"Greg Egan - The Extra (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

making a decision. He didn't much care how the case itself went; the real battle
would be for the best publicity; the media would determine who won and who lost,
whatever the jury decided. As things stood, he looked like a naive fool, an
easily manipulated voyeur, while Sarah came across as a smart operator. She'd
shown initiative; he'd just let himself (or rather, his Extra) get screwed. He
needed an edge, he needed a gimmick - something that would overshadow her petty
scheming. If he swapped bodies with an Extra in time for the trial - becoming,
officially, the first human to do so - nobody would waste time covering the
obscure details of Sarah's side of the case. His mere presence in court would be
a matter of planet-wide controversy; the legal definition of identity was still
based on DNA fingerprinting and retinal patterns, with some clumsy exceptions
thrown in to allow for gene therapy and retina transplants. The laws would soon
be changed - he was arranging it - but as things stood, the subpoena would apply
to his old body. He could just imagine sitting in the public gallery,
unrecognised, while Sarah's lawyer tried to cross-examine the quivering,
confused, wild-eyed Extra that his discarded "corpse" had become! Quite possibly
he, or his lawyers, would end up being charged with contempt of court, but it
would be worth it for the spectacle.
So, Gray inspected Batch D, which were now just over nineteen years old. They
regarded him with their usual idiotic, friendly expression. He wondered, not for
the first time, if any of the Extras ever realised that he was their
clone-brother, too. They never seemed to respond to him any differently than
they did to other humans - and yet a fraction of a gram of foetal brain tissue
was all that had kept him from being one of them. Even Batch A, his
"contemporaries", showed no sign of recognition. If he had stripped naked and
mimicked their grunting sounds, would they have accepted him as an equal? He'd
never felt inclined to find out; Extra "anthropology" was hardly something he
wished to encourage, let alone participate in. But he decided he would return to
visit Batch D in his new body; it would certainly be amusing to see just what
they made of a clone-brother who vanished, then came back three months later
with speech and clothes.
The clones were all in perfect health, and virtually indistinguishable. He
finally chose one at random. The trainer examined the tattoo on the sole of its
foot, and said, "D12, sir."
Gray nodded, and walked away.
He spent the week before the transplant in a state of constant agitation. He
knew exactly which drugs would have prevented this, but the medical team had
advised him to stay clean, and he was too afraid to disobey them.
He watched D12 for hours, trying to distract himself with the supposedly
thrilling knowledge that those clear eyes, that smooth skin, those taut muscles,
would soon be his. The only trouble was, this began to seem a rather paltry
reward for the risk he would be taking. Knowing all his life that this day would
come, he'd learnt not to care at all what he looked like; by now, he was so used


file:///G|/rah/Greg%20Egan/Egan,%20Greg%20-%20The%20Extra.txt (6 of 9) [2/2/2004 2:00:28 AM]
 file:///G|/rah/Greg%20Egan/Egan,%20Greg%20-%20The%20Extra.txt

to his own appearance that he wasn't sure he especially wanted to be lean and
muscular and rosy-cheeked. After all, if that really had been his fondest wish,