held Gina tightly, and still could scarcely grasp the idea of being up here again at a later time, but everything added up. It was the most logical thing in the world. Why hadn't he seen it more quickly? There was no explanation, and no time to go in search of it. "Will you pack up some things for us in a box, and try to store it so we'll have them someday?" he asked.

John looked down into Gina's face, wet with tears, and saw that she was nodding and smiling. He held her even closer, and looked up into the sky. In a peculiar way, which he'd never noticed before, seven constellations suddenly combined into one gigantic pathway, stretching off toward the center of the galaxy. It was an avenue of stars!

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In the dark, red glow of the dying fireplace Bill's lean, high cheek bones appeared to have been chiseled from stone. His dark eyes were moist as he looked at the barely visible picture of his daughter, Bo, riding her rocking horse.

Soft, sobbing sounds came from Carolanne, who laid beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. Bill stroked Carolanne's hair, dark brown curls which were almost invisible in the shadowy darkness of the room.

"She's only two years old," Carolanne whispered hoarsely.

"She's so playful. So beautiful." Her voice choked and she buried her face in Bill's shoulder again.

Bill turned and kissed his wife's tear streaked face as he pulled her even closer. His own eyes began to flood. "Jesus, how could Bo have cancer?" said Bill as he grabbed several tissues from the box on the table beside their bed. He cleared his nose and took another large gulp from his wine glass.

"Bill?" Carolanne grabbed at the tissues and cleared her own nose. "Bill, I want to talk some more about having Bo frozen."

"Carolanne." Bill's voice asked her to stop.

"Bill, please! It doesn't do any good to keep going over this."

"I know it's still experimental, but what do we have to lose, Bill?" Carolanne sat up on the bed and looked into Bill's face as she placed her soft fingertips against his cheek.

"What do we have to gain?" Bill brushed away her hand and sat up on the edge of the bed with his back to Carolanne.

"Hope?"

Bill let out a long sigh as he smoothed his hair back from his face.

"It's Bo's only chance."

"Carolanne, most hospitals still won't get involved in freezing people. That must mean something."

"Some do. Jane and Terrence had her father frozen last year. We could take Bo to that hospital."

Bill stood and turned to look down at his wife, her tear stained face almost lost in the shadows of the room. "We've gone over this a hundred times. Even a piece of steak doesn't last more than a month or so in the freezer. Christ, it's bad enough having to face the death of our only daughter without you torturing yourself, and me too, with these unrealistic dreams."

Bill turned, left the bedroom, and walked heavily toward the stairway. The sound of Bill falling down the stairs was like the sound of a boulder tumbling down a hillside. Terrified, Carolanne bolted straight up in the bed. Stumbling in the darkness of the room, she made it to the doorway and switched on the lights.

"Bill!" she screamed as she flew down the stairs and crouched over her husband. "Bill, are you all right?"

Bill opened his eyes and a wry smile formed at the corners of his mouth. Seeing the terrified look in her eyes, he reached up and pulled her down onto his chest. "Looks like I had too much wine."

"Are you all right?" Carolanne pulled back to look at him. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"My leg."

"Don't move." She kissed him lightly on the nose and ran for the phone. "I'll get an ambulance."

***

Bill looked down at his broken leg in disgust. Carolanne, standing beside his hospital bed, picked up his hand and smiled softly down at him. "After climbing on all those roofs, it's kind of silly to have broken your leg falling down your own stairs." The grin on her face was full of love.

"It was stupid," said Bill, disgust still on his face.

The door opened and a tall, large boned nurse walked into the room, carrying a chart in her hands. "Good morning," she said with a cheery brightness on her broad, boxy face. "I'm Mrs. Collins. How's the leg this morning?"

"How long will I be laid up?" Bill asked. "I have an important job to finish. I can't stay in the hospital."

"Broken legs don't take as long to heal as they used to, Mr. Cross. Since about the 30's we've been using molecular repair machines to assist healing. Are you familiar with the medical uses of nanotechnology?"

"Vaguely," Bill answered. "Not too much."

