Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [53]
“Don’t blow your chance to ride the escalator all the way to true emortality, Lenny,” he said. “The ten-year advantage you have over me could be vital—but not nearly as vital as looking after your tender flesh. Maybe neither of us will get there, and maybe both of us will die in some freak accident long before we get to our full term, but it makes sense to do the best we can. Getting the IT a little bit sooner won’t do you any good at all if you give it less to work with when it’s installed. Nanotechnology is only expensive because PicoCon takes so much profit; in essence, it’s dirt cheap. It uses hardly any materials and hardly any energy. Everything goes to the rich first, but after that the price comes tumbling down. The best bet is to look after yourself and be patient—that’s what I’m doing now, and it’s what I’ll be doing the rest of my life, which I hope will be a very long time.”
Damon knew that the lecture was rushed, but he didn’t have time to fill in all the details and he didn’t have time to take questions. Lenny understood that; his face had become more and more miserable while Damon spoke, but he was still determined to play it tough. The boy waited for Damon to close the conversation.
“I really have to go, Lenny,” Damon said as softly as he could. “I’m sorry. Maybe we can talk again, about this and other things, but not now.” He broke the connection. Then he got out of the booth and went in search of Karol Kachellek.
Twelve
K
arol Kachellek was still in the workroom where he and Damon had watched the tape of Silas Arnett’s mock trial. When Damon came back he was under the phone hood and the room was unlit, but he came out as soon as he realized that he wasn’t alone and brushed the light-switch on his console. Damon hadn’t managed to catch the last few words Karol had spoken before signing off but he blushed slightly anyway, as if walking into a darkened room were an infallible sign of stealthy intent.
Damon was all set for more verbal fencing, but the bioscientist was in a very different state of mind now.
“I’m sorry, Damon,” Kachellek said, with unaccustomed humility. “You were right. This business is far more complicated than I thought—and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.”
“What’s it all about, Karol?” Damon asked quietly. “You do know, don’t you?”
“I only wish I did.” The unprecedented plaintiveness in his foster father’s voice made Damon want to believe that he was sincere. “You mustn’t worry, Damon. It will all be sorted out. I don’t know who’s doing this, or why, but . . . . ” As the blond man trailed off, Damon stared at him intently, wondering whether the red flush about his brow and neck was significant of anger, anxiety, embarrassment, or some synergistic combination of all three.
Karol reddened even more deeply under his foster son’s steady gaze. “It’s all lies, Damon,” he said awkwardly. “You can’t possibly believe any of that stuff. They forced Silas to say what he did, if he said it at all. We can’t even be sure that it really was his voice. It could all have been synthesized.”
“It doesn’t much matter whether it’s all lies or not,” Damon told him grimly. “It’s going to be talked about the world over. Whoever made that tape is cashing in on the newsworthiness of the Eliminators, using their crazy crusade to ensure maximum publicity for those accusations. The tape doctor didn’t even try to make them sound convincing. He settled for crude melodrama instead, but that might well be effective enough for his purposes if all he wants is to kick up a scandal. Why put in those last few lines, though? Why take the trouble to include a section of tape whose sole purpose is to establish the possibility that Silas might have known his captor? What are we supposed to infer from that?”
“I don’t know,” Karol said