He strained to hear more, but their voices were just too low, though they were intense. Why were they awake at this hour and talking about him? Somehow, he got the impression that they were talking about something that had troubled them for a long time and would do so for a long time. They sounded both sad and angry, angry at each other.
Baker whispered in Jeff’s ear, though he did not have to whisper. Only Jeff could hear him. “Let’s go back to our bedroom. We’ll turn on the audio to their bedroom and listen in.”
“That wouldn’t be nice,” Jeff said. “Besides, if they catch us doing that, they’ll punish me, not you.”
“They won’t catch us,” Baker said. “Are you going to be a namby-pamby forever?”
“But what if they told the wall to turn off their audio?” Jeff said. “We won’t be able to hear them.”
“How’re we going to find out if we don’t try? You do what I tell you, and you won’t be a fruitcake. Maybe.”
That made Jeff mad. “I’m not what you called me, those bad names. I’m not!”
He hesitated. He was very curious about his parents and why they would be talking about him.
“O.K. I’ll do it. But if they catch us, I won’t ever play with you again!”
“Sure,” Baker said. “Who you going to play with then? You’ll be all alone. You won’t ever get any place, you’ll always be a pansy if you kick me out. Or I walk out on you. You’re plenty disgusting, you know.”
As they went back down the hall, Jeff was wondering if he had done something very wrong that he did not know about. As far as he knew, he had been good. He had done nothing to upset them. Except not being brave and refusing to fight kids he knew could beat him up and being tongue-tied when called on to recite in class. He could not help that, and they should not hold that against him.
But you never knew about your father and mother. They got upset about the least little thing. They had rules and regulations that often made no sense to him. Their explanations of these—when they bothered to explain—sounded good to them but nuts to him. Sometimes he thought that adults were no more human than those aliens from outer space on TV.
But then he was not sure that his schoolmates were real Earthpeople.
He went with Baker into their bedroom and sat beside him on the sofa. He said, “What if they turn on the video to our room to see if I’m O.K.?”
“Why would they do that?”
His heart beating even harder, Jeff voice-activated the audio to his parent’s bedroom and raised the volume to amplify the sound. He did not want the video on. If he was caught doing that, his punishment would be doubled. Anyway, their room was dark, and he would not be able to see them. But what if they turned the lights on and did you-know-what?
He told Baker that thought. Baker snorted, and he said, “They didn’t sound very loving to me.”
“No,” his mother was saying, “we should never tell him. We must not. The shock would affect him the rest of his life. He’s not a strong boy, he’s very sensitive, too sensitive. Besides, what if we did tell him and then he told somebody else? We’d be in very bad trouble, and you know that.”
“Of course I know that,” his father said. “I’m really not stupid, though you talk as if I am. We wouldn’t tell him until he was old enough to know that he’d have to keep his mouth shut.”
“But why say anything at all?” his mother said. “It’s not something he had to know. It won’t make him any happier or better.”
“It’s the truth!”
“Damn you and your truth!” his mother said. “We’re not dealing with science here. We’re talking about our son, about human feelings. What’s truth got to do with it? Better he doesn’t know it’s a lie, a lie meant for his own good, not to mention ours. You know people lie all the time to each other. There are times when the truth should be told, but there are lies that people need. And Jeff needs this one.”
“No,” his father said. “The truth should always come out. But it should be told discreetly and in the proper circumstances and time.”
What? What? Jeff asked himself. His heart seemed to be tearing itself apart, and he was sweating and shaking. What?
He knew from TV dramas that children were sometimes adopted by childless couples. For some reason he did not quite understand, an adopted child was in some sort of peril. Or shame. Something to be dreaded despite what the actors said about love being the most important thing. Not my flesh and blood! Someone had said that in a show.
“Let’s drop this and get some sleep, for Christ’s sake!” his father said. “I’ve got a tough day tomorrow, EX will be running its final tests. And you’ve got to meet the MBDA committee person, and…”
“You always say that or have some excuse,” his mother said. “For God’s sake, let’s talk it out now and come to a sensible decision! I can’t stand this putting-off, and there’s no reason why we should!”
“A sensible decision,” his father said sarcastically. “What you mean by that is your decision. Why can’t we wait? Even if we agree to tell him, we can’t do it now. It’ll be years before we can. So why not wait until the time comes, if it does? When he’s eighteen and can also be told about the immers?”
“You know how I am,” his mother said. “I can’t stand to dodge issues. Procrastination (What was that? Jeff thought) drives me crazy. You’re right when you say we can’t tell him now. But I’ll lie awake nights for years worrying about this if we don’t get it settled now.”
“You’re neurotic.”
“At least, I’ll admit it.”
“What does that mean?”
There was more, some of which Jeff did not understand. After a while, they became calmer but no less hard-headed. Though they spoke of other problems, they kept coming back to their main subject of contention. He had to put together the separated items, and then he began to comprehend the subject that was keeping him from sleep. Or he thought he did. His five-year-old mind could not really wrap itself around some of their references.
It was at first a slow leak, then it became a spurt, and then the seawall burst open, and the flood roared in.
