Charles Sheffield - Tomorrow and Tomorrow

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PART ONE
Love and Death
Chapter 1
The Edge of Doom
Time: The Great Healer, the Universal Solvent
And if time cannot be granted?
When Drake finally received a clear medical diagnosis after months of secret terrors and false hopes and specialist
hedging, Ana had less than five weeks to live. She was already in a final decline. Suddenly, after twelve marvelous
years together and a future that seemed to spread out before them for fifty more, they saw the world collapse to a
handful of days.
It had begun simply—more than simply. It had begun with nothing, a red car in the driveway when he did not expect
one. Ana's car.
He had been passing the house almost by accident, on his way from a teeth-cleaning appointment to a meeting at the
new concert hall. Like everyone else, Drake had complained about the acoustics, and the hall managers had called him
in to be more specific.
The grace period for construction changes without extra charge would end in less than thirty days, and they were
worried.
Well, he could be specific, very specific, about bass absorption and soggy midrange sound and resonant high
frequencies. But Ana should not be home. She had a rehearsal in the afternoon. She had told him when she left that
she planned an early lunch with the pianist and clarinet player, and she would not be home until about six o'clock.
Car problems? The Camry had been balky for the past week.
He parked in the drive and went inside, noticing the puddle of water on the blacktop and vowing for the hundredth
time to have it resurfaced. Ana was not in the kitchen. Not in the dining room or den or living room.
He felt the first twinge of anxiety as he ran upstairs. His relief when he saw her, fully clothed in blue jeans and a tartan
shirt and peacefully sleeping on their bed, was surprisingly strong.
He went across and shook her. She opened her eyes, blinked, and smiled up at him.
He bent forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, love. Except I feel so tired."
"Did you stay up late?" Drake had been downtown to hear a performance of one of his own recent works, and
glad-handing his public afterward had kept him out until after midnight.
Ana shook her head. "I was in bed by ten. I've been feeling this way a lot recently. Weak and feeble. But never as bad
as this."
"It's not like you. Why don't we give Tom a call?"
He had expected her to say it wasn't necessary, that all she needed was a little more relaxation—Ana, between singing
engagements and teaching, drove herself hard.
To his surprise, she nodded. "Would you call him for me?" She lay back and closed her eyes. "I just want to lie here
for a little longer."
Drake had worried from that moment on, even if at first no one else seemed to. Tom Lambert was a close friend as well
as their family doctor. He came over the same evening, grumbling about what other patients would say if they thought
he made house calls.
He examined Ana for a long time. He seemed more puzzled and curious than concerned.
"It could be simple fatigue," he said when he was done. He accepted a small Scotch in a large glass and added lots of
ice. The three of them were sitting in the den. Tom raised his glass to Ana before he took a sip. He sighed. "All I can
say is, if it is anything, then it's something that I've never seen before."
"Do you think we should just forget about it?" Ana asked. She was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked under
her. Drake, studying her now rather than simply accepting her presence, decided that she seemed thinner. "You know,
take two aspirin and wait for tomorrow."
"Forget about it?" Tom sounded shocked. "Of course not. What sort of doctor do you think I am? I want to send you
to a specialist,"
"Of course." Ana's tone was teasing. She and Tom had had the argument before. "Today's typical physician: can't
possibly tell you what's wrong with you unless you see at least four other doctors—who of course all get their fees. If
you people were musicians, nothing would be written for anything less than a quintet."
"Sure. And if you people were doctors, you'd only perform with hundreds of people watching. Anyway, don't change
the subject. I want you to see a specialist. I'm going to make an appointment for you to see Dr. Kevin Williams."
"But if you don't know what it is," Drake protested, "how do you know what sort of specialist she needs?"
Tom Lambert seemed slightly embarrassed. "I said I'd never seen anything like this, in my own practice. But it doesn't
mean I don't have ideas. Kevin Williams specializes in diseases of the blood and lymph systems. He's head of a group
at NIH. He's a friend of mine, and he's damned good. Don't worry, Ana."
"I wasn't going to. I don't believe in it. Drake's the worrier in the family."
"Then don't you worry, either, Drake. We'll get to the bottom of this." Tom nodded, and when he spoke again it was as
though he was talking to himself. "Yes, we will. And we'll do it quickly."
