Rollback

  After all too brief a time, he felt her pulling away. She looked at him, her eyes flicking back and forth, staring first at his left eye, then his right. “What are you doing here?”

  “I—I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind?” she said.

  “I didn’t know whether you’d be happy to see me.”

  “Of course I’m happy! Are you taking a vacation down here?”

  He shook his head. “I came just to see you.”

  She looked thunderstruck. “My…God. You should have called.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “No, no. Don’t be sorry, but…” She paused. “All this way just to see me?”

  He nodded.

  “My God,” she said again. But then she tilted her chin down a bit. “I was so sorry to hear about Sarah. When was that? Four or five months ago?”

  “Over a year,” said Don, simply.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I—I’m just so sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  “And now,” she said, a shift in her tone indicating that the enormity of the situation had struck her, “you’re here.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t know how to ask his next question politely, or how to segue to it elegantly, so he just blurted it out. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  She looked at him a moment longer, and it was clear that she understood the import of the question, and also understood that she’d been offered an out: she could simply respond in the affirmative and not have to deal further with him. “No,” she said, firmly if squeakily. “No one.”

  He felt air rushing out of him, and he pulled her close again. “Thank God,” he said. He hesitated for a second, then gently tilted her face up, and kissed her—and, to his delight, she kissed him back.

  Suddenly there was a loud sound, and another, and another. He turned his head and looked up, and—

  And there, standing at the top of the stairs, were a handful of students, waiting to come into the room, and one of them had started to applaud, a big grin on his face. The others joined him, and Don felt an even bigger grin splitting his own features, and he looked at Lenore, whose skin had turned bright red.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” Don said, and he took Lenore’s hand, and the two of them began walking up the stairs, and the students started coming down, passing them, and one of them slapped Don on the shoulder as he went by.

  LENORE AND DON headed out into the warm midday air, which was a wonderful contrast to the Canadian winter he’d left behind. There was so much he wanted to tell her, and yet he found it impossible to begin. At last, though, he said, “I like your hair that way.”

  “Thanks,” said Lenore, still holding his hand. They were walking along the banks of the little river, which Lenore said was called the Avon; it made a pleasing background sound. On the opposite side of it were campus buildings and a car park. The pathway was paved, and there were trees of types Don couldn’t name on its margin. Lenore nodded occasionally to passing students or faculty members.

  “So, what are you doing now?” she asked. A couple of birds with black bodies, long curving bills, and orange cheek patches hopped out of their way. “Have—have you found a job?” She said it gently, knowing that the issue was a delicate one.

  Don stopped walking, and Lenore stopped, too. He let go of her hand and looked into her eyes. “I want to tell you something,” he said, “but I need you to promise to keep it a secret.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He nodded. He trusted her completely. “Sarah decrypted the message.”

  Lenore’s eyes narrowed. “That can’t be,” she said. “I’d have heard…”

  “It was private message.”

  She looked at him, brow knitted.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “It was private, for the person whose survey answers the Dracons found most to their liking.”

  “And that was Sarah?”

  “That was my Sarah, yes.”

  “So what did the message say?”

  Two students were running toward them, obviously late for class. Don waited until they passed. “They sent their genome, and the instructions for all the supporting hardware needed to create two Dracon children.”

  “My…God. Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. Cody McGavin is involved in the project. And so am I. I’m going to be the…” He paused, even now still somewhat amazed at the notion. “…the foster father. But I’ll need help raising the Dracon children.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “And, well, I want you back in my life. I want you in the children’s lives.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  She looked stunned. “I, um, I mean, you and me—that’s one thing, and I…”

  Don’s heart was pounding. “Yes?”

  She smiled that radiant smile of hers. “And I have missed you so. But…but this stuff about raising—my God, the very idea!—about raising Dracon children. I—I’m hardly qualified for that.”

  “No one is. But you’re a SETI researcher; that’s as good a background as any to start with.”

  “But I’m years away from finishing my Ph.D.”

  “Have you picked a thesis topic?” he said. “’Cause I’ve got a doozy…”

  She looked stunned, but then she frowned. “But I’m down here, in New Zealand. Presumably you’re planning to do this in North America.”

  “Don’t worry about that. When we go public with this—and we will, just as soon as the children are born—every university on the planet will want a piece of it. I’m sure arrangements can easily be made with the administration here so that your degree won’t be jeopardized.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I mean, this is—it’s almost too much to take in.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Don.

  “Dracon children,” she said again, shaking her head. “It would be an amazing experience, but there are tenured profs who—”

  “This isn’t about credentials; it’s about character. The aliens didn’t ask the survey respondents to rank themselves socioeconomically or to indicate how much education they had. They asked about their morals, their ethics.”

  “But I never took the survey,” she said.

  “No, but I did. And I’m a pretty darn good judge of character myself. So what do you say?”

  “I’m—overwhelmed.”

  “And intrigued?”

  “God, yes. But talk about bringing baggage into a relationship! You’ve got kids, grandkids—and you’re going to have…um…”

  “Sarah called them ‘Draclings.’”

