Longer

–FIVE–

Human beings were not meant to float, so naturally everyone wanted to, Cav included. You could do it on Earth with injectable micropackets of supercharged helium. He’d tried these on a couple of occasions. What he got was a roller coaster ride. One moment up (as it were), then up higher, then flat on his back. He preferred something smoother and more predictable.

He’d dreamed about a voyage into space since boyhood. It was relatively easy to book a trip, which was not to say cheap. Somehow he’d never gotten around to it. Now here he was, living the dream, but late in the game, on the downslope of life, well past his prime. A missed opportunity, and a reason for regret.

But there was no regret, and in fact, he felt the opposite. This was his opportunity, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

He hurt. Knees, feet, back, neck … the joints ground down by a lifetime of gravity. Joint replacement, once popular, now superseded by juvenation, was obsolete, a footnote in history. His pain was not terrible, but it was frequent. Occasionally, it would sharpen, and he would gasp, or freeze.

He was hardly alone in this. Soreness, achiness, little stabs and embarrassments were universal in his age group. A fact of life.

But not in space. Being weightless robbed gravity of its teeth. Bone no longer gnashed against bone. Nerves were no longer pinched. Pain went from a roar, or a dull roar, to a whisper, and often to silence. A truly liberating experience.

Liberation came at a price, however, as other age-related problems, previously overshadowed, were now freed to make their presence known. Eyes, bladder, balance, concentration. His wonky heart. Amazing all the ways a body could fall apart. Equally, or more amazing, all the ways it didn’t, how well it worked, and for how long.

He loved being weightless; floating not so much. It was counterintuitive, and made him uneasy, as though his body knew it wasn’t right. He’d stuck a tall stool in front of the Ooi for this reason, anchoring it to the floor. Nothing he liked better than to sit on it, strap himself down, and let his mind drift.

He was sitting now. Bouncing thoughts off the Ooi. Letting them fall where they may. Keeping all channels open.

Death was certain. There was no denying it. It went hand in hand with life.

He had seen his share of dying people. All ages, all walks, all faiths, all stripes. For some of them it appeared to be a momentous event, of the greatest significance. For others, ordinary, even mundane.

He was curious about this. The two experiences appeared so different, so polarized. He wasn’t worried. He believed that all would be well, that his body would take care of itself. That after three billion years, life knew how to handle transitions. And if it didn’t, or couldn’t, there were ways to help. He wasn’t afraid.

He’d been present at his mother’s death. An extraordinary experience. Over the course of two lifetimes so many of his memories were gone, or hopelessly effaced, but this one was indelible. It would be with him as long as he could think.

Her last days, falling deeper and deeper into unconsciousness. Her last eight hours, on her back, eyes closed, lips parted, breathing rapidly, panting almost. Her last twenty minutes, coughing weakly, unable to clear her throat, unresponsive. He’d taken her hand, then leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

Her breathing became more ragged and spasmodic. They called it the rattle of death. Her body shuddered, then convulsed.

Without warning she bolted upright. Her eyes opened wide. Wider than he’d ever seen them, than they’d ever been. They seemed about to pop out of her head. She had beautiful dark eyes, but all he could see, or remember, were the whites. Huge and shiny.

Eerie. Spooky.

His mother.

He tried talking to her. He might as well have been talking to a bench. He planted his face in front of her face, and tried again.

Slowly, she turned her head toward the window, where day had broken and light was spilling in. She held that position rigidly, raptly, as though unable, or unwilling, to tear herself away. Her eyes remained impossibly big and white; her face, preternaturally calm.

He held his breath. Time ground to a halt. One minute, two, forever, until finally she turned away from the window, lay back down, and died.

Ever since that day, he’d wanted to know what she had seen, if anything, or felt, for surely there was something. He wanted to experience it himself, at least improve the odds, but he didn’t know how.

His death would be what it was. It would be his. He assumed there was a final common path for everyone, but before that path, a thousand different paths, predetermined, possibly by genetics, possibly behavior—nature, nurture—in death as in life. He’d get what he got.

He’d welcome an epiphany, but wouldn’t quarrel with a slower, more gradual demise.

The Ooi was a bump in the road. He’d done everything he could to get it to react, to elicit a response, and still it held out. Alive or not, it was a riddle that begged to be understood.

He loved looking at it. Loved musing about it, which was tantamount to musing about life, what it was and wasn’t, what it could be, what was necessary, what wasn’t.