Tom did his best. Drake never doubted that for a moment. Ana saw Dr. Williams the next day, then there came a
bewildering succession of other doctors and tests in the following two weeks. Ana's teasing remark to Tom was an
understatement. Drake counted twelve different physicians, not counting the individuals, many of them also MDs,
who administered the MRIs, IVPs, myelograms, and multiple blood workups.
Tom said little, but Drake knew in his heart that there was a big problem. Ana's lassitude continued. She was definitely
losing more weight. She had been forced to cancel her teaching and her near-term concert engagements. One morning
she was sitting at the kitchen table, pale winter sunlight slanting through onto her fair hair. Drake noticed the
translucent, waxen sheen to her forehead and the pattern of fine blue veins on her temples. He was filled with such
dread that he could not speak.
The grim biopsy result, when it finally came, was no surprise. Tom delivered the news himself, one drizzly evening in
early March.
"An operation?" Ana, as always, was calm and rational.
Tom shook his head.
"How about chemotherapy?"
"We'll try that, naturally." Tom hesitated. "But I have to tell you, Ana, the prognosis is not too good. We can certainly
treat you, but we can't cure you."
"I guess that's it, then." Ana stood up, already a little unsteady on her feet because of muscle loss in her legs. "I'm
going to bring coffee for all of us. It ought to have perked by now. Cream and sugar, Tom?"
"Uh . . . yes." Tom looked up at her unhappily. "No, I mean, cream, no sugar. Whatever. Anything is fine."
As soon as Ana was out of the room he turned to Drake. "She's in denial. That's natural, and it's not surprising. It will
take a while for her to adjust."
"No." Drake stood up and went across to the window. The last heavy snow of the winter was melting, and fresh green
shoots of spring growth were poking through. A few more days would bring bloom to the snowdrops and crocuses.
"You don't know Ana," he went on. "She's the ultimate realist. Not like me. Ana's not in denial. I'm the one that's in
denial."
"I'm going to prescribe painkillers for her," Tom continued, as though he had not been listening. "All the painkillers
she wants. There's no virtue in pain. In a case like this I don't worry about addiction. And I'm going to prescribe
tranquilizers, too . . . for both of you." Tom looked toward the kitchen, making sure that Ana was out of earshot. "You
might as well know the truth, Drake. There's not one damned thing we can do for her. Forget the chemotherapy. If it
buys more than a few weeks for Anastasia, I'd be surprised. I feel that medical science is still in the dark ages about
this disease. As a doctor I have to worry about you, too, Drake. Don't neglect your own health. And remember I can be
here, night or day, whenever either one of you needs me."
Ana was coming back. She paused on the threshold, holding a tray of cups, coffeepot, cream and sugar. She smiled
and arched an eyebrow. "You two all done? Safe for me to come back in now?"
Drake looked at her. She was thin and fragile, but she had never been more beautiful. Beautiful and brave and loving.
At the idea of living without her his chest tightened. He felt as though he could not breathe.
Ana was his life, without her there was nothing. How could he ever bear to lose her?
Chapter 2
"O! call back yesterday, bid time return."
Tom was gone before ten o'clock. He could tell that Ana, who had been putting on her best front just for him, was
exhausted.
Ana went off to bed as soon as Tom had left. Drake followed, half an hour later. She was already asleep. He lay down
beside her without undressing, convinced that would be a waste of time. His mind was too active for any form of rest.
He closed his eyes. He imagined Ana, as she had been when they'd first met.
He always told people that he had loved her before he even saw her. The occasion of their first meeting was an
end-of-term examination. Drake, as Doctor Bonvissuto's star pupil in musical composition, had been taking a test
alone, in a small room next to Bonvissuto's austere office.
It was not the ideal setting for concentration, but Drake had been through the routine several times before. While he
was setting down the parts of a fugal theme provided by his teacher, Bonvissuto was interviewing would-be choral
scholars and students in the next room.
The test material was not inspiring work, and Drake could do it almost automatically, using sheets of lined score paper
and a pencil. Bonvissuto scorned computers and all other aids to the rapid writing out of music.
"You think you need computer to write fast, eh?" He had scowled at Drake on their very first session together.
