The Terminal Experiment - Robert J. Sawyer Page 0,29

ask Colin what had gone wrong? Peter rarely spoke of private matters, and on the whole didn’t like either asking or answering personal questions. “I’m sorry to hear about you two.” His cliche-dispenser suggested adding, “You always seemed so happy,” but he stopped himself before the thought was given voice—Peter’s own recent experience had taught him to put no stock in appearances.

“We’d been having problems for quite some time,” said Colin.

Peter squeezed his lime into his Diet Coke.

“We weren’t really on the same wavelength anymore.” Apparently Colin had a cliche-dispenser of his own. “We weren’t talking.”

“You just drifted apart,” said Peter, not quite making it a question, not wanting to pry.

“Yeah,” said Colin. He took a liberal swig of his drink, then winced as if it were a masochistic pleasure. “Yeah.”

“You’d been together a long time,” said Peter, again careful to keep his tone flat, to keep the statement from becoming a question.

“Eleven years, if you count the time we lived together before we got married,” said Colin. He cupped his glass in both hands.

Peter wondered idly who had broken up with whom. None of my business, he thought. “A good long time,” he said.

“I—I was seeing someone else,” said Colin. “A woman in Montreal. I had to go there every three weeks on business, took the maglev out.”

Peter was dumbfounded. Was everyone screwing outside of marriage these days? “Oh,” he said.

“It didn’t really mean anything,” said Colin, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It was just, you know, just a way of getting a message to Naomi.” He looked up. “A cry for help, maybe. You know?”

No, thought Peter. No, I don’t.

“Just a cry for help. But she went crazy when I told her. Said that was the last straw. The straw that broke the camel’s back.” Clearly, thought Peter, everyone had a cliche-dispenser. “I didn’t want to hurt her, but I had needs, you know. I don’t think she should have left me over something like that.” The server came in again, depositing Peter’s club sandwich and Colin’s pasta primavera. “What do you think?” asked Colin.

I think you’re an asshole, Peter thought. I think you’re the biggest fucking asshole on the planet. “Hard luck,” he said, pulling the toothpick out of one of his sandwich wedges and spreading mayonnaise on the turkey. “Hard luck indeed.”

“Anyway,” said Colin, perhaps sensing that it was time to change the subject. “I didn’t ask you to lunch to talk about me. I really wanted to get some advice from you.”

Peter looked at him. “Oh?”

“Well, you and Cathy were at that Life Unlimited seminar. What did you think?”

“Impressive sales pitch,” said Peter.

“I mean, what did you think of the process? You’re a biomedical engineer. Do you think it would really work?”

Peter shrugged. “Jay Leno says Queen Elizabeth has undergone the process—only way to save the monarchy was to make sure that none of her children ever got to sit on the throne.”

Colin chuckled politely, but looked at Peter as if he expected a more serious response. Peter chewed on a bit of his sandwich, then: “I don’t know. The basic premise seems sound. I mean, there are—what?—five basic models for senescence and eventual death.” Peter ticked them off on his fingers. “First, there’s the stochastic theory. It says our bodies are complex machines, and, like all complex machines, something’s bound to break down eventually.

“Second, the Hayflick phenomenon: human cells seem to only be able to divide about fifty times total.

“Third, the smudged-Xerox hypothesis. Small errors are introduced every time DNA is copied, and at some point the copy gets so bad that it doesn’t make sense anymore. Boom!—you’re pushing up daisies.

“Number four is the toxic-waste theory. Something—possibly free radicals—gives your body trouble from the inside.

“And finally, the autoimmune hypothesis, in which your body’s natural defenses become confused and turn upon your own healthy cells.”

Colin nodded. “And no one knows which one is right?”

“Oh, I suspect they’re all right to one degree or another,” said Peter. “But the key thing is that Life Unlimited’s—what did they call them? nannies?—their nannies seem to address all five probable causes. So, yes, I’d say it’s got a good chance of working. There’s no way to know for sure, though, until someone who has undergone the process actually does live for a few centuries.”

“So—so you think it’d be worth the money?” said Colin.

Peter shrugged again. “On the surface, yeah, I guess so. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live forever? But, then again, it’d be a shame