"Old Man's War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Scalzi John)

FOUR

"Okay, let's see," the doctor said, glancing at his rather large PDA as I entered the office. "You're John Perry, correct?"

"That's right," I said.

"I'm Dr. Russell," he said, and then looked me over. "You look like your dog just died," he said.

"Actually," I said, "it was my roommate."

"Oh, yes," he said, glancing down at his PDA again. "Leon Deak. I would have been working on him right after you. Bad timing, that. Well, let's get that off the schedule, then." He tapped the PDA screen for a few seconds, smiled tightly when he was through. Dr. Russell's bedside manner left something to be desired.

"Now," he said, turning his attention back to me, "let's get you looked at."

The office consisted of Dr. Russell, me, a chair for the doctor, a small table and two crèches. The crèches were shaped for human contours, and each had a curving transparent door that arched over the contoured area. At the top of each crèche was an arm apparatus, with a cuplike attachment at the end. The "cup" looked just about large enough to fit on a human head. It was, quite frankly, making me a little nervous.

"Please go ahead and make yourself comfortable, and then we'll get started," Dr. Russell said, opening the door to the crèche nearest to me.

"Do you need me to take anything off?" I said. As far as I remembered, a physical examination required being looked at physically.

"No," he said. "But if it makes you feel more comfortable, go right ahead."

"Does anyone actually strip if they don't have to?" I asked.

"Actually, yes," he said. "If you've been told to do something one way for so long, it's a hard habit to break."

I kept my togs on. I set my PDA on the table, stepped up to the crèche, turned around, leaned back and settled in. Dr. Russell closed the door and stepped back. "Hold on one second while I adjust the crèche," he said, and tapped his PDA. I felt the human-shaped depression in the crèche shift, and then conform to my dimensions.

"That was creepy," I said.

Dr. Russell smiled. "You're going to notice some vibration here," he said, and he was right.

"Say," I said while the crèche was thrumming gently underneath me, "those other fellows who were in the waiting room with me. Where did they go after they came in here?"

"Through the door over there." He waved a hand behind him without looking up from his PDA. "That's the recovery area."

"Recovery area?"

"Don't worry," he said. "I've just made the examination sound much worse than it is. In fact, we're just about done with your scan." He tapped his PDA again and the vibration stopped.

"What do I do now?" I asked.

"Just hold tight," Dr. Russell said. "We've got a little more to do, and we need to go over the results of your examination."

"You mean it's done?" I said.

"Modern medicine is wonderful, isn't it," he said. He showed me the PDA screen, which was downloading a summary of my scan. "You don't even have to say, 'Aaahhhh.'"

"Yeah, but how detailed can it be?"

"Detailed enough," he said. "Mr. Perry, when was your last physical examination?"

"About six months ago," I said.

"What was the prognosis from your physician?"

"He said I was in fine shape, other than my blood pressure being a little higher than normal. Why?"

"Well, he's basically right," said Dr. Russell, "although he seems to have missed the testicular cancer."

"Excuse me?" I said.

Dr. Russell flipped the PDA screen around again; this time it was showing a false-color representation of my genitals. It was the first time I'd ever had my own package waved in front of my face. "Here," he said, pointing to a dark spot on my left testicle. "There's the nodule. Pretty big sucker, too. It's cancer, all right."

I glared at the man. "You know, Dr. Russell, most doctors would have found a more tactful way to break the news."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Perry," Dr. Russell said. "I don't want to seem unconcerned. But it's really not a problem. Even on Earth, testicular cancer is easily treatable, particularly in the early stages, which is the case here. At the very worst, you'd lose the testicle, but that's not a significant setback."

"Unless you happen to own the testicle," I growled.

"That's more of a psychological issue," Dr. Russell said. "In any event, right here and right now, I don't want you to worry about it. In a couple of days you'll be getting a comprehensive physical overhaul, and we'll deal with your testicle then. In the meantime, there should be no problems. The cancer is still local to the testicle. It hasn't spread to the lungs or the lymph nodes. You're fine."

"Am I going to drop the ball?" I said.

Dr. Russell smiled. "I think you can hold on to the ball for now," he said. "Should you ever drop it, I suspect it will be the least of your concerns. Now, other than the cancer, which as I say isn't really problematic, you're in as good a shape as any man of your physical age could be. That's good news; we don't have to do anything else to you at this point."

