Mindscan

28

I went back to Brian Hades’s office in the High Eden administration building—and I must say, he was getting pissed off. “Mr. Sullivan, really, we’ve been down this road before. You can’t return to Earth, so please, please, please relax and envy things here. You haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the activities we offer.”

The pills they’d been giving me were tranquilizers, of course—I was sure of that. Trying to dope me up, keep me placid. I’d flushed the rest of them down the recycler. “It’s autumn on Earth,” I said. “At least, in the Northern Hemisphere. Do you offer walking through a field of fallen leaves? Soon it’ll be winter. Do you offer ice hockey on a frozen pond? Skiing? Sunsets that aren’t just a ball of light dropping below a rocky horizon, but are actually tinged with color and shrouded by bands of cloud?”

“Mr. Sullivan, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable! I never asked to be … to be a fucking astronaut.”

“In point of fact, you did. And, besides, there are things you can do here that you could never do on Earth. Have you tried flying yet? You know, it’s possible to fly here, under your own power, with big enough strap-on wings. We offer that, over in the gymnasium.” He paused, as if expecting me to respond. I didn’t.

“And mountain climbing! You know, you’re more than welcome to go outside here. The rock climbing is fabulous in the low gravity; the walls of Heaviside are great for climbing.”

Hades could see the “no sale” look in my eyes, presumably, and tried again: “And what about sex? Have you had sex yet in our low gravity? It’s better than sex in zero-gee. When you’re weightless, normal thrusting tends to push you away from your partner. But in lunar gravity, anyone can do the kind of acrobatics you see in porno films.”

That did get a reaction from me. I practically shouted: “No, I haven’t had sex, for Christ’s sake! Who the hell would I have sex with?”

“We have some of the best sex workers in—in the solar system, Mr. Sullivan. Gorgeous, compassionate, athletic, disease-free.”

“I don’t want sex—or, at least, I don’t want just sex. I want to make love, with someone I care about, and who cares about me.”

His tone was gentle. “I’ve looked at your records, Mr. Sullivan. You didn’t have anyone like that back on Earth, so—”

“That was before. That was my doing. But now that I’m well—”

“Now that you’re well, you’ll be able to distinguish between a woman who really cares about you and one who’s after you for all your money?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said that. But seriously, Mr. Sullivan, you knew you were giving up romance when you came here.”

“For a year or two! Not for decades.”

“And although I understand your reluctance about becoming involved with some of our more superannuated guests, there are lots of workers here around your age. And it’s not as if a good-looking, intelligent man like you has zero prospects for real romance here. We have no corporate policy against staff becoming romantically involved with guests.”

“That’s not what I want. There’s someone specific back on Earth.”

“Ah,” said Hades.

“And I need to try with her; I have to. I foolishly didn’t pursue things with her before, but my situation is different now.”

“What’s her name?” asked Hades.

I was surprised by the question—so surprised, I answered it. “Rebecca. Rebecca Chong.”

“Mr. Sullivan,” said Hades, his voice very soft and gentle, “has it occurred to you that there’s already a version of you down on Earth who doesn’t suffer from Katerinsky’s syndrome anymore? That means weeks ago he might have had the same change in his feelings that you’re having now. Perhaps he and Rebecca are already together … which wouldn’t leave any place for you.”

My heart was pounding—a sensation that other me would never know. “No,” I said. “No, that’s … that’s not possible.”

Hades raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Isn’t it?” But he didn’t give the words voice, the first real kindness he’d shown me.

After lunch, it was Deshawn’s turn to cross-examine Caleb Poe, the philosophy professor.

“You have a lovely voice, Dr. Poe,” said Deshawn, standing behind the plaintiff’s table.

Poe’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Thank you.”

“Very pleasant,” continued Deshawn. “Very well modulated. Have people told you that before?”

Poe tilted his head. “From time to time.”

“I’m sure they have. You sound like you might, in fact, be a good singer.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you sing, Dr. Poe?”

“Yes.”

“At what venues?”

“Objection,” said Lopez, spreading her arms. “Relevance.”

“All will be revealed soon,” said Draper, looking at the judge.

Herrington frowned for a moment, then said, “I have a very conservative definition of ‘soon,’ Mr. Draper. But go ahead.”

“Thank you,” said Deshawn. “Dr. Poe, at what venues do you sing?”

“When I was putting myself through school, at night clubs, weddings, the odd corporate function.”

“But you’re not going to school now,” said Deshawn. “Do you still get much of a chance to sing?”

“Yes.”

“And where would that be?”

“In a choir.”

“A church choir, isn’t that correct?”

Poe shifted slightly in his seat. “Yes.”

“What denomination?”

“Episcopalian.”

“So, you sing in the choir at a Christian church, correct?”

“Yes.”

“As part of the formal church services each Sunday, correct?”

“Your honor,” said Lopez. “Again, relevance?”