  “Awww! So cute! Still, kids, grandkids, and Draclings…”

  “And the robot—don’t forget I’ve got a robot.”

  She shook her head, but was smiling as she did so. “What a family!”

  He smiled back at her. “Hey, this is the Fifties. Get with the times.”

  She nodded. “Oh, I’m sure it’ll be great. But it’s not—you know—not complete. The family, I mean. I’ll want to have a child or two of my own.”

  “Oooh! More presents on Father’s Day!”

  “If you’re the father…” She looked at him. “Is that…is that something you’re interested in doing?”

  “I think so, yes. If the right woman comes along…”

  She whapped him on the arm.

  “Seriously,” he said, “I’d be thrilled. Besides, the Draclings will need playmates.”

  She smiled, but then her eyes went wide. “But our kids will be—my God, they’ll be younger than your grandkids…” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to all this.”

  Don took her hand. “Of course you will, darling. Just give it time.”

  –-- Epilogue --–

  OCTOBER 2067

  “COME ON, EVERYONE! Let’s go!”

  Don had pulled the big van up to the edge of the large concrete plaza in front of the docks. Hundreds of tourists were milling about
, either waiting to get on one of the high-speed ferries, or, like Don’s family, having just gotten off one. The plaza was ringed by vendors selling T-shirts, hot dogs, and more. Lenore was standing near the barrier that prevented Don from bringing the van any closer. “You heard your father!” she called. “We want to get there while the sun’s still up.”

  Don couldn’t blame them for dawdling. This spot, at the foot of Hurontario Street, was the only place they’d been where they could get a good view of the entire fairgrounds, sprawling across two artificial islands out in Lake Ontario. The American pavilion was a gigantic diamond—quite literally—and the Chinese pavilion honored both its nation’s culture and Earth’s most famous nonhuman citizens by being built in the shape of a rampant dragon whose body curved and twisted to match the one depicted by the constellation of Draco. Rising between them was the glistening carbon-nanotube Spire of Hope, which had brought back to Toronto the title of being home to the world’s tallest building.

  Don was used to his sons’ three-legged walk, but the tourists who had been discreetly watching them now gawked openly at the surprisingly graceful spectacle of them in motion. His daughter, though, was standing still. Fifteen-year-old Gillian, who had her mother’s freckles but her father’s sandy brown hair, was one place from the head of the line for a cotton-candy vendor. She looked at her dad with an anxious expression, wondering if she’d have to bail before securing her treat.

  “It’s okay,” Don called out. “But hurry!”

  He and Lenore had done their best raising Gillian, and Don had been pleased to find how relaxing it had been to be a parent the second time around; with the quiet confidence of experience, he’d had a much better handle on what were genuine crises and which things would pass of their own accord.

  The boys, who, at two and a half meters tall and two hundred kilos apiece, had no trouble making their way through the crowd, had also turned out all right. They’d been raised alongside Gillian in a house Cody McGavin had paid for—in Winnipeg, as it happened, since prudence suggested that it be somewhere near a level-four biohazard containment lab, and the one there was the only one in North America designed to handle livestock and other large lifeforms. Hundreds of experts watched the goings-on in the house through webcams, and provided what advice they could. But Don and Lenore were the boys’ parents, and ultimately, as all parents did, they went with their best instincts.

  Don touched the control that opened the rear passenger compartment. The van—the Dracmobile, as the press had dubbed it—had a high enough roof to accommodate the boys, neither of whom could sit; their two front legs and thick hind leg weren’t built for that. Once they were in, Don sealed the compartment, and let the carbon-dioxide scrubbers get to work. By the time Gillian had arrived, gingerly carrying her giant ball of pink cotton candy, the green light on the dashboard had gone on, and the boys had removed their filter masks.

  Don had never thought he’d own such a big van, but, then again, the days of worrying about gas mileage were long since gone. It had taken a while, but he’d finally gotten tired of intoning, as Robin had in the 1960s Batman series, “Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!” whenever he climbed in. Lenore got into the front passenger seat, and Gillian and Gunter—the Gees, as they were collectively referred to in the Halifax-Darby household—piled into the second row of seats.

  “When does the ceremony start tonight?” Don asked.

  “Nine o’clock,” Gunter supplied.

  “Perfect,” he said, pulling away from the curb. “Plenty of time.” He could have let the Mozo do the driving, but, gosh darn it, driving your whole family around in the big old family vehicle was one of the joys of fatherhood.

  “So,” said Lenore, looking back over her shoulder, “everybody having a good time so far?”

  “Oh, yeah!” said Amphion, and his crests rippled enthusiastically. “Terrific!” The boys had no trouble making the sounds for English; they had a much wider vocal range than humans did. But despite the best possible language instruction, they seemed constitutionally incapable of using the passive voice. Some opined that this was the seat of Dracon morality: the inability to conceive of an action having occurred without a responsible party.

  “I thought the utility-fog demo was amazing,” added Zethus. A contest had been held to name the Draclings when they were born; the winning entry had been Amphion and Zethus, after the twin sons of Zeus who had been raised on Earth by foster parents.