"What would you do if you'd found something really wrong?" I asked. "I mean, what if the cancer had been terminal?"

"'Terminal' is a pretty imprecise term, Mr. Perry," Dr. Russell said. "In the long run, we're all terminal cases. In the case of this examination, what we're really looking to do is to stabilize any recruits who are in imminent danger, so we know they'll make it through the next few days. The case of your unfortunate roommate Mr. Deak isn't all that unusual. We have a lot of recruits who make it to this point just to die before assessment. That's not good for any of us."

Dr. Russell consulted his PDA. "Now, in the case of Mr. Deak, who died of a heart attack, what we probably would have done would be to remove the plaque buildup from his arteries and provide him with an arterial wall-strengthening compound to prevent ruptures. That's our most common treatment. Most seventy-five-year-old arteries can use some propping up. In your case, if you had had advanced stage cancer, we would have trimmed back the tumors to a point where they didn't pose an imminent threat to your vital functions, and shored up the affected regions to make sure you wouldn't have any problems over the next few days."

"Why wouldn't you cure it?" I asked. "If you can 'shore up' an affected region, it sounds like you could probably fix it completely if you wanted to."

"We can, but it's not necessary," Dr. Russell said. "You'll be getting a more comprehensive overhaul in a couple of days. We just need to keep you going until then."

"What does 'comprehensive overhaul' mean, anyway?" I said.

"It means that when it's done, you'll wonder why you ever worried about a spot of cancer on your testicle," he said. "That's a promise. Now, there's one more thing we need to do here. Bring your head forward, please."

I did. Dr. Russell reached up and brought the feared arm cup down directly on the top of my head. "During the next couple of days, it's going to be important for us to get a good picture of your brain activity," he said, moving back. "So to do this, I'm going to implant a sensor array into your skull." As he said this, he tapped the screen on his PDA, an action I was learning to mistrust. There was a slight sucking noise as the cup adhered to my skull.

"How do you do that?" I asked.

"Well, right now, you can probably feel a little tickle on your scalp and down the back of your neck," Dr. Russell said, and I could. "Those are the injectors positioning themselves. They're like little hypodermic needles that will insert the sensors. The sensors themselves are very small, but there's a lot of them. About twenty thousand, more or less. Don't worry, they're self-sterilizing."

"Is this going to hurt?" I asked.

"Not so much," he said, and tapped his PDA screen. Twenty thousand microsensors slammed themselves into my skull like four ax handles simultaneously whacking my skull.

"God damn it!" I grabbed my head, banging my hands against the crèche door as I did so. "You son of a bitch," I yelled at Dr. Russell. "You said it wouldn't hurt!"

"I said 'not so much,'" Dr. Russell said.

"Not so much as what? Having your head stepped on by an elephant?"

"Not so much as when the sensors connect to each other," Dr. Russell said. "The good news is that as soon as they're connected, the pain stops. Now hold still, this will only take a minute." He tapped the PDA again. Eighty thousand needles shot out in every direction in my skull.

I have never wanted to punch a doctor so much in my life.

"I don't know," Harry was saying. "I think it's an interesting look." And with this, Harry rubbed his head, which like all our heads was now a dusty speckled gray where twenty thousand subcutaneous sensors sat, measuring brain activity.

The breakfast crew had reconvened again at lunchtime, this time with Jesse and her roommate Maggie joining the crowd. Harry had declared that we now constituted an official clique, branded us the "Old Farts," and demanded we begin a food fight with the next table over. He was voted down, in no small part due to Thomas noting that any food we threw we wouldn't get to eat, and lunch was even better than breakfast, if that was possible.

"And a damned good thing, too," Thomas said. "After this morning's little brain injection, I was almost too pissed off to eat."

"I can't imagine that," Susan said.

"Notice how I said 'almost,'" Thomas said. "But I'll tell you what. I wish I'd had one of those crèches back home. Would have cut my appointment times by eighty percent. More time for golfing."

"Your devotion to your patients is overwhelming," Jesse said.

"Fah," Thomas said. "I played golf with most of them. They would have been all for it. And as much as it pains me to say it, it helped my doctor make a much better assessment than I ever could have. That thing is a diagnostician's dream. It caught a microscopic tumor on my pancreas. There's no way I could have caught that back home until it was a hell of a lot larger or a patient started showing symptoms. Did anyone else have anything surprising?"

