The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [227]
It is tempting, now, to assume that his experiences in the AMI war, when he came direly close to death on two separate occasions, changed Adam Zimmerman out of all recognition. Hindsight invites us to conclude that he was devastated by the trials and tribulations that he suffered before Emily Marchant and Titaness contrived his salvation, and that he emerged from that time of trial a broken man. But was that really what happened? Was it really the case that the indomitably powerful sense of purpose which had created the Ahasuerus Foundation and committed his dormant body to its care had been shattered as casually as a mirror of glass?
I think not — and I speak as one who was alongside him during that terrible time, and who took the trouble to remain his fast friend and confidant thereafter. I believe that I have a better understanding of what became of him than anyone else, perhaps including himself.
It hardly needs saying that Adam Zimmerman was different from other men of his era, but it is important to recognize that the difference was qualitative rather than merely quantitative. Adam saw this difference in terms of self-sufficiency and self-discipline rather than vision or courage, but however it might be conceived or described, there is no doubt that the difference was profound. It was so deeply ingrained, in fact, that it is hard to think of it as anything other than the very essence of the man. He was not like the other people of his own time; he was unique, and his uniqueness was something he felt very keenly.
There is always a temptation, when confronted with a difference in quality — especially if it produces something unique — to think of it as a freakish mutation. But Adam Zimmerman was not the product of any new combination of genes, and there was certainly no “Zimmerman mutation” that had appeared for the very first time in his chromosome complement. Historians understand — or should understand — that the productions of a particular time within a particular social and environmental context are not uniform. Every set of historical circumstances produces a whole spectrum of individuals who are different from one another not merely in degree but in kind. Sometimes, historical conditions are extremely favorable to the emergence of unique individuals who are fortunate enough to find channels of opportunity exactly suited to their uniqueness. One thinks of Plato and Epicurus, St. Paul and Mahomet, Descartes and Newton, Napoleon and Lenin…and Adam Zimmerman. None of these men had his fate written into his genes; in every case it was something thrust upon him by circumstance.
The Adam Zimmerman who was born in 1968, stole the world in 2025, and was frozen down in 2035, was a creation of the conditions of twentieth century as it lurched through its Millennial moment. His self-discipline and self-sufficiency were responses to that world’s insanity, no less natural for being so very rare. The great majority of men always participate in the particular madness of their times, which they consider to be inevitable and irresistible, but there is always a tiny minority which is driven to a contrary extreme. Every era generates its Adams; the particular, peculiar, and perfect Adam that was Adam Zimmerman was one of many such creations, and like the rest he was the only one completely appropriate to his own era.
In becoming so utterly determined to evade the tyranny of the late twentieth century — the tyranny of the Grim Reaper in his final and most flamboyant phase — Adam Zimmerman embodied the late twentieth century. He was, in a sense, the incarnation of the late twentieth century. The consequence of this was that although his desperate attempt to hurl himself through time into a new and better era was entirely understandable as a response to the malaise