  Don nodded. The nanotech fog had been incredible to watch, but for him the most exciting thing had been the flying cars—a technology he’d finally lived long enough to see.

  Canada had turned two hundred this past summer, and it was celebrating this centennial the same way it had the last one: by hosting a world’s fair. Don remembered visiting the first one as a child with his parents, and being amazed by giant lasers, touch-tone phones, monorails, and a massive geodesic sphere filled with American space capsules. That fair, like this one, had been called Expo 67, with only a two-digit year; just two-thirds of a century into the new millennium and the lessons old Peter de Jager had tried to teach the world were totally forgotten. But, also like the original, this fair was at least in part a showcase for the latest and greatest technology, some of which had been derived from the artificial womb and incubator plans the Dracons had beamed to Earth.

  Don pulled the van into traffic. A few other drivers honked politely and waved; Amphion and Zethus were famous, the hulking green Dracmobile was unmistakable—and the Manitoba vanity plate that said STARKIDS didn’t hurt.

  Don had been six years old when Canada had turned one hundred in 1967. Back then, the government had contacted people who were born the same year the nation was, and arranged for school visits by those who were well enough. Even after all this time, Don vividly remembered meeting his very first centenarian then, an impossibly ancient man confined to a wheelchair.

  But now a hundred more years had passed, and Don himself was a centenarian; in fact, he was a hundred and six, and soon would turn a hundred and seven. People younger than him—men and women born in 1967—were touring schools now, among them Pamela Anderson. She’d been the first baby born in her hometown in British Columbia on the actual day of Canada’s hundredth birthday, and her own rollback, performed just a few years ago when the price had fallen enough that mere TV stars could afford it, had left her as lovely as when she’d first graced the pages of Playboy.

  Don no longer looked that young; physically, he was now forty-four or so. His hair was mostly gone again, but that was fine with him. He was feeling better this time around than when he’d gone through his forties originally; it had been six decades since he’d had his one and only heart attack.

  Lenore also was in her mid-forties—but doubtless not middle-aged. The cost of rolling back would continue to drop; seven million people had already undergone the procedure. By the time she needed it, they’d be able to pay for a rollback for her, and—the thought was staggering, but doubtless true—they’d be able to afford a second rollback for Don.

  As they drove along, Amphion and Gillian were bickering, while Zethus was just looking out the window at the crowded streets of Toronto. Despite being named for twins, the Draclings had grown up to be distinct individuals. Amphion had blue-black skin and two small fluted crests running down the back of his head, while Zethus had teal and silver skin and three crests. Each boy was distinct in character, too. Amphion was adventurous and outgoing, and incapable of letting even the smallest irony go unremarked upon, while Zethus was cautious and shy with strangers but enjoyed word games almost as much as his father did.

  Don looked at them in his rearview mirror. “Amphion,” he said, “stop teasing your sister.”

  Amphion swiveled two of his four eyes to look at Don. “She started it!” Each Dracon eye had a unique visual range: two saw to varying degrees into the ultraviolet, the third saw into the infrared, and the fourth saw into both but not in color; the combination of eyes the b
oys chose to bring to bear on an object not only affected what it looked like to them but also how they felt about it. They also possessed a sense that had no terrestrial analog, enabling them to detect heavy objects even when they were out of view.

  Amphion and Zethus each had five limbs: three legs and two arms. If their embryonic development was a reliable echoing of their evolutionary history, the two front legs had evolved from what had been pelvic fins in an earlier aquatic form, and the thicker rear leg was derived from what had been a tail fin. The arms, meanwhile, had developed not from pectoral fins, as in humans, but rather from the complex array of bones that had supported two ancestral gills.

  Dracons had only three fingers on each of their two hands, but they nonetheless came honestly by the base-ten counting system used in their radio messages. The boys each had ten feeding tendrils around their mouth slits—two pairs of them above and a row of six below; Zethus was using his tendrils just now to maneuver a hunk of cotton candy that Gillian had passed through a small airlock to him. Because their four eyes were recessed in bony sockets, Dracons couldn’t actually see their own tendrils, so whatever help they were in math involved some mental picture of their deployment, rather than actually counting them.

  The original Expo 67 had been subtitled, in phrasing that seemed horribly sexist only a few years later, “Man and His World.” This Expo 67 had no subtitle that Don was aware of, but “Humanity and Its Worlds” might have been appropriate: people had finally returned to the moon, and a small international colony had been established on Mars.

  And, of course, there were other worlds, too, although they didn’t belong to humanity. As the timing would have it, it was now 18.8 years since Sarah Halifax had sent her final message to the stars, acknowledging receipt of the Dracon genome and explaining that her designated successor would help create Dracons here. That meant that Sarah’s pen pal on Sigma Draconis II was just now getting word that what he’d asked for was going to be done. There was, everyone assumed, a celebration of that news going on right now on that alien world; it seemed fitting to have a matching celebration here, and it would be held tonight. One could transmit signals to Sigma Draconis at any time of the day from Canada, but it seemed appropriate to beam a message into space when the stars were actually visible, although the lights from Toronto would drown out the dim sun of the boys’ ancestral home.