"Lung cancer," Harry said. "Little spots."

"Ovarian cysts," Jesse said. Maggie seconded.

"Incipient rheumatoid arthritis," said Alan.

"Testicular cancer," I said.

Every man at the table winced. "Ouch," said Thomas.

"They tell me I'll live," I said.

"You'll just be lopsided when you walk," said Susan.

"That's enough of that," I said.

"What I don't understand is why they didn't fix the problems," Jesse said. "My doctor showed me a cyst the size of a gumball, but told me not to concern myself with it. I don't think I'm cut out not to worry about something like that."

"Thomas, you're alleged to be a doctor," Susan said, and tapped her gray-shaded brow. "What's with these little bastards? Why not just give us a brain scan?"

"If I had to guess, which I do, since I really have no clue," Thomas said, "I'd say that they want to see our brains in action while we go through our training. But they can't do that with us strapped to a machine, so they're strapping the machines to us instead."

"Thanks for the cogent explanation of what I already figured out," Susan said. "What I'm asking is, what purpose does that sort of measurement serve?"

"I dunno," Thomas said. "Maybe they're fitting us for new brains after all. Or maybe they've got some way of adding new brain material, and they need to see what parts of our brains need a boost. I just hope they don't need to put in another set of the damned things. The first set nearly killed me from the pain."

"Speaking of which," Alan said, turning to me, "I hear you lost your roommate this morning. Are you okay?"

"I'm all right," I said. "Though it's depressing. My doctor said that if he had managed to make it to his appointment this morning, they probably could have kept him from dying. Given him a plaque remover or something. I feel like I should have made him get up for breakfast. That might have kept him moving long enough to make it to his appointment."

"Don't kick yourself about it," Thomas said. "There's no way you could have known. People just die."

"Sure, but not days from getting a 'comprehensive overhaul,' as my doctor was putting it."

Harry piped in. "Not to be too crass about this—"

"You just know this is going to be bad," Susan said.

"—but when I went to college," Harry continued, throwing a piece of bread at Susan, "if your roommate died, you were usually allowed to skip your finals for that semester. You know, because of the trauma."

"And oddly enough, your roommate got to skip them, too," Susan said. "For much the same reason."

"I never thought of it that way," Harry said. "Anyway, think they might let you sit out the evaluations they have planned for today?"

"I doubt it," I said. "Even if they did, I wouldn't take up the offer. What else would I do, sit in my stateroom all day? Talk about depressing. Someone died there, you know."

"You could always move," Jesse said. "Maybe someone else's roommate died, too."

"There's a morbid thought," I said. "And anyway, I don't want to move. I'm sorry Leon's dead, of course. But now I have a room to myself."

"Looks like the healing process has begun," Alan said.

"I'm just trying to move past the pain," I said.

"You don't talk much, do you," Susan said to Maggie, rather suddenly.

"No," Maggie said.

"Hey, what does everyone have next on their schedule?" Jesse asked.

Everyone reached for their PDA, then stopped, guiltily.

"Let's think about just how high school that last moment really was," Susan said.

"Well, hell," Harry said, and pulled out his PDA anyway. "We've already joined a lunchroom clique. Might as well go all the way."

It turned out Harry and I had our first evaluation session together. We were directed to a conference room where chairs with desks had been set up.

"Holy crap," Harry said as we took our seats. "We really are back in high school."

This assessment was reinforced when our Colonial came into the room. "You will now be tested on basic language and mathematic skills," the proctor said. "Your first test is being downloaded into your PDA. It is multiple choice. Please answer as many questions as you can within the thirty-minute time limit. If you finish before your thirty minutes are up, please sit quietly or review your answers. Please do not collaborate with other trainees. Please begin now."

I looked down at my PDA. A word analogy question was on it.

"You have got to be kidding," I said. Other people in the room were chuckling as well.

Harry raised his hand. "Ma'am?" he said. "What's the score I need to get into Harvard?"

"I've heard that one before," the Colonial said. "Everyone, please settle down and work on your test."

"I've been waiting sixty years to raise my math score," Harry said. "Let's see how I do now."

Our second assessment was even worse.