Jeff One, as distinguished from himself, Jeff Two.
Jeff One had been their baby, born on the day that Jeff Two had been told was his birthdate.
Jeff One had died when he was two months old.
Neither parent had said outright what or who had caused the infant’s death. Jeff Two, listening to the words and feeling the tones of their speech, got the idea that his mother was responsible for the accident. The baby’s brain had obviously been damaged, and it had died a few minutes later.
His mother was forty-five subyears old then. His parents had delayed having a child because they were too occupied with their professions and social lives. That was what his mother said, and her voice was nasty when she said it. Then, since she was so old, in terms of child-bearing, and her cryogenized ova had been destroyed in a fire, they had decided that this was their last chance. So Jeff One, a healthy boy, had come into this world via Caesarean section. He would be the first and the last child for Doctor Caird and Doctor Cervantes. Though couples of their high professional rank and excellent genes were allowed to have two children, she had had to get permission because of her age. And that had been gotten only because the doctors had used their influence with some high officials. She would not have been licensed to have a second child.
Jefferson Caird, watching himself and Baker No Wiley on the display screen he had mentally projected, understood this. When he was five, he had known nothing about the procedure, of course. Nor did he know about the immers, then. He also understood now why his mother was unable to inform the authorities that her chronological age was forty-five but her physiological age was only thirty-two. She had become an immer when seventeen and had been injected with ASF then.
The baby, Jeff One, had died. For the first few minutes after stoning the baby, the parents had intended to call the hospital ambulance and the organics,
though they knew that nothing could be done for the baby. Then Doctor Caird had an idea. He and his wife wanted a child of their own very much or, at least, had thought so at that time.
His father had destoned the baby and removed some skin cells from him. Then he had stoned these. The death was not reported. Using the immer underground organization, Caird and Cervantes had gotten the stoned body of Jeff One into a warehouse in forested New Jersey. To account for the body, the immers had inserted false data into the data banks.
Jeff One, now named Baker No Wiley, had taken his place among the silent and motionless rows in the warehouse outside Hoboken.
The clone had been grown in the laboratory headed by Doctor Caird, though only he knew that it was a clone. He took care of the records of the pseudo-experiment and the explanation for the end of the experiment and the supposed disposal of the body. Jeff Two had been spirited home to take the place of Jeff One. His father had operated on him to form the artificial navel. The few friends who saw the baby did not notice the age difference.
“I wish to God I hadn’t suggested to him that he call his imaginary playmate Baker No Wiley!” his mother said, and she began sobbing. “Why did I do it? He asked me for a name, and it came out so quickly! I knew the moment I said it I’d made a mistake. Now, when I hear him say that name, and sometimes even when he doesn’t, I think of our baby out there…”
“We have Jeff.”
“I know, I know. I love him. But a clone is not the same person as the donor. It has different experiences. Anyway, it isn’t the same even if it has the exact same genetic makeup. It’s a separate and different person.”
“We both know that,” his father said. “There’s no use rehashing the same story again.”
“It’s not a story!” she cried. “It’s life, reality. It hurts!”
“You haven’t adjusted very well,” his father said.
“Are you saying I should take therapy? One whiff of TM, and the whole thing comes out. You know that.”
“Maybe we made a mistake,” Doctor Caird said.
“No! Never! I love Jeff and so do you! But…”
Baker No Wiley said, “Hey, Jeff!”
Jeff said, “What?”
He was numbed, unable to move, his brain sluggish, creeping like lava down a gentle slope but cold, cold.
Baker had risen from the sofa and was standing in front of him. He looked grim but also very powerful and brave. Jeff felt as if he should scream and sob and weep, but nothing would come out from him. Baker, however, did not look at all as if he were in pain.
“There’s only one way to do it,” Baker said.
“What?” Jeff said again.
“Let’s play I’m the real person and you’re me.”
The light on the screen began to fade then. As it died out and just before complete darkness dispossessed the light, Jeff saw Jeff One and Baker No Wiley embrace and merge. It was as if Baker was a T-cell and had engulfed him, Jeff One. He had become both.
By the last of the light, a fast-blackening spark, Jeff thought, I must have lied when my childhood psychicist TMed me. I never told him anything about this. Or it was so deeply buried that not even TM could dig it out of me.
36
“He’s a five-year-old boy in a grown man’s body,” Snick said.
She was watching Jefferson Caird on a screen. He was playing with a big teddy bear, talking to it and also, now and then, speaking to someone invisible. The children in the huge playroom were getting used to him and sometimes let him join their games. But they still did not know what to make of him and never would. Though they had been told that he was not mentally retarded, they evidently thought of him as some kind of alien creature. They had been told not to make slighting remarks to him, but some of them could not help doing so. And Jeff had to be closely watched. A five-year-old with the strength and mass of an adult could be dangerous among small children.
“We’ll have to abandon this particular experiment,” the psychicist said.
“But he can’t be isolated,” Snick said. “He would never develop normally. What are you going to do with him?”
“I don’t know yet,” the psychicist said. “He’s unique. There’s never been a case quite like him.”
