LifeQuest No. 6

	INTRODUCTION TO LIFEQUEST Lifequest'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. Stories by some authors are not included, pending permission to publish on the World Wide Web. They will be added when such permission is obtained. *** TABLE OF CONTENTS Return to Main LifeQuest Index Page MASS ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 8936 AD, by Thomas Donaldson OCCUPATION: IMMORTAL, by Lee Corbin KITTY, by Linda Chamberlain [][][][][][][][][][] At clearday Father Osowen rose from meditation in his cell, feeling the breeze blowing through the building and the sharp smell of new air. The cell was small, only 40 feet square, with totally bare white walls, floor, and ceiling. For meditation even the door was turned off. Both breeze and light came through the walls. He always came away from meditation slowly, as if his thoughts wanted to remain in the far place they had gone and would come back very slowly. Of course he wore no clothing. He was a spare tall man by nature, his hair and nails were clipped short in the pattern for a Catolic, no more than 1/4th inch long. His arms, legs, and trunk were hairless too. At meditation he had sat cross-legged in the middle of the cell, and only slowly stood up, shaking his head to bring back his self and his thoughts. Where had they gone? It was clearday of Christmas in Skastowe. The sound of bells came into the cell, calling all the Catolic to mass through new and bright air. For Mass Father Osowen would not dress in the dhaba commonly worn. First there would be a robe going down to his ankles, with long sleeves and a low neckline (the name for it was skoro). On top of that a priest saying Mass would wear a heavy garment decorated with geometrical forms, again with a low neck, open on both sides and extending down to the thighs (the splure). The door of his cell turned on as soon as he came down fully from his meditation. It lead first to a wardrobe, with light coming from the ceiling but lined with soft dark felt, hung with both personal and hieratic clothing. It also contained a small bookcase, with readers for prayer and a square kasa, again square for hieratic dress. From there Father Osowen could go either to his personal quarters or out into church. Since he was preaching the mass, he dressed quickly for Mass, thinking through which reader he should take. It would have to be Varshanta, he thought to himself. People always wanted to forget that lesson, but that was what Christ had taught, and he, Father Osowen, would speak it again. And from this dim wardrobe Father Osowen stepped out directly into the Church. It was perhaps not the largest church in Skastowe, certainly not the only one, but Father Osowen had both lived and preached there for 400 years and it still made his heart go away when he walked into it. The Church Velopa had three congregations, each one facing outward from the central pillar from which Father Osowen had just stepped. Anyone who did so would see how the transparent krenkren wall soared up, slowly narrowing to meet the central pillar three miles up, and through that great window he would see the stars and galaxies, slowly rotating, and flecks of light from all the structures of Skastowe. These stars burned clear. Velopa always faced outward, by will of its designers 2000 years ago. The altar was at the edge so that the congregation faced the stars. The altar itself was only small, covered with altarcloth with two purple lines running parallel to one another. On it were three lit candles, Father Osowen strode directly to it and turned to face his congregation, which was still entering. They came through the central pillar in elevators, so each time an elevator stopped a crowd of people would come out and make their way quietly to the seats. They were of all conditions and colors, many not even Kristen, all of them come to hear and see and some to take part. The Choir (who were to take part) assembled to his left, on a smaller rectangle of seats apart from the others. They too were of all conditions, but had donned their own skoros for the service. No Mass was ever broadcast. The only way to see a Mass was to attend one, in person. Of course no one was searched for any recording or broadcasting devices, either. But even so at least one person would have had to attend, in person, and in person partake of Holy Communion. The congregation was full. It was time to begin. Father Osowen climbed into the lectern on the right side of the altar and turned on Varshanta. He raised his voice, speaking in Anglic: "In the name of the principle of light I welcome all to this Mass", and the congregation answered, also in Anglic: "We have come from afar to attend this Mass". And then, the rarest event in all Skastowe, the Choir broke into song. It was rare because so many people singing together, in person, was rare. No one would deny that any song could be done more perfectly by other means. Everyone knew that Songs could never be done better, for the point of Songs was not simply their sound. No one would deny that any singer could present their pieces, singlehandedly, if such a bizarre event as a singer presenting their music to a physically present audience were ever to happen. Everyone knew that these Songs were not simply presentations of music to an audience. At times, the Choir broke into chorus with the