"Please follow the white square. Use only your eyes, not your head." The Colonial dimmed the lights in the room. Sixty pairs of eyes focused on a white square on the wall. Slowly, it began to move.

"I can't believe I went into space for this," Harry said.

"Maybe things will pick up," I said. "If we're lucky, we'll get another white square to look at."

A second white square appeared on the wall.

"You've been here before, haven't you?" Harry said.

Later, Harry and I separated, and I had some activities of my own.

The first room I was in featured a Colonial and a pile of blocks.

"Make a house out of these, please," the Colonial said.

"Only if I get an extra juice box," I said.

"I'll see what I can do," the Colonial promised. I made a house out of the blocks and then went into the next room, where the Colonial in there pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.

"Starting from the middle of the maze, try to see if you can get to the outer edge."

"Jesus Christ," I said, "a drug-addled rat could do this."

"Let's hope so," the Colonial said. "Still, let's see you do it anyway."

I did. In the next room, the Colonial there wanted me to call out the numbers and letters. I learned to stop wondering why and just do what they told me.

A little later in the afternoon, I got pissed off.

"I've been reading your file," said the Colonial, a thin young man who looked like a strong wind would sail him off like a kite.

"Okay," I said.

"It says you were married."

"I was."

"Did you like it? Being married."

"Sure. It beats the alternative."

He smirked. "So what happened? Divorce? Fuck around one time too many?"

Whatever obnoxiously amusing qualities this guy had were fading fast. "She's dead," I said.

"Yeah? How did that happen?"

"She had a stroke."

"Gotta love a stroke," he said. "Bam, your brain's skull pudding, just like that. Good that she didn't survive. She'd be this fat, bedridden turnip, you know. You'd just have to feed her through a straw or something." He made slurping noises.

I didn't say anything. Part of my brain was figuring how quickly I could move to snap his neck, but most of me was just sitting there in blind shock and rage. I simply could not believe what I was hearing.

Down in some deep part of my brain, someone was telling me to start breathing again soon, or I was going to pass out.

The Colonial's PDA suddenly beeped. "Okay," he said, and stood up quickly. "We're done. Mr. Perry, please allow me to apologize for the comments I made regarding your wife's death. My job here is to generate an enraged response from the recruit as quickly as possible. Our psychological models showed that you would respond most negatively to comments like the ones I have just made. Please understand that on a personal level I would never make such comments about your late wife."

I blinked stupidly for a few seconds at the man. Then I roared at him. "What kind of sick, fucked-up test was THAT?!?"

"I agree it is an extremely unpleasant test, and once again I apologize. I am doing my job as ordered, nothing more."

"Holy Christ!" I said. "Do you have any idea how close I came to breaking your fucking neck?"

"In fact, I do," the man said in a calm, controlled voice that indicated that, in fact, he did. "My PDA, which was tracking your mental state, beeped right before you were about to pop. But even if it hadn't I would have known. I do this all the time. I know what to expect."

I was still trying to come down from my rage. "You do this thing with every recruit?" I asked. "How are you even still alive?"

"I understand that question," the man said. "I was in fact chosen for this assignment because my small build gives the recruit the impression that he or she can beat the hell out of me. I am a very good 'little twerp.' However, I am capable of restraining a recruit if I have to. Though usually I don't have to. As I said, I do this a lot."

"It's not a very nice job," I said. I had finally managed to get myself back into a rational state of mind.

"'It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it,'" the man said. "I find it interesting, in that every recruit has a different thing that causes him or her to explode. But you're right. It's a high-stress assignment. It's not really for everyone."

"I bet you're not very popular in bars," I said.

"Actually, I'm told I'm quite charming. When I'm not intentionally pissing people off, that is. Mr. Perry, we're all finished here. If you'll step through the door to your right, you'll begin your next assessment."

"They're not going to try to piss me off again, are they?"

"You may become pissed off," the man said, "but if you do, it'll be on your own. We only do this test once."

I headed to the door, then stopped. "I know you were doing your job," I said. "But I still want you to know. My wife was a wonderful person. She deserves better than to be used like this."

"I know she does, Mr. Perry," the man said. "I know she does."

I went through the door.

In the next room, a very nice young lady, who happened to be completely naked, wanted me to tell her anything I could possibly remember about my seventh birthday party.

"I can't believe they showed us that film right before dinner," Jesse said.