"Handel, he write Messiah, every note, in twenny-four day. You do as good in two-three month, I don't grumble. You
want computer to help? Fine. Provided you write more and better. Better than Bach. Better than Monteverdi, better
than Mozart. They had no computer."
From Bonvissuto, that counted as mild comment. But he meant what he said. Drake slaved away at the test, without
benefit of centuries of technological development, while in the next room a succession of young men and women came
and went.
Most of them, Drake knew, arrived prepared to sing as Brunnhilde or Tristan or the Queen of the Night. Bonvissuto
would have none of it.
"Something simple. Not the grand opera. The simple song, the folk song. You sing that real good, a cappella, then
maybe we think about Verdi an' Mozart an' Wagner."
They would sing unaccompanied, often off-key and loud. And Bonvissuto would comment, equally loudly.
"What key did you think you were in at the end there? And what language? Did you ever hear about diction? This
song is in English, for Christ's sake. Listening to you it could have been in Polish or Chinese or anything."
Bonvissuto reversed the traditional pattern. When he was angry and excited, the Italian accent disappeared. In its
place came perfect English and a Kansas twang. The same thing happened during his lessons with Drake, who had
once been unwise enough to mention that fact. The teacher had winked at him and said, "Whoever heard of an Italian
from Kansas? Whoever heard of a composer from Kansas?"
Drake finished writing out the fugue, turned the page, and went on to the final question. "Provide a suitable melody to
go with the given accompaniment."
He looked at what followed and realized that the question was going to be a snap. He knew the original piece. He was
looking at the piano part of "Erstarrung," the fourth song from the Winterreise song cycle. All he had to do was write
out the vocal part. The accompaniment happened to be given in A-minor, up a tone from the version that he was most
familiar with, so he would have to transpose; but that was trivial.
He read the question again to be sure. "Provide a suitable melody." It didn't say, " Compose a suitable melody of your
own." And he certainly could not improve on Schubert.
As he wrote in the vocal line he heard the door open again in the next room. There was a mutter of conversation, then
a single chord, E major, on Bonvissuto's piano.
A woman's contralto voice began to sing, "Blow the wind southerly." It was a strong, true voice, slightly husky in the
lower register and with just a touch of an attractive vibrato on the high notes. Drake paused to listen. After the final
note there was a pause, then again a single chord on the piano. It confirmed what Drake already knew. The woman had
finished exactly on E natural, in the key where she had started. She had been right on pitch all the way through.
Drake heard another muttered sentence or two spoken in the next room, then the door opened and closed again. He
waited, writing in the last few bars of the exercise. Surely Bonvissuto hadn't sent her away, just like that, without
talking to her some more. Drake wanted to hear her sing again.
On an impulse he collected his answer sheets, stacked them neatly, and walked across to the connecting door. He
turned the doorknob and went through without knocking.
He braced himself. Anyone who entered Bonvissuto's office uninvited could expect a hot welcome.
The expected blast did not come. Professor Bonvissuto was not there. Alone in the room, standing by the piano and
staring at him uncertainly, was a slim, blond-haired girl.
He stared back. Her hair was cut a little lopsided. She wasn't very tall, maybe five four, and her pale blue dress didn't
look quite right on her. Drake, no connoisseur of clothing, did not realize that it had been intended for someone a
couple of inches taller. But the most striking thing about her, far more significant than clothes, was her age. She looked
about fifteen. It was hard to believe that the mature contralto voice he had heard came from her.
"Are you next?" she said finally. "I thought I was the last one. He won't be long."
He realized that he had been staring, but so had she. She must assume he was there for a vocal audition. He thrust his
sheaf of papers out toward her. "I'm not here to sing. I was taking an exam. I'm one of Professor Bonvissuto's students.
Was that you?"
"What me?"
"Singing. 'Blow the wind southerly.' "
"Yes. Why?"
"It was good." He wanted to add that it was wonderful, heart-stopping, soul-searing. Instead he said, "Where is he?"
"The professor? He went to register me. I didn't think I'd be accepted, and it's the last day to sign up. He said he could
push it through."
"He can. He knows how." Drake, not knowing what to do next but reluctant to leave, sat down on the piano stool.
She asked from behind him, "Do you play?"
