as well go all the way, given that he didnt seem to be taking me seriously. I wondered whether he was worried about meeting Niamh Horne, and the possibility of war breaking out between Earth and the Outer System.
Gray seemed genuinely puzzled. Where did you get that idea from? he asked. Humankind hasnt had a war sincewell, before you were born. Emortals dont fight wars they have too accurate a notion of the value of life.
You dont think blowing up North America and plunging Earth into nuclear winter counts as an act of war? I said, feigning astonishment. In my day, most people thought that every stomach upset was probably the first shot in the next plague war.
Mortimer Gray stared at me, seemingly anxious as well as puzzled. I suppose that must have been the case, he said, cautiously. But things have changed. Mores, attitudes, habitseverything is different now. I cant believe that the Basalt Flow was the result of a deliberate act of sabotage. There are political conflicts within the solar system, but we all understand that our only hope of beating the Afterlife is to work together as a community of species. Do you know what the Afterlife is?
I read up on it, I confirmed. I understand the argument that a common threat makes it necessary for potential enemies to work together but Im not convinced. In my day, as you presumably know, there was a school of thought which held that social contracts were only reliable because men were mortal and prey to pain. In a world of true emortals with efficient IT, the theory went, there could be no effective sanctions forcing people to fulfill their obligations and keep their promises. One corollary of the theory was that a world of emortals would be more prone to conflict, not less.
He found the notion too alien to be threatening. But the truth is exactly the opposite, as history has proved, he protested. People who might live for a very long time in the company of their peers have very powerful reasons for honoring their obligations, because theres no way to escape the consequences of failure. We have to deal honestly with one another, because we cant afford the consequences of being exposed as liars, let alone the consequences of violent behaviour. You really need to understand that, Mr. Tamlin and Im sure you will, given time.
I would have taken more comfort from his words if hed glanced sideways at Christine Caine while he was closing his argument, but he didnt. He kept right on looking me in the eyes as he pronounced words like liars and violent behavior. He wasnt scared of me he would have thought the suggestion that he might need a bodyguard absurd but he wasnt laboring under any delusion that I was a man like him. When he said that he and I werent so very different, he was talking about a narrow range of emotional responses, not about the extent of our evolution beyond Neanderthal brutality.
So there isnt going to be a war? I said, meeting his gaze squarely.
No, he said, flatly. I couldnt tell whether he was so definite because he was genuinely convinced, or because he desperately wanted to believe it. Paranoid as I was, I favored the latter hypothesis. In any case, I thought it best to change the subject.
You said that Ive yet to decide which particular form of posthumanity to embrace , I reminded him. I dont suppose anyone cares what decision I make but Adam Zimmerman must be a different proposition. Lots of people must be interested in his decision, given that he had to change the course of history in order to give himself the chance to make it.
People are interested, of course, Gray said, a little warier now of where the conversation might be heading, but not as much as you might suppose. Adam Zimmerman didnt actually change the course of history. If he hadnt done what he did, someone else would have. The timing might have been slightly different, but the eventual result would have been the same.
Is it just Adam Zimmerman, I asked, genuinely interested in the question, or dont you believe in pivotal individuals at all? Would the eventual result have been the same if Conrad Helier had been an early casualty of the plague wars or if you hadnt saved Emily Marchants life in the Coral Sea Disaster?
He raised his eyebrows in frank astonishment. We can all make a difference, Mr. Tamlin, he said. Its because so many of us can that none of us has the power to change everything. I do hope youll consider the offer of employment I made you might be even more useful to us as a window into the past than we had hoped. An account of your personal history would be fascinating.
It was supposed to be a compliment, but I couldnt take it that way. He was telling me that I appeared to be an even freakier freak than his friendly neighborhood zookeepers had imagined. No matter how smart I tried to seem, I realized, I would always be a monkey doing tricks. Nobody was ever going to think that I might have anything to contribute to the understanding of the world as it now was. For a moment, I almost pitied Adam Zimmerman.