Congregation, sometimes they sang back and forth to answer one another. Sometimes Father Osowen's tenor sang alone, answered by the Choir and Congregation together. Slowly at first, then faster, in clear singing voices, the Song climbed through more and more complex beat and melody, reply and counterreply and clarification, argument and rebuttal, until a Resolution. And then from this Resolution it rested briefly in simplicity, finding no, no, no, that Resolution was not enough, and began again to rise, again and again, to its last Resolution, an intricate texture of rhythm and voices. Then a single brief soprano voice on one note. We have now come only this far, the soprano note said, but we are not done. Someday we will explore Song still deeper than now. The Song was two hours long, though no one sang continuously for that long. Some were silent, either those who merely wished to listen, or those who were not Kristen. No one was silent through ignorance. Doesn't everyone know the Songs of the Kristen? And Skastowe was not a small satellite with unified thinking. Someone had almost any opinion or custom no matter how outrageous. But no one disturbed the Song, which was the Mass. After Mass there was Communion. Father Osowen made sure that the meal was carefully distributed, by the ushers' hands, to everyone there: a loaf of spongy sinsin bread and a small glass of milta to everyone. When everyone had got their meal, he stood behind the altar and blessed the meal to a silent, waiting congregation: "Take, eat, of this sinsin and milta, which are my body and blood." We have changed slowly over thousands of years, Father Osowen thought as he mounted into the lectern. But still some things remain. There is Holy Communion, and there is the Mass. And the Mass will always be the glory of the Church. It is time now for Varshanta. And he began: "I have come to you today to tell you meanings of the Myth of Jesus Christ, which many far back in the Ages of Pain denied, and an equal number denies today. Today is the legendary anniversary of the birth of Jesus. His final oblivion, at an infancy of 30 years, was bound up in his birth, in the rags his mother wrapped him in. Anyone who took his child to the only Nest of Rearing in light years of here, 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years ago, and saw there the largest group of children they had ever seen since their own Nest of Rearing or their own childhood, will know this as a commonplace. That people live so long and have children so rarely, both are related. "But I have come to speak of other meanings of that myth which people will even deny today. Jesus lived in the Ages of Pain. For him even minor, simple wounds meant complete oblivion, acrushta that no one would cure in the history of the universes. And he ended with such a simple wound, not by accident but by design of others. "This story was a myth. No one teaches the full story even to Kristen any more. But it is a teaching myth. So if you haven't heard it or have forgotten it, listen closely. By his message Jesus had offended powerful men of his time, first those of his own nation, the Sanhedrin. They plotted his destruction, to happen not just by wound but by torture beforehand. They went to an even more powerful man, Pontiuspilat, who at their urging chose him for torture rather than a thief. This Pontiuspilat washed his hands of them. To Pontiuspilat Jesus Christ and a thief both meant very little and he chose with a shrug. So Jesus was loaded onto their crude torture machine, where he was wounded and so became acrushta. "He was an infant, but so was everyone in those days. But he had a message, an idea to preach to all. And listen closely, because he has more lessons to teach us. Few wanted to hear his message. He was reviled everywhere and finally put to torture, not even by his enemies but by the shrug of someone indifferent to him. "If you have messages now you may see what this story means. If your message is new, almost no one will want to hear it. All of you, many times in your lives, have brought such messages and so been Christ. Then sometimes the position is reversed, you are now the receiver rather than the messenger. And so you too deny the message, revile the messenger, and only 100 years later come to see how this time you were in the Sanhedrin and Christ spoke to you. Every time it seems so different, the messenger this time a simple fool, you now hold Truth. And so this wheel goes round, even today. "To be such a messenger, then, is to offer up your body and blood to strangers. That is the Communion we have now together." "But there are other meanings to this myth. Even without a message, we still face suffering, because to live in and of itself brings suffering of many kinds. We can lose politically on something important to us. People indifferent to us can make decisions which hurt us. Our pair or friends may leave us. To live is to change. Change will never happen without hurt of some kind. Certainly, it can come with great benefits too, but if you forget the hurt entirely you become half a person. And so the birth of Jesus Christ contains in it that torture by Pontiuspilat, humiliating by the indifference of the torturor, hurtful by the act of torture itself, forsaken by the world and its principles. "And again here is yet another meaning. Almost everyone