The Golden Space Read Online Free PDF Page B

others. Our work is for everyone’s benefit. You should know that by now.”
    “You have power whether you want it or not and whether you want to recognize it or not. Everyone knows it. It’s just nicer not to mention it.”
    “Are my wishes more irrational than yours?” He smiled lopsidedly. “You want a dead lover as the father.”
    “I knew him. Krol’s child will have intelligence and strength. And if we really do value life as much as we profess to, then what is so irrational about wanting some part of a dead man to live again?”
    He slouched in his chair. For a moment, Josepha thought she saw conflicting emotions in his dark eyes, disappointment warring with relief. He had made his noble gesture without having to follow it up.
    “You have to remember,” the biologist said softly, “that these children will not be quite like us. You may be disappointed if you’re trying to recapture something you’ve lost.”
    Josepha sighed. “I suppose you’ll ask someone else to be a parent with you.”
    “No. The others have already made their choices.”
    She felt relieved by the answer, but remained disturbed. She worried again about Merripen’s reasons for beginning the project.
     
     
    Josepha had gradually become better acquainted with the other village residents. She felt most at ease with the three now sitting at her round mahogany table sipping brandy; Vladislav Pascal, a small, wiry man who had been a painter; Warner Chavez, a tall, slender woman with large black eyes who was once an architect; and Chane Maggio.
    Warner and Vladislav were going to raise a child together. Many of the villagers had already paired off or formed groups, but Josepha was still alone.
    She had gone that afternoon to the nearby laboratory where the embryos were gestating. She had peered at the glassy womb enclosing her child, Krol’s child—it had looked like all the others. Feeling vaguely uneasy, she had left quickly.
    Looking around the table at her guests, Josepha saw Warner gaze sleepily at Vladislav. Chane had said little all evening as the three reminisced about their second youth during the Transition, everyone’s favorite topic lately; even the hardships of the period had acquired a benign glow in retrospect. The shabbiness of the towns and decay of the cities had not mattered to any of them. With their newly youthful bodies and restored health, anything had seemed possible.
    Josepha had migrated to the nearest large city after her treatments, with hordes of others. She had lived in a decrepit hotel, sharing a bathroom with ten people, and had not minded. Surrounded by people constantly meeting to plan new cities, new machines, new arts, new ventures and experiments, she had known that the hardships would be temporary. They were all high on dreams, sure the worst was over, too busy to remember the dead. Now she sat, like the others, amid what they had built and looked backward to the building and dreaming while awaiting a new beginning.
    Warner smoothed back her thick red hair and rose. Vladislav got up also. “No, don’t show us out,” he said to Josepha before she could stand. “Lovely meal, lovely. Don’t forget tomorrow, we’re expecting you both. Most of the village will probably be there and we’ll all try to forget that it’s a party for the psychologists.” He bowed to Chane and the couple left.
    Chane seemed abstracted. He toyed with his snifter. She said nothing, sensing that he wanted silence.
    She did not know Chane that well in spite of his frequent visits. The public record of his life had told her little. He had been his African nation’s ambassador to China, then its foreign minister during the years before the Transition. His grandfather had been an Italian. His life during the Transition was a mystery. But somehow she was at ease with him. She could sit there pursuing her thoughts while he was lost in his own. Occasionally they looked at each other and smiled; they did not have to fill the