“I’ve made it through the S and first O of ‘soon,’ your honor,” said Draper. “Let me go the rest of the way.”

“All right,” said Herrington, tapping a stylus impatiently against his bench.

“You sing in church services,” said Draper, looking back at Poe.

“Yes.”

“Would you describe yourself as a religious person?”

Poe was defiant now. “I suppose I am, yes. But I’m not a nut.”

“Do you believe in God?”

“That is the sine qua non of being religious.”

“You do believe in God. Do you believe in the devil?”

“I’m not some Bible-thumping fundamentalist,” said Poe. “I’m not a literalist. I believe the universe is, as the current figure has it, 11.9 billion years old. I believe life evolved from simpler forms through natural selection. And I don’t believe in fairy stories.”

“You don’t believe in the devil?”

“Correct.”

“What about hell?”

“An invention that owes more to the poet Dante than anything in rational theology,” said Poe. “Stories of hell and devils were perhaps of use when clergy had to deal with illiterate, uneducated, unsophisticated populations. But we are none of those things; we can follow moral arguments, and make reasoned moral choices, without being threatened by bogeymen.”

“Very good,” said Deshawn. “Very good. So you’ve dispensed with most of the sillier trappings of primitive religion, is that it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t phrase it in such an impolitic way.”

“But you don’t believe in the devil?”

“No.”

“And you don’t believe in hell?”

“No.”

“And you don’t believe in Noah’s flood?”

“No.”

“And you don’t believe in souls?”

Poe was silent.

“Dr. Poe? Would you respond to my question, please? Is it true that you don’t believe in souls?”

“That … would not be my position.”

“You mean you do believe in souls?”

“Well, I…”

Deshawn stepped in front of his table. “Do you believe you have a soul?”

“Yes,” said Poe, rallying now. “Yes, I do.”

“And how did you come by this soul?”

“It was given to me by God,” said Poe.

Deshawn looked meaningfully at the jury, then turned back to Poe. “Can you explain for us what the soul is, in your conception?”

“It is the essence of who I am,” said Poe. “It is the spark of the divine within me. It is the part of me that will survive death.”

“In your understanding of these matters, does every living human being have a soul?”

“Absolutely.”

“No exceptions?”

“None.”

Deshawn had moved out into the well and was pointing back at Karen, seated at the plaintiff’s table. “Now, please look at Ms. Bessarian here. Does she have a soul?”

Karen was all alert attention, her green eyes bright.

Poe’s voice was emphatic. “No.”

“Why not? How can you tell?”

“She’s—it’s—a manufactured object. You might as well ask whether a stove or a car has a soul.”

“I understand your assertion. But other than an a priori belief, Dr. Poe, how can you tell that Ms. Bessarian doesn’t have a soul? What test can you conduct to demonstrate that you do have a soul, and she does not?”

“There is no such test.”

“Indeed there is not,” said Deshawn.

“Objection,” said Lopez. “That’s not a question.”

“Sustained,” said Judge Herrington.

Deshawn nodded contritely. “All right,” he said. “But this is: Dr. Poe, do you believe that God will judge you after death?”

Poe was quiet for a moment. He had the look of an animal that knew it was being hunted. “Yes, I do.”

“And what is it that God is judging?”

“Whether I’ve been moral or immoral in my life.”

“Yes, yes, but what part of you is He judging? Remember, by this point, you’re dead. He’s obviously not judging your now-cold body, is He?”

“No.”

“And He’s not judging the electrically dead hunk of matter that was your brain, is He?”

“No.”

“So what is He judging? What part of you?”

“He’s judging my soul.”

Deshawn looked at the jury, and spread his arms. “Well, that hardly seems fair. I mean, surely it was your body or your brain that undertook any immoral acts. Your soul was just along for the ride.”

“Well…”

“Isn’t that the case? When you talked earlier in your fancy philosophical terms about a rider within, about a true consciousness that accompanies the zombie body, the rider you were referring to is really the soul, isn’t it? Isn’t that your contention fundamentally?” Deshawn let the last word echo in the air for a moment.

“Well, I…”

“If I’m mistaken, Dr. Poe, please correct me. In plain, layman’s terms, there is no meaningful distinction between our true consciousness and what the rest of us understand to be the soul, correct?”

“That would not be my formulation…”

“If there is a difference, please articulate it, professor.”

Poe opened his mouth but said nothing; he looked quite like one of those fishy ancestors he had enumerated earlier.

“Dr. Poe?” said Deshawn. “The court is waiting for your answer.”

Poe closed his mouth, took a deep breath through his nose, and seemed to think. “In layman’s terms,” he said at last, “I concede that the two terms are conflated.”

“You concede that your philosophical notion of consciousness superimposed on the zombie, and the religious notion of the soul superimposed on the biological body, are essentially the same thing?”

After a moment, Poe nodded.

