To Live Again and The Second Trip Read Online Free PDF

softly feminine, to balance all the aggression in her. Someone who died young, quite sadly, after a life of suffering for love. Preferably a girl of an opposite physical type, too, less athletic, less masculine of build. You follow?”
    “Certainly. And what if Risa isn’t interested in a persona of those specifications?”
    “I think she will be, Frank. But if she isn’t, give her what she wants, I suppose. I’ll leave the final decisions up to the two of you.”
    “You’ll have to,” said Santoliquido. His eyes regarded Kaufmann with some amusement. “You know, Mark, you were supposed to come to the bank yourself this month. You haven’t been recorded in nearly a year.”
    “I’ve been so damned busy. Paul’s death, and everything—”
    “Yes, I know. But you shouldn’t neglect the semiannual recording. A man of your stature—you owe it to the world, to the future inheritors of your persona, to keep yourself up to date, to etch all the new experiences into the record—”
    “All right: You sound like a recruiter.”
    “I am, Mark. We’ve been expecting you for weeks.”
    “What if I come tomorrow, then? I wouldn’t want to be there today. If I ran into Risa, she’d think her horrible old father was spying on her.”
    “True. Tomorrow, then,” Santoliquido said. “Is there anything else, Mark?”
    “Just one thing.” Kaufmann hesitated. “The question of Paul’s persona.”
    “No decision’s been taken yet. None. We’ve had dozens of applicants.”
    “Roditis among them?”
    “I couldn’t say.”
    “You could say. Maybe you won’t say, but that’s a different thing. I know Roditis is hungry to add Paul to his collection of transplants. I’d merely like to emphasize that such a transplant would be distasteful and offensive not only to the immediate Kaufmann family, but to—”
    Santoliquido’s ringed hand swept across the screen. “I’m aware of your feelings,” he said gently. “However, family wishes cannot be binding upon us. The decisions of the soul bank are made strictly on an impersonal basis, taking into account the stability of the recipient and the merit of his application, and you know very well that we regard it as desirable to go outside the genetic group whenever possible.”
    “Meaning that you favor giving Paul to Roditis?”
    “I said nothing of the kind.” Santoliquido’s geniality began to ebb. “We’re still weighing all applicants.”
    “I wish I could take Uncle Paul myself, and keep him out of the skull of that—that fishmonger!”
    “What about the consanguinity laws?” Santoliquido asked. “Not to mention your uncle’s own will? He’ll have to go outside the family, Mark. And I suspect we won’t be giving him to any Schiffs or Warburgs or Lehmans or Loebs, either. Can we drop the subject, now?”
    “I suppose.”
    Santoliquido smiled again. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And then, Saturday, your party, Dominica.”
    “Yes. Dominica on Saturday.”
    The screen went dark. Kaufmann felt cross; he had played his hand poorly, making that frontal attack on Santoliquido just now. Risa had upset him, clearly, shaking his tactical faculties. Or was it Roditis? Roditis. Roditis. For ten years, now, Kaufmann had watched that grasping little man accumulate first wealth, then power, and then some measure of social prestige. Now the audacious upstart wished to thrust himself deep into the core of a fine old family, making up for his own lack of ancestry by seizing the available persona of the late Paul Kaufmann. Mark scowled. He was less of a snob than he had a right to be, considering who and what he was, but nevertheless the thought of Roditis lying down on a pallet in the soul bank and emerging with Uncle Paul was intolerable to him. He had to be blocked.
    Kaufmann’s own three personae stirred and squirmed. Ordinarily they were mild, passive, guiding him without making their presence known, but the tensions of this hideous morning were seeping into