"You're in construction work, aren't you?" asked the nurse.

"I build houses."

"Great," said Mrs. Collins with a smile breaking from her full lips. "You'll enjoy this." The nurse handed her charts to Carolanne and pulled a wheel chair out of the closet.

"Enjoy what?" asked Bill, looking at Carolanne, who responded with a question mark on her face and a shrug of her shoulders.

"We have a viewing room just down the hall, Mr. Cross, where you can watch some construction that's going on here at the hospital. Dr. Van Deusen, who set your leg last night and started your treatment, would like your opinion. Being in construction yourself, I think you'll enjoy seeing this."

"But what about my leg? How long before I can leave?"

The nurse had pulled the chair over to Bill's bed. "Let's go see the construction, first, okay? Trust me," she said with a wry smile and a little jerk of her head. He did not notice the nurse reach down to his removable cast and switch on a small device. The other nurses had been switching it on and off so much he'd ceased being aware of it.

Bill looked at Carolanne again only to get that question mark look as she threw her hands in the air.

*****

Bill's hands, gripping the arms of the wheelchair as he leaned toward the viewing screen, were large and callused from his work. His dark, full beard did not hide the high cheek bones or the excitement in his chocolate eyes. Carolanne watched Bill as much as she watched the viewing screen.

Unlike mining and construction on the surface of the earth, there was no gravity here to retard and complicate this work. All this activity was in free fall. These machines didn't lumber about like hulking giants on rough, crude roads freshly excavated for the job. They looked more like weightless Olympic gymnasts whose special training and skills had been borrowed and redirected for this special task. They floated.

The irregularly shaped work area was about the size of a small bedroom. A similar work area, which had been on the screen earlier, was filled with hundreds of machines, each relatively no larger than the size of Bill's fist, each laboring at its individual task. In addition to the machinery, the interiors of the work areas were also full of floating objects of varying sizes and shapes, some of which were much larger than the machines that were working there. Inside this particular work area, though, there were no machines. Not yet.

The walls were made up of hundreds of tiny bead-like, interlocking spheres. Bill's attention was drawn to a small, expanding opening on the side wall. It appeared to be under disassembly from the outside. One by one, the beads were being removed. Bill watched as two, then three, and finally six to eight arm-like projections began poking through the hole.

Dragging it's power and communications cable behind it, a spherical automaton floated slowly into the work area through the porthole in the wall-beads it had just created. Once inside, it repaired the hole in the wall and then pitched and rolled while searching for the correct orientation to assume in this free fall work situation.

Numerous anchor arms began emerging from the sphere on the side next to the wall, searching and examining the wall's surface. After the sphere had securely attached itself to the wall, a computer inside the sphere began directing the sphere in the task of building and deploying the robotic appendages which would do the work under its pre-programmed control.

Small arm-like projections telescoped from the surface of the computer-sphere into the center of the work area. These robot arms began disassembling components from the objects around it, gathering these disassembled parts into clusters of like kind.

Bill sensed that the projections and arms kept precise geometrical maps of their movements about the workspace. It was like the highly automated modular housing factories Bill had visited on tours, but much more complex. The nurse said this construction was going on here at the hospital, but what were those things anyway? It would take hundreds of acres to contain all this activity, wouldn't it? Bill didn't have a clue!

Several openings began to appear in different areas of the spherical automaton's surface. Out of these openings grew slender, rigid, cylindrical pigtails spreading in different directions, following the paths of the disassembly robots. Alongside the pigtails grew broader, flatter appendages which would function like conveyor belts. At a distance from the computer-sphere of about ten times its own diameter, pods at the ends of the pigtails opened like hands with eight opposing fingers, in four sets of two.

Back at the main computer-sphere, the parts it had been disassembling and stockpiling were being passed along by the conveyer belt fingers to the robotic assemblers at their ends. Here, these pieces were being assembled back into the same types of objects from which the parts had just been disassembled. The difference, obvious from the dynamic behavior being viewed on the screen, was that the original objects were defective and couldn't function, while the reassembled objects functioned perfectly.