here went through birth and childhood. Certainly we can create a person from dust, but almost no one does so because such creation has never spoken to our heart. And even if made from dust, a human being has a past stretching back through the Ages of Pain to apes in tropical swamps. That past is the meaning of our birth. It constrains us, so that our life unfolds from our birth. The story says Jesus Christ came from people of low station. He was intelligent, and grew up when older myths of a Holy Messenger fermented everywhere in his nation. So he becomes a messenger himself, and suffered the fate of messengers. "And this myth goes on, for it tells of the message of Jesus and his Resurrection. For Jesus went about his "land", which is the area on a planet where a nation lives, spreading his message, which was of love and equality for all men. Part of this message consisted of curing acrushta, and he urged his disciples also to do this too. And so, when his own acrushta came, by Miracle he too was cured. For his message was one of love for all, and to cure acrushta finally we must accept that message too, seeing our temporary fights for what they are and all joining together against Satan, which some non-kristen now call Bajak. Just as his birth contained his end, his message of love contains that immortality from which we benefit now, for which we all strive, and which cannot be separated from love without leaving his message a garbled husk." It was the end of the Sermon. The congregation was silent for a while, then, looking at the stars through the krenkren walls, galaxies of stars off into infinity. Father Osowen, too, looked out over the stars, thinking of time and distance and change. [][][][][][][][][][] RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS I awoke this morning feeling wonderful, after the best night's sleep I ever had. I bounced out of bed anxious to get to the day's work, and then remembered: today was a holiday! Even better! There were dozens and dozens of little projects I was just drooling to get to. I was completely unaware that something was very wrong. I dressed and went into my living room to begin reading a fascinating chapter in a quantum mechanics book I purchased yesterday. To my surprise, paragraph after paragraph was engagingly readable, much more so than it was last night. That's what a good night's sleep will do for you, I guessed. Suddenly I had an urge for a strong cup of coffee. And then came the shocker: no sooner did I imagine it, than a cup of steaming coffee instantly appeared before me on a silver serving tray! "Hey!?", I yelled aloud. "What's going on?" "I just thought I'd provide what you wanted," replied a deep voice from nowhere. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm 'you' about a hundred years from where you're at now. You see, you were, or rather, I as one of the lucky few from your time who managed to live beyond the first half of the twenty-first century when aging and all the other diseases were eliminated." It was a testimony to my calmness and rationality that I just sat and absorbed all this, sipping that delicious coffee. "You mean you're from the future?" I asked. "No, you're from the past. As technology and science progressed during the latter half of the twenty-first century, individuals such as myself found that we had amazing opportunities. Using nanotechnology we began living millions of times faster, and undergoing dramatic changes. We made copies of ourselves and sent them off exploring the galaxy. Some of us merged memories with other people and became corporate persons. In addition, just about everyone devoted enormous resources to pure advancement, to collect yet greater rewards from even better science and technology. "Some of us, however, became concerned that we might lose our identities," continued the voice. "After all, are you still the same person as you were at age four? Many people don't think so. Or are you the same person you were when you were just a tiny fetus? That's a better analogy because compared to me, that's all you are." "Let me get this straight," I said. "You're myself from the future, and you've resurrected me somehow. And now you're concerned that you're losing your identity?" "Almost correct," continued the voice. "At no point of time am I in any real danger of that: at any moment I am who I am, and there's no immediate problem. But I am concerned that if I continue to change, then at some point in the future it will no longer be accurate to say that I, as I am now, still exist." I sat unmoving. Outside, it was a beautiful spring day in the year 2000. I could hear the pigeons on our roof that the landlord keeps complaining about. "When I was resuscitated in 2061," the voice went on, "I uploaded into silicon, and all of this became obvious. So, like many others, I resolved that in order to counteract any such loss of identity, I would play it safe and maintain older versions of myself running in parallel. These "older versions", constructed from memories stored in my brain, would just be myself as I was at some particular point in the past. That way, even though I grow, change, and evolve, I can always still personally anticipate living forever, because some future me even further down the road will always be running me." "And so that's where I come in," I interjected. "I'm the old you