Tomorrow Happens (12 page)

And yet, cryonics devotees keep plugging away at their dream, refining their techniques, finding new ways to store brains with less damage and at lower cost—in much the same way that past generations of putterers strove to develop machines that could fly. The funny thing is that we may never know when they cross a threshold and finally do manage to freeze somebody well enough to be revived at a future time. All that's certain is that the techno-zealots will go on trying. They see Death as a palpable enemy that can ultimately be defeated, like so many others we've overcome during our long ascent.

Is there some point at which cryonic storage would become so simple—so convenient and cheap—that
you
would shrug and say "sign me up"? Suppose it took a thousand-dollar annex to your insurance policy? A hundred dollars?
Five bucks
?

What would you do differently then, in your daily life, to help ensure that future generations will feel kindly toward you? Perhaps even kindly enough to want your primitive company. Would you additionally sponsor cryo-storage for half a dozen poor people? Or donate part of your fortune to endeavors that help make a better, richer (and therefore more generous) future world? Would you work hard to raise descendants worth bragging about? Or were you already planning to do most of those things, anyway?

Some people who sign up for storage believe their bank accounts alone—set up to earn dividends until some future era—will suffice to make them worthy of being thawed, repaired, and given full corporeal citizenship in a coming age of wonders.

Somehow, I wouldn't give that bet anything like sure odds, no matter how many technological barriers future people overcome.

There is a final category of ways that people think they can cheat death. It falls under a single word—
transcendence
.

Throughout history, countless philosophers and devout believers have yearned to rise above the whole megillah of normal human existence—all the hungers, pangs, neuroses, fears, and limitations of brain and body—by transporting some internal essence—consciousness or the soul—to a plane of existence far greater and nobler than we perceive as mere ignorant Homo sapiens. This ever-present drive propelled a wide range of contradictory dogmas and creeds on all continents. But even amid such diversity there were certain common themes. All those hopes, yearnings and strivings focused on the
spiritual
—the notion that humans may achieve a higher state through prayer, moral behavior, or mental discipline.

In the last couple of centuries, however, a fourth track to the next plane has gained supporters—"
techno-transcendentalism
." Under this variation, disciples hope to achieve an agreeable new level of existence by means of
knowledge and skill
. They feel we can transform human beings—and human nature—through the tools of technology and science.

Whether this attitude represents the worst sort of irreligious
hubris
, or should be viewed as a natural stage in our adolescent development, is ripe for extensive and wide-ranging discussion . . . at another time, perhaps. For now, though, let's focus only on how it applies to human lifespan.

According to some techno-transcendentalists, "growing new bodies" will seem like child's play in the future. Many of them eagerly predict a time, sooner than you think, when we'll all plug into computer-mediated artificial worlds where the old animal-limitations will simply vanish. By downloading ourselves into vast simulated realms, we may become effectively immortal, breaking the tyrannical hold of mere fleshy cells and evolutionary "clocks." In this way, deathlessness of the spirit might be achieved by technologically savvy, rather than moral merit.

If the boosters of this kind of transcendence are right, every other kind of immortality will prove obsolete. In fact, nearly
all
of our modern concerns will seem about as relevant as a Neolithic hunter roaming downtown Manhattan, worrying about finding enough flint nodules to chip into spear points.

All right, I admit that concept of techno-transcendence—sometimes called the
Singularity
—may be a bit far out, so let's keep focused on the topic at hand, our struggle against physical death. We covered a number of methods people are trying to use in seeking victory over the ancient foe.

Suppose one of them finally works? All too often, we find that solving one problem only leads to others, sometimes even more vexing. A number of eminent writers like Robert Heinlein, Greg Bear, Kim Stanley Robinson and Gregory Benford have speculated on possible consequences, should Mister G. Reaper ever be forced to hang up his scythe and seek other employment. For example, if the Death Barrier comes crashing down, will we be able to keep shoehorning new humans into a world already crowded with earlier generations? Or else, as envisioned by author John Varley, might such a breakthrough demand draconian population-control measures, limiting each person to one direct heir per lifespan?

What if overcoming death proves expensive? Shall we return to the ancient belief, common in some cultures, that immortality is reserved for the rich and mighty? Nancy Kress has written books that vividly foresee a time when the teeming poor resent rich immortals. In contrast, author Joe Haldeman suggested simple rules of social engineering that may help keep such a prize within reach by all.

More people could wind up dying by violence and accidents than old age. Might we then start to hunker down in our homes, preserving our long but frail lives by avoiding all risk? Or would
ennui
drive the long-lived to seek new thrills, like extreme sports, bringing death back out of retirement in order to add spice to an otherwise-dull eternity?

Such changes may already be underway as we enter an era some call the "Empire of the Old." Each year, retirement hobbies drive ever-larger portions of the economy, foretelling vigor by an active elderly population—a wholesome trend portrayed in Bruce Sterling's
Holy Fire
and my own
The Transparent Society
. On the down side, the power of older voters can terrorize politicians and warp allocation of resources. Sensible proposals to raise the retirement age by some fraction of the lifespan increase, are quashed by waves of irate and uncompromising self-interest. It's a worrisome trend for any society to rank generous retirement supplements higher than good schools for its young. No such civilization can long endure.

What will happen when the elderly outnumber all others? This may soon appear less than far-fetched in countries like Japan, where restrictive immigration policies help ensure and accelerate the aging trend.

Even problems that seem far-off and speculative today may become critical when people live beyond a twelfth decade. For example, is there a limit to the number of memories that a human brain can store?

On a more fundamental level, are we about to insist, once again, that contemporary humanity is wise enough to overrule all of Nature's checks and balances?