As the assembly progressed, the remote assemblers began to put out their own tethers and conveyer belts at the ends of which other assemblers and disassemblers began to develop. A network of robot appendages, rather like a living, working scaffolding, thus grew within the work area, all controlled by the original computer sphere which first entered the cell.

The display shifted from work area to work area. Other computer spheres continued to enter new work areas. Bill could envision thousands--or could it be tens of thousands?--of computer-spheres, disassemblers and assemblers, all working in concert in an uncountable number of work areas, to repair those work areas and all the floating, functional parts within them.

"Are they excavating beneath the hospital?" Carolanne asked Bill.

"I don't know what it is," Bill replied. It's ridiculous, but what else can it be?"

"What are those things, anyway?"

"Nothing I've ever seen on the surface of the Earth," replied Bill.

Bill and Carolanne exchanged looks of astonishment.

*****

Carolanne drew back from the screen and noticed her surroundings. From the time the nurse had left Bill and Carolanne here in the observation room to wait for Dr. Van Deusen, their intrigue with the drama on the screen had eliminated all sense of waiting.

The observation room was cheerful. It had been decorated with yellow and beige chairs and nicely matching tables of rich dark mahogany. Lamps with glass bases full of dried flowers sat on the tables, more for decoration than use, as the bright overhead lights provided all the illumination necessary. At the moment, the ceiling lights were dimmed in order to see the construction activity on the screen better.

The door opened and a tall, white haired physician entered. His face was round and florid and his deep, blue eyes sparkled more from merriment than from illumination. The corners of his mouth broke open in a broad smile as he looked at his patient, so occupied by the ballet on the screen that he had not even noticed the doctor's entrance. He nodded a greeting to Carolanne.

"My apology, Mr. and Mrs. Cross, for keeping you waiting," said Dr. Van Deusen in a hearty, rich voice that filled the room.

"Ahhh, Dr. Van Deusen." Bill whirled his wheelchair to greet the doctor. "It may not look like it at first glance, but that is, without a doubt, a hard hat area!" Bill's face glowed with appreciation for what he had been observing on the screen in front of him.

"It's not exactly the kind of construction work I understand you do. You build houses, don't you?" Bill nodded. "But I thought you would appreciate it." The smile on the physician's face was like that of a father watching a small child fascinated with some new wonder he had discovered.

"What in the world is it?" asked Bill, staring back at the construction work on the screen. "I've never seen anything like it."

"That's the healing process going on inside your leg, Mr. Cross. You've probably noticed the nurses switching the device on your cast on and off. We're monitoring progress in your leg by telemetry through a sterile micro-lead that penetrates to the vicinity of the break."

"That?" Bill turned his wheelchair back to face the screen. "That's going on inside my leg?"

"It's just one small application of what we call nanotechnology." Dr. Van Deusen walked up to stand beside Cross's wheelchair.

"What kind of technology?" Carolanne asked.

"Nanotechnology. Nano means very small. A billionth. Nanotechnology refers to those types of technologies which deal on the molecular level. In this case, we're watching molecular repair machines inside your cells."

"That's actually going on inside Bill's leg, right now?" Carolanne asked the doctor incredulously. "Do you have nano-TVcameras in there? How could you do that?"

"What you're watching is a computer simulation. The exact positions of repair machines and their working surfaces are available from millions of repair sites, and a small computer in your cast is constantly switching from one site to another, keeping track of the process. This information is usually piped to a lab where technicians study the repair processes, but we can view it in this room, too, so patients can better understand what's going on.

"In this viewing room, we have the computer switch back to one particular repair site frequently and we display it in extremely high detail, with color graphics, so you can watch the repair as it happens at that location."

"Are those... ah... repair machines... robots?" Bill asked without looking at Dr. Van Deusen; his dark, fascinated eyes remained glued to the scene.

"Well, yes and no," answered the doctor. "A robot is a machine which does routine tasks. It depends on how you look at what these machines are doing. In some ways it's mechanical and routine, but in other ways, that description is inappropriate, because the whole operation requires a lot of artificial intelligence from the tiny, local computer inside that main sphere at the repair sites."