"It wasn't right before dinner," Thomas said. "The Bugs Bunny cartoon was after that. Anyway, it wasn't so bad."

"Yes, well, maybe you're not utterly disgusted by a film on intestinal surgery, Mister Doctor, but the rest of us found it pretty disturbing," Jesse said.

"Does this mean you don't want your ribs?" Thomas said, pointing to her plate.

"Did anyone else get the naked woman asking about your childhood?" I asked.

"I got a man," Susan said.

"Woman," said Harry.

"Man," said Jesse.

"Woman," said Thomas.

"Man," said Alan.

We all looked at him.

"What?" Alan said. "I'm gay."

"What was the point of that?" I asked. "About the naked person, I mean, not about Alan being gay."

"Thanks," Alan said dryly.

"They're trying to provoke particular responses, that's all," said Harry. "All of today's tests have been of pretty basic intellectual or emotional responses, the foundation of more complex and subtle emotions and intellectual abilities. They're just trying to figure out how we think and react on a primal level. The naked person was obviously trying to get you all worked up sexually."

"But what was that whole thing about asking you about your childhood, is what I'm saying," I said.

Harry shrugged. "What's sex without a little guilt?"

"What pissed me off was the one where they got me all pissed off," Thomas said. "I swear I was going to clobber that guy. He said the Cubs ought to have been demoted to the minor leagues after they went two centuries without a World Series championship."

"That sounds reasonable to me," Susan said.

"Don't you start," Thomas said. "Man. Pow. I'm telling you. You don't mess with the Cubs."

If the first day was all about demeaning feats of intellect, the second day was about demeaning feats of strength, or lack thereof.

"Here's a ball," one proctor said to me. "Bounce it." I did. I was told to move on.

I walked around a small athletic track. I was asked to run a small distance. I did some light calisthenics. I played a video game. I was asked to shoot at a target on a wall with a light gun. I swam (I liked that part. I've always liked swimming, so long as my head's above water). For two hours, I was placed in a rec room with several dozen other people and told to do whatever I wanted. I shot some pool. I played a game of Ping-Pong. God help me, I played shuffleboard.

At no point did I even break a sweat.

"What the hell sort of army is this, anyway?" I asked the Old Farts at lunch.

"It makes a little bit of sense," Harry said. "Yesterday we did basic intellect and emotion. Today was basic physical movement. Again, they seem interested in the foundations of high order activity."

"I'm not really aware of Ping-Pong being indicative of higher order physical activity," I said.

"Hand-eye coordination," Harry said. "Timing. Precision."

"And you never know when you're going to have to bat back a grenade," Alan piped in.

"Exactly," Harry said. "Also, what do you want them to do? Have us run a marathon? We'd all drop before the end of the first mile."

"Speak for yourself, flabby," Thomas said.

"I stand corrected," Harry said. "Our friend Thomas would make it to mile six before his heart imploded. If he didn't get a food-related cramp first."

"Don't be silly," Thomas said. "Everyone knows you need to power up with carbohydrates before a race. Which is why I'm going back for more fettuccine."

"You're not running a marathon, Thomas," Susan said.

"The day is young," Thomas said.

"Actually," Jesse said, "my schedule is empty. I've got nothing planned for the rest of the day. And tomorrow, the only thing on the schedule is 'Concluding Physical Improvements' from 0600 to 1200 and a general recruit assembly at 2000, after dinner."

"My schedule is finished until tomorrow, too," I said. A quick glance up and down the table showed that everyone else was done for the day as well. "Well, then," I said. "What are we going to do to amuse ourselves?"

"There's always more shuffleboard," Susan said.

"I have a better idea," Harry said. "Anyone have plans at 1500?"

We all shook our heads.

"Swell," Harry said. "Then meet me back here. I have a field trip for the Old Farts."

"Are we even supposed to be here?" Jesse asked.

"Sure," said Harry. "Why not? And even if we're not, what are they going to do? We're not really in the military yet. We can't officially be court-martialed."

"No, but they can probably blow us out an air lock," Jesse said.

"Don't be silly," Harry said. "That would be a waste of perfectly good air."

Harry had led us to an observation deck in the Colonial area of the ship. And indeed, while we recruits had never been specifically told we couldn't go to the Colonial's decks, neither had we been told that we could (or should). Standing as we were in the deserted deck, the seven of us stood out like truant schoolkids at a peep show.