(The answer to that one is simple . . .
of course
we'll insist! We always do.)

These are among the serious questions and quandaries we may face, perhaps sooner than you think. That is, I
hope
we face them, for they are the sort of predicaments generated by success.

But then, that's how it always has been. If we leave our descendants a better world, they will take the good parts for granted and fume over consequences we never foresaw.

It is a pattern typical of adolescence, and one more clue that our adventure has barely begun.

The following story was created with my longtime collaborator Gregory Benford, as our contribution to a quirky anthology called
War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches.
The premise? That the Martian invasion portrayed in H.G. Wells's
War of the Worlds
actually took place. The aim was to show the interplanetary conflict from the viewpoints of other famous authors of the day, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Mark Twain, trying to emulate their individual viewpoints and style. Greg and I had the luck to draw the most direct competitor and colleague of Wells, Jules Verne, co-inventor of modern science fiction and master of the can-do problem-solving tale. Naturally. It was loads of fun
.

I commence this account with a prosaic stroll at eventide—a saunter down the avenues of
la Ville Lumière
, during which the ordinary swiftly gave way to the extraordinary. I was in Paris to consult with my publisher, as well as to visit old companions and partake of the exquisite cuisine, which my provincial home in Amiens cannot boast. Though I am now a gentleman of advanced age, nearing my 70th year, I am still quite able to favor the savories, and it remains a treat to survey the lovely demoiselles as they exhibit the latest fashions on the boulevards, enticing smitten young men and breaking their hearts at the same time.

I had come to town that day believing—as did most others—that there still remained weeks, or days at least, before the alien terror ravaging southern France finally reached the valley of the Seine.
Île-de-France
would be defended at all costs, we were assured. So it came to pass that, tricked by this false complaisance, I was in the capital the very afternoon that the crisis struck.

Paris! It still shone as the most splendid exemplar of our progressive age—all the more so in that troubled hour, as tense anxiety seemed only to add to the city's loveliness—shimmering at night with both gas and electric lights, and humming by day with new electric trams, whose marvelous wires crisscrossed above the avenues like gossamer heralds of a new era.

I had begun here long ago as a young attorney, having followed into my father's profession. Yet that same head of our family had also accepted my urge to strike out on a literary road, in the theater and later down expansive voyages of prose. "Drink your fill of Paris, my son!" the good man said, seeing me off from the Nantes railway station. "Devour these wondrous times. Your senses are keen. Share your insights. The world will change because of it."

Without such help and support, would I ever have found within myself the will, the daring, to explore the many pathways of the future, with all their wonders and perils? Ever since the Martian invasion began, I had found myself reflecting on an extraordinary life filled with such good fortune, especially now that
all
human luck seemed about to be revoked. Now, with terror looming from the south and west, would it all soon come to naught? All that I had achieved? Everything humanity had accomplished, after so many centuries climbing upward from ignorance?

It was in such an uncharacteristically dour mood that I strolled in the company of M. Beauchamp, a gentleman scientist, that pale afternoon less than an hour before I had my first contact with the horrible Martian machines. Naturally, I had been following the eye-witness accounts which first told of plunging fireballs, striking the Earth with violence that sent gouts of soil and rock spitting upward, like miniature versions of the outburst at Krakatau. These impacts had soon proved to be far more than mere meteoritic phenomena, since there soon emerged, like insects from a subterranean lair, three-legged beings bearing incredible malevolence toward the life of this planet. Riding gigantic tripod mechanisms, these unwelcome guests soon set forth with one sole purpose in mind—destructive conquest!

The ensuing carnage, the raking fire, the sweeping flames—none of these horrors had yet reached the fair country above the river Loire . . . not yet. But reports all too vividly told of villages trampled, farmlands seared black, and hordes of refugees cut down as they fled.

Invasion
. The word came to mind all too easily remembered. We of northern France knew the pain just twenty-eight years back, when Sedan fell and this sweet land trembled under an attacker's boot. Several Paris quarters still bear scars where Prussian firing squads tore moonlike craters out of plaster walls, mingling there the ochre life blood of communards, royalists and bourgeois alike.

Now Paris trembled before advancing powers so malign that, in contrast, those Prussians of 1870 were like beloved cousins, welcome to town for a picnic!

All of this I pondered while taking leave, with Beauchamp, of the École Militaire, the national military academy, where a briefing had just been given to assembled dignitaries, such as ourselves. From the stone portico we gazed toward the Seine, past the encampment of the Seventeenth Corps of Volunteers, their tents arrayed across trampled grass and smashed flower beds of the ironically named
Champs de Mars
. The meadow of the god of war.

Towering over this scene of intense (and ultimately futile) martial activity stood the tower of M. Eiffel, built for the recent exhibition, that marvelously fashioned testimonial to metal and ingenuity . . . and also target of so much vitriol.

"The public's regard for it may improve with time," I ventured, observing that Beauchamp's gaze lay fixed on the same magnificent spire.

My companion snorted with derision at the curving steel flanks. "An eyesore, of no enduring value," he countered, and for some time we distracted ourselves from more somber thoughts by arguing the relative merits of Eiffel's work, while turning east to walk toward the Sorbonne. Of late, experiments in the transmission of radio-tension waves had wrought unexpected pragmatic benefits, using the great tower as an
antenna
. I wagered Beauchamp there would be other advantages, in time.

Alas, even this topic proved no lasting diversion from thoughts of danger to the south. Fresh in our minds were reports from the wine districts. The latest outrage—that the home of Vouvray was now smashed, trampled and burning. This was my favorite of all the crisp, light vintages—better, even, than a fresh Sancerre. Somehow, that loss seemed to strike home more vividly than dry casualty counts, already climbing to the millions.