"Those pigtails," Bill pointed at one of the repair machines on the screen, "must be kind of like extension cords connecting the main computer to its robots?"

"Yes," said Van Deusen. "Those main spheres are the smart ones. They have tiny nano-computers inside, which are receiving directions from the computer on your cast through the micro-lead in your leg."

Carolanne smiled with delight. "How does the computer on Bill's cast know what each one of those little computer spheres inside the cells is coming up against?"

"It switches from site to site constantly, like an orchestra leader keeping track of dozens of musicians, except here we're talking about millions of repair devices. The cast computer directs only the overall objectives for each of the computer spheres inside and outside the cells. The nano-computers inside the main spheres determine the specific actions they take to accomplish their local objectives," answered Dr. Van Deusen.

Bill was getting the picture. "The computer on the cast is like someone who hires a contractor to fix a busted brick wall after some drunk smashed into it. The contractor, like the computer sphere in the cell, figures out what needs to be done, then puts a crew together, like these disassemblers and assemblers, to do the actual work."

"Right," said Van Deusen with a broad smile. "From the information obtained when the disassemblers first encounter a molecular structure, the computer figures out which parts are okay and which parts are malfunctioning. Then the computer gives directions to the disassembler about which cellular parts to leave alone and which ones to take apart."

Bill continued from where Van Deusen had paused, "So, the contractor has the brick wall torn down. Then he looks over the bricks, picks out the ones still good enough to use, and has the bad ones ground up into sand and made into new bricks again?"

"That's right," said Van Deusen. "The disassembled molecular components..."

"The busted bricks which were turned back into sand?" asked Carolanne.

"Yes," answered Van Deusen.

Bill smiled at Carolanne and continued, "Then the sand is sent down the conveyor belt to the assembler with instructions about how to first rebuild the bricks, and then rebuild the wall so it looks like new."

"That's more or less the way it works, yes." Van Deusen was pleased they were catching on so easily. "Molecule by molecule, the parts of the cell are repaired. Cell by cell, the bone, the muscles, blood vessels, and all the damaged parts are repaired, or `remanufactured', if you'll go along with the notion. The most fascinating thing, which many of us can't stop marveling about, is how these little things make copies of themselves, almost like highly sophisticated viruses, yet we control their coming and going, their degree of proliferation, all by that computer on your cast."

"Dr. Van Deusen, are there limits on the kinds of repairs which can be done this way?" the look in Bill's eyes revealed that his mind was racing with the possibilities.

Carolanne stopped breathing as she realized what was going through Bill's mind.

"Fundamentally, no," answered Dr. Van Deusen. "It's really a matter of engineering and the applications are mushrooming every day."

"What about things like cancer and heart disease?" asked Carolanne.

"That's exactly why I had you brought down here today, Mr. and Mrs. Cross." Van Deusen pulled a chair over next to Bill and sat down, facing them. "The computer spheres inside your broken leg have been encountering a lot of plaque in your arteries, Mr. Cross. We feel you should consider having this removed before it progresses any further."

"I have ather--ah--heart disease?"

"Atherosclerosis. Yes. The accumulation of plaque in your arteries."

"How," Bill swallowed. "How bad is it?"

"Your condition is not serious, yet, Mr. Cross," Dr. Van Deusen smiled reassuringly. "We recommend preventive measures early so that it won't become serious."

"Does that mean surgery?" asked Carolanne.

"No." Van Deusen turned his head and looked up at the screen. "Molecular repair machines can do that job, too, Mrs. Cross."

"You mean," Bill said, "like turning bricks into sand, these repair machines just gobble up the plaques and I'm okay again?"

Basically, yes. Repair machines can seek out any biological structure which is not normal, or which is malfunctioning, and can either eliminate that structure, such as plaque, or, like a brick wall, rebuild it to make it work correctly again. Molecular repair machines have almost replaced surgery and drugs in medicine. This is 2053. The day is not too far off, Mr. Cross, when surgery and drugs will be as distant as witch doctors' beads and rattles."

