Ascending - James Alan Gardner [69]
The doctor claimed pruning is good and desirable: a pruned brain is more quickly decisive, less plagued by needless doubts and uncertainties. After pruning, your brain knows conclusively that objects always fall down instead of up, that it is a poor idea to stick your hand into fire, and that mere animals never really talk; indeed, a pruned brain is resistant to, and even threatened by, any notion it has come to regard as absurd. The “mature” mind shuts the door on the impossible, so it can concentrate on The Real.
Or at least, that is what Havel claimed.
For myself, I did not think The Real deserved such drastic sacrifice. If pruning is the price of adulthood, is it not more courageous to remain a child? Of course one knows animals speak infrequently (and it is hard to believe ugly animals such as lizards will ever become engaging conversationalists); but it seems most high-handed to reject the possibility entirely. I tried to argue this point with the doctor, but because his brain had been pruned, he exhibited nothing but galling condescension toward my “naïve” views…which meant I was close to choking him when Festina entered the room.
This was indeed a welcome interruption. “Hello, hello!” I said in great happiness. I wondered if she would want to hug again, and if I would be so foolishly self-conscious as before, and if maybe I should start the hugging this time to prove I was not standoffish…and none of that happened, because I saw my friend’s face was grave.
“Uclod,” Festina said quietly, “our communications came back on-line: either the Shaddill have stopped jamming or we’re out of their range. Anyway,” she took a deep breath, “I received a message from my staff on New Earth—your Grandma Yulai has been killed.”
What Expendable Means
In a quiet voice, Uclod asked, “How?”
“Electrocuted by a faulty VR/brain connection. Several thousand volts to the cerebellum. Supposedly an accident.” Festina rolled her eyes in disgust. “And the rest of your family is missing. I hope to God it means they’ve gone into hiding; my people haven’t collected enough details to know if that’s what happened, or if somebody got them too…” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry.”
Uclod appeared frozen. Lajoolie had moved in behind him as soon as Festina began speaking; the big woman’s arms wrapped around her husband, holding him tight. She seemed made of stone…but Uclod was made of ice.
“What is that phrase you Explorers say?” he asked Festina. “Uncle Oh-God told me once—when somebody dies in the line of duty. What is it?”
Festina pursed her lips. “We say, That’s what ‘expendable’means. Because the navy has always treated Explorers as expendable baggage.”
Uclod stared at her a moment, then shook his head. “No. I can’t say that. Not for my own grandmother.”
He turned around and buried his face against Lajoolie’s strong body.
The Utter Truth Of Death
Through all of this, I had not said a word. Indeed, I could not speak.
I did not know this Grandma Yulai personally, and the few things I had heard about her were bad. She was a criminal who dominated a family of other criminals.
And yet.
She was dead. She had died. She was no different now from the animal corpses one finds in the forest, the fresh ones covered with flies or the old ones as dried and withered as bread crusts.
Let me tell you a thing: my mother taught me death was holy, a blessing bestowed only on natural creatures. Rabbits and squirrels and fishes could die, but my own glass people could not. We were artificial beings; the Hallowed Ones refused to take us to the Place Beyond because we were not worthy of progressing to the life after life. Our species was cursed, spurned by death…or so my mother said.
It turned out my mother was wrong. My sister had died, died forever. Perhaps I had