from the turn of the century, the year 2000. I'm just a program you're running." "Precisely. I'm simulating you in your New York apartment as you were back then. Your "job", if you will, is to stay just as you are--forever. I have other versions of you from 1995, 2005, 2010, 2015, etc., at five year intervals. You might like to meet the other early versions of myself-yourself, sometime." "But why are you even bothering? If you've changed so much from how I am, then why bother to keep me around at all?" "Tut, tut. I'm surprised that an old cryonicist like you has to ask such a question. It's the logic of cryonics: you take care of others so that yet others will take care of you. It's basic common humanity, really. Only in this case, it's me that I'm taking care of, not others." "Of course. Yes. Well, what is the exact date now, anyway? 2061 did you say? You uploaded in 2061? After all, I suppose that since you are running millions of times faster than normal, then so am I." "Actually," the voice hesitated, as if to cushion some great shock, "the date at this precise instant is 25,707,441,013 A.D." "WHAT?" I screeched. "Twenty-five billion years have gone by? What took you so long to re-create me? Besides, didn't you imply that it was 2061?" "Oh, I re-created you immediately back in 2061, all right. And that was the date when our conversation--this conversation--began. But I don't like to waste a lot of resources maintaining old versions of myself. So you are presently being allocated one second of run time every five-hundred million years." "Very generous of you", I said sarcastically. "Just out of curiosity, what is the date now?" "At this instant, it is a little past 36 billion A.D." "Oh great," I said testily, "another ten billion years gone, just like that. How time does fly! Are--" "Why don't you go out on your patio and watch the stars go out?" suggested the voice. "It's your only chance to see the show live. After all, it's not every day that you get to see the visible universe come to an end." I went out onto my patio. The air was fresh, and although the sounds of the city in the background were those of any spring day, I knew that it was all being faked. "I am going to clock in a millisecond of starlight every 500,000 years for you. Think of it as the ultimate in time-lapse photography." Suddenly the sky was black, and I could see strange stars, and eerie objects that I guessed were black holes. Whatever they were, they appeared to be swallowing most of the stars. This continued for several minutes while the voice and I had an interesting discussion about cosmology. But I was still apprehensive about "my future". Yeah, I know; that's a strange way of speaking, considering everything. But I kind of wanted to know what I personally was going to experience in the next few days. "Don't worry about a thing," the voice soothed. "Everything is taken care of. It turns out that we have infinite time ahead of us. There are certain tricks I may be able to explain to you someday if you stick with that quantum mechanics book you're reading." The celestial fireworks, such as they were, were over. The universe had ended in a whimper after all. "Would you mind restoring the old sky?" I asked. "It just doesn't look right without stars." "Of course," said the voice, as the old familiar constellations sprang back into view. "Or would you rather it be morning again?" I just shook my head. After a moment of silence I asked, "Just what do you do with all your time when you aren't sacrificing a second here and there running an old version of yourself?" The voice replied haughtily, "I would be happy to tell you, but think about it: would a fetus be able to understand tensor calculus? During each millisecond of real time I discover many new and wonderful things. That's why I can't afford to waste precious time, not that it can make any difference to you: your experience is the same whether you execute quickly or slowly." When this had sunk in, I asked, "So you're going to maintain me here in my virtual apartment forever. Won't I get bored or lonely or anything?" "Don't worry!" oozed the voice. "You won't get bored. You'll always have me to talk to, or some previous version of me at least. And when I try, I can be a very entertaining conversationalist. Especially for you. Besides, any time you want, you can pretend you're in Nirvana. You can experience any pleasure, joy, or satisfaction you'd like. Or you can talk to any of your old friends who were prudent enough to get themselves frozen; some of your younger friends never even deanimated at all." The voice paused and said sternly, "There's only one thing that I must forbid. You may not acquire so many different and varied experiences that your whole personality begins to change. That would, of course, defeat the entire purpose of keeping you around." I pondered this a moment and found something in it a little frightening. In the old days, (which now were very old indeed) I had thought carefully about the relationship between memory and personality. What if the voice, in order to maintain a high-fidelity copy of me as I am now, erased my memories every so often? It could be like dying. Why, I'd have no way of knowing it had been done! In fact, my present experience here watching the universe end and all, might really be the millionth time I'd gone through this