Chapter 35

"You know, in a way it's the Holy Grail," Meiersdottir told her husband. "Immortality. And real immortality, not just the bogus crap all those spiritualists peddle back home. Isn't there an allure? Wouldn't there be?"

She'd spent the early evening giving him, as much as her memory allowed, a word-for-word recounting of her talk with Joe. The idea had clung strongly in her mind. "My granny knew so much," she'd told him. "I still remember talking to her about stuff when I was in my 'teens, in my twenties, and she'd pitch in with little homilies about how it was when she was younger, how it seemed to her now, drop little bon mots here and there, and dammit, I loved talking to her. If I could talk to her now, hear what she had to contribute..."

"Amanda, I believe the immortality that our species so avidly pursues is primarily corporeal," Igwanda reminded her. "It is you who know the human mentality far better than I, but would you care to try to sell the concept of purely cerebral immortality on the Earth that both you and I know?"

"Damn, Carlos, don't keep throwing reality into the mix so much, will you?"

"I am sorry, my love," he said. "But is not the human ideal mens sana in corpore sano? 'A sound mind in a sound body?' If the body fails but the mind remains, is that adequate?"

"I don't know, sugar," she acknowledged. "Probably not, in human terms. But that's pret­ty narrow thinking, isn't it?"

"Is it?" he challenged. "Take yourself as an example. Would you be willing to sacrifice the joys of physical experience for the much more austere benefit of living on in the minds of others?"

"Well, not when you put it that way."

"How else might one put it?" asked Igwanda. "What phrasing might you prefer?"

She shook her head. "Just about anything that doesn't sound so, well, pejorative. I mean, the way you said it the question contains its answer."

"Is there a question that may be asked about this that does not contain its answer? And please enlighten me. Initially I had thought your discussion of the matter was a moot one, simply to amuse and inform me on a subject on which we would naturally agree. But am I wrong, is that not in fact so?"

"Oh, I suppose it is," she said. "That we agree, I mean. It's just that Cory kind of got me going, he was so damn complacent about 'of course' we wouldn't want to use telepathy to think together the way they do. It just sounded like received wisdom—which I've found is, however frequently 'received, ' very seldom true 'wisdom.' So I started thinking the other way, just to see how it worked."

"I think it works but poorly, for humans," he told her. "You may play devil's advocate if you like, but in the end I believe you will find that Cory's response is the one an overwhelming majority of our species would give."

"Why?" she asked petulantly. "I mean, I suppose I know from my viewpoint, but what's yours?"

"To begin with, the 'immortality' you postulate is an arid one. The mind, or some essence of it, may well survive, but only in utter isolation."

"Isolation?" she repeated incredulously. "How can you say that? The mind lives on in a community of like minds, some of them with still-living bodies, others not, but all of them in complete rapport with one another. I mean, how is that different than the Christian heaven?"

"The isolation to which I had reference was the complete divorcement from the physical realm," he explained. "Perhaps some few may conceive of a heaven populated by wholly disembodied spirits, but in most representations I have seen the angels are quite solidly physical. Did not one of the Old Testament prophets even wrestle with one of them? And many of the supposed joys of the afterlife are sensual in nature—tastes, smells, sounds, sights, textures. Indeed, I believe one of the great post-mortem rewards of Islamic male heroes is to be presented with seventy female virgins to be deflowered at leisure."

"Seems a little unfair to the Islamic women who get reincarnated as all those virgins, doesn't it?" she remarked with a grin. "And you'd think even the studliest guy would get bored after a while. I mean, can't you see one of them thinking, OK, now, twenty-three down, oh my God, there are still forty-seven to go!"

He laughed. "It is not my favorite view of an afterlife. And I have always wondered, why virgins? Would not a true hero prefer women who might be more experienced, and perhaps therefore more enthusiastic, participants?"

"Good point."

"But to return to my thesis: Consider those who have, by disease or injury, lost the use of their bodies. They still retain at least some of their senses, so their isolation is not total, and some few flourish even thus deprived, but many, if not most, do not. A recurring literary theme is the desire of individuals thus afflicted to prematurely end their lives rather than continue what they see as a half-life. Your immortality would leave them in such a strait eternally."