"Yes. Not very well." He was convinced that he could feel her critical stare burning into the back of his head. Music
was full of prodigies: tiny infants picking out chord sequences, concert performers under ten years old, composers
who wrote great works in their teens. And here he was, over eighteen and still a student. He wanted to blurt out that
he had started late, that his family had been too poor to think of music lessons, that he had come to music only when
he found that, almost against his will, melodies arose in his head to go with poetry that he was reading.
He couldn't say any of that. Instead, to hide his self-consciousness, and with "Erstarrung" still in his head, he began
to play the restless, uneasy triplets of the song's introduction.
"I've heard that a couple of times," said the voice behind him. "But it's a man's song. Do you know 'Gretchen am
Spinnrade'?"
" 'Margaret at the spinning-wheel'?" Drake was much more comfortable with the English translation. He paused for a
moment, then began to play a steady, pulsing figure.
"That's it," the girl said at once. "Did you know that Schubert wrote it when he was only seventeen?"
"I know." It was a possible criticism, making the point that Drake was a lot older than seventeen and had done
nothing. But before he could say more she went on: "It's a little bit high for me. But I can handle it. Start over."
After the four brief figures of the introduction she began to sing, "Mein Ruh ist hin, mein Herz ist schwer." "My peace
is gone, my heart is heavy." Drake, understanding the German words only vaguely but feeling the strong musical
rapport between them, put all his mind into his playing, sensing and adapting to her vocal line.
They performed the whole song. After the final slowing chords on the piano there was total silence. He turned and
found a smile on her face that matched his own delight. Before they could speak, a sound came from the doorway: four
steady hand claps.
"You know, don't you, the penalty for playing my Steinway without my permission?" Bonvissuto walked toward them.
"What are you doing in here, Merlin?"
Drake picked up his exam papers and held them out. "I finished."
"Yeah?" Bonvissuto skimmed the sheets for a couple of seconds. He snorted. "I told Leila Nielsen, using 'Erstarrung'
was one dumb idea, you were sure to know it. No matter. Plenty of stuff you don't know for next time." He smiled
sadistically. "How's your Webern?" And then, before Drake could reply, "Go on, go on. Out of here, both of you." He
waved his hands at them. "Merlin, we'll discuss your test tomorrow morning. Werlich, I registered you. You're legal.
You come in at one tomorrow, we'll work on your middle register. Now, go. What you waiting for?" And then, when
they were almost out the door, "Since you two are going to be performing in public together, you'd better practice. You
need polish."
Drake knew her name, or at least part of it. Werlich. And she knew his. They stood in the corridor, staring at each
other.
"Did you hear that?" she said at last. "Performing together. Do you think he meant it?"
"I don't know." Drake had played before small groups only. The idea of a public concert froze his blood. "But he
usually means what he says when it's about music."
She held out her hand. "I'm Anastasia Werlich. Ana for short."
"I'm Drake Merlin." He took her hand and felt an odd compulsion to admit his secret "It's actually Walter Drake Merlin,
but I really hate Walter."
"So don't use it. You didn't pick it. I'm not too fond of Werlich." She frowned. "How much money do you have?"
The question threw him. Did she mean in the world, or in his pocket? Either way, it was an unsatisfactory answer.
"I have four dollars."
She nodded. "All right. And I have nine. So I'm the rich one. I buy you a Coke."
"I don't drink Coke. Caffeine doesn't agree with me. It gives me the jitters." Drake wondered why he was saying
something so terminally stupid. Here he was, keener to continue a conversation with Ana than he had ever been with
anyone, and he sounded like he was freezing her off.
But all she said was, "Sprite, then, or 7UP," and she steered them off toward the cafeteria at the end of the building.
They talked through the rest of the afternoon and all evening, so absorbed in each other that the presence of others in
the cafeteria was totally irrelevant.
It had pleased Drake at first to learn that she was as badly off as he was. Her fluent German and knowledge of the
world came not from an expensive private-school education in Europe, but because Ana was an army brat, whose
tough childhood had dragged her from school to school all over Europe and most of the rest of the world. Like him,
Ana was poor, too poor to attend a university without a scholarship.
And then, after just a few hours together, money or the lack of it didn't matter.
What did matter was that they were so keen to talk and listen to each other that Ana came close to missing her last bus
home. What mattered was that when they were at the bus stop she said, with the directness that she would never lose,
"I've been waiting to meet you since I was five years old."