little charade. "Hey, you wouldn't ever erase any of my memories, or reset me somehow, would you?" I asked suspiciously. "No need to, as you'll soon realize," replied the voice. "It's true that your mind is a chaotic system, if you don't mind my saying so, and that I can't waste time wondering what you're going to say or do next. But certain psychological studies conducted after your time show that if occasionally you yourself edit and remove unimportant memories, and freshen up others, you can remain in this state indefinitely. Some of your friends have been "run" a little more often than I'm running you, and without ill effect. In fact, one of your friends, Barbara, would like very much to speak to you; and she's been around, subjectively, for thousands of years. Why don't you give her a call?" "Roger, darling," Barbara said when she answered the phone, "whatever took you so long? I've been waiting ages to hear from you. Do you like the future-you? Mine---I call her Barbara-plus---is such a dear! Why don't you teleport over? I'm just dying to talk to you." Well, old Barbara and I had a wonderful time tonight. We went to a lot of shows and really took in the town. Evidently the voice, or Roger-plus as I should call him, together with Barbara-plus made some nice improvements in the mock-up of New York they provided us. Several sights and night clubs were new, and actually too good to be true. As for now, well, I'm happy and excited, (though I don't suppose anything else would be possible). I have so very much to look forward to--infinitely much, in fact. Everything's turning out delightfully. Perhaps the Christians were right after all: if you play your cards right, you end up in heaven. [][][][][][][][][][] RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS "Hi, Kitty!" Breezy brought music and magic with her as she danced into the ochre and dandelion-hued hospital room. The two girls, just about the same age, around fourteen, were different in every respect. Kitty groomed her long golden hair meticulously and often, and had long graceful elegant arms and legs to compliment her quiet, well-bred demeanor. Breezy on the other hand was short and squat, with dark hair always in need of a good brushing as she bobbed about in bursts of energetic enthusiasm. Kitty was cheered by the music of Breezy's voice, happy her friend had come. This morning had been far worse than most, cloaking her with a dark morbid fear, that vast and desperate feeling of being alone, lost without her memories, cast out with no roots to bind her securely to sanity. She raised red, swollen eyes to Breezy and forced a smile. Running to the hospital bed, Breezy jumped up alongside Kitty and encircled her with sympathetic arms. Kitty rolled her long limber body into a ball, hid her face in Breezy's lap and wept, unable to stop. "Why can't I be like you, Breezy? Why do I always feel depressed?" Breezy picked up the brush lying nearby and stroked Kitty's silken locks. "Breezy's here," she cooed. "It happened again," sputtered Kitty through a swollen throat. "I dreamed I had six other brothers and sisters, all of us in the same bed. I couldn't see them but I could feel them, all warm around me. I could smell them. A soft loving smell. I could hear them, sucking and nursing and making happy contented sounds." She started to cry softly again. Breezy smoothed Kitty's hair with her palm and listened quietly. "It was almost like the last time. When I dreamed of tumbling around on soft sunlit grass. Me and... Oh, Breezy, I don't have any brothers or sisters! If I lost my memory when they reanimated me, why can't I just be blank? Why do these fantasies haunt me? Why can't I be excited about being reanimated like you are? To you it's just all one big exciting wonderful adventure. Why can't I feel like that?" She clung to her friend's thigh and wept. "I wish I could feel like that." After a wordless while, Kitty sat up, wiped her face with cupped fingers, pushed her long hair back from her puffy face and forced another smile. She took the brush and smoothed the dark tangles around Breezy's square face. Breezy grabbed a contraption from the pocket in her baggy pink hospital gown. It was an octopus of wires and chips. Except for the dangling suction cups, it was small enough to lie inside the bowl of her two hands. "My latest invention!" She smiled expectantly at Kitty. How I love her, Kitty thought to herself as she warmed under the sunshine from Breezy's words and smile. How she helps me through these terrible spells. For all the help and love that mother and the doctors give me, I would be lost if it weren't for Breezy. "What is it," she asked, sniffing. "A spy device!" Breezy's eyes flashed playfully wicked. "What you need is more information. You're depressed because you can't remember anything, and you don't know what's going on. So, with this doodad and the genius of Breezy Bond, we're going to get you out of here and..." Breezy closed her mouth and tucked the wire octopus back into her baggy pocket when she heard the door open behind her. She winked like a conspirator when she saw Kitty's mother enter the room. "Hi, Ms. Miller," she said with great flair as she rose from the bed. "I gotta go, Kitty, see you later. Don't tell anyone about my secret!" She patted the bulge in her gown and was gone from the room like a whirlwind across a