Ian Watson - Ahead

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Ahead! - a story by Ian Watson

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Ahead!

a short story by Ian Watson

Foreword

Ahead! first appeared in Interzone in May 1995, and was reprinted in

the benefit anthology The Best of Interzone in 1997. My immediate

stimulus for the story was an article by Charles Platt in an earlier

issue of Interzone about how he has signed up to have his own head

frozen. Personally I feel a bit dubious about this freezing of neomorts

(the opposite of neonates, I suppose) -- or, on a smaller budget,

decapitated heads -- to wish upon the future, supposing that the

power or funding doesn't fail in the interim and supposing our

descendants can unfreeze these bequests from the past and can

reverse whatever brought death. Oh it's a grand old dream, going

back to the time of the Pharaohs, not forgetting all those mummified

cats -- but what might the future decide to do with us? Still, there's

Charles five hundred years ahead laughing his head off at me as he

operates a mining machine on Pluto and leads a rich VR fantasy

life...

Ahead!

1: The Head Race

There's an old saying: it'll cost you an arm and a leg.

For me the cost amounted to two arms, two legs, and a torso. Everything

below the neck, in fact. Thus my head and my brain would survive until

posterity. How I pitied people of the past who were dead forever. How I

pitied my contemporaries who were too blind to seize the chance of

cryogenic preservation.

Here we were on the threshold of potential immortality. How could I not

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Ahead! - a story by Ian Watson

avail myself of the Jones legislation? The opportunity might not be

available in our own country for longer than a couple of years. The

population might drop to a sustainable level. A change of administration

might bring a change of heart. There could be rancour at the cost of

maintaining increasing numbers of frozen and unproductive heads.

Until then, though, we were in the Head Race with China and Japan and

India and other overpopulated nations. The previous deterrent to freezing

had been guillotined away. Now no one was compelled to wait for natural

death by cancer or car crash -- and thus risk their brain degenerating

during vital lost minutes.

Farewell, likewise, to the fear of senile dementia or Alzheimer's! The head

would be surgically removed swiftly in prime condition and frozen

immediately. This knowledge was immensely comforting to me. It was

also a little scary. I was among the earliest to register. Yet I must wait

almost a month till my appointment with the blade. A whole month! What

if I were murderously mugged before I could be decapitated? What if my

head was mashed to pulp?

Fortunately, I was part of a nationwide support group of like minds linked

by our PCs. To a fair extent our lobbying had finally resulted in the Jones

Law. Yes, ours; along with lobbying by ecologists concerned with the

welfare of the planet -- and also, I have to admit, pressure from certain

powerful right wing groups (but it's the outcome which counts).

So whilst awaiting decapitation (now a proud word!) there was quite a

sense of emotional and intellectual solidarity.

As regards storage or tagging of our heads, would a distinction be made

between idealists such as ourselves -- and those who were incurably ill or

who had despaired of their current lives -- and so-called Obligatories?

Initially, the Obligatories would be processed separately by the Justice or

Medical systems. Would storage be mixed or segregated? This remained

unclear. We had no wish to stir any suspicion of discrimination! Surely

there was a significant distinction between idealists and non-idealists. The

permission/identification form we all signed upon registering contained a

box reserved for our motive.

Reportedly, the majority of idealists would be withdrawing from the world

for altruistic, ecological reasons. Too many people on the planet for the

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Ahead! - a story by Ian Watson

health of the world! These volunteers would forgo their lives.

Enthusiasts such as myself nursed more personal motives, although I

would never call those motives selfish. Immortality is not a selfish concept

but is a watchword of faith in the survival and advancement of the human

race. Immortality treasures what we have been, what we are, and what we

shall become in the huge aeons ahead of us.

In a state of considerable excitement, we of the Immortalist Network

confided the motives which we had inserted in our box.

To share in the Future.

To know what will be.

To reach the Stars. (That was mine.)

To strive, to seek, to find.

Manifest destiny of Homo Sap!

p = fp nc fl fi fc . (Which is the famous Drake Equation for the number of

extraterrestrial civilisations out in space.)

Even: To go boldly.

And, wittily: I want to keep ahead. (To Keep A Head. Ho!)