Snick said, “Surely, you aren’t thinking about stoning him? Warehousing him until workable techniques to treat him are developed? If they ever are.”
“No. He’s too interesting, too challenging. We’ll work out the techniques with time. My colleagues and I wouldn’t want to lose the chance of studying him.”
“That’s all?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” the psychicist said. “Of course, I regard him as a human being with problems that should be solved, not just as an experiment. I’m not cold and detached. He’s not a bug, and I’m not an entomologist.”
She watched Caird, as, hugging the toy and rocking back and forth, he spoke to the boy only he could see. She had directed the amplifier at him so that his deep voice was audible.
“Now, what we have to do, Jeff…”
“This Jeff?” Snick said. “He’s himself?”
The psychicist shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s puzzling. But he’s not an alter ego. I just don’t know…yet.”
“He’s escaped again,” Snick said.
“What? Oh, I see what you mean. From himself.”
“Yes,” she said, but she had meant that he had once more eluded the government.
Snick glanced at the wall-display time.
“I have to get back to work. But I’ll be back from time to time. Thanks again for allowing me to come here.”
“You were in love with him?”
“He’s the only man I could have lived with for very long.”
“Don’t despair,” the psychicist said. “He’ll develop into a normal adult…”
“Which he never was…” Snick said.
“But he may become one. Or the adult in him may surface again.”
“Which adult?” Snick said.
The psychicist smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Who knows?”
Snick took one last look at Jeff Caird and his teddy bear before stepping out of the room. She was remembering the gibberish he had spoken after he had fallen to the floor in the warehouse. In its midst, two sentences had been clear enough to be understood.
“The dayworld is breaking up. So am I.”
37
Twenty-five years had passed since the Changeover had begun, twenty-five years as measured by the circling of the Earth around the sun. Ten years ago, the division of time into subjective and objective had entirely ceased. The New Era calendar of thirteen months in a year had been kept, but people now lived horizontally according to it, not, as in the old days, vertically. Birthdays were now celebrated once a year instead of every seven years.
Many cities had been completed as long ago as fifteen years before the present date. Many cities had only been built as recently as five years ago.
Ariel Cairdsdaughter had been wrong in her predictions that a worldwide and bloody revolution would shatter the government and result in a new one. There had been some rebellions, but these had been quickly and sometimes savagely crushed. On the whole, the citizenry, though often unhappy about its lot, had submitted. And a majority were satisfied with what the “revolution” had accomplished. These were (1) the breakup of the New Era system of living, (2) the giving of ASF, the age-slowing factor, to every person on Earth, the Moon, and the Martian colonies, and (3) the legalization and availability of anti-TM. The people had regained their age-old ability to lie.
One of the demands of the revolutionists had been that the members of the government throughout its hierarchies be closely monitored. This would find corruption and prevent additional corruption. Some small reforms had been made, but the keen watching of officials and the power to remove them by monitoring committees had not been done. There were still sporadic demands by citizens’ groups that this be brought about. Little had res
ulted from this.
Though the World Council and the provincial governors were chosen by popular vote, the World Council selected the candidates who could run for office.
The close monitoring of people by the government was still in full force. It was for the good of the people, the government insisted, and no amount of demonstrations or mass petitions had changed the status quo.
Couples were allowed to have only two children though there was a minority of citizens who continued to agitate for extending the limit to three.
A small minority had not quit asking for the right of religionists to build churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples and to repeal the law forbidding religionists to work for the government.
Panthea Pao Snick, considering the goals achieved and lost, thought about Jeff Caird. If he were the original Caird, she told herself, he would still be out there somewhere fighting to bring about the complete revolution.
Panthea Snick had had seven different jobs during the twenty-five years after the Changeover began. She had lived in three different cities: Trenton, New Jersey; Springfield, Illinois; and her present residence, Denver, Rocky Mountain State. She had been thirty subyears old when the Changeover came and was now 250 obyears old. But the physiological age on her ID card was 33.5 years.
For the past seven years, she had been a planning coordinator in the Department of Reconstruction. This position had required a lot of time outdoors and in the field. Now, though, she was more and more bound to the office. A woman of action, she grew more restless and resentful every day. Since she had more free time, she had been running lists of jobs on her office and home screens. What looked most appealing at the moment was a forest-planting project in the Central Siberian Uplands. The jobs that she actually most wanted were in the Organic Department, and she scanned them even though she knew that she did not have an Albanian’s chance of ever getting one.
Thus, the visit from General Anthony Wik Horn, upper staff member of the Internal Affairs Office of the North American Organic Department, did more than just surprise Snick. For one thing, Horn did not make arrangements for the meeting via screen. She appeared at the office early in the morning, breezed past the monitoring secretary without answering her questions, and entered Snick’s office. Snick did not protest at this lack of protocol because the woman was a high-ranking organic. The epaulets and bars and badges on her green robe made that evident. For a second, Snick thought that the woman had come to arrest her. But if the general had wanted her for any reason, all she had to do was to send some officers to pick her up. Or just TV her and order her to appear at a precinct station.