Martian plain. Kitty's mother kissed her on the cheek and said, "Have you given any thought to our trip?" Gloom and depression closed back in on Kitty, tight and terrifying. Her mother wanted to visit Calisto, the ice moon of Jupiter, and if they liked it, to move to that world. In order to do so, they would have to do something called up-loading. Have their minds and memories mapped and transferred into another body. Kitty had seen videos of others who had undergone the transformation--bodies of metal that did not require protection from the constant cold, brains of wires and computer chips not unlike that creepy thing Breezy had. Kitty was terrified. She couldn't explain why. With no memory, she was like a person who had just inhabited this flesh and blood body a few months ago. None-the-less, giving it up terrified her. Becoming a cold steel robot chilled her. Would her memories and her identity--wrapped in gold and ceramic instead of biological dendrites and axons and warm little chemical nodes--would that really be her? Or would she disappear in the process? She didn't understand her own fear, and she had never been able to tell her mother about it. Her mother pulled her close and stroked her hair. "Kitty, Kitty, dear. You were much happier when you first met your friend Breezy. But you seem to be falling into your depressions again. What can I do? Tell me how to help you, Kitty." "Help me get my memory back, Mama. I don't have any roots. How can I risk turning myself into something else, when I don't even know what I am now?" She curled up into a ball and began to cry again. Her mother leaned over and covered Kitty lovingly, protectively, with her own body, and kissed her long, soft hair. "I'll talk to the doctors. We'll find a way to make you whole again. I promise you, Kitty. I never wanted you to be unhappy. I never wanted that." Then she rose and walked from the room. Kitty pulled on her robe and ran into the hall, driven by panic. She needed to escape the terror crushing against her hollowness. She had to escape her room even though she knew full well the room itself was not the cause of her depression. It was painted with lively golden and daffodil hues, papered with a cheery flower print, and had large windows to let in the babbling morning sun. But Kitty often escaped her depression by pretending she could flee into the garden, trapping her depression back in the room. This little game was frequently her only salvation. Bright sunlight dripped from the overhead canopy of lush soft leaves, draining the tension from Kitty's tight muscles. This was the most peaceful and most beautiful part of the whole space colony. At least the part she had seen so far. She bent to drink in the aroma of a clump of scarlet flowers sprouting white tendrils. A lacy, intricate orange and black butterfly fluttered past. Forgetting her panic, Kitty reached for it, hopped happily after it, stumbled over a root and spilled onto the soft green carpet of grass below her. Her closed eyes became contented slits as she rolled her fingers into a ball and rubbed the side of her nose. Sunlight warmed her shoulders. Plunk, plunk, plunk. Opening her eyes and sitting up straight, Kitty saw a small boy throwing pebbles into the nearby pond. His body was tense. His wrists hurled the pebbles with fury. He muttered as he threw the stones, but Kitty could not make out his words. She rose with the grace and stealth of an ebony panther and moved closer on hands and knees. Plunk, plunk, plunk. The angry pebbles continued to punish the surface of the pond. The small boy continued to grumble. Kitty watched his fury for a long while before joining him and putting the toes of one foot playfully into the water. "Okay if I join you?" she asked. The boy, no taller than Kitty's waist, looked up with annoyance. "That isn't possible!" His voice was the soprano of a boy child, but his words were strangely mature and his eyes harbored the weariness and experience of an aged monk. He turned, slowly, heavily, and walked away from the pond, dropping three pebbles from his limp hand. "Wait," called Kitty, suddenly infused with intrigue by this babe with an old man's cloak. "What do you mean?" "How old are you, child?" asked the boy. "Fourteen," came Kitty's confused answer. "How old are you?" "That, my dear, is a good question! I was once an accomplished pianist, the toast of the music world. But my brain was so severely damaged by a prolonged period of ischemia before I could be placed into cryonic suspension, that all my motor skills were wiped out. I was reanimated as a child again so I could train my hands anew." He raised fingers before him that were long and elegant for a boy no more than four years old. "Can you imagine the frustration of once having had the ability to play Beethoven and Bach... and now to struggle with children's tunes?" His voice was high and shrill as he let his hands drop to his sides. "At least you remember," said Kitty. "You're lucky. I don't remember if I could play the piano, or if I had brothers and sisters... I don't remember anything. At least you have something to work toward. All I have are dreams, conflicting dreams, made-up memories to haunt me and torment me. I'd trade with you in a moment." "No you wouldn't," the boy said sullenly. "I have to grow up again. I have a beautiful wife and I can remember sharing