Energy, for example: necessary. How else was it able to cling to the rock? What was the source? How was the energy maintained? How was it distributed? Did the Ooi have a hibernation mode? Was that what they were seeing? Were there other stages to its life cycle? Was this an adult? A larva? A seed perhaps? An egg, or mat of eggs, embedded in a matrix? Was its surface a protective casing? A skin of some sort? A shell? And what kind of shell resisted every attempt to see past it?

The longer he sat and observed, the greater his sense there was something there. He felt a connection. What could be more real than that? It seemed plausible, even likely, that he himself was being observed. Which not only answered the question of life, but the far more exciting one of sentience.

He couldn’t wait for Dash to arrive. Hated the thought of harming the Ooi, would do everything in his power to limit the damage, but had to know more.

He undid the strap and made his way to the door. He was about to leave when he felt something, a pulse or vibration of some kind, or a sound just beyond the threshold of hearing, something new, previously absent or unexpressed, now suddenly present.

He whirled around.

The Ooi looked different, deeper colored, more saturated, the yellow more lemony, the green more like moss, as though it were concentrating energy, manipulating light somehow. He placed his hand above it, feeling for a change in temperature. Closed his eyes and concentrated. Heard the pounding of his blood, felt it in his fingertips.

Heat?

Yes. A definite feeling of warmth.

Dare he touch it? Actually lay his hand on its surface? Go that far? Take the risk? What was this warmth if not an invitation? Who would fault him?

The answer: he would fault himself if he didn’t.

Three mods and a light year away, while he was making a new friend, Gunjita was working up a sweat. Quads, hams, glutes, fast and slow twitch. It felt good to sweat, like a fire felt to burn. Was it true young people sweated more freely? Seemed true. The glands just seemed to love milking themselves. What better way to spread your already heightened scent, let it do what it was meant to? First dissolve it in liquid, then let it vaporize, like perfume. Fill the air with it. Widest possible coverage and range.

Anyway, it felt good. The perfect balance to her brain, which was doing its own fast twitch. Darting around. Spinning like the cycle. Pondering the mysteries, but at speed.

The thing about alarms, they were happening all the time. All were good, in the sense that being alert and aware were good. Being hyperalert was good, too, it had its place, unless it went on too long, in which case it caused problems. Nervousness, for instance. Anxiety. Paranoia.

You wouldn’t want the very alarm you were using to save a life to trigger a mental breakdown. There were enough of those already. The alarm she needed had to walk a thin line.

Again, she found herself thinking that it should be a sexual scent. Sharp and arousing, to the point of dead in the tracks. No prolonged hemming and hawing allowed. No mooning around. The whole purpose, a call to immediate action. Decisiveness.

Pleasure first, then displeasure, right on its heels. The scent would do a hundred and eighty. Sweet would turn to stink: a puzzling, troubling development, and a surefire motivator.

She could start with her own scent. Plenty to work with. Currently, droplets of sweat surrounded her, like effervescent bubbles of champagne. The smell of sweat was not precisely the smell of sex, but it was close. She could distill it, purify it, then modify it. Make it into something irresistible, something you couldn’t ignore, you couldn’t get enough of, which would mean customizing it person by person, challenging but not impossible. Her scent would be the platform for a limitless number of other scents. Offer these to anyone over the age of sixty. Fifty.

Her gift to the elderly of the planet. A potential project, and a lifesaver to boot. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t help Cav: one, because it didn’t exist; and two, because he wouldn’t take it if it did, for a number of reasons. The most annoying of these at the moment: he was even more intractable than usual. He had crossed, or was about to cross, a line.

His conviction that the Ooi was alive: pure insanity, in her humble opinion. With the slim possibility that it wasn’t, that the world (the Ooi, in this case) was as he described, that it existed solely from his perspective, his and his alone, the way insanity worked.

She felt a growing distance from him. A chill in the air when they were together. Her respect for him, a pillar of their relationship, was beginning to erode. Every so often she felt physically repelled by him, which was new, and which she hated.

She carried a double burden of wanting to help and being unable to, or not allowed, and of being stuck with him and unable to get away. Love and loyalty vied with mounting frustration. The balance was not a happy one, nor was it sustainable. She needed a new balance, but something had to give first.

She could leave. Pack her things (there weren’t that many), hop the shuttle, and pop down to Earth (where else?). Take some time off. Size things up from a distance. Let him and Dashaud do whatever they were going to. Create some space for herself.

She had a whole new life ahead. Didn’t happen every day. What to do with it? Research had been good to her, so probably that. But there was so much she hadn’t tried. So much else.

She pedaled faster just thinking about all the possibilities. Didn’t notice Cav at first. He kind of snuck up on her.