What mattered was her face, gray eyes closed, upturned for a brief good-night kiss. When the bus drove away Drake
felt the deepest loss of his eighteen years. He knew, even then, that he had found the girl he would love forever.
That first day set the pattern for all their time together. They were with each other every moment that they could
manage. When Ana had an out-of-town performance she would return home on the earliest possible flight. When
commissions or premiere performances took Drake away to New York or Miami or Los Angeles, he chafed at the
obligatory dinners and cocktail parties that were part of the deal. He didn't want free dinner and drinks or extravagant
praise of his talents. He wanted to be with Ana. Even in the early days, when they were desperately poor, he would go
without dinner so he could take a taxi rather than a bus, and be home an hour sooner.
Drake recalled one day when Ana was involved in a major traffic accident on the Beltway. He was in bed with a fever
of 102 when a telephone call came in from a total stranger, telling him about the accident but assuring him that Ana
was all right.
He did not remember getting out of bed or dressing or driving to the scene. He recalled only the terrible feeling of
possible loss, of doom hanging over him until he had his arms around her. Her car was totaled, and he didn't notice or
care. He had been consumed with the fear of losing her.
And now . . .
Drake looked at the illuminated face of the bedside clock. It was past midnight, almost one o'clock. He rose, went
through to the bathroom, and flushed the prescription for tranquilizers that Tom had given him down the drain.
There would be opportunity for sorrow later. Now he had work to do, and little time to do it. He needed all his faculties,
unblurred by drugs. For twelve years he and Ana had done their thinking and planning together. It couldn't be like that
this time. She needed all her strength to fight her disease. It was up to him.
He didn't know what he would do, or how he would do it. He only knew he would do something.
Ana was his life; without her there was nothing.
He could not bear to lose her.
He would not lose her.
Ever.
Chapter 3
Second Chance
Three and a half weeks of his efforts proved futile. After the first half-dozen tries Drake learned how to dispose
ruthlessly of false leads. Unfortunately, before each one could be rejected it had to be explored. And there were so
many: homeopathy, acupuncture, bipolarized interferon, amygdalin, ion rebalance, meditation, chelation, Kirlian aura
manipulation, biofeed-back, quantum energy . . .
The list seemed endless, and hopeless. Whatever else they might do, they would not cure Ana.
By the fourth week it was obvious that Drake had to do something. Ana, though she never complained, was failing
fast. He was approaching the end of his endurance. He had been sleeping only a couple of hours a night, making his
data-bank searches and long-distance telephone calls when Ana lay in drugged sleep. He had canceled or postponed
all commitments, except for one short television piece that could not wait. He disposed of that in a desperate
seventeen-hour session, hearing as he worked at his computer the far-off voice of Professor Bonvissuto: "You think
you write fast and good, Merlin? Maybe. Mozart, he write the overture for Don Giovanni, full score, in one sitting."
When Ana was awake they spent their time in an opiate dream world, touching, smiling, savoring each other, drifting.
Except that Drake had taken no drugs and he could not afford to drift. Or wait.
At last it crowded down to a single desperate option. He would have liked to discuss it with Ana, but he could not do
so. If she knew what he had in mind, she would veto it. She would make him promise, on her dying body, that he would
abandon the idea.
So. She must not know, must never even suspect.
When he had done all that he could and was ready for the final step, he called Tom Lambert and asked him to come
over to the house.
Tom arrived after dinner. It was fantastic weather for early April, with daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths bursting into
blossom after a cool spring. Life and energy seemed everywhere except inside the darkened house. Ana was sleeping
in the front bedroom. Tom gave her a brief examination and led Drake into the living room. He shook his head.
"It's going faster than I thought. At this rate Anastasia will pass into a final coma in the next three or four days. You
ought to let me take her to a hospital now. There's nothing you can do for her, and you need the rest. You look as
though you've had no sleep for the past month."
"There'll be time enough for sleep. I want her to stay here with me. In fact, it will be necessary." Drake placed Tom in
the window seat and sat himself down opposite, knee to knee. He explained what he had been doing for the past week,
and what he wanted Tom to do in the next few days.