nights of bliss in the woman's bed, but my small body won't serve me now. I have to wait. My wife is willing to upload; then we would be equals again. But I would have to give up being a pianist. Oh, they tell me they can program the skills into a mechanical body. But that wouldn't be ME! It wouldn't be MY music! It would just be some computerized robot at the piano! I'm trapped. I'm stuck. No, you wouldn't want to trade places with me, my young friend." A whirlwind blew across the grassy carpet behind them. They both turned to watch Breezy stumbling and running breathlessly up the path. "Kitty!" she called. "Kitty. Come on! Oh, hi, Arturo. Hey, come on. Both of you. Kitty's mother is going to see the head psychologist." She held up the wire octopus she had shown Kitty earlier. "With this, we can listen in." Breezy rambled non-stop for several minutes introducing Kitty and Arturo and telling them both about each other. There were few people in the rehab hospital that Breezy did not know, and there were few who could keep their problems from her. Above both their objections, Breezy dragged Kitty and Arturo through the grounds and across the great square to the psychiatric offices. They rearranged the stuffed velvety chairs in the reception area to make an alcove in one corner. It was also a hiding place next to the wall of Dr. Willingham's office. Breezy licked three suction cups, stuck them to the wall, tucked one earphone into Kitty's ear, one into Arturo's ear, and another into her own. The first voice they heard was Kitty's mother. "I still think we need to tell her, Dr. Willingham. I'm her ward and I have the right to override you on this. I hope I won't have to, but if necessary..." "Ms. Miller, please, we only want the best for Kitty. I think she has made a great deal of progress, especially since her friendship with Breezy (that made Breezy puff and grin), and I think it would be better to continue as we have for a little longer. Then, if you still feel we should tell her, we will do as you like. Would you agree to wait just another week?" "It was your suggestion that I try to talk her into uploading from an Earth human into a Calisto environform in the hope that particular adjustment would then make it easier for her to accept the knowledge that she was my pet cat before she was frozen and reanimated, but it doesn't seem to be working, doctor. She seems to be terribly depressed by the idea of uploading, but I can't get her to tell me why." Dr. Willingham said, "We blocked her earlier memories because our tests lead us to believe she would not be able to handle it just yet..." That was the last Kitty heard. The smashing, crushing effect of those words were like acid eating at her mind. Could that be true? Did she lack a memory of her childhood because she never had one? Could they somehow block all her memories as a kitten, and then a cat, in order to keep her from going mad? Was such a thing possible? Were her memories of brothers and sisters real? Was she remembering litter mates? Was she not really human then? Her mind fell into a vortex of pain and confusion, falling, spinning. She pulled the wire from her ear and ran. Arturo and Breezy followed but could not keep up with her long bounding legs. She ran and ran, oblivious to her direction, unaware of her destination, one thought and only one thought occupied her mind: I have to escape! She ran faster and farther than she had ever gone before. She ran until she was outside the familiar area of the hospital grounds. She realized only dimly that she had left the cultivated area and was running into one of the maintenance areas of the space colony. She still ran. When they did catch her, she hid back under a thick cluster of building beams stacked against a partition. Her eyes were wide with terror. She crept back into the dark protection of the lean-to of beams as her friends approached and coaxed her to come out. "Go away," she hissed at them. "This is Breezy," cooed her friend. "Come on, Kitty..." "Don't call me that!" she screamed with panic, her eyes all they could see of her in the shadows. "I'm not a cat! But I'm not human, either. What am I? Oh, what am I?" Breezy held out her hands, palms up and pleaded. "Please. Come out and talk to us. We're your friends. We want to help." Kitty just stared out at them, unmoving, confused, terrified. "Ki..." Arturo started to use her name, but stopped. "I will always remember this day. And I hope I can find the words to explain what you have given me." His tone was soft, full of awe and understanding, all his earlier anger gone. He still looked like a four year old boy child, but something in his voice made Kitty's fear fall away as he spoke, softly, hesitatingly as he searched for words, but with growing confidence. He continued. "I felt so sorry for myself. Being trapped inside this body. You said you would trade places with me. I would have given anything to trade places with you. But, don't you see, we were both making the same mistake. I saw that when I heard your mother and the doctor speaking. We were both afraid of losing our identity. I was afraid that artificial fingers playing music wouldn't be "me" somehow. It wouldn't be "my" music! And you. First you wished for memory and now, knowledge of your past terrifies you even more. "Doesn't this all come down to the same question? Doesn't