“A verbal response, please, professor—for the record.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Now, we were talking a few moments ago about God judging souls after death. Why is it that God does that?”

Poe fidgeted in his chair. “I—I don’t understand the question.”

Deshawn spread his arms. “I mean, what’s the sense in God judging souls? Don’t they just do whatever God intended them to do?”

Poe narrowed his eyes; he was clearly wary for a trap, but couldn’t see it. Nor, frankly, could I. “No, no. The soul chooses to do good or evil—and, eventually God holds it accountable for those choices.”

“Ah,” said Deshawn. “So the soul has volition, does it?”

Poe looked at Lopez, as if seeking guidance. I saw her shrug infinitesimally. The professor shifted his gaze back to Deshawn. “Yes, of course,” he said at last. “That’s the whole point. God has given us free will, and it’s the soul that exercises that free will.”

“In other words,” said Deshawn, “the soul can make any choice it wants, regardless of God’s wishes, correct?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, God wishes us to be good—to follow the precepts of the Ten Commandments, say, or the Sermon on the Mount—but He doesn’t force us to be good. We can do whatever we please.”

“Yes, of course.”

“And, indeed, since the soul is the part of us that really makes choices, then it’s in fact the soul that can do whatever it pleases, correct?”

“Well, yes.”

“Now, what about the physical nature of the soul? Prior to death, is it localized in the individual?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean it’s not dispersed hither and yon—it’s a localized phenomenon, right? It exists within a specific person.”

Lopez tried again. “Your honor, objection. Relevance.”

But Herrington was enthralled. “Overruled, Ms. Lopez—and don’t bother me with that objection again during this testimony. Professor Poe, answer Mr. Draper’s question. Is the soul localized in a specific person?”

Poe looked flustered at the by-play between the judge and the lawyer who was paying him for his testimony, but at last he spoke. “I—yes.”

“And after death?” asked Deshawn. “What happens to the soul then?”

“It leaves the body.”

“Physically? Materially? As an energy wave, or some such?”

“The soul is immaterial, and it transcends our notions of space and time.”

“How convenient for it!” said Deshawn. “But let’s take that a step further, shall we? The soul doesn’t need to breathe, correct? Nor does it need to eat? That is, it can continue to exist just fine without the infrastructure of a biological body to support it?”

“Of course,” said Poe. “The soul is immortal and immaterial.”

“And yet it has a specific location. Your soul, prior to death is inside you, and mine is inside me, correct?”

Poe spread his arms. “If you’re going to ask me to point to the soul on an MRI or X-ray, Mr. Draper, I freely admit that I can’t do that.”

“Not at all, not at all. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page. We do agree that the soul is localized—yours is within you, and mine is within me.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Poe.

“And the soul is mobile after the body dies, correct? It can go to heaven?”

“Yes. If God will allow it entrance.”

“But could it go somewhere else?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, the soul doesn’t change upon death. It still has volition, doesn’t it? Your soul hasn’t become an automaton, has it? It hasn’t become a zombie?”

Poe shifted again in the witness seat. “No.”

“Well, then, Dr. Poe, if there is no test you can perform to determine whether a soul is present, if the soul is localized in a specific place, if the soul doesn’t require nutrition or other support from a living body, if the soul leaves the body at death, if the soul transcends time and space and can move to a new location after leaving the original body, and if the soul still has freedom to act even after death, then how can you say that, upon the death of the biological Karen Bessarian, her soul did not choose to move into the artificial form seated at the plaintiff’s desk?”

“I … ah…”

“Isn’t it possible, Dr. Poe? Given the properties of the soul as you yourself have described them, isn’t it possible? The biological body of Karen Bessarian is apparently dead. But it’s abundantly clear, is it not, that Ms. Bessarian wanted to transfer her personhood to the mechanical form that sits here in this courtroom with us? Given that that was her wish—her soul’s wish—isn’t it likely that her soul has now taken up residence in that artificial form?”

Poe said nothing.

Deshawn nodded at him politely. “I grant that it was verbose, Dr. Poe, but my last utterance was a question, and you are required to answer it.”

“Well, if you want to play games…”

“What game, Dr. Poe? You yourself said it was significant that a biological person has a soul and an upload does not. Indeed, you used the language of philosophy to tell us that the Karen Bessarian in this courtroom must be soulless—a condition you described as being a zombie. There are those who would say that that is a game, since you yourself have admitted that you can’t detect, measure, or point to the soul.” Deshawn walked in back of the plaintiff’s desk, and stood behind Karen, one hand on each of her shoulders. “Even if souls are only created by God, and can’t be duplicated by any mortal process, isn’t it still possible that Ms. Bessarian’s soul now resides in this artificial body—making her no more a zombie than the original was before it passed away?”

“Well, I…”

“It is possible, isn’t it?” said Deshawn.

Poe let out a long, shuddering sigh. “Yes,” he said at last, “I suppose it is.”