The Golden Space Read Online Free PDF

saw Nicholas Krol’s steady gray eyes and his ash-brown hair, but she could not
remember his face clearly. Something inside her seemed to break at the realization. “I met him after
my divorce and we lived together for a couple of years. He was ambitious—he wanted me to be
ambitious too, accomplish something, but I was afraid to try, too afraid of failing. We broke up,
finally. He didn’t want to, but I—” For a moment, she recalled his face. She tried desperately
to hold it in her mind, and lost it.
    “Why?” Merripen asked. “Why Krol?”
    “I don’t know if I can explain it. He challenged me, he encouraged me. Everyone else just accepted me the way I was. I shouldn’t have left him.”
    “Then why did you leave?”
    “Because it was easier to give up.”
    Merripen seemed puzzled. “It seems a strange motive for picking him, your having regrets.”
    “It isn’t only regrets. He was the most important person in my life, although it took me much too long to see that.” She realized she sounded shrill. “I was self-destructive when I was in my twenties, always acting against my own self-interest. That’s why I left Nick. Later I changed and acquired a sort of stubborn passivity.” She closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for her sorrow and bitterness to pass.
    “May I be frank?” the biologist asked. She nodded. “You want the child of a man you loved long ago, so perhaps you’re trying to recapture that love. Is Krol still alive?”
    She shook her head.
    “So guilt enters the picture as well. You’re alive and he isn’t. Do you even know whether we can acquire his genetic material?”
    “He would have had his sperm frozen, I know it. You don’t know what he was like. He would have made sure of it. He had a bit of vanity. I used to tease him about it.”
    “I’m sorry, Josepha. I think you’re making a mistake.”
    “If you have another suggestion, please offer it. I’m willing to listen. But I don’t think I’ll change my mind.”
    “I would like your child to be mine as well.”
    She stiffened in surprise. She was sure that the man had no romantic interest in her. “Why?”
    “I’m in charge of this project, it was really my idea in the beginning. I’ll be living here most of the time, and it seems only suitable that I should also be a parent and share this role with you people. If you wish, I can become your lover, if you feel that would strengthen our bond as parents.”
    The proposal repelled her. She picked up her knitting. Her needles clicked. She heard a few Chinese phrases as two people passed the gate outside. At last she put down the needles and looked at Merripen.
    “I must say no.” She could not leave it at that. “I think it would be a mistake for you to have your own child here. If you’re going to be in charge, you shouldn’t be in a position where you might favor one child over the others. And you should try to preserve some objectivity.”
    “You think it’s possible for anyone to be completely objective?”
    “Of course not. I do think you can get so personally involved that you don’t notice certain things, that emotional considerations become more important. And anyway, I think you want this child out of some misplaced desire to be like all of us here—you can feel noble, not asking us to do something you wouldn’t do yourself, and …” She paused. “There’s only one reason for having a child, Merripen.”
    “And what is that?”
    “Because you want to help another human being learn and grow. You should regard all the children here as yours. Isn’t that enough for you? You don’t have to prove anything to the parents here, and you might ruin what you’re working for by trying.”
    “You won’t reconsider?”
    “No. I suppose, if you wanted to, you could prevent me from having a child at all as well as barring me from the project.”
    “What do you think I am?” Merripen replied in injured tones. “We don’t force our desires on