Carolanne's delicate hand was resting on Bill's shoulder; he could feel her tremble. Bill placed one of his rough, large hands over hers and looked up at her before he turned his questioning eyes to Dr. Van Deusen. Carolanne felt a bolt of anticipation, like a jolt from a hot 220 volt line run through her.

"Dr. Van Deusen," Bill started in a very deliberate and serious tone of voice, "our two year old daughter, Bo, is dying of cancer. Why weren't we told about these repair machines for curing her cancer?"

Dr. Van Deusen took a deep breath. "Repair machines are not perfect yet, Mr. Cross. When you signed the treatment release to authorize their use for the repair of the tissues in your leg, you were giving us permission to do something very well proven out. There are very few dangers with this procedure, but there are still limitations. If the repair machines don't do the whole job, your body is strong otherwise and can finish the job. The artery job is a little more complicated. That's why we wanted you to see the simulation. Cancer is even more difficult. Perhaps your daughter's doctors want to try some more conventional approaches first. Is your daughter in this hospital?"

"No," said Bill, "but it looks like she should be. Can you refer us to someone here?"

"I'll be glad to have someone from that section of the hospital come by your room and see you," said Van Deusen.

Carolanne cleared her throat. "What's the difference between a broken leg and cancer, I mean, as far as these repair machines are concerned?"

"The repair machines may be able to eliminate the tumor, but we still don't know exactly what causes every kind of cancer. We can't guarantee that her cancer will not recur. Although our repair machines are getting better every day, they're still quite slow. Sometimes the disease process works faster at tearing down tissues than the repair machines can keep up with."

"So," Bill continued, "sometimes a person with something like cancer dies anyway?"

"Yes," said Dr. Van Deusen.

"But, if such a person were to be frozen," Bill's voice wavered, "these repair machines could be used after they were unfrozen to repair the freezing damage?"

Tears were forming in Carolanne's eyes and her lips quivered as she held her breath and waited for Dr. Van Deusen's answer.

"Yes," said Van Deusen. "However, I'm an internist, not a specialist in cancer or cryopreservation of patients. But if you'd like more details I could have one of the doctors from those sections come by your room, also."

"You do that here too?" Bill's face was on fire.

"Yes. This hospital is one of the leading facilities in the country on the use of molecular repair devices. Our successes in that area have made some of us very positive about the prospects for patients who have themselves cryopreserved. However, I should add that not all our colleagues share that belief."

"Doctor," Bill hesitated, "would Bo really have a chance at coming back if we had her frozen?"

"Like I said, Mr. Cross, many of us are very positive about that. But, I'm not an expert in that field. I'll ask Dr. Killian from that section to drop over and see you."

Bill looked up at Carolanne and smiled. "Yes, Dr. Van Deusen," he said, "we'd like that. We'd like that very much!"

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Her white satin ballet slippers shimmered in the blue floodlights. To the exhilarating, musical fountain of the pas de trois, Odette, the silvery, frosted Swan Queen raised her slender torso high and her graceful finger tips touched the stars. The little swans, all in white, hovered and circled Odette, protecting her from the great Black Swan, the malevolent magician who had placed the wicked spell on her.

With magnificent stag leaps, Prince Siegfried flew to the edge of the lake and into Odette's life. Demurely she took his hand and joined him in an embrace as the Black Swan retreated. Siegfried twirled Odette. She stopped, gracefully balanced on one satin slipper, facing him, hands touching, her other long, straight leg pointing far out behind her, the loveliest Swan Queen that ever danced.

The music was soft, now, and sweet as the Prince coaxed her to follow him. As the music crescendoed, so did their dance until as cymbals clashed and drums rolled, she flew through the air to be caught by his strong, sure hands. He held her high over his head; her lithe, swan-like body arched and beautiful.

The crowd was wild and their applause thunderous. This was their greatest performance. This night they earned their titles as the greatest Prima Ballerina and Primo Danseur that ever performed. Both their bodies glistened with perspiration and their faces glowed with pride, strength and youth.