“I’ll come back,” he said.

“Ten minutes.”

He gave her twenty.

“What’s up?” she asked, wiping herself down.

“No response to loud noise. To vibration. To bright light, strobe light. Any light. To touch.”

“You touched it?”

“With a glove.”

“How did it feel?”

“Firm. Smooth. Maybe a little slippery.”

“Cold or hot?” she asked.

“Warm.”

“Like what? Room temperature?”

“Warmer.”

She needed better than that. “How much?”

“Not much. A little. I didn’t have a thermometer.”

“And it didn’t move, either during or after?”

“No.”

“Or before. It’s never moved, Cav.”

“Not that we’ve detected.”

“Let me guess. You think it’s biding its time. Waiting for the right moment. Dormant. Transitional. In stasis.”

“Living things move, Gunjita. Maybe it’s moving too fast, or too slow, for our eyes and our instruments. Maybe to it, we’re immobile. Maybe even undetectable. The burden’s on us to find a way to communicate.”

“This is crazy, Cav.”

“In what way?”

“You’re making things up.”

“If I had the answers, I wouldn’t have to. But I’m ignorant. It could be biding its time. It could be a seed, waiting for the right soil, or substrate, or conditions, to germinate. It could be anything.”

“Have you talked to it?” she asked.

“That’s funny.”

“Have you?”

He averted his face.

“Great,” she said.

“Not aloud.”

“Wonderful.”

He was skating on thin ice. Now would be the time to make light of himself. “Maybe I should try.”

She cut him a look.

“I’m joking,” he said.

She wasn’t in the mood. “Has it talked to you?”

He tried out various answers—truths, half-truths, outright lies. A change of subject seemed advisable.

“How old do you think it is?” he asked.

“A trillion years.”

“Seriously.”

“Two trillion.”

“From another universe then.” It boggled the mind.

“Obviously.”

“Ancient.” He felt overwhelmed. “Or not. Maybe it’s a child where it came from. An innocent.”

She was at a loss for words. Didn’t know whether to humor him, pity him, or harden her heart.

“You should have asked,” she said. “We should have discussed it first.”

There was no mistaking what this was about. “There was a window of opportunity. I jumped on it.”

“I’m not talking about the HUBIES.”

“Dashaud had a window, too.”

“Bullshit.”

“He’s been enhanced. His sense of touch. He can feel anything. Everything.”

“Good for him.”

“It’s been fifty years, Gunjita.”

“Sixty.”

“He’s not the same. Give him a chance.”

“Maybe I will. Not up to you.”

“You still bear a grudge.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why the fuss?”

She gritted her teeth. “Are you dense?”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have talked to you first.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“What would you have said?”

“I have no idea.”

“You would have said no.”

She tossed this aside. “Moot point. But probably.”

No was not an option.

She got off the bike, but he didn’t move, effectively blocking her way.

“Was there something else?” she asked. “Because I have work to do.”

“Would you do it again?”

“Do what?”

“If you could. Would you juve?”

“Would I juve?”

“Hypothetically.”

“A third time? Like Laura Gleem?”

“Hypothetically.”

The CEO was etched in her mind. Her image was obviously manufactured. Was there even such a thing as Laura anymore, beyond the corporate label?

“She hasn’t been seen in public since. I’m guessing she’s dead.”

He didn’t care about Laura Gleem. “If there weren’t a risk. If it were safe.”

“It’s not.”

“If it were. Proven. Would you do it?”

“A third time?”

“Yes.”

The holy grail. That’s what they’d called one, then two.

“In a minute,” she said.

“You would.”

“Yes. In a minute.”

“And after that? Would you do it again?”

“A fourth time? I’d be what? Two hundred and fifty years old? Maybe. Or maybe I’d stop. Two hundred and fifty is a lot of years. Maybe enough.”

“Why?” he asked. “Why ever stop? You could be immortal.”

“Methuselan maybe. Immortal I doubt.” She gave him a look. “Is that what this is about? You’re morally opposed? It offends your sense of, what? Dignity? Decency?”

“Normalcy.”

“It is normal. Normal, everyday people do it.”

“Not everyone.”

“Everyone who can. Or nearly everyone.”

“Everyone can’t.”

“The world isn’t fair. Progress is uneven. This isn’t news.”

“It’s numbing,” he said. “Living so long. When time is cheap, where’s the incentive to make the most of it?”

“The incentive’s built in. You need motivation? A deadline? A prod? Since when?”

She pushed past him. Dripping with sweat. Hair plastered to her head. Sleek, redolent, and resolute. An advertisement.