Lambert heard him out without a word. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
"If that's what the two of you want to do, Drake, it's your call." There was a pitying look in his eyes. "I'll help you, of
course I will. And I agree, Anastasia has nothing at all to lose. But you realize, don't you, that they've never done a
successful freeze and thaw?"
"On fish, and amphibians—"
"Don't kid yourselves, Drake. Fish and amphibians mean next to nothing. We're talking humans here. I have to tell you,
in my opinion you are wasting your time and money. Just making the whole thing harder for yourself, too. What does
Ana have to say about it?"
"Not much." It was a direct lie. The idea had never been discussed with her. But how could he make a decision, this
one above all, without telling Ana? Drake forced himself away from that thought and went on. "She's willing. Maybe
more for my sake than hers. She thinks it won't work, but she agrees that she has nothing to lose. Look, I'd rather you
don't mention this to her. It's like—like assuming she's already dead. I'll prepare the papers. And I'll get Ana's
signature."
"Better not wait too long." Tom's face was grim. "If you're going to do this, she has to be able to hold a pen."
"I know. I told you, I'll get her signature."
After Tom left, Drake wandered out into the backyard. It was still warm outside, with the promise of summer. But
spring was a mockery, an unkind and cruel joke. He roamed from one flowering border to the next. They had created
this garden with their own hands. When they moved into the house, seven years ago, the yard had been badly
neglected. It had been nothing but weeds and bare earth. He had done most of the work, but it had been according to
Ana's design and under her direction. These were her walkways and flower beds, not his. How could he bear to look at
them, if she was gone?
After five minutes he went inside. He had to check all the legal procedures one more time.
• • •
Three days later Drake called Tom Lambert again to the house. The doctor went to the bedroom, felt Ana's pulse, and
took blood pressure and brain-wave readings.
He emerged stone-faced. "I'm afraid this is it, Drake. I'll be very surprised if she regains consciousness. If you are still
set on this thing, it has to be done while she has some normal body functions. Another three days . . . it will be a waste
of time."
The two men went together into the bedroom. Drake took a last look at Ana's calm, ravaged face. He told himself that
this was not a last farewell. At last he nodded to Tom.
"Go ahead." He could not tear his gaze away from her face. "Any time."
Time, time. A waste of time. To the end of time. Time heals all wounds. 0! call back yesterday, bid time return.
"Drake? Drake? Are you all right?"
"Sorry. I'm all right." Again he nodded. "Go on, Tom. There's no point in waiting."
The physician made the injection. Working together, they lifted Ana from the bed and removed her clothes. Drake
wheeled in the prepared thermal tank. He laid her gently into it. She was so light, it was as though part of her was
already lost to him.
While Tom filled out the death certificate, Drake placed the call to Second Chance. He told them to come at once to the
house. He set the tank at three degrees above freezing, as instructed. Tom inserted the catheters and the IVs. The next
stages were automatic, controlled by the tank's own programs. Blood was withdrawn through a large hollow needle in
the main external iliac artery, cooled a precise amount, and returned to the femoral vein.
In ten minutes Ana's body temperature had dropped thirty degrees. All life signs had vanished. Ana was now legally
dead. To an earlier generation, Drake Merlin and Tom Lambert would have been judged murderers. It was hard not to
feel that way as they sat in the silence of the bedroom, awaiting the arrival of the Second Chance team. Tom was filled
with pity—for Drake. Ana was now beyond pity.
Drake's thoughts and plans were fortunately beyond his friend's imaginings.
He had a hard time with Tom Lambert and the three women who arrived from Second Chance. Not one of them could
see a reason for Drake to go over to the Second Chance preparation facility with Ana's body.
Tom thought that Drake couldn't face the idea that it was all over. He urged his friend to come home with him and have
a drink. Drake refused. The preparation team didn't know what to make of it as he hovered close by them. He seemed
like a ghoul or some sort of necrophiliac, yet the look on his face showed he was clearly suffering. They carefully
explained that the procedures were very unpleasant to watch, especially for someone so personally involved. They
agreed with Dr. Lambert. Drake would be much better off leaving everything in their experienced hands and going
home with his friend. They would make sure that everything was all right. If he was worried, they would be sure to call
him as soon as the work was finished.
Drake couldn't tell them the real reason he wanted to see the whole preparation procedure, down to the last grisly
detail. But by simply refusing to take no for an answer, he at last had his way.