Which, in one sense, was what we were. "During our little exercises today, I struck up a conversation with one of the Colonial folks," Harry said, "and he mentioned that the Henry Hudson was going to make its skip today at 1535. And I figure that none of us has actually seen what a skip looks like, so I asked him where one would go to get a good view. And he mentioned here. So here we are, and with"—Harry glanced at his PDA—"four minutes to spare."

"Sorry about that," Thomas said. "I didn't mean to hold everyone up. The fettuccine was excellent, but my lower intestine would apparently beg to differ."

"Please feel free not to share such information in the future, Thomas," Susan said. "We don't know you that well yet."

"Well, how else will you get to know me that well?" Thomas said. No one bothered to answer that one.

"Anyone know where we are right now? In space, that is," I asked after a few moments of silence had passed.

"We're still in the solar system," Alan said, and pointed out the window. "You can tell because you can still see the constellations. See, look, there's Orion. If we'd traveled any significant distance, the stars would have shifted their relative position in the sky. Constellations would have been stretched out or would be entirely unrecognizable."

"Where are we supposed to be skipping to?" Jesse asked.

"The Phoenix system," Alan said. "But that won't tell you anything, because 'Phoenix' is the name of the planet, not of the star. There is a constellation named 'Phoenix,' and in fact, there it is"—he pointed to a collection of stars—"but the planet Phoenix isn't around any of the stars in that constellation. If I remember correctly, it's actually in the constellation Lupus, which is farther north"—he pointed to another, dimmer collection of stars—"but we can't actually see the star from here."

"You sure know your constellations," Jesse said admiringly.

"Thanks," Alan said. "I wanted to be an astronomer when I was younger, but astronomers get paid for shit. So I became a theoretical physicist instead."

"Lots of money in thinking up new subatomic particles?" Thomas asked.

"Well, no," Alan admitted. "But I developed a theory that helped the company I worked for create a new energy containment system for naval vessels. The company's profit-sharing incentive plan gave me one percent for that. Which came to more money than I could spend, and trust me, I made the effort."

"Must be nice to be rich," Susan said.

"It wasn't too bad," Alan admitted. "Of course, I'm not rich anymore. You give it up when you join. And you lose other things, too. I mean, in about a minute, all that time I spent memorizing the constellations will be wasted effort. There's no Orion or Ursa Minor or Cassiopeia where we're going. This might sound stupid, but it's entirely possible I'll miss the constellations more than I miss the money. You can always make more money. But we're not coming back here. It's the last time I'll see these old friends."

Susan went over and put an arm around Alan's shoulder. Harry looked down at his PDA. "Here we go," he said, and began a countdown. When he got to "one," we all looked up and out the window.

It wasn't dramatic. One second we were looking at one star-filled sky. The next, we were looking at another. If you blinked, you would have missed it. And yet, you could tell it was an entirely alien sky. We all may not have had Alan's knowledge of the constellations, but most of us know how to pick out Orion and the Big Dipper from the stellar lineup. They were nowhere to be found, an absence subtle and yet substantial. I glanced over at Alan. He was standing like a pillar, hand in Susan's.

"We're turning," Thomas said. We watched as the stars slid counterclockwise as the Henry Hudson changed course. Suddenly the enormous blue arm of the planet Phoenix hovered above us. And above it (or below it, from our orientation) was a space station so large, so massive, and so busy that all we could do was bulge our eyes at it.

Finally someone spoke. And to everyone's surprise, it was Maggie. "Would you look at that," she said.

We all turned to look at her. She was visibly annoyed. "I'm not mute," she said. "I just don't talk much. This deserves comment of some kind."

"No kidding," Thomas said, turning back to look at it. "It makes Colonial Station look like a pile of puke."

"How many ships do you see?" Jesse said to me.

"I don't know," I said. "Dozens. There could be hundreds, for all I know. I didn't even know this many starships existed."

"If any of us were still thinking Earth was the center of the human universe," Harry said, "now would be an excellent time to revise that theory," Harry said.

We all stood and looked at the new world out the window.

My PDA chimed me awake at 0545, which was notable in that I had set it to wake me at 0600. The screen was flashing; there was a message labeled URGENT on it. I tapped the message.