this reduce to 'what is me'? Maybe the music wouldn't be mine the very first moment, but won't I add to it each and every time I play? Doesn't it become my music as I add myself to what the artificial limbs are creating? And my music today won't be the same as it will be a year from now, or a decade, or a century. See? We grow. We change. We're never the same from day to day. I was once a small boy who didn't know how to play a piano. Then I was a man who made music for the gods. Now I'm a small boy again who can't play the piano. But tomorrow? What will I be then? In another century? It's up to me. Don't you see? It's up to me! Breezy did not say a word. She listened and watched as Kitty's face softened. Arturo continued. "And, you, Kitty. Once you were a beloved pet. Must have been loved a lot or you wouldn't be here, now, reanimated and uploaded into the body of a gorgeous young girl. Your mother must be looking forward to the time when you can remember being her pet, talking about what it was like, how you saw things then, and a million other fascinating things. What a wonderful background! What a fantastic experience! I would still trade places with you, Kitty! You not only have that to explore, you also have your future. What you become is up to you, no one else. Right? It's up to you, Kitty. I think you've got to be the luckiest person I ever met!" Breezy chimed in. "Wow! I wish I could have been a cat! What a neat thing to be able to tell people!" They want to help, thought Kitty. But, they just don't understand. How could they. They're both human. But what am I? "Breezy, I love you," Kitty said, choking back tears, "but you can be so insensitive sometimes. How can you say such a thing? How can you say it's neat! It's the most horrible thing I could have imagined! I'm not even human! I'm..." Kitty's words were cut short as a weak structure beneath Arturo gave way. He grabbed at the edges around him as they, too, began to fall inward. Breezy grabbed his shoulder, but his falling weight pulled his shirt from her fingers. Her legs sprawled across the top of the widening hole, then she, too, disappeared. The impact of what happened smashed into Kitty. She crawled out from under the beams and looked into the exposed hole. Breezy and Arturo were on a maintenance structure eight feet below her. "Breezy! Arturo!" she gasped. "We're okay," they called back. "Just bruised. Can you go get us some help?" Kitty nodded and stood. She looked around her wondering where she was. She felt lost and desperate. A cold breeze surrounded her and she realized the mirrors overhead were closing out the sun. It would be dark soon, and if she couldn't find her way back to the hospital, Arturo and Breezy would have a long, cold wait on that ledge. What if one of them really was hurt? There had to be something she could do! A thick and sturdy looking girder just a few feet from the hole gave her an idea. She pulled off her baggy hospital gown, tore it into several pieces, and knotted them together. Tying one end of the make-shift rope to the girder and the other around her ankle, she tugged and tested her safety line before crawling back to the edge of the hole. Kitty looked down at her friends. "Breezy, let Arturo stand on your shoulders." Kitty reached out her hands. "I've tied myself to a girder." "Oh, you'll get hurt, Kitty. Just go get someone from the hospital. They'll know what to do." "I don't know how to find my way back. I'm scared. What if I get lost. You'd have to stay here all night." "But..." Breezy was not allowed to protest. "No!" yelled Kitty. "Hurry!" Breezy leaned over while Arturo hopped up on her shoulders. Retrieving him was easy. Once he was out of the hole, they added his clothes to the rope so Kitty could be lowered far enough to clasp hands with Breezy. Arturo's job was to pull up the rope and the two girls. He puffed and panted and pulled with all the might of his little arms. The bare and broken metal edges tore Kitty's thighs and stomach as she was pulled up. Arturo gasped. "Oh, Kitty! You're bleeding!" "Pull, Arturo, pull!" Kitty yelled. Once on top, they were all quiet while they caught their breaths. Breezy hugged Kitty and began to bandage the bleeding wounds on her thighs. "And you don't think you're human? Kitty, you got all cut up to help Arturo and me. I don't care what you call yourself, you're one of us!" A cool fresh evening breeze flowed along the top of the cliff as the mirrors overhead shut out the last glow of sun. Kitty shivered in her nakedness. "Here, Kitty," said Breezy, "take my gown." "No thanks," said Kitty, standing and reaching toward the stars reflected by the night mirrors. The breeze felt good and so did Kitty. It washed her fear from her. She felt as if she were stepping clean from a muddy crust. She knew she would never be depressed again. Yes, Breezy was right. It was what she was inside that counted--not the form in which she traveled--be that cat or be that human or be that metallic. Arturo was right, too. She could be anything she wanted to be. It was all up to her. [][][][][][][][][][] RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS**

	This is Issue Number Six of LifeQuest, originally published by Imladris Corporation in November, 1989. 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.


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