The head of the team then decided that Drake wanted to come along because he was afraid that some element of the
job would be botched. She explained the whole procedure to him, kindly and carefully, on the one-hour drive to the
facility. They were sitting together in the rear of the van, next to the temperature-controlled casket.
"Most of the revivables—we much prefer that term to cryocorpses—are stored at liquid nitrogen temperatures. That's
about minus two hundred degrees Celsius. It's almost certainly cold enough. But it's still about seventy-five degrees
above absolute zero. All measurable biological processes become imperceptible long before that. However, there are
still some chemical reactions going on. The laws of statistics guarantee that a few atoms will have enough energy to
induce biological changes. And mind and memory are very delicate things. So for people who are worried about that,
we make available a deluxe version. That's what you bought. Your wife will be stored at liquid helium temperatures, just
a few degrees above absolute zero. That's supersafe. When it's so cold, the chance of change—physical or
mental—goes way down."
And the cost, although she did not mention the fact, went way up. But cost was not even a variable to be considered
from Drake's perspective. When they arrived at the Second Chance facility he hung around the preparation room,
ignoring all hints that he should wait outside; and he watched closely.
The team members became more sympathetic. They were now convinced that he was simply terrified that a mistake
would be made. They allowed him to see everything and answered all his questions. He was careful not to ask
anything that sounded too clinical and dispassionate. The main thing he wanted was to see, to know at absolute
firsthand what had been done, and in what sequence.
After the first few minutes there was in any case not much to see. He knew that all the air cavities within Ana's body
had been filled with neutral solution, and her blood replaced with anticrystalloids. But then she went into the seamless
pressure chamber. The body was held there at three degrees above freezing, while the pressure was raised slowly to
five thousand atmospheres. After that was done, the temperature drop started.
"Back in the eighties and nineties, they had no idea of this technique." The team leader was still talking to Drake,
perhaps with the idea that she might make him feel more relaxed. "They used to do the freezing at atmospheric
pressure. There was a formation of ice crystals within the cells as the temperature dropped, and it was a mess when the
thaw was done. No return to consciousness was possible."
She smiled reassuringly at Drake, who was not reassured at all. So they didn't know what they were doing in the
eighties and nineties. Would they claim in twenty more years that people didn't know what they were doing now? But
he had no alternative. He couldn't wait for twenty years, or even twenty hours.
"The modern method is quite different," she went on. "We make use of the fact that ice can exist in many different
solid forms. Ice is complicated stuff, much more than most people realize. If you raise the pressure to three thousand
atmospheres, then drop the temperature, water will remain liquid to about minus twenty degrees Celsius. And when it
finally changes to a solid, it isn't the familiar form of ice—what is usually called phase 1. Instead it turns to something
called phase 3. Drop the temperature from there, holding the pressure constant, and at about minus twenty-five
degrees it changes to another form, phase 2. And it stays that way as you drop the temperature still farther. If you go
to five thousand atmospheres pressure—that's what we are doing here—before you drop the temperature, water
freezes at about minus five degrees and adopts still another form, phase 5. The trick to avoiding cell rupture problems
at freezing point is to inject anticrystalloids, which help to inhibit crystal formation, then by the right combination of
temperatures and pressures
work all the way down toward absolute zero, passing into and through phases 5, 3, and 2.
"That's what we are doing now. But don't expect to see much except dial readings. For obvious reasons, the pressure
chamber is made without seams and without observation ports. You don't get pressures of five thousand atmospheres,
not even in the deepest ocean gulfs. Fortunately, once you have the temperature down below a hundred absolute, you
can reduce the pressure to one atmosphere, otherwise the storage of revivables would be quite impracticable. As it is,
we have many thousands stacked away in the Second Chance wombs. Every one of them is neatly labeled and waiting
for the resurrection. That will come as soon as someone figures out a way to do the thaw."
She glanced at Drake, aware that her last comment might have been the wrong thing to say. The official position at
Second Chance was that everyone was revivable, and that the organization had full control of all the necessary
technology. In due course everyone would be revived.
Drake nodded without expression. He had researched the whole subject in detail, and nothing that she had said so far
was news. In his opinion it would be as hard to revive the early cryocorpses as it would be to get Tutankhamen's
mummy up and moving again. They had been frozen with the wrong procedure, and they were being stored at too high
a temperature.