Dark, ominous chords eclipsed the hopeful, happy music that previously filled the theatre, now turned gut wrenching and full of danger. The Black Swan swooped back onto the stage, his great, angry, threatening wings held high. The dark cowl above his shoulders was black and empty. He was death.

In the dark and gloomy light, the Prince's strong hands began to quake. Odette looked down at her strong, young Prince and watched in horror as his face grew old; his broad, strong shoulders crumbled under her. Her graceful, flowing fingers became gnarled and arthritic before her own eyes and she felt icy cold. She fell, smashed and shattered against the stage floor. Her white satin costume and the Prince's colorful robes, now old and worn, were all that was left of them, while smoke curled upward, wafting away the last of their lives as the little swans fled in terror.

*****

Catherine screamed and sat up, sobbing and trembling. Jeffrey woke and took her into his arms, gently rocking her and smoothing her long brown hair. He whispered into her ear, "Hush. Shhh. Shhh. It's okay, my little Sugar Plum Princess. It was just the nightmare. It's okay now. Shh. Shh."

Words stuck to her dry, swollen throat, and were not easy to set free. "No one... who will see us perform tomorrow night, Jeffrey,... will have had to... will have any idea what it was like... to have had to grow old... and die. None of them... can ever... know what it was like." Her body shook and quivered as she cried.

Jeffrey held her close and tight and kissed her hair.

When the last tear made its way down her cheek, she smiled softly and her warm brown eyes flooded with love as she looked into his understanding face. She ran her young, slender fingers over his strong jaw and kissed his nose. She picked up one of his powerful hands and held it to her trembling lips for a long moment. They were alive again, and youthful, and had an endless future stretching before them.

He kissed her warm, wet eyes and laid her back against the pillows as he caressed her slender, muscular, sensuous body. He whispered in a husky, hungry voice, "Tomorrow, after floating down the dream river for 200 years, you and I will return to the stage as Odette and Siegfried. But tonight, My Love, I will share your most magnificent performance with no one."

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The aged gravekeeper was nervous. At first he thought it was the dark, gray sky--the cold, whipping wind that foretold another storm. When it was like this, the hills covered with stony reminders of the dead seemed to fill him with a pointless uneasiness.

Then he noticed the tall young man, motionless behind the iron fence at the other side of the cemetery. An unblinking, penetrating quality of the eyes gave the old gravekeeper a feeling that invisible hands were reaching out for him, and he shuddered. It was four thirty and would soon be dark. No use waiting till five, he thought; time to lock up and leave. As the gravekeeper drove away, he saw the young man walking rapidly into the night toward the more affluent residential districts.

"You're not going to do this to my daughter, Ray!" The heavy woman in a shapeless dress leaned on the polished surface of her dining room table, fingers curled like talons helplessly clawing at the smooth surface. "It's indecent! It's obscene! It makes me sick to even think about it!" she rasped. "I'll stop you, no matter what it takes! I'm an important woman in this town!" Her narrowed eyes and stony nose matched the hissing tone of her voice. Stopping, seemingly at a loss for words, she glared up at the young man. Her labored breathing filled the room.

Ray leaned even further forward from the opposite side of the table. Eyes needling downward, exploring the pudgy little woman's face, he said, "The grave may be right for you, but you're not going to shove it down Barbara's throat!" His voice had an angry, cold deepness, like the growling of a blizzard's wind passing through thick groves of trees. "You didn't want the marriage," he said. "Now you don't want this, but it's not going to change a thing!"

Ray's face softened into a broad, bitter smile that had no humor in it. "Picture yourself the way she is!" he suddenly threw at her. "Then see your corpse lying in a casket! Do you really like that picture? Perhaps that's what you deserve!" The bulky woman began to tremble. His expression becoming serious, reflective, Ray turned abruptly and left; the house shook as he closed the door. Barbara's mother reached, choking, for the telephone, and dialed the number of her attorney.

"It's time to go, Barbara," Ray said gently, as he pulled a chair up beside her bed. "You won't need much. The plane leaves in an hour!" Although his voice was calm, controlled, Ray struggled deep within himself not to think of the lonely years ahead. He reached out and stroked her hair softly. There was so little time left!