At my age, you don't have to tell me twice to pee; I padded down to the rest room to take care of business and hoped that my appointment was sooner rather than later, as I didn't want to have to get permission to relieve myself.

My appointment was neither sooner nor later; at 0900 my PDA alerted me, and at 0915 there was a sharp rap at my door and a man's voice calling my name. I opened the door to find two Colonials on the other side. I received permission from them to make a quick rest-room stop, and then followed them from my deck, back to the waiting room of Dr. Russell. I waited briefly before I was allowed entrance into his examination room.

"Mr. Perry, good to see you again," he said, extending his hand. The Colonials who accompanied me left through the far door. "Please step up to the crèche."

"The last time I did, you jackhammered several thousand bits of metal into my head," I said. "Forgive me if I'm not entirely enthusiastic about climbing in again."

"I understand," Dr. Russell said. "However, today is going to be pain-free. And we are under something of a time constraint, so, if you please." He motioned to the crèche.

I reluctantly stepped in. "If I feel so much as a twinge, I'm going to hit you," I warned.

"Fair enough," Dr. Russell said as he closed the crèche door. I noted that unlike the last time, Dr. Russell bolted down the door to the crèche; maybe he was taking the threat seriously. I didn't mind. "Tell me, Mr. Perry," he said as he bolted the door, "what do you think of the last couple of days?"

"They were confusing and irritating," I said. "If I knew I was going to be treated like a preschooler, I probably wouldn't have signed up."

"That's pretty much what everyone says," Dr. Russell said. "So let me explain a little bit about what we've been trying to do. We put in the sensor array for two reasons. First, as you may have guessed, we're monitoring your brain activity while you perform various basic functions and experience certain primal emotions. Every human's brain processes information and experience in more or less the same way, but at the same time each person uses certain pathways and processes unique to them. It's a little like how every human hand has five fingers, but each human being has his own set of fingerprints. What we've been trying to do is isolate your mental 'fingerprint.' Make sense?"

I nodded.

"Good. So now you know why we had you doing ridiculous and stupid things for two days."

"Like talking to a naked woman about my seventh birthday party," I said.

"We get a lot of really useful information from that one," Dr. Russell said.

"I don't see how," I said.

"It's technical," Dr. Russell assured me. "In any event, the last couple days give us a good idea of how your brain uses neural pathways and processes all sorts of stimuli, and that's information we can use as a template."

Before I could ask, A template for what, Dr. Russell continued. "Second, the sensor array does more than record what your brain is doing. It can also transmit a real-time representation of the activity in your brain. Or to put it another way, it can broadcast your consciousness. This is important, because unlike specific mental processes, consciousness can't be recorded. It has to be live if it's going to make the transfer."

"The transfer," I said.

"That's right," Dr. Russell said.

"Do you mind if I ask you what the hell you're talking about?" I said.

Dr. Russell smiled. "Mr. Perry, when you signed up to join the army, you thought we'd make you young again, right?"

"Yes," I said. "Everybody does. You can't fight a war with old people, yet you recruit them. You have to have some way to make them young again."

"How do you think we do it?" Dr. Russell asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Gene therapy. Cloned replacement parts. You'd swap out old parts somehow and put in new ones."

"You're half right," Dr. Russell said. "We do use gene therapy and cloned replacements. But we don't 'swap out' anything, except you."

"I don't understand," I said. I felt very cold, like reality was being tugged out from under my feet.

"Your body is old, Mr. Perry. It's old and it won't work for much longer. There's no point in trying to save it or upgrade it. It's not something that gains value when it ages or has replaceable parts that keep it running like new. All a human body does when it gets older is get old. So we're going to get rid of it. We're getting rid of it all. The only part of you that we're going to save is the only part of you that hasn't decayed—your mind, your consciousness, your sense of self."

Dr. Russell walked over to the far door, where the Colonials had exited, and rapped on it. Then he turned back to me. "Take a good look at your body, Mr. Perry," he said. "Because you're about to say good-bye to it. You're going somewhere else."

"Where am I going, Dr. Russell?" I asked. I could barely make enough spit to talk.

"You're going here," he said, and opened the door.

From the other side, the Colonials came back in. One of them was pushing a wheelchair with someone in it. I craned my head to take a look. And I began to shake.

It was me.

Fifty years ago.