But who was he to make that decision? They had paid their deposits, and they had the right to sit there in the wombs
until their rentals ran out. He had started Ana with a forty-year contract, but he thought of that as just the beginning.
He had brought with him a copy of Ana's medical records. He added to it a full description of everything he had seen
in the past hour or two, copied the whole document, and made sure that a complete set was included with the file
records on Ana. When Ana's body was finally taken away for storage he went back to the house, fell into bed, and
slept like a cryocorpse himself for sixteen hours.
It was time for the next step. And it was not going to be easy.
When Drake was fully awake again, fed and bathed, he called Tom Lambert and asked to see him—at Tom's home,
rather than his office. He accepted the hefty drink that Tom prepared, after one look at him, for "medicinal purposes,"
and laid out his plans.
After he was finished Tom walked over to Drake, poked the muscles in his shoulders and the back of his neck, pulled
down his lower eyelid and stared at the exposed skin, and finally went to sit opposite him.
"You've been under a monstrous strain for the past few months," he said quietly.
"Very true. I have." Drake kept his voice just as calm.
"And it would be quite unnatural for your behavior or your feelings to be completely normal. In fact, if you seem
normal now, it's only because you have completely walled in your emotions. You certainly don't understand the
implications of what you are proposing to me."
Drake shook his head. "This isn't new. It's only new to you. I've been thinking of this since the day I gave up on all
other options."
"Then that was the day you put the lid on your feelings." Tom Lambert leaned forward. "Look, Drake, Ana was a
wonderful woman, a unique woman. I won't say I know what you have been through, because obviously I don't. I do
have some idea of your sense of loss. But you have to ask yourself what Ana would want you to do now. You can't let
the past become your obsession. She would tell you that you still have a life of your own. Even without her, you have
to live it. She would want you to live it, because she loved you." He paused. "Let me make a suggestion . . ."
While Tom was talking, Drake found it harder and harder to listen. The room felt dull and airless and he had trouble
breathing. Tom Lambert's words came from far off. They didn't seem to say anything. He forced himself to concentrate,
to listen harder.
". . . of your work. You are still a young man. Forty to fifty good years ahead of you. And already you have a
reputation. You are one of this country's most promising composers, and your best works still lie ahead. Ana may have
performed your work better than anyone else, but there will be others. They will learn. With your talent you owe it to
the rest of us not to cut your career off before it reaches its peak."
"I have no intention of doing so. I will compose again. Later."
"You mean, later after that?" Tom was frowning and shaking his head. "Suppose there is no later? Drake, take my
advice as both your doctor and your friend. You desperately need to get out of your house, and you need to take a
vacation. Go off on a cruise somewhere, take a trip around the world. Expose yourself to some new influences. I know
how you must feel now, but you should give it a year and see how you feel then. I guarantee you, everything will seem
different. You'll want to live again. You'll give up this crazy idea."
The breathless feeling was fading. Drake again had control of himself. He waited patiently until Tom was finished, then
nodded agreement.
"I'll do as you say. I'll get away from here for a while. But if it turns out that you are wrong—if I come back to you, in,
say, eight or ten years, and I ask you again, will you do it? Will you help me? I want you to give me an honest answer,
and I want your word on it."
The tension drained visibly from Tom Lambert. He snorted in relief. "Ten years from now? Drake, if you come back to
me in eight or ten years and ask me again, I'll admit I was completely wrong. And I promise you, I'll help you to do what
you've asked."
"An absolute promise? I don't want to hear some day that you changed your mind, or didn't mean what you said."
"An absolute promise. Sure, I'll give you that." Tom laughed. "But I'm not worried that I'll ever be called on it. I'll bet
you everything I own that after a year or two have gone by, you'll never mention that promise again. Hard as it seems
to believe today, you'll be living a new life, and you'll be enjoying it." He walked over to the sideboard and poured
himself a drink. "I'd like to propose a toast, Drake. Or actually, three toasts. To us. To your future. And to your
next—and greatest—composition."
Drake raised his glass in return. "To us, and the future. I'll drink to those. But I can't drink to my next work, because I
don't know when I'll create it. I have lots of other things to do—for one thing, you told me to get out of town. I'm going
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