In the future world, would our heads be provided with new bodies? New

bottles for the old wine, as it were? The Forethought Institute assured us

that nanotechnology was just around the corner. Another thirty or forty

years, judging by state of the art and according to Delphi Polls. Eighty

years at the most. Working in vats of raw materials, millions of molecule-

size programmed assemblers would speedily construct, if not living

bodies, then at least excellent artificial prosthetic bodies. These might be

preferable to living bodies, being more resilient and versatile.

Even failing this, surely our minds could be mapped into electronic

storage with the processing capacity to simulate entire virtual-reality

worlds, as well as interfacing with the real world. Those who had

despaired would be fulfilled. Idealists would reap their reward.

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Ahead! - a story by Ian Watson

Ought criminal Obligatories to receive resilient versatile new bodies?

Should their electronic versions be allowed full access to a virtual-reality

domain? That was for the future to decide -- a future where the roots of

mischief were better understood, and could be pruned or edited.

With what hopes and longings I approach the decapitation clinic on this

my last day. My healthy organs will be harvested for transplants. My heart

and kidneys and retinas will disperse. My blood will be bottled for

transfusions. I imagine the anaesthetic as sweet, even though it will be

delivered by injection. I imagine the farewell kiss of the blade, even

though the anaesthetic will rob me of sensation. Farewell, Old Regime.

Welcome, the Revolution.

2: The Head War

Smell, first of all, as the primitive reptilian brain-root re-awakens: an

overpowering odour of hair-gel, though without any actual sensation of

breathing. No lungs to breathe with?

Taste: slick and sour-sweet.

Sound: high-speed warbling.

Tactile: soft pressure all around my head. Otherwise: nothing at all, sheer

absence.

Vision! Slightly wobbly, as if through liquid. There's a pyramid! It's

composed of decomposing heads. Squinting sidelong, I spy another

pyramid -- of whitened skulls.

And another, beyond it.

I must be hallucinating.

Or else information is being presented to me symbolically.

My viewpoint is rising up, disclosing yet more pyramids upon a flat white

plain, perhaps a salt-flat. Ovoids are airborne. Eggs hover and dart to and

fro. One of these floats close to me. The rounded bottom is opaque. The

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Ahead! - a story by Ian Watson

transparent ellipsoid of the upper two-thirds contains a hairless head,

surely female. I believe that a clear gel wraps and cushions the head. I

must look likewise. Twin antennae protrude from the top of the egg. She's

a mobile disembodied head. I mouth at her, making my lips form mute

words. (Hullo. What's happening? Where are we?)

She mouths at me but I can't read her lips. No thoughts transmit from

those antennae to what I presume must be my own corresponding

overhead antennae. Her egg-vehicle begins to swing away. I urge mine to

follow but it continues onward lazily under its own impetus.

Can this white vista, with its menacing pyramids and its hovering heads,

be actual? How can this be? Surely my head is being used. What seems to

be happening is not what is really happening. It is a by-product.

Of a sudden two head-vehicles rush directly at one another. They collide

and burst open. Briefly two faces kiss bruisingly while spilling gel hangs

down elastically. Moment later both vehicles plummet down to the salt-

flat. There they shatter entirely. Both heads roll out, surely oblivious by

now.

From under the surface, two mobile crab-like devices emerge. In their

claws they seize the heads. They scuttle towards a fledgling pyramid.

Clambering, they nudge the heads into position, upright, where I suppose

they will rot.

The female egg hasn't gone away, after all. It -- or rather she -- is swinging

back towards me. At least I think that it is the selfsame egg. Now it's

picking up speed. It's rushing at me. Will we shatter, and kiss hideously,

and fall? I'm terrified.

At the very last moment, my vehicle tilts. I'm staring upward at blue sky

and high wispy clouds. A fierce blow strikes my base. Such a stunning

shock vibrates through me. Nevertheless I'm intact. I haven't ruptured. I

think I am sinking down slowly towards the salt. Slowly, slowly.

Of her, there's no sight. She must have broken against my base and

tumbled rapidly. Overhead, a dozen heads cruise by. What grim aerial

game is this?

Or is this the only way in which I can experience a selection procedure

whereby worthwhile heads are chosen for survival? Whereby hundreds of

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