"What's my mother going to do?" Barbara asked, her weakened voice wavering for a moment. "She's always fought me tooth and nail on this!" Her dark eyes smiled and burned with determination, despite the pallor that surrounded them. Barbara still looked as firmly convinced as when she had first broached the subject with her parents and stood her ground, three years before she and Ray had met.

"Your mother will try to stop it," Ray said. "That's why we have to hurry. When the doctors admitted treatment was useless... advised it be stopped, your mother finally realized it actually might happen. That's when she began talking to her minister and attorney. I've seen them both. The minister is harmless enough, but her lawyer might be able to get some kind of injunction. They'll probably try it tomorrow morning... tonight, if they find out we're going so quickly."

Ray rose and quickly packed Barbara's things, then said, "I'll take your bag to the car and come back for you." Barbara smiled as he paused at the door and looked back. Panoramas of happy days flashed before Ray's eyes. It's going to be much easier for her, he thought. A blink of those lovely lashes and she'll be on her way to the future. But these memories are going to have to last me a long, long time. A moment later Ray tore himself away and left the room.

The short, plump nurse was visibly upset, her voice sharply edged, when Ray pushed Barbara's wheelchair out of the room. "You can't take her out of here on a night like this!" she objected. "In her condition? She's so weak she shouldn't be moved at all! I have instructions she's not to leave her bed!"

"There's somewhere she wants very much to go," smiled Ray sadly. "If people were telling you any moment could be your last, if there were a special place you wanted to be, wouldn't you go?" Ray and Barbara were approaching the main door, and the nurse could see nothing would stop them. Returning quickly to her station, she thought for a moment and then called a doctor. Her supervisor had warned her something funny might happen.

Snow was beginning to fall, as Ray rolled Barbara's wheel-chair toward the plane. A phone call with a physician in Arizona had satisfied the terminal's authorities that a sick person needed to be moved on an urgent basis. "Is there any chance the flight might be canceled?" Barbara asked, brushing her hair back and looking out the plane's window at the drifting flakes.

"I don't think so," said Ray. "The snow's not deep, yet! The main front is still a hundred miles away, but it's moving very rapidly. Any delay like a phone call from your mother's attorney or a judge could hold things up till the field's unusable. Let's hope that doesn't happen!" He put his arms around her. Together they watched the snow continue to fall, covering the plane's giant wings with a velvet whiteness. The wait seemed endless!

Finally, one by one, the large turbojet engines were started; the plane rolled down the taxiway toward its takeoff position. Neither Ray nor Barbara knew that after a hurried conversation with her attorney, Barbara's mother had called the police, telling them her daughter had been 'kidnapped'! Roadblocks were being set up in the dark roads filling with snow. As the pilot applied full throttle to all engines, neither Ray nor Barbara knew the police were having a heated argument with the airport's manager about whether or not a husband could 'kidnap' his wife when she appeared to be going willingly and doctors were waiting at the other end.

Neither Ray nor Barbara knew that before the plane reached cruising altitude, attorneys in California would have talked to a local judge, convincing him that a meddling old woman had no right interfering in her daughter's life. They did not know that at a research building in Northern California, a surgical team had been alerted, should it be needed upon their arrival. Their plane was expected to land at dawn. A rescue vehicle would be at the unloading ramp to meet them.

Ray and Barbara were totally unaware of these things. They were curled deep in each others arms, asleep beneath soft, warm blankets, while the storm was left a thousand miles behind. Thirty thousand feet below, full moonlight fell on fresh snow as the mountains of southern Colorado and central Utah slid silently underneath. Tiny clusters of lights from small towns came and went as the huge plane sped toward an California sunrise.

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This is Issue Number One of LifeQuest, originally published

by Imladris Corporation in May, 1987. It is protected by copyright.

Visitors to this site are invited to make copies for personal use,

But not for resale or other commercial purposes.

Thank you for visiting this webpage!

Fred & Linda Chamberlain

Life Members, Cryonics Institute; link below:

History of our involvement with cryonics